many trees in different parts of England, in order to learn whether the size of the acorns and the vigour of the parent tree had much influence on their strength. I have now watched the growth of these young trees for six seasons, and have arrived at no definite conclusion, though I am much surprised by two facts which have become evident. Lord Ducie has an oak in his park which usually produces acorns of unusual size, some that he has weighed being only 36 to the pound. The plants from these were no stronger than those of normal acorns; and some of the very finest plants that I raised were produced by the small acorns of a very stunted grafted tree with variegated leaves, which I only sowed to see whether any variegation would appear in their leaves. I found, however, that on the average the acorns gathered on my own place on similar soil gave the best results, and that those from Hants and Kent did not produce such good seedlings as those from Nottinghamshire.
The shoot appears above ground about the time the oak comes into leaf, or rather sooner, and the first growth is completed in three weeks or a month. A second growth, corresponding to the summer shoots of the parent tree, is produced in July or August, and sometimes even a third shoot. If sown in a nursery-bed they will be 4 to 12 inches high at the end of the first season, and should be transplanted in the following spring before they are a year old. For if the tap root is not cut early it will become so long and strong in good soil that the transplantation is a severe check to the young tree.
When lined out in the nursery they must remain two years longer, in good soil kept clean, after which the best of them should be 2 to 3 feet high and fit to plant out permanently, except where the herbage is long and coarse. They are sometimes left three years, but this is too long, though, where the land they are to go to is good and not too heavy, liberties may be taken with oaks which could not be risked on poor soil. If not planted out at three years they should be transplanted once more in the nursery, and at five or six years old ought to be 4 or 5 feet high, whilst oaks sown in situ in land covered with herbage or weeds will at the same age often be not more than a foot high and much less strong. In the long run, however, those which have never been transplanted will probably pass the others when once they have established a good root system, which in poor soil is a very slow process. Transplanted oaks, if they do not come away with good straight leaders, are best cut down to the ground the second or third spring after they are planted, when their roots are sufficiently established to throw up a strong leader. Some say[1] that this should not be done until the beginning of June when the sap is running strongly, but experiments which I have made seem to prove that April or May is better. Mice are the worst enemies of young seedling oaks, and where they are numerous cause an immense deal of damage by barking and biting them off close to the ground.
- ↑ Hayes states, Planting, 160 (1794), that from long observation he can aver that the root of an oak never produces a growth of finer young wood than when the tree is felled about the first week in June, when the sap is flowing most freely, and refers to Marshall's Minutes of Agriculture and Planting in the Midland Shires of England for evidence in support of this opinion.
