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LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
forest. Springing up with a noble trunk, and stretching 
out its broad limbs over the soil, 
“ These monarchs of the wood. 
Dark, gnarled, centennial oaks,” 
seem proudly to bid defiance to time ; and while generations 
of man appear and disappear, they withstand the storms of 
a thousand winters, and seem only to grow more venerable 
and majestic. They are mentioned in the oldest histories ; 
we are told that Absalom was caught by his hair in “ the 
thick boughs of a great oak and Herodotus informs us 
that the first oracle was that of Dodona, set up in the 
celebrated oak grove of that name. There, at first, the 
oracles were delivered by the priestesses, but, as was after- 
wards believed, by the inspired oaks themselves — 
“ Which in Dodona did enshrine, * 
So faith too fondly deemed, a voice divine.” 
Acorns, the fruit of the oak, appear to have been held in 
considerable estimation as an article of food among the 
ancients. Not only were the swine fattened upon them, as 
in our own forests, but they were ground into flour, with 
which bread was made by the poorer classes. Lucretius 
mentions, that before grain was known they were the com- 
mon food of man ; but we suppose the fruit of the chestnut 
may also have been included under that term. 
“ That oake whose acomes were our foode before 
The Cerese seede of mortal man was knowne.” 
Spenser. 
The civic crown, given in the palmy days of Rome to 
the most celebrated men, was also composed of oak leaves 
