Читать книгу Evenings at Home; Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened - John Aikin - Страница 32

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Tutor—George—Harry.

Tutor.—Come, my boys, let us sit down awhile under yon shady tree. I don’t know how your young legs feel, but mine are almost tired.

Geo. I am not tired, but I am very hot.

Har. And I am hot and very dry, too.

Tut. When you have cooled yourself, you may drink out of that clear brook. In the meantime, we will read a little out of a book I have in my pocket. [They go and sit down at the foot of the tree.]

Har. What an amazing large tree! How wide its branches spread! Pray what tree is it?

Geo. I can tell you that. It is an oak. Don’t you see the acorns?

Tut. Yes, it is an oak—the noblest tree this country produces; not only grand and beautiful to the sight, but of the greatest importance from its uses.

Har. I should like to know something about it?

Tut. Very well; then instead of reading we will sit and talk about oaks. George, who knew the oak by its acorns—should you have known it if there had been none?

Geo. I don’t know; I believe not.

Tut. Observe, then, in the first place, that its bark is very rugged. Then see in what manner it grows: its great arms run out almost horizontally from its trunk, giving the whole tree a sort of round form, and making it spread far on every side. Its branches are also subject to be crooked or kneed. By these marks you might guess at an oak even in winter, when quite bare of leaves. But its leaves afford a surer mark of distinction, since they differ a good deal from those of other English trees, being neither whole and even at the edges, nor yet cut like the teeth of a saw, but rather deeply scolloped, and formed into several rounded divisions. Their colour is a fine deep green. Then the fruit—

Har. Fruit!

Tut. Yes; all kinds of plants have what may properly be called fruit, though we are apt to give that name only to such as are food for man. The fruit of a plant is the seed, with what contains it. This, in the oak, is called an acorn, which is a kind of nut, partly enclosed in a cup.

Geo. Acorn-cups are very pretty things. I have made boats of them, and set them swimming in a basin.

Tut. And if you were no bigger than a fairy, you might use them for drinking cups, as those imaginary little beings are said to do.

Pearly drops of dew we drink,

In acorn-cups filled to the brink.

Har. Are acorns good to eat?

Geo. No; that they are not. I have tried, and did not like them at all.

Tut. In the early ages of man, before he cultivated the earth, but lived upon such wild products as Nature afforded, we are told that acorns made a considerable part of his food; and at this day they are eaten in Spain and Greece, and in some other of the southern countries of Europe. But they are sweeter and better flavoured than ours, and are produced by a different species of oak. The chief use which we make of those which grow in this country is to feed hogs. In those parts of England where oak-woods are common, great herds of swine are kept, which are driven into the woods in autumn, when the acorns fall, and provide for themselves plentifully for two or three months. This, however, is a small part of the praise of the oak. You will be surprised when I tell you that to this tree our country owes its chief glory and security.

Har. Ay! how can that be?

Tut. I don’t know whether in your reading you have ever met with the story, that Athens, a famous city in Greece, consulting the oracle how it might best defend itself against its enemies, was advised to trust to wooden walls.

Har. Wooden walls? that’s odd. I should think stone-walls better; for wooden ones might be set on fire.

Tut. True: but the meaning was, that as Athens was a place of great trade, and its people were skilled in maritime affairs, they ought to trust to their ships. Well, this is the case with Great Britain. As it is an island, it has no need of walls and fortifications, while it possesses ships to keep all enemies at a distance. Now, we have the greatest and finest navy in the world, by which we both defend ourselves, and attack other nations, when they insult us; and this is all built of oak.

Geo. Would no other wood do to build ships?

Tut. None nearly so well, especially for men-of-war; for it is the stoutest and strongest wood we have; and, therefore, best fitted, both to keep sound under water, and to bear the blows and shocks of the waves, and the terrible strokes of cannon-balls. It is a peculiar excellence for this last purpose, that oak is not so liable to splinter or shiver as other woods, so that a ball can pass through it without making a large hole. Did you never hear the old song,

Hearts of oak are our ships, hearts of oak are our men, &c.?

Geo. No.

Tut. It was made at a time when England was more successful in war than had ever before been known, and our success was properly attributed chiefly to our fleet, the great support of which is the British oak so I hope you will look upon oaks with due respect.

Har. Yes; it shall always be my favourite tree.

Tut. Had not Pope reason, when he said, in his Windsor Forest,

“Let India boast her plants, nor envy we

The weeping amber, or the balmy tree,

While by our oaks the precious loads are borne,

And realms commanded which those trees adorn!”

These lines refer to its use as well for merchant-ships as for men-of-war; and, in fact, all our ships are for the most part built either of native or foreign oak.

Geo. Are the masts of ships made of oak?

Tut. No; it would be too heavy. Besides, it would not be easy to find trunks of oak long and straight enough for that purpose. They are made of various sorts of fir or pine, which grow very tall and taper.

Geo. Is oak wood used for anything besides ship-building?

