OAKS AT ALDENHAM. 



223 



find these elsewhere in England, so I can say nothing about 

 them. 



I should like to take this opportunity of describing a new and 

 highly successful experiment in oak cultivation which we have made 

 this year, and which may prove useful to others. Like most prudent 

 gardeners we annually collect and stack dead leaves, and we observed 

 in the heap last autumn a self-sown pedunculate oak about 2 ft. high, 

 and three common birches over 3 ft. in height. As this was a surprising 

 growth for about five months from seed, we thought it worth while 

 to try what the effect would be on choicer trees. Accordingly we made 

 a rough bin 4 ft. high, 20 ft. long, and 10 ft. broad, and filled it with dead 

 leaves, giving it a dressing on the top of last year's leaf-mould. At 

 the end of last May we lifted all the small sickly oaks out of the nursery, 

 none of which, if left where they were, gave any prospect of making 

 decent trees, and most of which would probably have soon died, and, 

 after cutting them down within 2 in. of the ground, planted them in 

 the leaves. On July 31 last I made a careful examination of them, 

 and the result exceeded my expectations ; quite 95 per cent, had grown 

 vigorously, and to give a few examples, Q. variabilis had grown 2 ft., 

 Q. hisitanica serratifolia 16 in., Q. Gilliana, Q. cuneata, and Q. aliena 

 14 in., and many others had sent up clean, straight, healthy shoots 

 of over a foot. Decaying leaves generate a steady moist bottom heat 

 which lasts for fully six months, and stimulates the growth of the 

 trees planted in them in a surprising fashion, so that they can't really 

 help growing if there is any life in them at all. There can be no 

 doubt that if I had made this experiment with tree seeds, instead of 

 with thoroughly unhealthy trees, the result would have been better 

 still, and there is, of course, no reason whatever why the plan should 

 not be exactly as effective with other genera as it has proved with oaks. 



Now this long, and I fear in parts tedious tale is done, but it 

 passes the wit of man to make a catalogue very light reading. If 

 any reader should get a tithe of the satisfaction out of reading that 

 I have had in preparing this paper, I shall feel more than repaid for 

 the labour. 



