OBSERVATIONS ON, VEGETABLES. 
TREES, ORDER OF LOSING THEIR LEAVES. 
ONE of the first trees that becomes naked is the walnut ; the 
mulberry, the ash, especially if it bears many keys, and the horse- 
chestnut come next. All lopped trees, while their heads are young, 
carry their leaves a long while. Apple-trees and peaches remain 
green very late, often till the end of November: young beeches 
never cast their leaves till spring, till the new leaves sprout and 
push them off; in the autumn the beechen-leaves turn of a deep 
chestnut colour. Tall beeches cast their leaves about the end of 
October.— WHITE. 
SIZE AND GROWTH. 
Mr. Marsham * of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me by letter 
thus : “I became a planter early ; so that an oak which I planted 
in 1720 is become now, at one foot from the earth, twelve feet six 
inches in circumference, and at fourteen feet (the half of the timber 
length) is eight feet two inches. So if the bark was to be measured 
as timber, the tree gives 1164 feet, buyer’s measure. Perhaps you 
never heard of a larger oak while the planter was living. I flatter 
myself that I increased the growth by washing the stem, and 
digging a circle as far as I supposed. the roots to extend, and by 
spreading sawdust, &c., as related in the Phil. Trans. I wish 1 had 
begun with beeches (my favourite trees as well as yours), I might 
then have seen very large trees of my own raising. But I did not 
* Robert Marsham, of Stratten Lawless, a country gentleman, contributed several papers 
to the *‘ Philosophical Transactions,”’ chiefly observations upon trees and vegetation. He 
was also the acquaintance of Stillingfleet. 
