36 ANNUAL GROWTHS RECORDED ON THE YOUNG BARK. 



19-9: that is to say, in 1853, the branch grew four inches ; 

 in 1854, eight inches and seven lines, &c. &c. These re- 

 sults are obtained by adding together the sum of the 

 growths of the primary and secondary axis, placed oppo- 

 site the years, across the columns, as before. 



"We have therefore, in this Table, the whole history of the 

 annual growths of our beech-branch placed at once before 

 the eye. Now the importance of such tables, as presenting 

 a truthful picture of the growth of trees, is at once appa- 

 rent. Similar tables might be constructed, representing 

 the annual growths made by one of the terminal branches 

 of the horse-chestnut or any other tree ; and provided the 

 measurements and observations were accurately made and 

 registered, the comparison of the tables would show not 

 only the general laws of growth, which were common to 

 all of them, but those peculiar specific laws to which each 

 was subjected, and by the operation of which they were 

 made to differ from each other. 



The history of development is now the watchword of the 

 day in botany ; and it is evident that by a careful construc- 

 tion of tables like the above, from references made to marks 

 which Nature herself has made, we can, by a simple yet 

 most accurate method, study the history of development, 

 and this too in the strongest sense of the word. Such 

 tables give to botanists a view of the past life-changes of 

 the branch or portion of the tree whose biology is thus 

 registered, just as the marks left by Nature in the strata 

 or upturned leaves of the " Stony Volume of Creation," 

 enable the geologist to picture to himself the condition of 

 the earth during the earlier epochs of its formation. 



Of the tree, it may be truly said that THE WHOLE is RE- 

 PRESENTED IN EACH or ITS PARTS. The careful study of its 

 development is, therefore, physiologically speaking, most 

 important, because beautifully illustrative of this grand 

 principle of organic life and form. 



