246 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT OF OAK. 



in the identical spot where the acorn, from which 

 it sprung, first germinated ; for, though Nature of- 

 ten sows, she transplants none. She never provides 

 one place for the tender plant, and another for the 

 full grown tree ; her nursery and woodland are the 

 same. To raise oaks, therefore, immediately from 

 the acorns, in the places where they are intended to 

 come to maturity, instead of transplanting them 

 from the nursery, is merely to imitate Nature. And, 

 whatever may be said wdth regard to the primeval, 

 or first oaks, that grew in Scotland, which were pro- 

 bably decayed before the country began to be peo- 

 pled, we are sure that their descendants, — those gi- 

 gantic trees which furnished materials for our an- 

 cient Gothic buildings, and those which still re- 

 main entire, though prostrate, in our peat-mosses 

 and bogs, — sprung up amidst the depth of sur- 

 rounding woods, where they were completely shel- 

 tered, from the time they first appeared above 

 ground, till their towering height had surmounted 

 all the humbler and more ignoble tribes of the 

 forest. 



