Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/448

426 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

of the first trees that becomes naked is the walnut; the mulberry, the ash, especially if it bears many keys, and the horse-chestnut come next. All lopped trees, while their heads are young, carry their leaves a long while. Apple-trees and peaches remain green very late, often till the end of November: young beeches never cast their leaves till spring, till the new leaves sprout and push them off; in the autumn the beechen-leaves turn of a deep chestnut colour. Tall beeches cast their leaves about the end of October.—.

Mr. Marsham of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me by letter thus: "I became a planter early; so that an oak which I planted in 1720 is become now, at one foot from the earth, twelve feet six inches in circumference, and at fourteen feet (the half of the timber length) is eight feet two inches. So if the bark was to be measured as timber, the tree gives 116½ feet, buyer's measure. Perhaps you never heard of a larger oak while the planter was living. I flatter myself that I increased the growth by washing the stem, and digging a circle as far as I supposed the roots to extend, and by spreading sawdust, etc., as related in the Phil. Trans. I wish I had begun with beeches (my favourite trees as well as yours), I might then have seen very large trees of my own raising. But I did not begin with beech till 1741, and then by seed; so that my largest is now at five feet from the ground, six feet three inches in girth, and with its head spreads a circle of twenty yards diameter. This tree was also dug round, washed, etc."—Stratton, 24th July, 1790-