THE TALLOW TREE. This is a remarkable tree, growing in great plenty in China; so called from its producing a substance like tallow, and which serves for the same purpose: it is about the height of a cherry-tree, its leaves in form of a heart, of a deep shining red colour, and its bark very smooth. Its fruit is inclosed in a kind of pod, or cover, like a chesnut, and consists of three round white grains, of the size and form of a small nut, each having its peculiar capsule, and a little stone within. This stone is encompassed with a white pulp, which has all the properties of true tallow, both as to consistence, colour, and even smell, and accordingly the Chinese make their candles of it; which would doubtless be as good s those in Europe, if they knew how to purify their vegetable, as well as we do our animal tallow. All the preparation they give it, is to melt it down, and mix a little oil with it, to make it softer and more pliant. It is true, the candles made of it yield a thicker smoke and a dimmer light than ours; but those defects are owing in a great measure to the wicks, which are not of cotton, but only a little rod of dry light wood, covered with the pith of a rush wound round it; which, being very porous, serves to filtrate the minute parts of the tallow, attracted by the burning stick, and by this means is kept alive. THE PAPER TREE.-The name of this tree is Aouta. It is a mulberry-tree, found at Otaheite, in the South Sea, from which a cloth is manufactured, that is worn by the principal inhabitants. The bark of the trees is stripped off, and deposited to soak in running water; when it is sufficiently softened, the fibres of the inner coat are carefully separated from the rest of the bark; they are then placed in lengths of about eleven or twelve yards, one by the side of another, till they are about a foot broad; and two or three layers are put one upon another. This is done in the evening; and next morning the water is drained off, and the several fibres adhere together in one piece. It is afterwards beaten on a smooth piece of wood with instruments marked lengthways, with small grooves of different degrees of fineness; and by means of this it becomes as thin as muslin. After bleaching it in the air, to whiten it, it is fit for use. Another article worthy of the reader's attention, is the ADANSONIA, ETHIOPIAN SOUR GOURD, MONKEYS' BREAD, or AFRICAN CALABASH TREE.-There is but one known species belonging to this genus, the baobal, which is perhaps the largest production of the whole vegetable kingdom It is a native of Africa. The trunk is not above twelve or fifteen feet high, but from sixty to seventy feet round. The lowest branches extend almost horizontally, and as they are about sixty feet in length, their own weight bends their extremities to the ground, and thus form an hemispherical mass of ver dure of about 120 or 130 feet diameter. The roots extend as far as the branches: that in the middle forms a pivot, which penetrates a great way into the earth; the rest spread near the surface. The flowers are in proportion to the size of the tree, and are followed by an oblong pointed fruit, ten inches long, five or six broad, and covered with a kind of greenish down, under which is a ligneous rind, hard, and almost black, marked with rays, which divide it lengthwise into sides. It is very common in Senegal, and the Cape de Verd islands; and is found 100 leagues up the country, at Gulam, and upon the sea-coast as far as Sierra Leone. The age of this tree is no less remarkable than its enormous size. Mr. Adanson relates, that, in a botanical excursion to the Magdalen Islands, he discovered some calabash-trees, from five to six feet diameter, on the bark of which were engraved, or cut to a considerable depth, a number of European names. Two of these names, which he was at the trouble to repair, were dated, one in the fourteenth, the other in the fifteenth century. The inscribed trees, mentioned by this ingenious Frenchman, had been seen in 1555, almost two centuries before, by Thevet, who mentions them in his relation of his V yage to Terra Antarctia, or Australis. Adanson saw them in 1749. The virtues and uses of this tree and its fruits are various. The negroes of Senegal dry the bark and leaves in the shaded air, and then reduce them to powder, which is of a pretty good green colour. This powder they preserve in bags of linen or cotton, and call it lillo. They use it every day, putting three or four pinches of it into a mess, whatever it happens to be, as we do pepper and salt: but their view is, not to give a relish to their food, but to preserve a perpetual and plentiful perspiration, and to attemper the too great heat of the blood; purposes to which it certainly answers, as several Europeans have proved by repeated experiments; preserving themselves from the epidemic fever, which, in that country, is as fatal to them as the plague, and generally rages during the months of September and October: when the rains have suddenly ceased, the sun exhales the water left by them on the ground, and fills the air with a noxious vapour. M. Adanson, in the critical season, ade a light ptisan of the leaves of the baobal, which he had gathered in the August of the preceding year, and had dried in the shade; and drank constantly about a pint of it every morning, either before or after breakfast, and the same quantity of it every evening, after the heat of the sun began to abate: he also took the same quantity in the middle of the day, but this was only when he felt some symptoms of an approaching fever. By this precaution he preserved himself, during the five years he resided at Senegal, from the diarrhea and fever, which are so fatal there, and which are however, the only diseases of the place; while other officers suffered very severely, only one of them excepted, upon whom M. Adanson prevailed to use this remedy, which for its simplicity was despised by the rest. This ptisan alone prevents that heat of urine which is common in these parts, from the month of July to November, provided the person abstains from wine. The fruit is not less useful than the leaves and the bark. The pulp that envelopes the seeds has an agreeable acid taste, and is eaten for pleasure it is also dried and powdered, and used niedicinally in pestilential fevers, the dysentery, and bloody flux: the dose is a drachm, passed through