Far otherwise is it with the plantations where the oaks are artificially cultivated for timber.  These are planted close together on purpose to draw each other upwards in the struggle for air and sunlight, which prevents their branching so near the ground as the natural trees, the object being to produce an extended length of straight trunk that will eventually afford a long and regular cut of timber, free from the knots caused by the branches.  All round the plantations Scots-firs are planted as “nurses,” to keep off the rough winds and prevent breakage; these also help to lengthen the trunks by inducing upward development.  As the trees get nearer together they are repeatedly thinned out, and, eventually, only those left which are intended to come to maturity.  Under this artificial, though necessary system, the trees lose all individuality, and they never regain it because they are all more or less controlled when growing, and so become uninteresting copies of each other.

The motto of the natural oak is festina lente, mindful of the proverb, “early maturity means early decay.”  It is well known that oak, slowly and naturally grown on poor soil, is far more durable than that which is run up artificially or produced on rich land.  The branches of oaks rarely cross or damage each other by friction, like those of the beech, they are obstinate and will sooner break in a gale, than give way.  Where an oak and a beech grow side by side, close together, the oak suffers more than the beech, from the dense shade of the latter; and if they are so near as to touch and rub together in the wind, the oak will throw out a plaster or protection of bark, to act as a styptic to the wound in the first place, and eventually as a solid barrier against further aggression.

Paintings of landscape in which trees occur are rarely satisfactory; if you look at children playing beneath timber trees, or passers-by, the first thing that strikes you is the majesty and the height of the tree, as compared with the human figure.  In paintings this is not as a rule expressed; the trees are too insignificant, and the figures too important, so that the range and wealth of tree-life is lost.  Gainsborough’s Market Cart is a notable exception, but the cart is a clumsy affair, and the shafts are much too low both on it and the horse.  Constable’s Valley Farm, The Haywain, The Cornfield, and Dedham Mill are all striking examples of his sense of tree proportion, lending no little to the nobility of his pictures, and speaking eloquently of the reverence man should feel in the presence of Nature, untainted by his own fancied importance.

What is known as “heart of oak” in Worcestershire is called “spine-oak” in the New Forest, and the latter is perhaps the better name of the two as expressive of greater durability.  The outer part of the trunk is called “the sap,” and whilst the heart or spine is almost indestructible, the sap-wood quickly decays, and is rejected in using the timber for any important purpose.  Pieces of the sap adhering to the heart-wood of which the old oak coffers were made, may often be found riddled with worm holes and almost gone to dust, while the remainder of the chest is as sound as the day it was made two or three hundred years ago.