204 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



when the trees were in full connection of all their 

 junctions. 



By referring to illustration A, which represents two 

 coniferous trees (larch) engrafted, or inarched, as 

 it is sometimes called, and the sap ascending and 

 descending, is moving from one tree into the other ; 

 now, if we cut down one of these trees and leave the 

 other standing, this standing tree will perform the part 

 of a nurse, the elaborated sap from the leaves of the 



suppose you were to cut all the roots with a pickaxe 

 and gently lift the stump or root out of the ground, 

 and placed it upon some other object, the stump 

 would grow, provided the leader was not severed or 

 injured. 



Illustration B represents a larch tree growing on 

 Lord Mansfield's estate, Scone Perth, having six of 

 these aftergrowths, all depending for support upon 

 the one tree. Fig. 81 is entirely grown over with 



Fig. 80. — Larch, showing natural engrafting. 



nurse-tree will circulate into and through the root 

 of the felled tree, and consequently not only keep it 

 alive, but will live and make wood just the same as 

 if it had been in full connection of all its parts, leaves, 

 branches, and stem. Certainly, when the nurse-tree 

 is removed, the stump will die. 



Again, the root of the felled stump may, and in 

 many cases will extract sap from the soil and send the 

 same through to- the nurse-tree, although the roots 

 performed no function whatever. For instance, 



the aftergrowth ; they are only partly covered over, 

 while the heart wood of the former tree has entirely 

 disappeared and quite rotten, having a hole quite 

 through. Numerous instances of these growths in all 

 stages have come under my notice when thinning 

 woods ; many instances where close planting produced 

 an aftergrowth which in after years I found nearly en- 

 closed in the future layers of some of the larger roots. 

 These stumps were at one time all trees, having 

 been cut down when about fifteen years old, and were 



