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II. Observations on the supposed Effects of Ivy La <i ina 
Letter to the President. By Humphrey ReptoW, Esq. 
Read. April 17, 1810. 
MY DEAR SIR, | 
From the intimacy that subsisted between us in 
early life, to which I often look back with. peculiar delight, and 
from the knowledge I have of your patient spirit of inquiry in all 
that relates to Natural History, I venture to address to you the 
following remarks concerning Ivy. _ | 
Although I am afraid that. any attempt to remove the long 
established prejudices concerning it, will be deemed chimerical 
by those who have taken up a contrary opinion from theory, to 
that which I deduce from facts and observation, yet I will 
venture to assert, that Ivy is not only less injurious to trees than 
it is generally deemed, but that itis often beneficial, and its 
growth deserves to be encouraged rather than checked, as is too 
often practised in woodland countries. 
I have been led to adopt this opinion during the last two or 
three years, from having observed the timber in some very old 
parks and woods, (as at Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire ; Lang- 
ley in Nottinghamshire, and some others,) where the Ivy had not 
been cut off, and where the timber was in greater perfection 
than at other places in the same neighbourhoods where the Ivy 
had been most cautiously destroyed: and during the winter of 
1808 and 1809, the contrast betwixt the scenery of different 
E 2 places 
