22 



GROWING GOLD. 



furnish irresistible evidence of its effect. 

 The incredulous should spend a high-windy 

 day in a park, or a ground planted with single 

 trees, they would see from the rocking and 

 twisting of each tree, that none of the large 

 fast growing species can advance to maturity 

 unless completely sheltered by other trees. 

 The Dennington Park oak must have been 

 closely sheltered whilst thriving. The one that 

 was called The King's," was fifty feet high 

 without a branch, or even a knot appearing ; 



The Queen's" was straight as a line for forty 

 feet. The closeness of the surrounding trees 

 protected their leading shoots, and killed the 

 horizontal branches in their infancy. 



Wood plantations and trees, in the narrow 

 valleys which open to the west, generally show 

 the injury which is done to them by the wind, 

 more than those which are growing in any 

 other situation. The reason is obvious; the 

 former are sheltered from all but the point 

 whence the strongest gales are received. 



