VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 347 



peaches remain green till very late, often till the end of November : 

 young beeches never cast their leaves till spring, till the new 

 leaves sprout and push them off: in the autumn the beechen- 

 leaves turn of a deep chestnut colour. Tall beeches cast their 

 leaves about the end of October. 



SIZE AND GROWTH. 



Mr. Marsham of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me by letter 

 thus : 1 " I became a planter early ; so that an oak which I planted 

 in 1720 is become now, at 1 foot from the earth, 12 feet 6 inches 

 in circumference, and at 14 feet (the half of the timber-length) 

 is 8 feet 2 inches. So if the bark was to be measured as timber, 

 the tree gives 116| feet, buyer's measure. Perhaps you never 

 heard of a larger oak while the planter was living. 1 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. 1 wish I 

 had begun with beeches (my favourite trees as well as yours), I 

 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, 6 feet 3 inches in 

 girth, and with its head spreads a circle of 20 yards diameter. 

 This tree was also dug round, washed, &c." Stratton, 24 July, 

 1790. 



The circumference of trees planted by myself at 1 foot from 

 the ground (1790). 



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

 to be the biggest in this island, at 7 feet from the ground, 

 measures in circumference 34 feet. It has in old times lost 



1 [It will be seen, on comparing this passage with the original in the first letter 

 in the " Marsham and White correspondence," that it is very incorrectly quoted. 

 -Bell.-] 



