OAKS AT ALDENHAM. 



207 



the produce were no way remarkable or superior in vigour to the 

 most ordinary young plants which might be bought anywhere at so 

 much a hundred. 



Mr. Elwes has a great deal also of interest to say about natural 

 reproduction of oaks, and justly points out that mice are one of the 

 greatest enemies with which young seedlings have to contend. I my- 

 self have often noticed hundreds of tiny oaks springing into growth 

 in the grass field adjoining a covert, when waiting, as forward gun, 

 for the pheasants to come over, and have thought how rapidly England 

 would revert to its old forest conditions if farming were to be sus- 

 pended, and the accursed rabbit were to become a memory instead of 

 a plague. In pre-war days, before Germany had made herself so loathed 

 by the rest of the world, we used to be always having the excellence 

 of German woodcraft thrust down our throats by those who did not 

 realize how different are the conditions in the two countries. To 

 name one instance alone, I have walked every day, for a month at 

 a time, for three years running, in Bohemian woods, and during 

 the whole period all the ground game I ever saw was one roe-deer 

 and one hare. In England, however closely a forester may kill down 

 the rabbits and hares, his trees are at the mercy of his neighbours, 

 who may frustrate all his efforts. 



The special liability of oaks to be struck by lightning has often 

 been observed, and has always been very noticeable at Aldenham, where 

 hardly a year passes without our having two or three on the estate 

 destroyed by this cause, whereas to have elm or Lombardy poplar 

 or other tree served in that fashion is quite an exception. A few 

 years ago one of the finest oaks in our home wood was literally con- 

 verted into matchwood by lightning, tall narrow splinters 20 ft. long 

 being flung to a considerable distance. The explanation which has 

 always been given me of lightning tearing a tree to shreds in this way 

 is that the great heat converts the sap into steam, and so causes the 

 stem to explode. If this be true, I cannot understand why a similar 

 effect is not produced when men or animals are struck, since they 

 contain much more internal fluid than any tree in proportion to their 

 bulk. 



Q. Phellos (Linnaeus), Willow Oak (fig. 25). — The natural home of 

 this species is the Atlantic States of N orth America, but it has been es- 

 tablished here for nearly two hundred years. Its thin, elegant, narrow 

 foliage, so unlike the bulk of its congeners, makes it a general favourite, 

 and it certainly thrives better in England than do the majority of 

 the arboreal denizens of the Eastern United States. My oldest tree 

 is 21 ft. high, with a girth at 3 ft. above ground of just under 2 ft. ; 

 it would have been taller but some years ago 6 ft. of the top was broken 

 off in a gale, and it has been a slow and troublesome business to establish 

 a new leader. I have also examples of three so-called varieties, which 

 are labelled latijolia, microcarpa, and sericea, of which the heights 

 are 7 ft., 18 ft., and 14 ft. respectively. I also had at one time, 

 but have lost, another called Q. Phellos dentata. As to the first, 



