364 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1687' 



4 inches wide. After which it was the same year observed to increase above 

 the hacking very considerably, and to shoot in length of wood, about one foot; 

 the next year it increased considerably, and shot in length about g inches : but 

 the third year it died to the very root. The like was observed in another, part 

 of its bark being eaten oft' by a canker: the lower part stood, without increasing; 

 and by degrees the wood rotted and mortified ; but the upper part increased to 

 the 3d year, when it died also. 



A Scotch fir of 3 years growth, having a ring of the bark cut off, of the 

 breadth of 3 inches, near the bottom of the stem, below the uppermost joint, 

 was observed to grow and shoot out its top, about half a yard; and the parts all 

 about the ring to increase very much in thickness, the same year the section 

 was made, and much more than it would have done if the section had not 

 been made; but all that part of the stock between the said ring and the knot 

 next below it, increased not at all, and that part below the next joint increased 

 somewhat,' though not so much as if the ring of bark had not been cut off. 

 The 2d year it also increased considerably, though not so much as the first ; 

 but the 3d year it died. The usual time for making this section was either in 

 March or the beginning of April. 



Trial was made on some young trees, cutting a heliacal swath of the bark, 

 about half an inch in breadth, by leaving a like heliacal swath of bark to com- 

 municate between the upper and under part. In this trial, the difference of 

 growth succeeded not, but the remaining swath of the bark swelled downwards, 

 and by the end of the year covered the bared part of the wood. It was ob- 

 servable, that as the upper bark grew downwards, so it increased also in thick- 

 ness, whereas the bark below the section thickened not at all. 



He observed also that all, the poplars that had been pruned, died in the great 

 frost, l684 ; so that of 25 that were so ordered, he observed IQ of them killed 

 by li, and the remaining to be very weak, and hardly able to recover, and in- 

 creased very little in the following years. These poplars were about 30 feet 

 high, and had only a small head left at the top unlopped, of about 4 or 5 feet, 

 and were pruned the spring before the great frost. He observed also, that 

 divers of those which had been pruned two summers before the frost were killed 

 by it ; but none of those which had not been pruned at all were hurt by it. 

 He took notice also, both in Lancashire and Cheshire, that trees of 6o feet in 

 height, that had been pruned, and had only a small top left, were also killed 

 by the said frost ; whereas those trees of the same kind and height, which stood 

 near them, but had not been pruned, continued to flourish and suffered no 

 harm. Several of those branches of about an inch diameter, and trees that had 

 been barked round, as above, the spring before the great frost, out-lived the 

 violence of the same, and the preceding winter. 



