224 



ON TREES. 



this, I put a cap of lead over the hole on the high 

 branch above, leaving an entrance for the owl^ should 

 she ever come again ; and I drove two long pieces 

 of iron into the bole below the aperture, sufficiently- 

 low to form a floor for the owl's apartment, which I 

 made With scraps of stone covered with sawdust. 

 In the summer of the present year, 1835, thirty- 

 five years from the first operation, I enlarged the 

 lowest hole next the walk 4 inches ; and, by the help 

 of a little iron shovel, I took from the interior of the 

 tree four large wheelbarrows full of decomposed 

 wood, not unlike •coffee grounds in appearance. 

 With this substance, there came out some of the 

 small scraps of stone, which I had used in making 

 the floor for the owl's residence : proof incontest- 

 able, that the rain water had gradually destroyed 

 the internal texture of the sycamore, from the 

 broken branch at the height of 20 feet. The tree, 

 though hollow as a drum, " or lovers' vows," is now 

 perfectly healthy. 



At a little distance from this, is another syca- 

 more, once a towering and majestic tree. Some 

 fifteen years ago, it put out a fungus, about 25 feet 

 from the ground. I saw, by the enormous size of 

 the fungus, that the tree must give way ere long. 

 In 1826, during a heavy gale of wind, it broke in 

 two at the diseased part ; leaving one huge branch, 

 which continued to be clothed v/ith rich foliage 

 every succeeding season. I built a stonework on 

 the remaining part of the trunk, by way of cover- 

 ing ; and I made sixteen apartments in it for the 

 jackdaws, planting an ivy root at the bottom. In 



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