24 
WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES. 
but though our hogs are now confined in styes, and fed on a 
diet that more rapidly fattens, Beech-mast is still a good food 
eagerly taken by such woodland denizens as badgers, deer, 
squirrels, and dormice. 
The vitality of the Beech is so high that quite frequently the 
bole divides at its upper part into several trunks, which rise 
straight up, and each attains the dimensions of a complete tree. 
Often such a tree stands on a sandy bank, and seems in imminent 
danger of toppling over, but its uprightness secures it against 
strain, and the roots that it sent down the steep side of the bank 
have thickened into strong props. Many such trees may be 
found along the hollow lanes in the Greensand district of Surrey, 
and we have more than once sheltered from a storm under their 
roots. 
We have already mentioned the value of the Beech as a nurse 
for other trees, and its frequent use for that purpose, but it 
should also be stated that it is a powerful competitor with other 
trees, and if these are left to fight their own battles unaided, the 
Beech will be the conqueror. Evelyn saw this more than two 
centuries ago, and pointed out that where mixed woods of Oak 
and Beech were left to themselves, they ultimately became pure 
Beech- woods. The Beech appears to gain this advantage 
through rooting in the surface soil, and, exhausting it of food 
elements, suffers none to penetrate to the lower strata, where 
the Oak has its roots. 
A number of insects feed upon the Beech, but they are mostly 
more beautiful or more singular than destructive. The Copper 
Beech, which is so effectively used for ornament in parks, is 
merely a sub-variety of the Common Beech, and all the examples 
in cultivation are believed to be “ sports ” from the purple 
variety, which itself was a natural sport discovered in a German 
wood little more than a hundred years ago. 
The modern word Beech is derived from the Anglo-Saxon 
hoc, bece, beoce, which had very similar equivalents in all branches 
