OF FOREST-TREES. 



75 



protected our late Monarch from being discovered and taken by the rebel CHAP, 

 soldiers who were sent to find him^ after his almost miraculous escape at ^^'^^ 

 the battle of Worcester. In the mean time, as to this extraordinary pre- 

 coseness, the like is reported of a certain Walnut-tree, as well as of the 

 famous White-thorn of Glastonbury, and Black-thorns in several places. 

 Some of our common Oaks bear the leaves green all winter ; but they 



" are from four to five feet every year, so that he -will, in the space of thirty or forty years, 

 ''outgrow in altitude and girt the common Oak at an hundred. In two or three days I will 

 " forward to you, in a parcel, a branch which I cut off from the original tree, and another 

 " from the graft of four years old, also a dead branch of the Iron or Wainscot Oak, just to 

 " show that, from the similarity of the leaves, it is a descendant from that species, although 

 " differing from it in every other particular. I send you also, by the Exeter stage, a spe- 

 " cimen of the wood. I have a walking pole full five feet long, aside-shoot from one of 

 "the grafts, only one year and a half old. Several Gentlemen round this neighbourhood, 

 " and in the adjoining counties of Cornwall and Somerset, have planted them, and they are 

 " found to flourish in all soils." I am, &c. 



Exeter, Feb. 24, 1772. 



The Oak, in the Linnaean system, is ranked in the class and order Monoecia Polyandria, 

 which comprehends such plants as have male and female flowers on the same plant; the 

 male flowers having numerous stamina. 



The common Oak flowers in the spring, through there is no exact time for the opening 

 of the flowei-s or leaves ; these circumstances depend on the backwardness or forwardness 

 of the season, or the difference of the situation or soil on which the tree stands. We often 

 observe one Oak in full leaf, and at the same time another, standing near it, without any 

 such appearance, owing to the coldness or poverty of the stratum on which it stands, and 

 which would have been unperceived, had not the tree shown it. But notwithstanding 

 this, observation and experience teach us, that these differences are very inconsiderable, 

 and that the Oak which is most backward in putting forth its leaves, generally retains its 

 verdure the longest in the Autumn. In general, the flowers, which are of a yellowish hue, 

 begin to open about the 7th of April ; about the 18th the leaves appear, at which time the 

 flowers are in full bloom ; and about the 6th of May the leaves will be quite out, and re- 

 main until the autumnal frosts come on. 



Oaks are generally I'aised in vast quantities together, called Woods, where they thrive 

 best, and arrive to a greater height than in hedge-rows. We seldom see a good Oak in 

 a hedge-i'ow ; they generally throw out large lateral branches, and form a spreading and 

 beautiful head, but the trunk is for the most part very short ; whereas in woods they draw 

 one another up, and thus sociably aspire to such a height, as to be sufficient to answer any 

 purposes in use. 



Various are the opinions of mankind about the raising an Oak wood. Some think the 

 plants should never be removed, but remain where the acorn was first sown ; others, again, 



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