LETTER II. 



23 



character of the seasons, and the circumstances under 

 which the tree has grown, have been. The real diffi- 

 culty lies in this — that we nowhere see or can discover 

 trees presenting indications of their having passed the 

 limits of their natural growth, or lapsed into the state 

 of natural old age. Examine the oldest known tree 

 of any species : take, for example, the tree at Pear- 

 tree Green, in this neighbourhood, the trunk of which 

 is now reduced to a mere band or strip of wood and 

 bark, and which can stand only (or rather, as it does 

 in fact, rechne) by the help of a crutch. You will find 

 that so much of it as yet remains is still extending its 

 roots and lengthening its branches— is still forming 

 new wood and bark ; while, further, the leaves which 

 it sends forth year by year are as large, and the cir- 

 culation of sap through it as vigorous, as in the days 

 of its youth. 



16. But if my theory of trees shall prove a sound 

 one, this and every other difficulty will be obviated. 

 And it will then appear that a book which I have not 

 yet named, the oldest known book extant — the Bible — 

 gives a far more satisfactory answer to our questions 

 than is to be met with in our scientific treatises. " As 

 the days of a tree are the days of my people." * That is 

 to say, the days of a tree are naturally indeterminate 

 — without set limit — in the ordering of Nature ever- 

 lasting. In this lay the significancy and the value 



^ Isaiah Ixv. 22, 



