250 GROWTH OF TREES. 



the wonders of the vegetable ; and that if, therefore, trees were 

 taken care of, they would die only at a very old age. But few of 

 our trees are allowed to gain maturity : we, indeed, use them so 

 shockingly ill, that there is no chance of their reaching to such 

 a time of decay. If noblemen and gentlemen, instead of plant- 

 ing such a number of trees, would lessen the number, and take 

 111 usage of care of those growing — be as saving of them as of their game — 

 •trees. make it -the business of the land steward, or bailiff, or game- 



keeper, to see that no trees are damaged, or allowed to decay 

 before their time — that the unprofitable branches are lopped, 

 the cankered arms cut off, the withered tops curtailed — that the 

 trunk is not allowed to form holes, or to split, without being 

 joined and plastered — that they are, when first growing, cleared, 

 the sun, air, and wind admitted to them (for to this last they 

 owe their being saved from vermin and blights) — But I mean 

 not now to enter on a farther discussion of this matter — my 

 present subject is not the preservation, but the increase of the 

 tree, which strictly examined by the rules, and in the manner I 

 ^ have advised, will, I flatter myself, be found exactly conformable 



to truth, and delineated with as much precision as the diflSculty 

 of the subject will permit. 



I am. Sir, 



Your obliged Servant, 

 AGNES IBBETSON, 

 Description of the Drawings. 

 Drawing to il- ^ ^^^^^ "°^ g*^^ ^^^ drawings, grieved that it is not in my 

 lustrate the power to show them in their natural state ; for to argue from 

 whidf trees ip- ''^"^g specimens at once makes all contradiction impossible, and 

 crease in is as delightful to the teacher as to the instructed. PI. VI, fig. 1, 



growth. ^ -J, (he screw of the beech with the winter bud already formed : 

 it is much magnified, and the three leaf-stalks show the manner 

 in which the old branch shoots in the beech, while fig. 2 is the 

 way the new shoot throws out its leaves ; in the old parts the 

 leaves are in threes or fours j in the new shoot the leaves are 

 always alternate, with a distance of an inch and a half between. 

 Fig. 3 is part of the same branch laid open, with the buds in 

 their cradles, and with the divisions that show completely how 

 they are to shoot at BBB : and CCC, buds more advanced, with 

 the line of life leading to each bud at DDD. Fig. 4 are three 

 screws of the same without the outward marks of the buds 



(that 



X 



