steuart's planter's guide. 



281 



apple, the greater softness of the wood of the latter 

 will be found no less striking to every arboricultu- 

 rist. 



" Further, the common oak in Italy and Spain, 

 where it grows faster than in Britain, is ascertained 

 to be of shorter duration in those countries. In the 

 same way, the oak in the Highland districts of 

 Scotland or Wales, is of a much harder and closer 

 grain, and therefore more durable, than what is 

 found in England ; though in such mountains it 

 seldom rises to the fifth part, or less, of the English 

 tree. Every carpenter in Scotland knows the ex- 

 traordinary difference between the durability of 

 Highland oak and oak usually imported from Eng- 

 land, for the spokes of wheels. Every extensive 

 timber-dealer is aware of the superior hardness of 

 oak raised in Cumberland and Yorkshire, over that 

 of Monmouthshire and Herefordshire ; and such a 

 dealer in selecting trees in the same woods, in any 

 district, will always give the preference to oak of 

 slow growth, and found in cold and clayey soils, and 

 to ash on rocky cliffs, which he knows to be the soils 

 and climates natural to both. If he take a cubic 

 foot of park-oak, and another of forest-oak, and 

 weigh the one against the other (or if he do the like 



3 



