Cato advises the husband-man to reserve 240 bushels of acorns for his oxen, mingled with a like quantity of beans and lupines, and to drench them well.

But in truth they are more proper for swine, and being so made small, will fatten pidgeons, peacocks, turkeys, pheasants and poultry; nay 'tis reported, that some fishes feed on them, especially the tunny, in such places of the coast where trees hang over arms of the sea.

Acorns, _esculus ab esca_ (before the use of wheat-corn was found out) were heretofore the food of men, nay of Jupiter himself, (as well as other productions of the earth) till their luxurious palats were debauched: And even in the Romans time, the custom was in Spain to make a second service of acorns and mast, (as the French now do of marrons and chesnuts) which they likewise used to rost under the embers.
........Fed with the oaken mast The aged trees themselves in years surpass'd.{57:1} And men had indeed hearts of oak; I mean, not so hard, but health, and strength, and liv'd naturally, and with things easily parable and plain.
Blest age o'th' world, just nymph, when man did dwell Under thy shade, whence his provision fell; Sallads the meal, wildings were the dissert: No tree yet learn'd by ill-example, art, With insititious fruit to symbolize, As in an emblem, our adulteries.{58:1} As the sweet poet bespeaks the dryad; and therefore it was not call'd _Quercus_, (as some etymologists fancy'd) because the Pagans (_quaeribantur responsa_) had their oracles under it, but because they sought for acorns: But 'tis in another{58:2} place where I shew you what this acorn was; and even now I am told, that those small young acorns which we find in the stock-doves craws, are a delicious fare, as well as those incomparable salads of young herbs taken out of the maws of partridges at a certain season of the year, which gives them a preparation far exceeding all the art of cookery.

Oaks bear also a knur, full of a cottony matter, of which they anciently made wick for their lamps and candles; and among the _Selectiora Remedia_ of Jo.

Praevotius, there is mention of an oil _e querna glande_ chymically extracted, which he affirms to be of the longest continuance, and least consumptive of any other whatsoever for such lights, _ita ut uncia singulis mensibus vix ab sumatur continuo igne_: The ingenious author of the Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, tells us, that (upon his own experience) a rod of oak of 4, 5, 6 or 8 inches about, being twisted like a with, boil'd in wort, well dry'd, and kept in a little bundle of barley-straw, and then steep'd again in wort, causes it to ferment, and procures yest: The rod should be cut before mid-May, and is frequently us'd in this manner to furnish yest, and being preserv'd, will serve, and produce the same effect many years together; and (as the historian affirms) that he was shew'd a piece of a thick wyth, which had been kept for making ale with for above 20 years, &c.