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LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
As beauty is often closely connected in our minds with uti- 
lity, we must be allowed a word on the great value of this tree. 
For its useful properties the oak has scarcely any superior. 
11 To enumerate,” says old Evelyn in his quaint Sylva, “ the 
incomparable uses of this wood were needless • but so precious 
was the esteem of it of old, there was an express law among 
the Twelve Tables concerning the very gathering of the 
acorns, though they should be found fallen on another man’s 
ground. The land and the sea do sufficiently speak for the 
improvement of this excellent material, for houses and ships, 
cities and navies, are builded with it.” In almost all the 
finest buildings of Europe, particularly the vast Gothic edi- 
fices of the middle ages, oak was the chief material for the 
interior. The rich old wainscot, the innumerable carvings 
and decorations of those days were executed in this material. 
In America the vast pine forests produce a wood easily 
wrought, which has in a great measure superseded the use 
of this fine timber, and the exportation of immense quantities 
of the former to the eastern continent, has even in some de- 
gree lessened its consumption abroad. But for certain pur- 
poses, where great strength and durability are required, the 
oak will always take the precedence claimed for it by Eve- 
and says it is capable of accomodating ten or twelve persons comfortably at dinner, 
sitting. 
The Beggar's Oak , in Bagot’s Park, is twenty feet in girth, five feet from the 
ground. The roots rise above the surface in a very extraordinary manner, so as 
to furnish a natural seat for the beggars chancing to pass along the pathway near 
it; and the circumference taken there is 68 feet. The branches extend from 
the tree 48 feet in every direction. 
The Wallace Oak , at Edenslee, near where Wallace was born, is a noble tree 
21 feet in circumference. It is 67 feet high, and its branches extend 45 feet east, 
36 west, 30 south, and 25 north. Wallace and 300 of his men are said to have 
hid themselves from the English among the branches of this tree, which was 
then in full leaf. 
