THE WILLOW TREE. 269 



lines diverging from a central stem, like a trained fruit- 

 tree, by the meanderings of a little insect (ips niger, 

 &c.), being the passages of the creatures feeding on 

 the wood. 



There is one race of trees, the willow, very common 

 about us, that is so universally subject to this pollarding, 

 for the purpose of providing stakes and hurdles for the 

 farm, that probably few persons have ever seen a willow 

 tree. At any rate a sight of one grown unmutilated 

 from the root is a rare occurrence. The few that I have 

 seen constituted trees of great beauty; but as the wil- 

 low, from the nature of its wood, can never be valuable 

 as a timber tree, perhaps by topping it we obtain its 

 best services. In the county of Gloucester there are 

 several remarkable trees of different species now grow- 

 ing, but I am not acquainted with- any greater natural 

 curiosity of this sort than an uncommonly fine willow 

 tree in the meadows on the right of the Spa-house at 

 Gloucester. There are two of them ; the species I for- 

 get, but one tree is so healthy and finely grown, that it 

 deserves every attention, and should be preserved as a 

 unique specimen, an example of what magnitude this 

 despised race may attain when suffered to proceed in 

 its own unrestrained vigor. 



Dec. 30. A cold foggy morning, the ground covered 

 with a white frost ; about twelve o'clock the sun burst 

 out with great brilliancy, and life and light succeeded 

 to torpor and gloom ; a steam immediately arose from 

 our garden beds and plowed lands, giving us a very 

 strong example of the rapid manner in which the matter 

 of heat (caloric) will at times unite with water. Half 

 an hour before, this water was frozen and inert ; but 

 the instant that the sun's rays fell upon it, their heat 

 was imbibed, and the icy matter converted into a body 

 lighter than the atmosphere by which it was surrounded, 

 and passed into it in the vapor we have just noticed. 

 I was the more particular in observing this common 

 event, as it afforded a forcible illustration of the in- 

 visible evaporation which is constantly going forward, 

 the unremitting changes in operation, the action and 

 reaction of the earth and its products with the atmo- 

 X2 



