CH. lY. 



MISCELLAXEOUS. 



123 



jectiug spurs of old trees, or what is called the ' s\Yell 

 of the roots.' 



When trees which have spurs are felled by hori- 

 zontal cutting, the annual growths of the spurs are not 

 cut directly across, but diagonally, or slantwise : indeed, 

 sometimes the cut approaches to being lengthwise with 

 the grain. This makes each annual growth appear 

 much larger than it really is, and elicits such expressions 

 as ' How finely the tree was growing at last ! ' or, ' How 

 finely it was growing on this or that side ! ' though, 

 in reality, the growth may have been on the wane. 



Aided by turgescence, the lateral growth in girth- 

 ing of the roots takes place with a force almost resist- 

 less. It will upheave enormous weights, and may 

 frequently be seen to rupture roots crossing the spm's. 

 But the force must be quite resistless to perform the 

 ofiice assigned by the suppoiters of the tap-root. Let 

 us suppose a first-rate oak of 30 ft. in girthing, and 

 100 ft. in height. Let us give this tree, accordmg to 

 the vulgar error, a tap-root equivalent to its stem. 



This is the true Yirgilian creed in regard to the 



tap-root of the sesculus, and may have been the vulgar 



creed in that respect for thousands of years before 



Virgil wrote : — 



-^sctlIus * imprimis, qua3 quantum vertice ad auras 

 -(5]tlierias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit, 



* Modern authorities say that eesculus is the beech ; and, in 

 reference to the eating of the beech mast, they derive the name 

 from esca, as they do the name of fagus from (puyely. But Ovid 

 mentions the sesculus as distinct from the fagus (Met. x. 91). And 



