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 November: 

 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 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 u6j 

 feet, buyer's measure. Perhaps you never heard of a larger 

 oak while the planter was living. I flatter myself that I in- 

 creased the growth by washing the stem, and digging a circle 

 as far as I supposed the roots to extend, and by spreading 

 sawdust, &c., as related in the Phil. Trans. I wish I had 

 begun with beeches (my favourite trees as well as yours), I 



