The Oaks

“ The sap is now, and even far into November, frequently flowing fast in these trees, as in Maples in the spring; and apparently their bright tints, now that most other Oaks are withered, are connected with this phenomenon. They are full of life. It has a pleasantly astringent, acorn-like taste, this strong Oak-wine, as I find on tapping them with my knife.
Looking across this woodland valley, a quarter of a mile wide, how rich those Scarlet Oaks, embosomed in Pines, their bright red branches intimately intermingled with them! They have their full effect there. ”

“ A fair October day is waning, and as the shadows deepen and the stars shine out here and there in the darkening sky, the grounds at the Oaks glitter with colored lamps, swinging from the branches of the trees that shade the long green alleys, and dependent from arches wreathed with flowers. In doors and out everything wears a festive look; almost the whole house is thrown open to the guests who will presently come thronging to it from nearly every plantation for miles around. ”

“ The nestling cottages, the busy shops, the fresh-looking spires, the distant woods, the more distant mountain, the old Seven Oaks upon the Western plateau and the beautiful residence behind them, are the same to-day that they were when we first looked upon them; but a new life and a new influence inform them all. Nature holds her unvarying frame, but the life upon the canvas is what we paint from year to year. ”

“ The new growth of trees is very fine; but it is the remains of the grand old oaks that attract the tourist and summer wanderer. The wood has a ground-work of exhaustless ferns, the delicate birches flutter in the warm winds, their peculiar shade contrasting with the greenery around them. Here and there oaks of different ages and altitudes rise gray, gnarled, and almost leafless,—oaks on which a thousand tempests have beaten, and around which ten thousand storms have blown. In Henry II.’s time not only Nottingham, but the whole of England, was covered with oaks. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The creek oaks have rough barked trunks, like English elms, but are much taller, and higher to the branches—and the leaves are reedy; Kendel, the Australian poet, calls them the ‘she-oak harps Aeolian’. Those trees are always sigh-sigh-sighing—more of a sigh than a sough or the ‘whoosh’ of gum-trees in the wind. You always hear them sighing, even when you can’t feel any wind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The modest but cheerful houses are just within sight of each other, separated by orchards, grainfields, vineyards; a grove of white oaks here and there, a single live oak, and clumps of willow and sycamore, make the landscape as pleasing as any in the country. Nearer the first rise of the mountain, the view of grainfields, fenced in by the same dry board fence, would become monotonous were it not for the ever-fresh, ever-beautiful white oak [Pg 102] that stands, sentinel-like, scattered through the golden fields, its lower branches sometimes hidden in the full-bearing garbs. ”

“ It is not to these latter alone that our few existing ancient oaks are so attractive, however, and a slight acquaintance with the oaken roofs and carvings of some of our historical edifices affords ample proof that the indefinable charm exercised on us by what has proved so lasting, is a real one and deep-seated in the Saxon nature. In fact, everything about the oak is suggestive of durability and sturdy hardiness, and, like so many objects of human worship in the earlier days of man's emergence from a savage state, the oak instinctively attracts us. ”

“ On the hill-sides the wild-flowers grow so thickly that they form a soft, thick couch to lie upon, immense trees, chiefly pines and cedars, rise here and there like giants above their fellows. Oaks, too, are numerous, and the scene in many places is covered with mansanita underwood, a graceful and beautiful shrub. The trees and shrubbery, however, are not so thickly planted as to intercept the view, and the ground undulates so much that occasionally we overtop them, and obtain a glimpse of the wide vale before us. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Cool days and nights, unattended with frost, are the favorable conditions for producing and preserving the beauty of autumnal wood-scenery.
The effects of heat and frost are not so apparent in Oak woods, which have a more coriaceous and persistent foliage than other deciduous trees: but Oaks do not attain the perfection of their beauty, until the Ash, the Maple, and the Tupelo—the glory of the first period of autumn—have shed a great portion of their leaves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The district of villa residences of the millionnaires, when penetrated, gained much in attractiveness. There are white-oaks and chestnut-oaks, as well as scrub-oaks, in groups of a park-like appearance, and live-oaks, with long, gray Spanish moss depending from them. If there are no wild flowers, there are plenty of the cultivated sort, with lawns kept green by fountains and hose. Where there is water, the winter, or brown season, need never extend. ”

“ Where they are regular and close together, [Pg 287] they really are orchard trees; where they are irregular and widely spaced and larger, they are the beautiful live-oaks and white oaks that grow in all the grain-fields and meadows and pastures of our valley. The live-oaks have small leaves, dark green and close together, and the head of the tree is dense and like a great ball; the white oaks have larger, less thickly set leaves of lighter green, and the branches are more irregular and straying and they often send down delicate pendent lines that swing and dance in the wind like long tassels. ”

“ All trees have a character analogous to that of men. Oaks are in all respects the perfect image of the manly character. In former times I should have said, and in present times I think I am authorised to say, the British one, as a brave man, is not suddenly either elated by prosperity or depressed by adversity;—so the oak displays not its verdure on the sun’s first approach nor drops it on his first departure. ”

“ In other parts of England, the oak still grows in all its native magnificence of form and dimensions, and the remains of those ancient forests, which are chronicled by our earliest writers, and which, in the time of our Saxon ancestors, spread over the greater portion of the country, are still to be traced in the venerable but living relics of enormous oaks, many of which are supposed to number more than a thousand years. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The elm, the hickory, the beech, the chestnut, and many others of the most characteristic and useful trees of the eastern states were originally entirely wanting in California. Oaks are abundant; they are especially characteristic of the Great Valley, where they grow in magnificent groves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The house across a field or two to your left, with some fine oaks beside it, is the Parsonage, both the house and grounds of which have been much beautified and extended by the present incumbent. You soon gain the high road at a neat little house called Oak Cottage; and may notice a little beyond it a handsome, but not very large residence, called Hollin-how, and near to that, close under the beetling precipice, a picturesque group of new cottages and old farm buildings, bearing the odd title of Far-end. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are far more ethereal than the less deeply scolloped Oak-leaves. They have so little leafy terra firma that they appear melting away in the light, and scarcely obstruct our view. The leaves of very young plants are, like those of full-grown Oaks of other species, more entire, simple, and lumpish in their outlines ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ On the ridge corresponding to the index finger stood the Tree of Ares or the Warriors' Oak, the Tree of Pallas or the Statemen's Oak and the Tree of Aphrodite or the Lovers' Oak. On the ridge answering to the big finger of the hand the three oaks stood not at the crest of the ridge but at its extreme edge to the right. ”