The Oak. 



if the plants succeed, great numbers must be cut out, or 

 grubbed up, and the underwood can be nothing but Oak, 

 which, as before observed, can be good for little. I know 

 a plantation, or rather a wood, formed in this manner, 

 except that the acorns were sown broad cast, instead of 

 being sown in drills : this wood is veiy near to the village 

 of Botley, on an estate which belonged to the late Mr. 

 Clewer of that village. The acorns were sown, as Mr. 

 Clewer told me, about sixty years ago. 1 had, for years, 

 frequent opportunities of looking at this wood, which is 

 situated at the top of the hill, by the side of a lane, leading 

 from Durley Mill to Curdridge Common. But, in the fall 

 of 1826, I rode up that lane, took particular notice of the 

 trees, and could not see one which I thought to be any 

 thing near forty feet high, and not one of the size worthy 

 of being called Timber, though the land there, and all 

 round the neighbourhood, is remarkably good for the 

 growing of Oak. If a regular plantation had been made on 

 that same land, at the time when these acorns were sowed, 

 I am convinced that there would now have been many trees 

 Avorth ten pounds a-piece. The truth is, that such a mode 

 of raising Oaks is rather slower, than suffering them to 

 come up as they can amidst the underwood of the cop- 

 pices ; and, the absurd practice can have no other founda- 

 tion, than that of an erroneous notion that it is a saving of 

 expense. These Oaks of sixty years old are nothing more 

 than miserable saplings at this hour. 



437. As to the pruning of Oak trees when they become 

 large, this never should be done by cutting a limb of any 

 considerable size off close to the tree. If so cut off, the 

 bark will generally, in time, cover the cut ; and you will 

 frequently see, in large Oak trees, a covering of this sort, 

 eight, nine, or twelve inches in diameter ; but though you 



