o8S TKAXSACTIONS AND PKOCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. i.vii. 



generally so rude and rougli, had apparently been engaged 

 in the study of forestry for forty or fifty years. Most 

 unfortunately, however, the records, which we cannot doubt 

 that he must have kept, were never published, and all that 

 we know of his work is contained in the letter already 

 mentioned, and in another to the Bishop of Bath and 

 Wells, in the Bhilosophical Transactions for 1777, Vol. 

 67, p. 12. 



In the former letter, besides the measurements of the 

 Cowethorp tree, Mr. Marsham gives the results of ex- 

 periments upon an oak planted by himself in 1720. The 

 size at that time he did not remember, but in the autumn 

 of 1742 it was 2 feet llf inches in giith at about breast- 

 height, and in 1778 it had increased to 7 feet 9 inches. 

 The annual rate, therefore, for the whole period was 1"60 

 inch, and for the last thirty-six years l"o8 inch. This is 

 a very higli rate for an oak, but he explains that it may 

 liave been due to special causes : — " It was taken from very 

 poor land to a tolerable light soil, and stands single ; and 

 perhaps the growth was helped by digging a large circle 

 round it in several winters, and in other years having that 

 circle covered with greasy pond-mud. In some seasons I 

 washed tlie stem ; and the advantage of washing I ex- 

 perienced in 1775, greatly to my satisfaction." 



He then refers for a full accoujit of his washing ex- 

 periments to his letter to the Bisliop of Bath and Wells. 

 In this letter, however, there is nothing about the oak, but 

 he gives the following account, which I liave abridged, of 

 experiments on a beech: — " I'utting in practice Dr. Hale's 

 advice (as to washing) and Evelyn's (as to rul)bing), in 

 spring 1770, as soon as the buds began to swell, I washed 

 my tree from the ground to the beginning of the head, 

 viz., 13 to 14 feet in heiglit ; first with water and a stiff 

 shoe-brush, till the tree was quite clean, then with coarse 

 ilannel, three, four, or five times a week, during the dry 

 time of spring and tlie fore ])ai't of simimer, but after the 

 rains 1 seldom washed." Ihi then gives the comparative 

 girth-increase of the waslied and of an unwashed beech for 

 the season. ]}oth trees were sown in 1741, and trans- 

 planted to a grove in 1740. The washed tree was the 

 largest till 17G7, after which its rival gained upon it, so 



