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 

 chestnut colour. Tall beeches cast their leaves about the end of 

 October. WHITE. 



SIZE AND GROWTH. 



Mr. Marsham * 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 one foot from the earth, twelve feet six 

 inches in circumference, and at fourteen feet (the half of the timber 

 length) is eight feet two 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 might 

 then have seen very large trees of my own raising. But I did not 



* Robert Marsham, of Straiten Lawless, a country gentleman, contributed several papers 

 to the " Philjsophical Transactions," chiefly observations upon trees and vegetation- He 

 was also the acquaintance of Stillingfleet. 



