As regards forest trees we shall, for the most part, confine our remarks to those of the following list, as, although of recent years many new genera and species have been introduced, they are not yet in general cultivation even for ornamental purposes, much less as a source of profit. LIST OF NATIVE OR NATURALIZED FOREST TREES. Oak } Chestnut } Our more common timber trees used Walnut } in buildings, furniture, cooperage, Elm } turnery, &c. Ash } Beech } Birch } Employed in furniture, turnery, &c. Larch } The British Coniferæ are not used Spruce } for timber, except for fencing and Scotch Fir } other common purposes. Poplar } Plane } Mountain Ash } Employed for turnery, picture-frames, Maple } and occasional useful purposes. Lime } CHAPTER XLII. ON THE BRITISH OAK. Whilst the discussion is still pending, of iron against wooden bulwarks, if only for the love we feel towards the “brave old oak,” a few notes upon the forms of this truly national tree can hardly fail to be acceptable. At starting, however, we must bear in mind, that though we have ever looked upon the oak as so thoroughly British that we had almost been brought to think that it was made for the sole glory of our land, yet there are those who would wish to cast a doubt upon its true aboriginal nature, and who, according to their custom, represent everything great as borrowed from the Continent. What says, however, that pleasant discourser on forest trees, Jacob George Strutt, of imperishable sylvan fame:—“In proportion as the oak is valued above all other trees, so is the English oak esteemed above that of any other country, for its particular characteristics of hardness and toughness, qualities which so peculiarly fit it to be the ‘father of ships,’ and which are so admirably expressed in two epithets by that great poet, to whom the book of nature and of the human heart seemed alike laid open:— Thou rather with thy sharp and sulph’rous bolt Splitt’st the _unwedgeable_ and _gnarled_ oak, Than the soft myrtle.”—SHAKESPEARE. Selby again, in his “History of Forest Trees,” a work which should be in the hands of all lovers of the beautiful natural objects of which it treats, describes the finding of some bog oaks, which would almost connect the present race with a fossilized past:—