214 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT OF OAK. 



wretched principles as those of the notching system, 

 may be considered as the chief, but it is not the 

 only, error in the present mode of cultivating oak. 

 Second to it, and only a few degrees inferior in pro- 

 ducing bad effects, is to be reckoned the almost uni- 

 versal neglect of providing shelter for the young 

 plants. The want of this causes them, in every si- 

 tuation, to grow extremely slow, and in very high 

 grounds often entirely destroys them. All kinds of 

 wood grow better when sheltered than when fully 

 exposed to the unmitigated severity of the weather, 

 and unbroken force of the winds. This is proved 

 by the fact, that neither do single trees, nor those 

 planted in clumps, in hedge-rows, or in belts, though 

 upon equal terms with regard to soil, ever thrive so 

 well as those in plantations of some extent. Even 

 in the latter, the outside trees are always more stint- 

 ed than the interior ones, a circumstance which 

 shows in the plainest manner the advantages of pro- 

 tection from the wind, and the evils that arise from 

 exposure. 



If, then, it may be said with regard to forest trees 

 in general, that they are nursed by shelter, and in- 

 jured by the want of it, the same proposition is more 

 emphatically true in the particular case of the oak. 

 Its leaves and young shoots are, when they make 



