A Chapter On Oaks.

strength and stability . The new Midland Eailway Company s booking offices , St . Pancras Station , in the Euston Eoad , is elaborately lined around the walls up to a height of eight or nine feet from the floor , and around the booking compartment a beautiful carved , screen all in oak , hand polished , is placed to partition it off from the rest of the room . English oak is one of the hardest of the species ; it is considerably harder than the American , called white and red Canada oak . African oak ( or African teak ) is well

adapted to the construction of merchant vessels . For all building purposes wherein strength is required , whether to resist crushing loads , transverse strain or efforts of torsion , or wherein hardness and durability are sought for , oak is beyond all comparison the most valuable . If the alburnum be removed , the heart-wood will be found to resist almost every condition of moisture , or of alternations of wetness and dryness , provided always that the moist atmosphere be not allowed , to

stagnate around the wood . In joiners' work tine flower of the picked oak planks , known by the technical name of Wainscoat , is highly prized , and its durability may well explain the marked preference of our builders for this invaluable material . The oak trees converted for building purposes , are not usually of more than 100 or 130 years old , although for ship-building , where large scantling are required , trees of much greater age are used . It was formerly by no means rare to meet with oak trees ranging

from 75 to 130 feet in height , and ten feet in diameter , but the great demand for this class of timber , tends to make such specimens very rare , and , at the jrresent time , trees of English oak are seldom of more than two feet scantling . The oak , when well grown , is the largest and most majestic of all British trees , viewed either as an object of gigantic and rugged beauty in our forests and woodlands ,

or , when felled , as timber of the utmost utility and endurance for public buildings , ships , etc . ; it is secondto no native tree . In our cathedrals and churches , in boss , finial , capital , and truss , we constantly see intricate groups of the leaves and acorns of this tree . The purposes to which this timber is put are innumerable , amongst which we may mention building cathedrals , churches , houses , etc . ; its bark is used for tanning , and its fruit was formerly used as food by the ancient Britons . The fondness of hogs for the acorn is proverbial ; and the woodpeckertoois partial to the fruit of this treefor we read : —

, , , The woodpecker in California is a storer of acorns . The tree he selects is invariably of the pine tribe . He bores several holes , differing slightly in size , at the fall of the year , and then flies away , in many instances to a long distance , and returns with an acorn , which he immediately sets about adjusting to one of the holes prepared for its reception , which will hold it tightly in its position . But he does not eat the acorn , for , as a rule , he is not a vegetarian . His object in storing away the acorn exhibits foresight and

knowledge of results more akin to reason than to instinct . The succeeding winter the acorn remains intact , but , becoming saturated with rain , is predisposed to decay , when it is attacked by maggots , who seem to delight in this special food . It is then that the woodpecker reaps the harvest his wisdom has provided , at a time when , the ground being covered with snow , ho would experience a difficulty otherwise in obtaining suitable or palatable food , It is a subject of speculation why the redwood cedar or the

sugar pine is invariably selected . It is not probable that the insect , the most dainty to the woodpecker ' s taste , frequents only the outside of two trees ; but true it is , that in Calaveras , Mariposa , and other districts of California , trees of this kind may be frequently seen covered all over their trunks with acorns , when there is not an oak tree within several miles . "

The bark of the oak is scarcely less valuable than the timber , as it affords more tannin principle and of better quality than any other tree of native growth , aud , therefore , may be considered indispensable to the production of one of our most important stap le commodities , and the exercise of one of the most ancient and valuable arts . The " British Sylva , " published by W . Tegg , says :- — " A good tree of fair and flourishing head , and due proportion of stem , yields about 5 cwt . of bark to each ton of timber ; the smaller branches and the underwood of oak yield the most valuable bark , whicu often sells for twenty to thirty shillings per ton more than that of the trunk aud large * limbs . "