296 



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 chestmit colour. Tall beeches cast their 

 leaves about the end of October.* 



SIZE AND GROWTH. 



MR. MARS HAM 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 1 foot from the earth, 12 feet 6 inches 

 in circumference, and at 14 feet (the half of the timber length) 

 is 8 feet 2 inches. So if the bark was to be measured as timber, 

 the tree gives 116 feet, buyer's measure. Perhaps you never 

 heard of a larger oak while the planter was living. I flatter 

 myself that I increased 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 



* Perhaps the weeping willow is the latest of all deciduous trees to shed its leaves, retaining its 

 verdure sometimes even to December ; it is also one of the earliest in spring to push forth, 

 chough from the small size of its leaves it is generally along while becoming green. Of this tree, 

 we have at present only the female sex in this country; the male is more generally seen in Italy, 

 which, at the time of blossoming, is extremely ornamental ; so much so, that 1 cannot but 

 wonder that it has never been imported. ED. 



