OAKS SUITED FOR SCOTLAND. 



183 



among such landed proprietors as have turned 

 their attention to the rearing of wood on their 

 estates ; and hence, in many recent plantations, 

 we see the oak entirely excluded, under the sup- 

 position that it is a tree which will not grow, where 

 the Scots fir and the larch, or even the ash and the 

 elm, may be brought to the highest degree of per- 

 fection. 



As the prejudice in question stands opposed to 

 one leading object of our undertaking ; namely, to 

 recommend the cultivation of oak as a source of in- 

 dividual profit and national advantage, it is requi- 

 site that some pains should be taken to refute it. 

 This is the more necessary, because those who 

 think the rearing of oak in this country a mat- 

 ter of impossibility, contend that their persuasion 

 is founded on experience, — an assertion which has 

 a tendency to disseminate the error, by leading 

 others to adopt the opinion without due examina- 

 tion. 



Before proceeding, therefore, to treat of the cul- 

 ture and management of. oak, I shall occupy a few 

 pages, first, in shewing the groundlessness of the 

 idea, that either soil or climate are hostile to its 

 production ; and, secondly, in ascertaining the true 

 causes of the results in which this idea has origi- 

 nated. The last mentioned part of the discussion 



