358 OBSERVATIONS ON 



height only by their annual upper shoot. But my neigh- 

 bour 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 consider- 

 ably, 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 off without the least 

 inconvenience. So oaks may be barked while the leaf is 

 budding ; but as soon as they are expanded, the bark will 

 no longer part from the wood, because the sap that lubri- 

 cates the bark and makes it part, is evaporated off through 

 the leaves. 



RENOVATION OF LEAVES. 



WHEN oaks are quite stripped of their leaves by chafers, 

 they are clothed again soon after Midsummer with a beautiful 

 foliage ; but beeches, horse-chestnuts, and maples, once 

 defaced by those insects, never recover their beauty again 

 for the whole season. 



ASH-TREES. 



MANY ash-trees bear loads of keys every year, others never 

 seem to bear any at all. The prolific ones are naked of 

 leaves and unsightly; those that are sterile abound in 

 foliage, and carry their verdure a long while, and are 

 pleasing objects. 



BEECH. 



BEECHES love to grow in crowded situations, and will in- 

 sinuate themselves through the thickest covert, so as to 



