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 Novem- 

 ber : 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 1 foot from the earth, 12 

 feet 6 inches in circumference, and at 14 feet (the half of the 

 timber length) is 8 feet 2 inches. So if the bark was to be 

 measured as timber, the tree gives 11 6 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 

 wishing the stem, and digging a circle as far as I supposed 



* [It will be seen, on comparing this passage with the original in the 

 first letter in the " Marsham and White correspondence " in the Second 

 Volume, that it is very incorrectly quoted. T. B.] 



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