OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES 



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 color. Tall beeches 

 cast their leaves about the end of October. WHITE. 



SIZE AND GROWTH. Mr. Mar sham of Stratton, near Nor- 

 wich, informs me by letter thus : " I became a planter early ; 

 so that an oak which I planted in 1 720 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 i i6J 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, etc., as related in the " Phil. Trans." I 

 wish I had begun with beeches (my favorite trees as well as 

 yours); I might then have seen very large trees of my own 

 raising. But I did not begin with beech till 1741, and then by 

 seed ; so that my largest is now, at five feet from the ground, 

 six feet three inches in girth, and with its head spreads a cir- 

 cle of twenty yards' diameter. This tree was also dug round, 

 washed, etc." Stratton, July 24^, 1790. 



The circumference of trees planted by myself, at one foot 

 from the ground ( 1 790) : 



