188 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT OF OAK. 



Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire, it is capable of bringing 

 them to equal perfection at all the intermediate 

 places, and in any other part of Scotland. If it be 

 answered, in reply to this, that the situations where 

 thriving oaks occur are only such as possess the 

 advantage of shelter, I have not the slightest hesi- 

 tation in giving my assent ; as I am most firmly 

 persuaded by evidence derived both from observa- 

 tion and actual experiment, that want of shelter is 

 one of the real causes why plantations of oak have 

 generally succeeded so ill in this country. But this 

 is a want that can easily be supplied by artificial 

 means, as I shall show in a future part of this work ; 

 and all I have to do at present, is to prove that na- 

 ture has interposed no difficulties to the rearing of 

 oak in Scotland, which are insurmountable, or be- 

 yond our controul. 



The opinion, then, that our climate is such as 

 ought to dissuade us from the culture of oak, instead 

 of being dictated by experience, seems entirely re- 

 pugnant to it, and I shall now proceed to demon- 

 strate, that the similar opinion with regard to our 

 soil is equally ill supported. And as it is insinu- 

 ated, however, falsely, that the examples of full 

 grown oaks, which occur at present, are to be met 

 with only in situations so peculiar as not to entitle 



