| 38 ACORNS. 
Acorns continue also to be used as food by some 
of the Spanish peasantry; but, like those of an- 
cient Greece, they must not be judged of by the 
acorns of England,—and they may be supposed, 
besides, to be eaten only in consequence of the 
sheer dearth of better food. An old English 
writer describes them as very nourishing, but as 
hard of digestion and tending to create raw 
humours, and as therefore not proper to be used 
for food. 
Farmers, in various parts of Germany, parti- 
cularly in some districts of Saxony, successfully 
employ acorns for the winter-fattening of sheep. 
English farmers, however, either totally neglect 
| them, or use them almost solely for the feeding 
and fattening of hogs. In Hertfordshire and in 
the New Forest district of Hampshire, hogs, in 
many instances, receive very little other food 
than acorns, and commonly attain great firmness, 
fatness, and weight, and yield a decidedly good 
and well-flavoured pork. Yet such as are, for a 
_ short time, withdrawn from the acorn diet, and 
have their fattening completed by four or five 
_ bushels of barley flour or pease meal to each, are 
| judged by some persons to yield pork of still 
a 
better substance and superior flavour. The 
farmers of Gloucestershire bestow nearly as much 
care upon the fruit of their oak-trees as upon the 
produce of their orchards; they seldom sell their 
acorns, or can find any in the market, yet usually 
estimate their value at from ls. 6d. to 2s. per 
bushel according to the price of beans; and they 
regard them as decidedly superior to beans at 
once for fattening hogs, for increasing their 
weight, and for rendering their bacon firm.— 
Hogs fed upon acorns, however, require to be 
treated with some precaution ; for if they are let 
loose among them at will, or unduly restricted in 
their liberty and other means of exercise, they 
either will remain lean and light, or will contract 
a distemper called the garget. Two methods 
have been recommended for preventing the dis- 
temper ; the one, to moisten some pease and beans 
with water, and mix them up with a little pow- 
dered and sifted antimony, and to administer a 
dose or meal of the mixture on every alternate 
day for two or three weeks; the other, to dig, in 
a warm place, a hole of several bushels in capa- 
city,—to fill this with acorns, and moisten them 
well with water, holding in solution a handful or 
two of common salt,—to let them remain in the 
hole till they have germinated, and sent out 
shoots of about three inches in length,—and then 
to dry them by winnowing in the shade, and em- 
ploy them, to the exclusion of all unprepared 
acorns, for the hogs’ food. Yet even the prepared 
acorns must never be given in such quantity as 
to permit a surfeit; nor must they be given 
oftener for a day or two than twice a-day, or 
oftener at any period than three times a-day. 
But these directions are probably too refined; 
and certainly seem quite unneeded in the free, 
heedless, and successful feeding of the New Forest | 
of Hampshire. A main point there, and perhaps 
a main point in all acorn-feeding, 1s not to con- 
fine the animals to the sty, but to permit them 
abundance of liberty and exercise. 
The main use of acorns, in all ages and in all 
oak-growing countries, is the natural one of pro- 
pagating the oak. Most soils in England, if pro- 
perly prepared, will suit for the sowing of acorns, 
but the quality most suitable isa deep, rich loam. 
Oak which is raised upon prime, deep land is 
generally more tough and resistive than such as 
grows upon shallower or drier ground; yet oak 
grown upon the latter is occasionally much more 
compact and hard. Land destined for acorns, 
whatever be its precise quality, ought to be very 
thoroughly tilled, and somewhat finely pulver- 
ized. If it could be made ready against the time 
of the acorns being ripe, and an efficient protec- 
tion could be established during winter from the | 
attacks of insects, birds, and mice, the most fa- 
vourable time for sowing would be the moment in 
autumn when the acorns are just ripe. 
these conditions rarely exist, or as acorns of the 
best kind may not be growing in the vicinity, 
but may require to be procured from a distance, 
the sowing must, in general, be postponed till 
spring. Only those acorns ought to be selected 
for seed which grow upon the choicest individual 
trees of the choicest varieties of the choicest spe- 
cies of the oak; for though both the best species 
and the best variety were selected, yet if the in- 
dividual trees should’ be deficient in tallness, 
robustness, and breadth, they would probably 
transmit some degree of their defects through 
their seeds to the crop of young plants. Rather 
let the cultivator incur considerable cost and | 
trouble in procuring seeds from the best trees at 
a distance, than use seeds from second-rate trees 
in his vicinity. 
“ Having provided yourself,” says the thor- | 
oughly practical Boutcher, in his ‘Treatise on 
Forest Trees, “with acorns in the autumn, ga- 
thered from the handsomest and most vigorous 
trees, in fair weather, spread them in an airy 
covered place, and turn them frequently till quite 
dry; when you find they are so, mix them with 
sand, or loose light earth, and let them be pro- 
tected from vermin, frost, and moisture, till about 
the middle of February. At this time, or as soon 
after it as the weather will admit, prepare, by a 
clean digging and raking, a spot of good natural 
soil; and, to render the crop equal and uniform, 
try the goodness of your seeds, by throwing them 
into a tub with water, when the fresh will sink 
to the bottom, and the rotten or defective float 
on the surface. The quality of the acorns being 
thus ascertained, make shallow drills across the 
ground, with a small hoe, at eighteen or twenty 
inches distance; and in these drop your acorns, 
about two inches separate, covering them, with 
the back of a rake, two inches deep; let the 
ground be raked smooth, and kept clean and 
mellow during the summer months. The begin- 
But as’ 
ee ee — eee Ee 