a fine sieve, taken either in common water, or in an infusion of the plantain. This powder is brought into Europe under the name of terra sigillata Lemnia. The woody bark of the fruit, and the fruit itself, when spoiled, help to supply the negroes with an excellent soap, which they make by drawing a lie from the ashes, and boiling it with palm-oil that begins to be rancid. The trunks of such of these trees as are decayed, the negroes hollow out into burying places for their poets, musicians, and buffoons. Persons of these characters they esteem greatly while they live, supposing them to derive their superior talents from sorcery, or a commerce with demons; but they regard their bodies with horror when dead, and will not give them burial in the usual manner, neither suffering them to be put into the ground, nor thrown into the sea or any river, because they imagine that the water would not then nourish the fish, nor the earth produce its fruits. The bodies shut up in these trunks become dry without rotting, and form a kind of mummies without the help of embalming. The baobal is very distinct from the calabash-tree of America, with which it has been confounded by Father Labat. The following is an account of a REMARKABLE OAK TREE: Behold the oak does young and verdant stand Blackmort. Mr. Gilpin, in his forest scenery, gives the following account of an aged oak: "Close by the gate of the Water-walk, at Magdalen College in Oxford, grew an oak, which perhaps stood there a saplin when Alfred the Great founded the university. This period only includes a space of nine hundred years, which is no great age for an oak. It is a difficult matter indeed to ascertain the age of a tree. The age of a castle or abbey is the object of history: even a common house is recorded by the family that built it. All these objects arrive at maturity in their youth, if I may so speak. But the tree gradually completing its growth, is not worth recording in the early part of its existence it is then only a common tree; and afterwards, when it becomes remarkable for its age, all memory of its youth is lost. This tree, however, can almost produce historical evidence for the age assigned to it." About five hundred years after the time of Alfred, William of Wainfleet, Dr. Stukely tells us, expressly ordered this college to be founded near the great oak; (Itiner. Curios.) and an oak could not, I think, be less than five hundred years of age, to merit that title, together with the honour of fixing the site of a college. When the magnificence of Cardinal Wolsey erected that handsome tower which is so ornamental to the whole building, this tree might probably be in the meridian of its glory; or rather, perhaps it had attained a green old age. But it must have been manifestly in its decline, at that memorable æra, when the tyranny of James gave the fellows of Magdalen so noble an opportunity of withstanding bigotry and superstition. It was afterwards much injured in the time of Charles II, when the present walks were laid out its roots were disturbed; and from that period it declined fast, and became reduced by degrees to little more than a mere trunk. The oldest members of the university can scarcely recollect it in better plight: but the faithful records of history* have handed down its ancient dimensions. It once flung its boughs through a space of sixteen yards on every side from its trunk; and under its magnificent pavilion could have sheltered with ease three thousand men: though in its decayed state, it could, for many years, do little more than shelter some luckless individual, whom the driving shower had overtaken in his evening walk. In the summer of the year 1788, this magnificent ruin fell to the ground, alarming the college with its crashing sound. It then appeared how precariously it had stood for many years. Its grand taproot was decayed; and it had hold of the earth only by two or three roots, of which none was more than a couple of inches in diameter. From a part of its ruins, a chair has been made See Dr. Plot's Hist. of Oxf. ch. vi. sect. 45. for the president of the college, which will long continue its memory. This will be a proper place for introducing the history of SOME OF THE LARGEST TREES NOW GROWING IN ENGLAND. -In Hainault Forest, near Barking in Essex, there is an oak which has attained the enormous bulk of thirty-six feet in circumference. This extraordinary tree has been known for ages by the name of Fairlop. The tradition of the country traces it half way up the Christian æra. Beneath its shade, which overspreads an area of three hundred feet in circuit, an annual fair has long been held on the first Friday in July, and no booth is suffered to be erected beyond the extent of its boughs. At Cromwell Park, near Letbury in Gloucestershire, the seat of Lord Dacre, is a huge chesnut tree, probably as remarkable for antiquity as size; having been mentioned (according to Sir Richard Atkins) in king John's days, six centuries ago, as the wonder of the neighbourhood, and measuring at present, at the foot, fifty-seven feet in circumference. It is supposed to be at least eight hundred years old. In Darley church-yard, near Matlock in Derbyshire, is a yew tree, thirty-three feet in girt. In the church-yard of Aldworth, in Berkshire, is a yew tree, the trunk of which, four feet from the ground, measures nine yards in circumference. It is of considerable height: all recollection of its age is lost. THE SHELTON OAK.-About a mile and a half from Shrewsbury, where the Pool road diverges from that which leads to Oswestry, there stands an ancient decayed oak. There is a tradition, that Owen Glendwr (Glynder) ascended this tree to reconnoitre; and finding that the king was in great force, and that the Earl of Northumberland had not joined his son Hotspur, he fell back to Oswestry, and immediately after the battle of Shrewsbury, retreated precipitately to Wales. This tree is now in a complete state of decay, and hollow, even in the larger ramifications. The following are the dimensions of the Shelton Oak: Girt, at bottom, close to the ground Ditto, 8 feet from ditto Height of the tree ... Vide Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxi. p. 305. ft. in. 44 3 25 1 27 4 41 6 THE BOWTHORPE OAK, situate in the park between Bourne and Stamford "On a fine eminence, of slow ascent, The landscape round stretch'd to a vast extent," |