which belong to the white oak group, are shy bearers. Those allied to the red oak bear more freely. It is, however, uncommon to find any bearing abundantly, two years in succession. Most of them, except the shrub oaks, must be trees of considerable height and age before they begin to bear. But they become more fruitful as they grow older, and continue bearing to the last.

The rate of growth of the oak is very different in the different species, and depends much, like that of every other tree, on the soil, and on the exposure. If raised from the acorn, it requires much shelter when young, and on all except very rich soils, makes slow progress at first, although stumps of young and vigorous trees throw up shoots often of five or six feet in a single year. As it is slow in the early stages of its growth, it continues to make steady progress for many years, and requires one hundred or one hundred and fifty years to come to perfection.* From measurements upon a great number of trees recently felled, and from many specimens of the wood, of all sizes and from various soils, I believe that the average growth of the white oak is not far from two inches in diameter in ten years, after it has been growing thirty or forty years; the circles of growth, after that age, being about ten in an inch. Before that age the growth is more rapid, but extremely various. An oak of thirty years may be eight inches in diameter and forty feet high. At or below this age it is commonly considered most profitable to fell for fuel; and it doubtless is so when it is to be renewed from the stump. But an easy calculation shows, that, although its apparent growth after that age is less than before, the real growth of each individual tree is greater. In ten years more it will be ten inches in diameter. Two inches will have

* De Candolle found the circles in very old oaks, cut in the forest of Fontainebleau, continued to increase to the thirtieth or fortieth year; from thirty, to fifty or sixty, diminished a little; between fifty and sixty became nearly regular, and so continued to the end. Past sixty, the increase is eight to ten lines in diameter, in ten years; two or three inches when between twenty and thirty,-indicating a cutting every thirty years.

† I give here memoranda of some of the oldest of these trees. On one, I counted 125 rings of growth in 11 inches; on another, 147 rings in 12 inches; on the third, 150 rings in 214 inches; on the fourth, 179 rings in 21 inches.

been added throughout the whole forty feet, though not much, probably, will have been added to the height. Now, as the growth must be estimated by the squares of the diameters, the solid wood in the lower part of the trunk will have increased in the proportion of 100 to 64. In the next ten years, it will increase in the proportion of 144 to 100; in the next ten, in that of 196 to 144; and in the next, in that of 256 to 196. The numbers after them will be 324, 400, 484. The successive additions, in periods of ten years, will be as the numbers 36, 44, 52, 60, 68, 76, 84, 92, 100. A tree of thirty years, therefore, in ten years, will increase 56 per cent.; in the next similar period, 68 per cent.; in the third, 79; in the fourth, 93; in the fifth, 106. That is, an oak of eighty years of age grows more in ten years than it did in the first thirty; and an oak of one hundred and thirty years, more than in the first forty. When, therefore, it is desirable to keep the growth for timber, the process of thinning may be continued with strict economy, as the increase of the thirty or forty trees left on the acre, will counterbalance, in a great degree, the loss in numbers. Some acres, in every large forest, should be thus left, for the use of the ship-builder.

Those species of oak most analogous to our white oak, are known, in Europe, to continue to grow and flourish for centuries. There are oaks in Britain, which are believed to have been old trees at the time of William the Conqueror. Some are known, which are supposed to be one thousand years old.

The number of species of the oak known to botanists, is very great. In 1823, the whole number was one hundred and thirty; (Dictionnaire Classique d'Histoire Naturelle;) since which time a considerable number has been added. Loudon estimates them at present at one hundred and fifty. This number is probably over-stated, as many that are considered species, will doubtless be found to be varieties. Sprengel enumerates more than one hundred oaks, the larger part natives of this continent. The elder Michaux described twenty, the younger, twenty-six, as natives of North America. Pursh described thirty-four as belonging to North America. Nuttall, in 1817, mentioned thirtytwo as belonging to North America. Eaton describes thirty-six as found north of the Gulf of Mexico. Beck, twenty-three, as

belonging to the Northern and Middle States. I have found eleven in Massachusetts, growing in considerable numbers. I have probably overlooked several, but they must be stragglers. Two only are natives of Britain; eight of France, (Flore Française,) though the number is increased by some botanists to fourteen. Twenty-four species were found by Humboldt and Bonpland in Mexico; half that number have been found in the temperate regions of India, and sixteen in Java, (Loudon, III, 1722.) The oak is found in the northern regions of Africa, but is abundant only in the temperate regions of both continents, avoiding equally the extremes of heat and cold.

