The Oak, 



433. Now, as to the distances , at which Oaks ought to be 

 planted, much must depend on the object which the planter 

 has in view. Generally speaking, the trees cannot come to 

 any thing worthy of the name of timber, unless they stand at 

 from twenty to thirty feet distance from each other; for, at this 

 distance their heads will all meet at the end of about thirty 

 years. But, what is to be done with the rest of the ground 

 in the mean while ? for, it would be very unprofitable work 

 to employ an acre of ground for thirty years in the raising 

 of about eighty trees, which would not probably be worth 

 more than three or four pounds a-piece. To plant Oaks 

 after the manner directed for Ash and some other trees, 

 and to keep thinning out until you got to the eighty to an 

 acre, would, it appears to me, be nearly as unprofitable a 

 thing as could be done ; for, though from the stools of the 

 trees cut down, there would come a coppice, an Oak 

 coppice is absolutely good for nothing but fuel. It makes 

 neither hoops nor hurdles; and even the young trees that 

 would be taken out, when they attain the Iieight proper for 

 poles, would be good for nothing in that capacity. The 

 young trees, Avhen taken out at a larger size, would be 

 good for little, seeing that they are almost all sap, which 

 has no strength and which is rotten a year or two after it is 

 cut down. Their chief value would be in the bark of the 

 trunks, and this would not amount to much. 



434. Therefore, if I had to make a plantation of Oaks, I 

 would put them in rows, twenty-five feet apart, and twenty- 

 five feet apart in the row, placing the plants of one rowoppo- 

 site the middle of the intervals of the other row. Then I would 

 have four rows of Hazel, at five feet apart, and at five feet 

 apart in the row, between every two rows of Oaks, and 

 four Hazel plants between every two Oaks in the row 

 itself. The Hazel would rather, perhaps, outgrow the 



