4: ON TREES. 
this, I put a cap of lead over the hole on the high 
branch above, leaving an entrance for the owl, should 
she ever come again; and I drove two long pieces 
of iron into the bole below the aperture, sufficiently 
low to form a floor for the owl’s apartment, which I 
made with scraps of stone covered with sawdust. 
In the summer of the present year, 1835, thirty- 
five years from the first operation, I enlarged the 
lowest hole next the walk 4 inches ; and, by the help 
of a little iron shovel, I took from the interior of the 
tree four large wheelbarrows full of decomposed 
wood, not unlike coffee grounds in appearance. 
With this substance, there came out some of the 
small scraps of stone, which I had used in making 
the floor for the owl’s residence: proof incontest- 
able, that the rain water had gradually destroyed 
the internal texture of the sycamore, from the 
broken branch at the height of 20 feet. The tree, 
though hollow as a drum, “or lovers’ vows,” is 
now perfectly healthy. 
At a little distance from this, is another syca- 
more, once a towering and majestic tree. Some 
fifteen years ago, it put out a fungus, about 25 feet 
from the ground. I saw, by the enormous size of 
the fungus, that the tree must give way ere long. 
In 1826, during a heavy gale of wind, it broke in 
two at the diseased part; leaving one huge branch, 
which continued to be clothed with rich foliage 
every succeeding season. I built a stonework on 
the remaining part of the trunk, by way of cover- 
ing; and I made sixteen apartments in it for the 
jackdaws, planting an ivy root at the bottom. In 
