Epsom Oaks

“ Standard Oaks are comparatively rare in the New England States, and not many adorn our way-sides and inclosures, which are mostly shaded by Elms, Limes, Maples, and Ash-trees. The scarcity of Oaks in these places is attributable in some degree to the peculiar structure of their roots, which extend downwards to a great depth in the soil, causing them to be difficult of transplantation. ”

“ Before many days the winds finished what work Jack Frost didn’t attend to himself. The leaves were neatly whisked from all the trees except the oaks and the evergreens. Oaks are cold trees. They keep most of their leaves on all winter and let them drop only when Spring sends word that she is on the way with a new gown for each. ”

“ The live-oak is almost the only tree away from the river bottoms, and everywhere gives the marked features to the landscape.
The live-oaks are often short, and even stunted in growth, lacking the rich vigor and full foliage of those further east. Occasionally, a tree is met with, which has escaped its share of injury from prairie burnings and northers, and has grown into a symmetrical and glorious beauty. ”

“ Of the white-pines, once the glory of the New England forests, we are not aware that any have been found more than 430 years old. Nor have we any oaks of extraordinary age. The Charter-oak at Hartford may have been a small tree at the first settlement of New England. The Wadsworth oak, at Geneseo, New York, is said to be five centuries old, and 27 feet in circumference at the base. The massive, slow-growing live-oaks, of Florida, are worthy of notice, on account of the enormous length of their branches. ”

“ The Pine-boughs are the green calyx to their red petals. Or, as we go along a road in the woods, the sun striking endwise through it, and lighting up the red tents of the Oaks, which on each side are mingled with the liquid green of the Pines, makes a very gorgeous scene. Indeed, without the evergreens for contrast, the autumnal tints would lose much of their effect.
The Scarlet Oak asks a clear sky and the brightness of late October days. These bring out its colors. If the sun goes into a cloud, they become comparatively indistinct. ”

“ The hawthorns in Wimperfield Park glowed in the distance like patches of crimson flame, and the undulating sweeps of bracken showed golden-brown against the green-sward; while the oaks-symbolic of all that is solid, ponderous, and constant in woodland nature, slow to bloom and slow to die—had hardly a faded leaf to mark the coming of winter. ”

“ Ash squash.” and that if the Oak comes out before the Ash, the summer will be hot; but if after the Ash, that it will be wet. Authorities in dream lore state that it is a very favourable omen to dream of an Oak-tree: if covered with verdure, it signifies a long and happy life; if devoid of foliage or withered, it betokens poverty in old age; to see many young Oaks thriving foretells male children, who will reap distinction by bravery; Oaks bearing Acorns betoken great wealth; and a blasted Oak forebodes sudden death.
Astrologers state that the Oak-tree is under the dominion of Jupiter. ”

“ The leaves are rather thick and woody, and remain on the tree either all winter or at least until nearly all other deciduous leaves have fallen. Flowers insignificant; the staminate ones in catkins; blooming in spring. Fruit an acorn, which in the White, Chestnut, and Live Oaks matures the same year the blossoms appear; while in the Red, Black, and Willow Oaks the acorns mature the second year. They remain on the tree until late in autumn. The Oaks, because of their large tap-roots, can be transplanted only when small. Most of the species are in cultivation. ”

“ In our own land, Oaks have always been deemed the favourite abodes of Elves, and wayfarers, upon approaching groves reputed to be haunted by them, used to think it judicious to turn their coats for good luck. ”

“ What he accomplishes the photographs show well enough,—the close, methodical studding of bark or wood of any kind with acorns, chiefly those of live-oaks, [Pg 216] over immense areas. The cultures, once started, are wrought upon continuously year by year, as material avails or the colony flourishes. Live-oaks themselves are the commonest hosts, together with the white, or post, oak, and the black oak of the southern counties. After these come sycamore and yellow pine or, more rarely, eucalyptus. ”

