Queries and Answers. 465 



energies, that we must first attend to. If we can only keep the leaves in a 

 healthy state, the elaborating processes, however slowly effected by them, will 

 gradually lead to the production of capillary absorbents ; which will supply the 

 slip with the means of extension, and with the power of becoming, like its 

 archetype, great, grand, or beautiful. 



It is very probable that the individual who has proposed these queries 

 may be more competent to answer them than he who now addresses you j 

 if so, I hope he will not only excuse my errors and imperfections, but 

 candidly expose them : and, lest I should have succeeded only so far as to 

 render darkness more visible, I earnestly solicit your more learned and more 

 experienced correspondents to throw some light upon the subject ; for, trifling 

 though it appear to some, I am fully convinced that a proper understanding of 

 phytological science will lead to great improvements in the art of gardening. — 

 Sciential et Justifies Amator. King's Road, Chelsea, June 28. 1834. 



Perpetual Cropping. — In that most excellent work, Conversations on Vege- 

 table Physiology, vol. i. p. 267., it is stated that there is land in the Vale of 

 Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, which is celebrated for growing wheat many 

 years successively, without being manured ; and that near the Carron Iron 

 works, in Stirlingshire, wheat has been raised from the same land above thirty 

 years, without injury either to the crops or to the soil. Believing, as I do, in 

 the doctrine of the exudations of plants, so beautifully explained in the volume 

 quoted, I feel great difficulty in giving faith to the above statements. As you 

 have, no doubt, correspondents in the neighbourhood of both places, some 

 one of them in each would probably oblige me and, no doubt, others of your 

 readers, by examining into the case, and sending you the result. For instance, 

 Mr. Callow (IX. 123.), and the ingenious Peter Mackenzie (IX. 563.).— 

 B.W.Stewart. Shrewsbury, March 10. 1834. 



Planting Oaks a Year or two before the Trees intended to nurse them ; in an- 

 swer to the Rev. W. T. Bree. (p. 295.) — In reply to Mr. Bree's enquiry as to 

 the policy of planting oaks, where they are the principal objects, two or three 

 years before the plantation is filled up with the nurses, I have no doubt that 

 this would answer extremely well; but it would be inconvenient, as it would 

 interfere more or less with the cropping of the land in the interval ; and, 

 without more care than usually characterises those to whom the tillage of 

 land is intrusted, the oaks would, in all probability, be injured. From Mr. 

 Bree's observations, I am inclined to doubt whether he adopts the plan of 

 cutting off the young oaks close to the ground two or more years after plant- 

 ing. If the oak is strong and well rooted when planted, and the nurses are 

 planted small, that is to say, two years after their removal from the seed bed, 

 and the oak planted at the same time is cut off two years afterwards, pro- 

 vided the soil be well adapted to oak, he will find the principal shoot from the 

 stool (the others being pruned away) will very speedily equal the nurses in 

 growth. It is quite surprising how much faster and straighter the oak grows 

 under this treatment. In 1829, a coachman having put his horses to a car- 

 riage in my yard, left them, and they started off; the turn on the road being 

 very short, they got among the opposite shrubs, and, to my annoyance, they 

 broke off* a Lucombe oak close to the ground : it was a handsome shrub, 

 but had made very little growth upwards. The next spring I was surprised 

 to see a fine vigorous shoot from the broken stool. I immediately pared 

 away the broken parts, and applied a composition to protect it from the wet. 

 I have just now measured the tree to the top of last year's shoot, being four 

 years' growth: the height is exactly 12ft. 3 in., and the girth, at a foot from 

 the ground, is just 12 J in. The stem is as straight as a ramrod, with ample 

 branches spreading from the base, after the manner of a fine spruce fir; and, 

 by the end of this season, the stool will be so completely grown over that 

 it would hardly be discovered that the stem was not of one growth from the 

 beginning. I mention this as an accidental illustration of the advantage of 

 the process recommended in this and my former letter. — Charles Lawrence. 

 Cirencester ', July 11. 1834. 



