On Naval Timber and Arboriculture: With Critical Notes on Authors who Have Recently Treated the Subject of Planting

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A. Black, 1831 - Arboriculture - 391 pages
 

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Page 385 - ... of climate — whose figure is best accommodated to health, strength, defence, and support — whose capacities and instincts can best regulate the physical energies to self-advantage according to circumstances, in such immense waste of primary and youthful life — those only come forward to maturity, from the strict ordeal by which nature tests their adaptation to her standard of perfection, and fitness to continue their kind by reproduction.
Page 231 - A celebrated politician used to say he would willingly bring in one bill to make poaching felony, another to encourage the breed of foxes, and a third to revive the decayed amusements of cock-fighting and...
Page 383 - ... of animals to herd and combine with their own kind, would fall into specific groups, these remnants in the course of time moulding and accommodating their being anew to the change of circumstances and to every possible means of subsistence, and the millions of ages of regularity which appear to have followed between the epochs, probably after this accommodation was completed, affording fossil deposit of regular specific character.
Page 384 - The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organised life may, in part, be traced to the extreme fecundity of nature, who, as before stated, has, in all the varieties of her offspring, a prolific power much beyond (in many cases a thousandfold) what is necessary to fill up the vacancies caused by senile decay. As the field of existence is limited and preoccupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited to circumstance individuals who are able to struggle forward to maturity, these inhabiting...
Page 383 - In endeavouring to trace .... the principle of these changes of fashion which have taken place in the domiciles of life the following questions occur : Do they arise from admixture of species nearly allied producing intermediate species ? Are they the diverging ramifications of the living principle under modification of circumstance? or have they resulted from the combined agency of both ? " Is there only one living principle ? Does organized existence, and perhaps all material existence, consist...
Page 262 - ... large a Trunk, and also for furnishing a cover, to shield it from the elements. Thirdly, their superior thickness and induration of Bark is, in like manner, bestowed for the protection of the sap-vessels, that lie immediately under it, and which, without such defence from cold, could not perform their functions. Fourthly, their greater number and variety of Roots are for the double purpose of nourishment and strength ; nourishment to support a mass of such magnitude, and strength to contend with...
Page 386 - ... into the disposition to sport in the progeny, even when there is only one parent, as in many vegetables, and to investigate how much variation is modified by the mind or nervous sensation of the parents, or of the living thing itself during its progress to maturity; how far it depends upon external circumstance, and how far on the will, irritability, and muscular exertion, is open to examination and experiment. In the first place, we ought to investigate its dependency upon the preceding links...
Page 261 - In considering the characteristics of trees above mentioned, we should always bear in mind, that every production of nature is an end to itself, and that every part of it is, at once, end and mean. Of trees in open exposures we find, that their peculiar properties contribute, in a remarkable manner, to their health and prosperity. In the first place, their shortness and greater girth of stem, in contradistinction to others in the interior of woods, are obviously intended to give to the former greater...
Page 382 - When we view the immense calcareous and bituminous formations, principally from the waters and atmosphere, and consider the oxidations and depositions which have taken place, either gradually, or during some of the great convulsions, it appears at least probable, that the liquid elements containing life have varied considerably at different times in composition and weight; that our atmosphere has contained a much greater proportion of carbonic acid or oxygen; and our waters aided by excess of carbonic...
Page 272 - ... of additional particles, throughout its whole extent, at least in its soft and succulent state. The extension of the shoot, as Du Hamel justly remarks, is inversely as its induration, rapid while it remains herbaceous, but slow as it is converted into wood. Hence, moisture and shade are the circumstances of all others the most favourable to elongation, because they prevent induration, or retard...

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