36 ANNUAL GROWTHS RECORDED ON THE YOUNG BARK. 



eight inches and seven lines, &c., &c. These results are ob- 

 tained by adding together the sum of the growths of the 

 primary and secondary axis, placed opposite 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 apparent. 

 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 regis- 

 tered, just as the marks left by Nature in the strata or up- 

 turned 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 REPRE- 

 SENTED IN EACH OP ITS PARTS. The careful study of its devel- 

 opment is, therefore, physiologically speaking, most impor- 

 tant, because beautifully illustrative of this grand principle 

 of organic life and form. 



