464 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



would desire a more clear and satisfactory evidence as to which of the 

 two is the superior wood. 



In another place, the same writer confirms and elucidates the cha- 

 racter of the spreading oak. After allowing to the upright species the 

 principal merit it possesses, namely— that of being longer and cleaner in 

 the stem — he sets forth which of the two is more proper for the highest 

 of all purposes, timber for the Navt/, and thus expresses himself : — "It 

 is the propagation of these large spreading oaks which is especially 

 recommended for the excellency of the timber, and that his Majesty's 

 forests were well and plentifully stored with them ; because they 

 require room and space to amplify and expand themselves, and should 

 therefore be planted at more remote distances, and free from all incum- 

 brances : and this upon consideration how slowly a full-grown Oak 

 mounts upwards, and how speedily it spreads and dilates itself to all 

 quarters, by dressing and due culture, so as above forty years' advance 

 is to be gained by this only industry. And if thus his Majesty's forests 

 and chases were stored, viz., with this spreading tree at handsome 

 intervals, '.y which grazing might be improved, for the feeding of deer 

 and cattle under them, (for such was the old Saltus^ benignly visited 

 with the gleams of the sun, and adorned with the distant landscapes 

 appearing through the glades and frequent alleys, nothing could be more 

 ravishing. The result of all is, that upon occasion of special timber, 

 there is a very great and considerable difference ; so as some oaken 

 timber proves manifestly weaker, more spungy, and sooner decaying 

 than other. The like may be affirmed of Ash and other kinds ; and, 

 generally speaking, the close-plained is the stoutest and most per^ 

 manentr—V^, 79-88. 



I think the reader will be pleased Avith this quotation from the excel- 

 lent Evelyn, not only as a planter of skill, but as a writer well ac- 

 quainted with the properties of timber. Moreover, he will admit, that 

 nothing better could probably have been said by Gilpin or Pontey, on 

 the subject of the Oak, whether in regard to pruning and culture, or 

 even picturesque effect. 



The late writer of the greatest distinction who has- touched on this 

 subject, is the learned Professor Martyn of Cambridge, the same v/ho 

 has edited, and so highly improved Miller's Dictionary, as to render it 

 in some sort a new publication. From a passage in that work, it 

 appears that Du Roi, a German Botanist who wrote on forest-trees, 

 had asserted that the wood of the Sessile-fruited Oak is " reddish and 

 brittle," whereas that of the Stalk-fruited is "whitish and hard." 

 This assertion, however it may hold good in respect to the Oaks of 

 Germany or France, (the only ones which this writer could probably 



