224 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 



