this moment living memorials of anti- quity at least as old as the most ancient monuments of human art. How grand and solemn is even the thought of a tree coeval with the pyramids of Egypt and the sculptures of Nineveh, yet still put- ting forth leaves, and inviting the birds to come and ‘ sing among the branches 1’ "Well might the old preacher of Alexandria discern in a tree the terres- trial image of heavenly truth. “The age may be estimated by ascer- taining as nearly as possible the annual rate of increase, then taking the diame- ter of the trunk at about a yard from the ground, and calculating by rule of three. Thus, if in the space of an inch there be an average of five annual layers, a hundred inches will indicate five hun- dred years of life. The latter method requires to be used, however, with ex- treme caution, because of the varying rate of earlier periods of life, trees in- crease much faster than when adult. The oak, for instance, grows most rapidly between its twentieth and thir- tieth years, and when old the annual deposits considerably diminish, so that tke strata are thinner and the rings proportionably closer. Some of the oak become thinner after forty, those of the elm after fifty, those of the yew after sixty. Unless allowance be made for this, and also for the irregular thickness of the layers, which vary with the positions of the tree in regard to the sun, errors are inevitable. There are trees which are altogether destitute of rings. These belong to the class called endogens, of which the noblest and typical form is the palm. Here the sign of age is usually furnished by the scars or stumps of the fallen leaves, which are of prodigious size, few in number, and produced only upon the summit of the lofty, slender, and branch- less trunk. A certain number of new leaves expand every year, and about an equal number of the oldest decay; so that, by taking the total of the scars, and dividing it by the average annual development of new leaves, a tolerable approximation may be come to. But it can rarely be relied upon ; it is a method, indeed, by no means universal- ly practicable, the scars of the fallen TRE 3 93 TRI leaves being very variable In their de- gree of permanence in different species. Of the potential longevity of a tree or plant, a fair estimate may be arrived at from a variety of circumstances. For example, there are relations be- tween the duration of life and the quality of the fruit which plants produce. Those which give tender and juicy fruit, or at all events such trees as do this, are In general shorter-lived than those which yield hard and dry fruit, and these are shorter-lived than such as produce only little seeds. The apple and the pear live shorter lives than nut-trees, which are out-lived in turn by the birch and the elm, as these are by the major part of the coniferae, in which family there is probably not a species that does not flourish for at least a hundred years.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

this moment living memorials of antiquity at least as old as the most ancient monuments of human art. How grand and solemn is even the thought of a tree coeval with the pyramids of Egypt and the sculptures of Nineveh, yet still putting forth leaves, and inviting the birds to come and ‘ sing among the branches 1’ "Well might the old preacher of Alexandria discern in a tree the terrestrial image of heavenly truth. “The age may be estimated by ascertaining as nearly as possible the annual rate of increase, then taking the diameter of the trunk at about a yard from the ground, and calculating by rule of three. Thus, if in the space of an inch there be an average of five annual layers, a hundred inches will indicate five hundred years of life. The latter method requires to be used, however, with extreme caution, because of the varying rate of earlier periods of life, trees increase much faster than when adult. The oak, for instance, grows most rapidly between its twentieth and thirtieth years, and when old the annual deposits considerably diminish, so that the strata are thinner and the rings proportionably closer. Some of the rings of oak become thinner after forty, those of the elm after fifty, those of the yew after sixty. Unless allowance be made for this, and also for the irregular thickness of the layers, which vary with the positions of the tree in regard to the sun, errors are inevitable. There are trees which are altogether destitute of rings. These belong to the class called endogens, of which the noblest and typical form is the palm. Here the sign of age is usually furnished by the scars or stumps of the fallen leaves, which are of prodigious size, few in number, and produced only upon the summit of the lofty, slender, and branchless trunk. A certain number of new leaves expand every year, and about an equal number of the oldest decay; so that, by taking the total of the scars, and dividing it by the average annual development of new leaves, a tolerable approximation may be come to. But it can rarely be relied upon ; it is a method, indeed, by no means universally practicable, the scars of the fallen TRE 3 93 TRI leaves being very variable in their degree of permanence in different species. Of the potential longevity of a tree or plant, a fair estimate may be arrived at from a variety of circumstances. For example, there are relations between the duration of life and the quality of the fruit which plants produce. Those which give tender and juicy fruit, or at all events such trees as do this, are In general shorter-lived than those which yield hard and dry fruit, and these are shorter-lived than such as produce only little seeds. The apple and the pear live shorter lives than nut-trees, which are out-lived in turn by the birch and the elm, as these are by the major part of the coniferae, in which family there is probably not a species that does not flourish for at least a hundred years.

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