115 



is weak, it will be always tedious, of- 

 ten impracticable; so that, ultimately, 

 here, as well as when a stump is too 

 long to be grown over, by any effort 

 which nature can make, we have an 

 appearance, something like that marked 

 B, (PL IV.) being a rotten stump, or the 

 remains of a branch, which must fall off 

 in time, leaving a cavity, the mouth of 

 which is formed, as it were, on pu7'pose to 

 collect moisture, being usually, at leasts 

 twice as wide at the entrance as what was 

 the diameter oftlte stump. And thus na- 

 ture's benign efforts, primarily intended 

 to heal the wounds, are perverted, by ig- 

 norance or inattention, to the worst pur- 

 pose, namely, to accelerate the destruc- 

 tion or the rotting of the trees. 



If then, one single rotten stump may, in 

 time, occasion every part of the tree below 

 it to become hollow, how much sooner 

 must a number of such, situated on dif- 

 ferent paj-ts, expedite the business. Cer- 