“ Quest,” he said, “of appreciating one feature of English life not entirely reproducible in your own wonderful country. I mean the home life and surroundings of our aristocracy. You see these oak trees?” he went on, with a little wave of his hand. “They were planted by my ancestors in the days of Henry the Eighth. I have been a student of tree life in South America and in the dense forests of Central Africa, but for real character, for splendour of growth and hardiness, there is nothing in the world to touch the Ashleigh oaks.”
“They’re some trees,” the criminologist admitted. ”

“ There are nearly fifty species of Oaks which may be obtained in the British nurseries; the most remarkable of which are the Cork tree (Quercus Suber) , the cork being the bark; the Evergreen Oak (Q. Ilex) ; the American Oaks, particularly the scarlet Oaks (Q. coccinea and Q. rubra) , the Live Oak (Q. virens) , and the Willow Oak, with long narrow entire leaves
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(Q. Phellos) ; and the Turkey, Fulham, and Lucombe Oaks (Q. Cerris and its varieties) . All Oak trees are very liable to be attacked by a species of gnat, and which produces excrescences on the branches. ”

“ Oaks growing in the open air are much shorter, more branched and spreading, and form the peculiar dense, twisted timber once so valuable for ship-building purposes. Such exposed trees, other things being equal, develop fruit and fertile seeds thirty or forty years sooner than those growing in closed plantations. ”

“ It has always been His Grace’s practice, either to sow Acorns, or to plant Oaks, in alternate beds, having Larch between. If the Oaks were planted, they were put in very thickly; and although their progress was necessarily slower than it would have been, if they had been allowed more room, it cannot be doubted that His Grace had a great advantage in the almost unlimited choice which it gave him, of trees of perfect form, for the ultimate crop of timber. ”

“ It occupies the greater part of the broad sandy flats of the upper end of the Valley, and is the species that yields the acorns so highly prized by the Indians and woodpeckers.
The other species is the mountain live-oak, or goldcup oak (Quercus chrysolepis) , a sturdy mountaineer of a tree, growing mostly on the earthquake taluses and benches of the sunny north wall of the Valley. In tough, unwedgeable, knotty strength, it is the oak of oaks, a magnificent tree. ”

“ With some species this warfare is waged on so extensive a scale, that in some years by early summer the Oaks are almost divested of their foliage, and a new crop of leaves becomes a necessity. But the reserve forces of the Oak are quite equal to this drain, and the tree does not appear to suffer, though a much less thorough attack would be serious to a Conifer. ”

“ The oak grows faster than the beech or spruce, for instance, while young, and so keeps its head easily above the others for a time. Very often the oak is cultivated pure at first, and then, when the oaks are becoming too crowded and he has to thin them, the forester puts in the silver fir or beech, which prevents the light coming in to the lower parts of the young oak-trees, and consequently prevents the development of lower branches, which would give the spreading, squat habit he wishes to prevent. ”

“ Disposed in open groves along the bases of low hills, fringing the rich lands along creeks or scattered by hundreds or thousands over the fertile valley floors, the eyes of the early Spanish explorers dwelt on the thick foliage of the swelling crowns and read the fertility of the land in these evergreen oaks which they called Encina. The chain of Franciscan Missions corresponded closely to the general range of the Live Oak although uniformly well within the margin of its geographical limits both eastward and northward. ”

“ Although wooded, it was not, as the American forest is wont to grow, with tail straight trees towering toward the light, but with intervals between the low oaks that were scattered profusely over the view, and with much of that air of negligence that one is apt to see in grounds where art is made to assume the character of nature. The trees, with very few exceptions, were what is called the "burr-oak," a small variety of a very extensive genus ”

“ There are many difficulties, however, in cultivating pure oak woods, and the custom of mixing other trees is a common one, for the young oaks need much light; and yet, if each plant has the space given it necessary to allow of this light, it grows into a short and spreading tree instead of rising up into a tall, straight one. ”