Tut. O yes; it is one of the principal woods of the carpenter, being employed wherever great strength and durability are required. It is used for door and window frames, and the beams that are laid in walls to strengthen them. Floors and staircases are sometimes made with it; and in old houses in the country, which were built when oak was more plentiful than at present, almost all the timber about them was oak. It is also occasionally used for furniture, as tables, chairs, drawers, and bedsteads; though mahogany has now much taken its place for the better sort of goods, and the lighter and softer woods for the cheaper; for the hardness of oak renders it difficult and expensive to work. It is still, however, the chief material used in mill-work, in bridge and water works, for wagon and cart bodies, for threshing-floors, for large casks and tubs, and for the last piece of furniture a man has occasion for. What is that, do you think, George?

Geo. I don’t know.

Har. A coffin.

Tut. So it is.

Har. But why should that be made of such strong wood?

Tut. There can be no other reason than that weak attachment we are apt to have for our bodies when we are done with them, which has made men in various countries desirous of keeping them as long as possible from decay. But I have not yet done with the uses of the oak. Were either of you ever in a tanner’s yard?

Geo. We often go by one at the end of the town; but we dare not go in for fear of the great dog.

Tut. But he is always chained in the daytime.

Har. Yes; but he barks so loud and looks so fierce, that we were afraid he would break his chain.

Tut. I doubt you are a couple of cowards. However, I suppose you came near enough to observe great stacks of bark in the yard.

Geo. O yes; there are several.

Tut. Those are oak-bark, and it is used in tanning the hides.

Har. What does it do to them?

Tut. I’ll tell you. The hide, when taken from the animal, after being steeped in lime and water to get off the hair and grease, is put to soak in a liquor made by steeping oak-bark in water. This liquor is strongly astringent, or binding, and has the property of converting skin into leather. The change which the hide thus undergoes renders it at the same time less liable to decay, and soft and pliable when dry; for raw skins, by drying, acquire nearly the hardness and consistence of horn. Other things are also tanned for the purpose of preserving them, as fishing-nets and boat-sails. This use of the bark of the oak makes it a very valuable commodity; and you may see people in the woods carefully stripping the oaks when cut down, and piling up the bark in heaps.

Geo. I have seen such heaps of bark, but I thought they were only to burn.

Tut. No; they are much too valuable for that. Well, but I have another use of the oak to mention, and that is in dying.

Har. Dying! I wonder what colour it can die?

Tut. Oak sawdust is a principal ingredient in dying fustians. By various mixtures and management it is made to give them all the different shades of drab and brown. Then, all the parts of the oak, like all other astringent vegetables, produce a dark blue or black by the addition of any preparation of iron. The bark is sometimes used in this way for dying black. And did you never see what the boys call an oak-apple?

Geo. Yes; I have gathered them myself.

Tut. Do you know what they are?

Geo. I thought they were the fruit of the oak.

Tut. No; I have told you that the acorns are the fruits. These are excrescences formed by an insect.

Geo. An insect! how can they make such a thing?

Tut. It is a sort of fly, that has the power of piercing the outer skin of the oak boughs, under which it lays its eggs. The part then swells into a kind of ball, and the young insects, when hatched, eat their way out. Well this ball or apple is a pretty strong astringent, and is sometimes used in dying black. But in the warm countries there is a species of oak which bears round excrescences of the same kind, called galls, which become hard, and are the strongest astringents known. They are the principal ingredients in the black dies, and common ink is made with them, together with a substance called green vitriol, or copperas, which contains iron.

I have now told you the chief uses that I can recollect of the oak; and these are so important, that whoever drops an acorn into the ground, and takes proper care of it when it comes up, may be said to be a benefactor to his country. Besides, no sight can be more beautiful and majestic than a fine oak-wood. It is an ornament fit for the habitation of the first nobleman in the land.

Har. I wonder, then, that all rich gentlemen who have ground enough do not cover it with oaks.

Tut. Many of them, especially of late years, have made great plantations of these trees. But all soils do not suit them; and then there is another circumstance which prevents many from being at this trouble and expense, which is the long time an oak takes in growing, so that no person can reasonably expect to profit by those of his own planting. An oak of fifty years is greatly short of its full growth, and they are scarcely arrived at perfection under a century. However, it is our duty to think of posterity as well as ourselves; and they who receive oaks from their ancestors, ought certainly to furnish others to their successors.

Har. Then I think that every one who cuts down an oak should be obliged to plant another.

Tut. Very right—but he should plant two or three for one, for fear of accidents in their growing.

I will now repeat to you some verses describing the oak in its state of full growth, or rather of beginning to decay, with the various animals living upon it—and then we will walk.

“See where yon Oak its awful structure rears,

The massy growth of twice a hundred years;

Survey his rugged trunk with moss o’ergrown,

His lusty arms in rude disorder thrown,

His forking branches wide at distance spread,

And dark’ning half the sky, his lofty head.

A mighty castle, built by Nature’s hands,

Peopled by various living tribes, he stands.

His airy top the clamorous rooks invest,

And crowd the waving boughs with many a nest.

Midway the nimble squirrel builds his bower;

And sharp-billed pies the insect tribes devour

That gnaw beneath the bark their secret ways,

While unperceived the stately pile decays.”