102 



jiositively deteniiined to push upwards towards the Hght, 

 they are negatively permitted to do so, by the removal of 

 any necessity to thicken their trunks, for the sake of greater 

 strength, and to contract the height of them, in order to 

 afford the blast a shorter lever against the roots. But, with 

 trees in an open situation, all this is widely different. There 

 they are freely exposed to the wind, and the large expansion 

 of their branches gives every advantage to the violence of 

 the storm. Nature, accordingly, bestows greater proportional 

 thickness, and less proportional elevation on trees which are 

 isolated, or nearly so ; while their system of root, which, by 

 necessity, is correlatively proportional to their system of top, 

 affords likewise heavier ballast and a stronger anchorage, in 

 order to counteract the greater spread of sail, displayed in 

 the wider expansion of the branches. 



Every individual tree is thus a beautiful system of quali- 

 ties, specially relative to the place which it holds in creation ; 

 of provisions admirably accommodated to the peculiar cir- 

 cumstances of its case. Here every thing is necessary ; 

 nothing is redundant. In the words of a great philosopher, 

 who was an accurate observer of natiue, " Where the neces- 

 sity is obviated, the remedy, by consequence, is withdrawn."* 

 If these facts and reasonings be correctly stated, the only 

 rational theory of the removal of large trees consists, in 

 prospectively maintaining the same harmony between the 

 existing provisions of the tree, and the exigencies of its new 

 situation, as had previously subsisted between its relative 

 properties, and the circumstances of its former site. That 

 such is the only rule, founded on the principles of vegetation, 

 that can apply to all circumstances, and all situations, there 

 cannot be a doubt. But, lest the foregoing reasonings should 

 seem rather abstract and general, I will, in order to reduce 

 theory to practice, attempt a more popular detail, and descend 



* Note VI. 



