Science and Practice in Farm CultivationBuckman, James
Science
Science and Practice in Farm Cultivation
Buckman, James
Agriculture
At the Linden, the seat of C. W. Bigge, Esq., the trunk of a
magnificent oak was extracted from a peat moss that fills a small
basin or hollow, evidently produced by the stagnation of a stream,
which now passes through it, and which, at some distant period, had
been dammed back by the fall of the trees upon its margins. This
oak was covered by a layer of the peat to the depth of about three
feet, and was discovered by probing the moss. The trunk, with a
small portion of one of the larger limbs, was with great labour and
difficulty dragged from its miry bed. The contents of the portion
recovered contained 545 cubic feet, although the whole of the
sap-wood had perished. The timber was perfectly sound, and the
tree, by whatever accident it had been overthrown, had fallen in
the vigour of its growth. When sawn up, the interior planks were
found of a deep rich brown colour; those nearer the exterior
darker, or approaching to black. A variety of elegant furniture has
been made from the wood; but it has been found necessary, for fine
cabinet-work, to have it cut into veneers, for, when worked in
bulk, it is apt to crack and become warped. Remains of other huge
oaks have also been met with on the banks of the Tyne, the Alne,
and other rivers, as well as in various bogs and morasses; and we
mention these instances to show that in a district where, at the
present day, nothing but recently-planted oak or dwarfish timber
from stock-shoots exists, in former times the monarch of the forest
grew luxuriantly, and attained a splendid development; and also as
an inducement to the planter not to neglect the liberal insertion
of this national tree wherever soil and situation are found
congenial to its growth. In other parts of England, the oak still
grows in all its native magnificence of form and dimensions, and
the remains of those ancient forests, which are chronicled by our
earliest writers, and which, in the time of our Saxon ancestors,
spread over the greater portion of the country, are still to be
traced in the venerable but living relics of enormous oaks, many of
which are supposed to number more than a thousand years.
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