OF FOREST-TREES. 



215 



(as may be seen in any shoot of the first year,) and after grow thicker, CHAP, 

 being itself absumed, or converted into wood ; as it is certain cartilages 

 or gristles are into bones, (in the bodies of animals,) from which, to 

 sense, they differ even as much as pith from wood. 



These rings or spaces appearing upon transverse section, (as they ap- 

 pear elliptical upon obhque, and straight lines upon direct section,) are 

 no other than the extremities of so many integuments, investing the 

 whole tree, and, perhaps, all the boughs that are of the same age with 

 any of them, or older. 



The growth and augmentation of trees, in all dimensions, is acquired 

 not only by accession of a new integument yearly, but also by the recep- 

 tion of nourishment into the pores and substance of the rest, upon which 

 they also become thicker ; not only those towards the middle, but also 

 the rest, in a thriving tree : yet the principal growth is between the bark 

 and body, by accession of a new integument yearly, as hath been men- 

 tioned ; whence the cutting of the bark of any tree, or bough, round 

 about, will certainly kill it. 



The bark of a tree is distinguished into rings or integuments, no less 

 than the wood, though much smaller or thinner, and therefore not dis- 

 tinguishable, except in the thick barks of great old trees, and toward the 

 inside next the wood ; the outer parts drying and breaking with innu- 

 merable fissures, growing wider and deeper, as the body of the tree 

 grows bigger, and mouldering away on the outside. 



Though it cannot appear, by reason of the continual decay of it, upon 

 the account aforesaid, yet it is probable the bark of a tree hath had suc- 

 cessively as many integuments as the wood ; and that it doth grow by 

 acquisition of a new one yearly on the inside, as the wood doth on the 

 outside ; so that the chief way, and conveyance of nourishment to both 

 the wood and the bark, is between them both. 



The least bud appearing on the body of a tree, doth, as it were, make 

 perforation through the several integuments to the middle, or very near ; 

 which part is, as it were, a root of the bough in the body of the tree, 

 and after becomes a knot, more hard than the other wood : when grown 



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