THE WILLOW TREE. 
269 
lines diverging from a central stem, like a trained fruit- 
tree, by the meanderings of a little insect (ips niger, 
&c.), being the passages of the creatures feeding on 
the wood. 
There is one race of trees, the willow, very common 
about us, that is so universally subject to this pollarding, 
for the purpose of providing stakes and hurdles for the 
farm, that probably few persons have ever seen a willow 
tree. At any rate a sight of one grown unmutilated 
from the root is a rare occurrence. The few that I have 
seen constituted trees of great beauty ; but as the wil- 
low, from the nature of its wood, can never be valuable 
as a timber tree, perhaps by topping it we obtain its 
best services. In the county of Gloucester there are 
several remarkable trees of different species now grow- 
ing, but I am not acquainted with any greater natural 
curiosity of this sort than an uncommonly fine willow 
tree in the meadows on the right of the Spa-house at 
Gloucester. There are two of them ; the species I for- 
get, but one tree is so healthy and finely grown, that it 
deserves every attention, and should be preserved as a 
unique specimen, an example of what magnitude this 
despised race may attain when suffered to proceed in 
its own unrestrained vigor. 
Dec. 30.— A cold foggy morning, the ground covered 
with a white frost ; about twelve o’clock the sun burst 
out with great brilliancy, and life and light succeeded 
to torpor and gloom ; a steam immediately arose from 
our garden beds and plowed lands, giving us a very 
strong example of the rapid manner in which the matter 
of heat (caloric) will at times unite with water. Half 
an hour before, this water was frozen and inert ; but 
the instant that the sun’s rays fell upon it, their heat 
was imbibed, and the icy matter converted into a body 
lighter than the atmosphere by which it was surrounded, 
and passed into it in the vapor we have just noticed. 
I was the more particular in observing this common 
event, as it afforded a forcible illustration of the in- 
visible evaporation which is constantly going forward, 
the unremitting changes in operation, the action and 
reaction of the earth and its products with the atmo- 
X 2 
