orn Briton, is perhaps to sum up
its individuality in a word.

There is one old fellow who throws back his head and roars with
laughter when I go by; what can be the joke? I must stop some day and
look to see if the sides of his rather tight jacket of Lincoln green
moss are really splitting, and perhaps, if I can catch the pitch of
his voice, I shall hear him whisper:

"A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest."

I like to think that these old personalities are transmigrations, and
that each is now at leisure to correct some special mistake in a
previous existence. Perhaps, out there in the moonlight, they tell
their stories to each other, and to the owls I hear at midnight
performing an appropriately weird overture.

These talking oaks can only be found where they have grown from acorns
naturally, and where they have survived the struggle of life against
their enemies, including the interference of man, the attacks of
grazing animals, the blasts of winter and the heavy burden of its
snows. The natural woods, as distinct from the plantations of the New
Forest, offer many examples of these varying trees and the lessons
they convey. Such a piece of old natural forest almost surrounds my
present home, and every time I pass through it I bless the memory of
William the Conqueror. Randolph Caldecott, that prince of illustrators
of rural life, evidently noticed the characteristic attitudes of
trees; look at the sympathetic dejection displayed by the two old
pollard willows in his sketch of the maiden all forlorn, in _The House
that Jack Built_. The maiden has her handkerchief to her eyes, and in
a few masterly strokes one of the trees is depicted with a falling
tear, and the other bent double is hobbling along with a crutch
supporting its withered and tottering frame.

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 to