56 



HOME AND GARDEN 



year or two. Where these evidences of former constric- 

 tion are not very deep or thick, they will in time dis- 

 appear, but if the swelling has grown over the hard 

 rope and entirely shut it in, the python-like shape will 

 probably last for life. 



On some Spanish Chestnuts, with trunks about nine 

 inches through, some young shoots of Honeysuckle are 

 trying to establish themselves. But they are only the 

 size of round leather boot-laces, and I see by dark 

 marks on the Chestnut's smooth, deep olive-green-grey 

 bark, sometimes above and sometimes below the pre- 

 sent placing of the laces, that their position has been 

 shifted by the growth of the tree, which, at its age and 

 strength, has no longer anything to fear. 



The strength of the Woodbine band and its hard- 

 ness are quite surprising, and many a young stem of 

 Oak and Beech, of Birch and Chestnut, gripped by its 

 iron coil, remains maimed and distorted for life. 



In my o^vn copse, within a space of less than half 

 an acre, all these examples occur, and others of young 

 Beeches, some of them good examples of the python 

 coils thrown out by the constricted tree. It would, of 

 course, be easy to relieve the trees of the damaging 

 climber, but it is so interesting to watch the struggle, 

 and to see what comes of it, that in this part of the 

 wood I leave it to do as it will. 



For a long time, seven or eight years as nearly as 

 I can remember, there was one out of the many young 

 Scotch Firs in the upper part of the wood whose then 