The most natural arrangement of the oaks, seems to be that adopted by the elder Michaux. He divided them into two sections, according to the character of the leaves the first, comprising those species whose leaves are destitute of flexible points or bristles; the second, those, the segments of whose leaves are mucronate, or terminate in bristles. A very important difference is also observed in the length of time required for the blossom to bring its fruit to maturity. Most of the oaks of Europe blossom in the spring, and mature their fruit the same season; and this is the case with those of the American oaks, which belong to the first section. In those included in the second, on the contrary, the fertile blossom makes its appearance in the axil of the leaves on the new shoot, and remains a whole year without change. In the spring of the second year, after a new shoot has been produced, and new barren and fertile flowers have made their appearance, it is, probably for the first time, fecundated, and then begins to increase, and brings its fruit to maturity eighteen months after its first appearance. In this case, the fruit seems not to be axillary, as the leaves of the previous year, in whose axils it grew, have fallen.

Most of the trees which belong to the first section, possess greater value, on account of the excellent properties of their timber, than those of the second.

FIRST SECTION.

Leaves not mucronate; fruit supported on footstalks; fructification annual.

This includes the White Oak, the Swamp White Oak, the Chestnut Oak, the Rock Chestnut Oak, the Over Cup White Oak, the Post Oak, and the Little Chincapin Oak.

SECOND SECTION.

Leaves mucronate; fruit nearly sessile; fructification biennial. Black Oak, Scarlet Oak, Red Oak, and Little Bear Oak.

Leaves nearly regular, acorn cup warty.

3.

White Oak. 1st.

4.

5.

deeply lobed, very irregular, cup fringed. Over cup. 2d.
upper lobes dilated, star-like, very rough. Post. 3d.

Leaves wedge-shaped at base, much larger towards the end, with one deep
sinus on each side. Swamp White. 4th.
Leaves nearly regular, long and narrow.

Chestnut. 5th.

larger towards the end, entire, rounded at the extremity. Rock. 6th.

Leaves larger towards the end, waved or toothed; a shrub. Chincapin. 7th.

Leaves deeply sinuate, downy beneath; bark yellow within, very bitter.
Black. 8th.

Leaves more deeply sinuate, smooth beneath; bark reddish within, less
bitter. Scarlet. 9th.

Leaves less deeply sinuate, lance-shaped; cup very broad, scales close.
Red.

10th.

Leaves somewhat lyrate, or 4-or 6-sided; a shrub. Bear. 11th.

Sp. 1. THE WHITE OAK. Quercus alba. Linn.

Leaves and fruit figured in Michaux; Sylva, Plate 1; the tree, in Loudon's Arboretum; Plate 69. E.

In Audubon's Birds of America, Plate 107, the leaves are figured, with the Canada Jay, and in Plate 147; and leaves, flowers and fruit in the first plate in this volume.

Not a prince,

In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he

Wears the green coronal of leaves with which

THY hand has graced him.-Bryant's Forest Hymn.

The white oak rises from many strong roots, which swell out, near the base, above the surface, and penetrate deep and to a great distance beneath. It is two, to four or five feet in diameter. The perpendicular trunk, in most of the trees which are standing in our fields and pastures, is not long. In old forests, it sometimes reaches the height of sixty or eighty feet, and even more. Limbs very large, diverging at a very large but not uniform angle, from a broad, gnarled, massive juncture. Some of them go out horizontally, variously contorted, much and variously branched. The higher limbs make a sharper angle. They all often make considerable bends, in any direction, upwards, downwards, or on either side. Spray of many twigs, at right angles, in all directions, miniatures of the larger limbs. The bark on the trunk is of a very light ashcolor, whence it is universally known, and always called the white oak. And it is the only oak which has but one name. The bark naturally breaks into small, irregular, four-sided plates, which often easily scale off. The leaves, on short petioles, are four to six inches long and two or three wide. They are pubescent beneath when young, but smooth when old; the upper surface of a bright, shining green, the lower paler or glaucous, in substance almost coriaceous. They are always deeply divided into lobes, about three or four on each side, which are oblong, rounded or obtuse, rarely subdivided. The leaves differ very much, in different localities. Sometimes the lobes are almost linear, making skeleton leaves. Sometimes the leaves