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PATTERSON v. M'CAUSLAND. 93
In this case the block here produced, has been cut out so
deep from the trunk of this black oak, as to include, with the bark
and all the newly formed layers of wood, eighteen others which
had been formed when the chop mark was made. Judging from
the appearance of the block, and the segment of the circle formed
by its outside, I should suppose that the tree was about one foot
in diameter, and was at present in a youthful and vigorous state of
vegetation. The block distinctly exhibits the new wood as being
in every way perfectly united over the whole of the chop mark.
Immediately over the chop mark there is much horny wood in
which no concentrical layers are visible; but on one side of the
chop mark, and where the concentrical layers appear to be a per-
fectly natural continuation of those into which the chop mark had
been made, there can be counted no more than twelve additional
concentrical layers. These new layers differ very much in thick-
ness one from another, and altogether measure as much in diameter
as the eighteen which had been previously formed. The whole or
a part of the epidermis, or outside bark through which the chop
mark was made, apparently still remains, with a perfectly formed
new bark so closed over it as to leave nothing more than a scar or
cicatrice where the chop mark had been made.
The witnesses testify, that this chop mark was shewn as having
been made in the year 1791, now thirty-nine years ago, in accord-
ance with which, if the hypothesis that each concentrical layer de-
notes the lapse of a year, be correct, there should have been found
that number of concentrical layers; but there are no more than
twelve; and, consequently, the testimony of the witnesses, or the
evidence derived from this hypothesis must be rejected. There is
nothing whatever, in addition to this hypothesis, to impeach the
credibility of the witnesses.
which is not performed, as it were, behind a screen; the parts which are the prime
movers in every operation, are so minute as to escape our view until they have been
killed for microscopic examination—fixed to the soil, destitute of passions and sen-
sations, the visible expressions of which might lead us to the discovery of their
visible causes—having the whole of its organic mechanism concealed beneath a
skin inert and opaque—we are compelled to trust for all our notions of the manner
in which a plant performs its vital functions, to inductions from data about which,
in many cases, there mast always, from the nature of things, be some kind of un-
certainty. In such circumstances, can we wonder that great diversity of opinion
has existed among physiologists, respecting many of the phenomena of vegetable
We; or that multitudes of erroneous theories have obtained belief almost without
question.'~-Essay on Vegetable Physiology, by Armstrong, Prof., &c, Washington
College, Virginia, chap. 15; The Farmers' Register, by Ruffin, vol 7, No, 7.
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