224^ 
ON TREES. 
this, I put a cap of lead over the hole on the high 
branch above, leaving an entrance for the owl, should 
she ever come again ; and I drove two long pieces 
of iron into the bole below the aperture, sufficiently- 
low to form a floor for the owl's apartment, which I 
made with scraps of stone covered with sawdust. 
In the summer of the present year, 18S5, thirty- 
five years from the first operation, I enlarged the 
lowest hole next the walk 4 inches ; and, by the help 
of a little iron shovel, I took from the interior of the 
tree four large wheelbarrows full of decomposed 
w^ood, not unlike 'Coffee grounds in appearance. 
With this substance, there came out some of the 
small scraps of stone, which I had used in making 
the floor for the owVs residence : proof incontest- 
able, that the rain water had gradually destroyed 
the internal texture of the sycamore, from the 
broken branch at the height of 20 feet. The tree, 
though hollow^ as a drum, " or lovers* vows," is now 
perfectly healthy. 
At a little distance from this, is another syca- 
more, once a towering and majestic tree. Some 
fifteen years ago, it put out a fungus, about 25 feet 
from the ground. I saw, by the enormous size of 
the fungus, that the tree must give way ere long. 
In 1826, during a heavy gale of wind, it broke in 
two at the diseased part ; leaving one huge branch, 
which continued to be clothed with rich foliage 
every succeeding season. I built a stonework on 
the remaining part of the trunk, by way of cover- 
ing ; and I made sixteen apartments in it for the 
jackdaws, planting an ivy root at the bottom. In 
