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lasting friendship. As I do not take in the It. S. T. 11 I will with 
pleasure accept of your present of a copy of y r - Indications of 
Spring. Hoping that your benevolence will pardon the unreason- 
able length of this letter on which I look back with some contrition, 
I remain, with true esteem, Your most humble servant, 
Gil. White. 
Any farther correspondence will be deemed an honour. 
11 Royal Society’s ‘ Transactions,’ — J. E. II. 
LETTER III. 
[Marsham to White.] 
Stratton near Norwich. 
Aug. 31 .- 90 . 
Sir, 
I am much obliged to you for your entertaining 
& instructing letter; & pleased to find that you was acquainted 
with D r Hales : and i believe all men that knew him esteemed him. 
I have had the good fortune to know most of his family. 
Sir, i conclude that you aro right, & that i was mistaken about 
the amours of the toad : but so are my acquaintance also. Frogs 
you know generally leap or jump ; now the people we talk of, only 
walk or creep ; and i thought that i had particularly observed 
their swelled bellies. But if i should live to another Spring, i will 
examine them with more care. — With respect to the measures of 
your Trees, i hope we take them at the same height from the 
Earth viz 5 feet, and then your’s and my Trees aro nearly equal. 
Your Oak, i see, gains about 9 tenths of an inch yearly for 5S 
years, and mine the same in the Grove : but one transplanted 
from that Grove (which was sowed Acorns in 1719,) gains above 14 
tenths, as it was last Autumn 8 F. 3 I. when the largest in y r - 
Grove is but 5 E. 3 I. Such is the benefit of transplanting ! or 
perhaps, to speak honestly, the giving as much room as the Tree 
requires. — T am surprised that your Trees can increase so fast in 
chalky or stony soil. But perhaps your charming Beech of 50 
feet to the head, was not of your own planting. 1 wish i could 
