CHAPTER III. 
Quercus. 
“A little of thy steadfastness, 
Rounded with leafy gracefulness, 
Old oak give me;— 
That the world’s blasts may round me blow, 
And I yield gently to and fro, 
While my stout-hearted trunk below, 
And firm-set roots unshaken be.” 
Lowell. 
T O convey by words alone an idea of the grand and 
varied expressions of full-grown oaks would be a task 
almost as difficult as to impart by description the 
awful sense of sublimity inspired by rolling thunder. 
In a country where the oak abounds in all the forests it might 
seem that it would be sufficiently familiar to most persons; 
nevertheless, it is a fact that not more than one American out of a 