“ The very fact of the fewer number of available trees and shrubs may even be a benefit in disguise, as by obliging the planter to be more restricted in his choice the planting scheme will be all the more harmonious.
As to trees, Holly, Thorn, Juniper, Birch, Scotch Fir, and Mountain Ash are found wild on the poorest soils, and will even grow in almost pure sand. Oaks, though they never grow to the dimensions of the Oak of loamy woodlands, are abundant on poor soils, where they have a character of their own that is full of pictorial value. ”

“ The buds, leaves, and flowers are all much attacked by gall-forming insects, many different kinds being found on one and the same tree. It is not until the oak is from sixty to a hundred years old that good seeds are obtained from it. Oaks will bear acorns earlier than this, but they are apt to be barren. A curious fact is the tendency to produce large numbers of acorns in a given favorable autumn, and then to bear none, or very few, for three or four years or even longer. ”

“ Mention is made of Oaks in divers parts of Scripture, which though the Latin sometimes renders a Turpentine Tree, yet surely some kind of Oak may be understood thereby; but whether our common Oak as is commonly apprehended, you may well doubt; for the common Oak, which prospereth so well with us, delighteth not in hot regions. And that diligent Botanist Bellonius, who took such particular notice of the Plants of Syria and Judæa, observed not the vulgar Oak in those parts. But he found the Ilex, Chesne Vert, or Ever-green Oak, in many places ”

“ When the second period of the Fall of the Leaf has arrived, the woods that were first tinted have mostly become leafless. The grouping of different species is, therefore, very apparent at this time,—some assemblages presenting the denuded appearance of winter, some remaining still green, while the Oaks are the principal attraction, with an intermixture of a few other species, whose foliage has been protected and the development of their hues retarded by some peculiarity of situation. ”

“ It is impossible to say, but there is little doubt that many of them flourish for a thousand years. There are vigorous oaks to-day in England that were old in the time of William the Conqueror. The famous White Oak of Hartford, in which Captain Wadsworth hid the charter two hundred and twenty-five years ago, was several centuries old at the time, and it was not until the summer of 1856 that a windstorm brought it to the ground. ”

“ California blue oaks range in height from shrubs to trees of ninety feet, with diameters of three or four feet. The average height is about forty-five and the diameter two or less. The trunk frequently divides a few feet from the ground into large limbs. That form excludes the wood from sawmills, and only in rare cases does any of it find its way there. The lumber is of poor quality, brittle, black, and otherwise defective. The sapwood is white and thick. A cubic foot weighs 55.64 pounds, or nearly ten more than eastern white oak. It is weak, and is low in elasticity. ”

“ It is not abundant in the sense that willow oak and Texan red oak are. Neither are the trees generally of good form for lumber. Little has ever been cut, because the land where it grows is not demanded for agriculture. It occupies out-of-the-way places, and the hunter and fisherman are better acquainted with it than the lumberman.
Highland Oak (Quercus wislizeni) is a California evergreen with leaves commonly shaped like holly, but sometimes their edges are smooth with no sign of teeth. The foliage remains longer on this tree than is usual with evergreen oaks. ”

“ The acorns are sweet and are eagerly sought after by the squirrels.
The wood is durable in exposed places and is used for cooperage, railroad ties, and fencing.
34. The Live Oak. No list of American oaks would be complete without the live oak. This is a southern tree and is remarkable in many ways. Its leaf has no indentations, remains green all winter, and is thick and leathery.
Fig. 89. Leaf of Live Oak
The wood is extremely heavy, a cubic foot weighing nearly sixty pounds. ”

“ Oaks, in the space of a few hundred yards, may be seen in every stage of growth, from the newly burst acorn, that presents to the light its [280] two fleshy lobes, with the first tender rudiments of a leaflet between, up to the giant of the forest, in the hollow of whose trunk the red deer may shelter, and find ample room for the broad spread of his antlers. ”