32 SYLVAN WINTER. 



considerable age. All trees, as their age increases, 

 become more subject to accidents, which affect the 

 proportion and symmetry of their forms. A 

 certain brittleness in the wood of the Lime renders 

 this tree peculiarly subject to injury, and hence 

 certain disfigurements are not infrequently 

 noticeable in large and full-grown specimens ; 

 but when it has emerged from the sapling stage 

 to that of the tree, and before it has acquired a 

 stem of more than three feet or so in girth, it is 

 an object of great beauty. Its branches, symme- 

 trically placed around its trunk, are thrown out 

 with a graceful sweep (rising, bending, falling) 

 from all sides. From the branches the abundant 

 spray proceeds in the same symmetrical manner, 

 giving an elegant aspect to the whole tree. In 

 larger trees the bark is more rugged, and some- 

 times a double stem, rising from a junction with 

 the bole commencing within two or three feet from 

 the ground, gives a variation from the normal form 

 of the single trunk. In larger and older trees 

 there is observable a ruggedness both of trunk 

 and of ramification ; and twists and bends and 

 angles are observable both in the large limbs and 



