302 SPRING ACTION. 



the first year, the wood and bark were not begun, 

 and the vegetable action is confined to a mere point. 

 Still the exciting of the former oak, so that it shall 

 produce the new one, is a very wonderful matter ; 

 nor is it easy to understand how, or possible to tell 

 why, it takes place. The cause is beyond human 

 scrutiny, but the mode is well worthy of observation. 



When the return of the genial season has brought 

 the tree to a certain degree of heat, it begins to act ; 

 and the longer that the tree stands in the autumn 

 before its ripening of wood is completed, and the 

 leaves are shaken off, the longer must the spring in 

 general advance before the part of the tree above 

 ground comes into action. There are exceptions to 

 that, but they are characters only of peculiar species 



The underground action begins first, and rootlets, 

 which have the same period of action as the leaves, 

 though it begins and ends sooner, are formed to a 

 considerable extent before the tree itself shows any 

 signs of reviving. The rootlets of the former year 

 are not cast off like the leaves, but are converted 

 into "root wood," which, from the circumstance 

 of its being covered from the light, does not contain 

 so much charcoal as the stem and branches. The 

 sap ascends through the vessels of the wood, and in 

 all probability dissolves the peculiar matter which is 

 in the cells, and takes it into the current ; for that 

 matter is soluble in water, and as there is less and 

 less of it in the wood as that gets older, it is prob- 

 able that it is a sort of store prepared towards the end 

 of each season, to assist in the action at the begin- 

 ning of the next. 



As the spring action begins in the lower part of the 

 tree, if any part of the trunk offers more resistance 

 than another, from the bark being tightened or what 

 is called hide-bound, or any other cause, the tree, 

 if it be of a species which puts out lateral buds, is apt 

 to throw out suckers at the roots, or new shoots on 

 the stem and large branches, and these very much 



