When the building of the first ships of the navy was undertaken, the alarm was sounded that live oak was scarce, and that speculators were buying it to sell to European governments. Congress appropriated large sums of money and bought islands and other lands along the south Atlantic and Gulf coast, where the best live oak grew. In Louisiana alone the government bought 37,000 live oak trees, as well as large numbers in Florida and Georgia. In some instances the land on which the trees stood was bought. Ship carpenters were sent from New England to hew knees for the first vessels of the navy. The story of the troubles and triumphs of the contractors and knee cutters is an interesting one, but too long for even a summary here; suffice it that in due time the vessels were finished. The history of those vessels is almost a history of the early United States navy. Among their first duties when they put to sea was to fight French warships, when this country was about to get into trouble with Napoleon. They then fought the pirates of North Africa, and there one of the ships was burned by its own men to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. “Old Ironsides,” another of the live oak vessels, fought fourteen ships, one at a time, during the war of 1812, and whipped them all. Another of the vessels was less fortunate. It was lost in battle, in which its commander, Lawrence, was killed, whose last words have become historic: “Don’t give up the ship.” Another came down to the Civil war and was sunk in Chesapeake bay. The invention of iron vessels ended the demand for live oak knees. The government held its land where this timber grew for a long time, but finally disposed of most of it. Part of that owned in Florida was recently incorporated in one of the National Forests of that state. Live oak is a tree of striking appearance. It prefers the open, and when of large size its spread of branches often is twice the height of the tree. Its trunk is short, but massy, and of enormous strength; otherwise it could not sustain the great weight of its heavy branches. Some of the largest limbs are nearly two feet in diameter where they leave the trunk, and are fifty feet long, and some are seventy-five feet in length. Probably the only tree in this country with a wider spread of branches is the valley oak of California. The live oak’s trunk is too short for more than one sawlog, and that of moderate length. The largest specimens may be seventy feet high and six or seven feet in diameter, and yet not good for a sixteen-foot log. The enormous roots are of no use now. When land is cleared of this oak, the stumps are left to rot.