186 
ON THE DECREASE OF THE OAK IN BRITAIN. 
sands from the underwood (and which supply the Mosses beneath with the 
constant moisture so necessary to their existence— 
“ Within whose tufts 
Around the root the bedded acorns sleep 
Till Zephyr fans the glowing blush of spring,”)* 
furnish scenes which leave no room to regret the change which intervenes between 
one summer and another. 
It is in the delight and satisfaction with which scenes like these are contem¬ 
plated, that Man can best appreciate those noble faculties with which he is 
endowed. It was in scenes like these 
—“ The Theban Eagle plumed 
His daring pinions on Citheeron’s brow : 
In scenes like these Salvator grouped his iron 
And gaunt banditti near the foaming crash 
Of cataracts, that o’er the sombre rock 
Had cast the headless and uprooted trunk.”* 
And it is, moreover, in scenes like these that we 
“ Revere the fostering Lord of Nature, who 
In love created all the harmonic maze 
Of worlds, reflection of the eternal mind.”* 
But in the destruction of the Oak and increase of the Larch is involved the 
destruction of these scenes, and, consequently, of the hallowed reflections which 
their existence produced in the mind. For the Larch and the Fir tribe generally 
forbid the existence of vegetable life—even their own offspring are forbid to put 
forth their tender shoots beneath the baneful influence of the parent stem.L 
The inhabitants of Worcestershire and Herefordshire especially, can appreciate 
the value of the Oak; they possess the finest specimens now existing of that tree, 
and they have to lament the loss of thousands which in the spring of every year 
are cut down and the bark carried to the tan-pit. And here, again, is a fertile 
source of dissertation on the consequences, a failure in the supply of bark—a 
failure which must be the natural result of such an extensive annual destruction. 
But the consequences of the decrease of the Oak in a commercial point of view 
have been often alluded to, though, seemingly, with but little effect. 
Seeing, then, the value of the Oak to the naturalist-—seeing the decrease which 
* Tighe’s Plants. 
f “ Those who 'are familiar with Pine forests, or Pine plantations, must be aware, that the 
seeds of the cones never germinate under the thick shade of the trees, and grow up so as to form 
an underwood in the forest. Cones in abundance are produced every season, but they contribute 
chiefly to the food of the animal inhabitants, and it is only where a blank occurs, from the decay 
or the casual destruction of a tree, that young plants rise to fill it up.”— Mudie. 
