LETTER I. 



9 



as the table I am writing at ; and tliey abide to serve 

 to these buds and to the young oak plants that are to 

 come of them next year (as the earth does to the 

 acorns and their produce), the purposes both of a tern- 

 porary soil and of a permanent mechanical support. 



15. Such is my apprehension of a tree, A tree is 

 an aggregate of annual and comparatively small- sized 

 and slender plants, the propagation of which from year 

 to year is effectually provided for by buds ; and the 

 accumulation of which en masse by the living growing 

 as parasites on the dead, necessarily keeps pace with 

 the annual succession of plants. And if what I have 

 stated be a true account of its nature, and of the man- 

 ner of its production, it will of course follow (as was 

 before observed) that a tree is an individual in precisely 

 the same sense as a body corporate ; and that, con- 

 trary indeed to the common opinion, but in perfect 

 consistency with the principle that all living beings 

 are subject to the law of mortality, and have a definite 

 size or bulk of organism, there will be no limit, except 

 from extraneous causes, to the size it may attain, or 

 the number of years it may live. 



16. What is called a Genealogical tree is constructed 

 very exactly on the principle of this theory — or rather, 

 as we must at present consider it, this hypothesis — 

 and serves extremely well so far to make it intelligible. 

 While the personality of each member of the tree is 

 admitted, and his own individual temporary existence, 



