Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/59

 Rh Kensington gardens, the history of whose experiments is before the public. Under his management many timber trees, become entirely hollow, were filled with new wood, and made to produce fresh and vigorous branches; and pear-trees planted in the time of King William, and become so decayed and knotty as to bear no fruit worth gathering, were by gradual paring away of the old wood and bark, and the application of a composition judiciously contrived to stick close and keep out air and wet, restored to such health and strength as to cover the garden walls with new branches bearing a profusion of fine fruit. These experiments have passed under my own actual observation, and I am happy to bear testimony to the merits of a real lover of useful science, and one of the most honest and disinterested men I ever knew.