328 
REV. M. C. H. BIRD ON ACORNS. 
In order to encourage the children ol the district to take 
an intelligent interest in the objects of nature around them, 
an Acorn Competition was held last October at the Stalham 
and Brunstead U.D. Council School, small prizes being offered 
for the largest acorn, the heaviest hundred, and the most 
fruit on one spray. The contest proved that the acorns of 
last autumn were not only uncommonly plentiful, but also 
unusually fine. 
In the “Standard Encyclopedia of Modern Agriculture,” Mr. 
J. Nisbet (Editor of “ The Forester,” etc.), states that, on an 
average, about 125 fruit of the Pedunculate Oak (the true 
British Oak), which variety greatly predominates in East 
Norfolk, will weigh one pound. Our competition acorns 
worked out at 57 to the pound. Thirty out of over forty 
hundreds exhibited scaled over 2 lbs. per hundred, and a 
selected hundred from the various lots shown, 2 lbs. 12 ozs. 
The largest individual acorn weighed no less than 10b dr ms. 
(avoird.) its length was li in.; its greatest diameter 1-^ in. and 
its circumferences 4-1 and 3| in. A longer but more slender 
fruit than this monster measured If in. Both of these con- 
tained two embryos. The longest nine acorns, when laid 
end to end, extended over 13f in. All these are record 
weights and measurements so far as I am aware. Seven was 
the largest number of acorns shown on one spray, but I had 
previously seen two instances of eight perfect fruit in a 
bunch. The competition brought out an extremely well- 
defined (externally) double or twin acorn, and many a score 
which have since produced two rootlets each. One fruit, of 
which the outside skin had burst, contained five lobes with 
three plantlets; and seventeen acorns, after having been kept 
moist, have thrown out three radicles each. The ovary of 
the Oak blossom contains three nuclei, so that it is always 
possible for three perfect kernels to result, but generally two 
of the nuclei abort, and for all three to come to perfection is 
very unusual indeed. 
