OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES, 321 



length,) is eight feet two inches. So, if the bark were to be 

 measured as timber, the tree gives one hundred and sixteen 

 and a half feet, buyer's measure. Perhaps you never heard 

 of a larger oak, while the planter was living. I flatter myself 

 that 1 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 ;) 1 might then have seen very large trees of my own 

 raising. But I did not begin with beech till 1741, and then 

 by seed ; so that my largest is now at five feet from the ground, 

 six feet three inches in girth, and, with its head, spreads a 

 circle of twenty yards diameter. This tree was also dug 

 round, washed, &c. Stratton, 24th July, 1790." 



The circumference of trees planted by myself, at one foot 

 from the ground, (1790 :) 



Feet. Inches. 



Oak in . . . 1730 ... 4 5 

 Ash . . - 1730 ... 4 6^ 

 Great fir . . 1751 ... 5 



Greatest beech . 1751 . , . 4 

 Elm . . . 1750 ... 5 3 



Lime . . . '756 ... 5 5 



The great oak in the Holt, which is deemed by Mr Marsham 

 to be the biggest in this island, at seven feet from the ground, 

 measures, in circumference, thirty-four feet. It has, in old 

 times, lost several of its boughs, and is tending to decay. Mr 

 Marsham computes, that, at fourteen feet length, this oak 

 contains one thousand feet of timber. 



It has been the received opinion, that trees grow in height 

 only by their annual upper shoot. But my neighbour, over 

 the way, whose occupation confines him to one spot, assures 

 me, that trees are expanded and raised in the lower parts also. 

 The reason that he gives is this : the point of one of my firs 

 began, for the first time, to peer over an opposite roof at the 

 beginning of summer ; but, before the growing season was 

 over, the whole shoot of the year, and three or four joints of 

 the body beside, became visible to him, as he sits on his form 

 in his shop. According to this supposition, a tree may advance 

 in height considerably, though the summer shoot should be 

 destroyed every year. 



FLOWING OF SAP. If the bough of a vine is cut late in 

 the spring, just before the shoots push out, it will bleed 

 considerably ; but, after the leaf is out, any part may be taken 



