OBSERVATIONS ON TIMBER.
The quantity of measurable wood of the various timber trees which a certain extent of adapted ground will carry, when come to full maturity, or when they may be most profitably felled, and the quantity that may be thinned out during the maturing, with the time requisite to bring to value, with the relative selling price per foot, and also whether the greatest quantity of timber can be grown of one kind or mixed, are questions of more importance than might be judged, from the attention paid to the subject. Of our common timber trees, Scots fir, silver fir, and spruce, larch, pinaster, black Italian poplar, Salix alba, commonly called Huntingdon willow, red-wood willow, beech, Spanish chestnut, ash, plane, elm, birch, oak, are here ranked nearly in the order of quantity of measure which adapted ground in this country will produce or support; that is, that an acre of close Scots fir trees, of whatever age, will admeasure more timber than an acre covered with any other tree of the same size; and a close acre of oaks less. A little further south, in the temperate zone, the large-leaved deciduous trees, particularly the {123} elms, acquire thicker and longer stem, in closer order, in a given time. In this country, in rich warm situations, this is visible in some degree, both as regards quantity of timber and quickness of growth, compared with pines. It would be difficult to state the comparative quickness of growth of the various timber trees, as so much depends on soil, situation, and treatment; it also varies considerably at different stages of their growth. It is well known, that in proper soil, black Italian poplar, Salix alba, and red wood willow, exceed all others.
As, for naval use, it is not the quickness of growth and bulk of the timber altogether, but of the matured timber alone, which is of consequence—we give a view of the number of growths or annual circles of sap-wood (the useless part), which the main stems of several kinds of trees presented. Most of those we examined had a greater number of sap-layers near the top than at a few feet above ground, and the vigorous branches had generally more than the stem immediately adjacent to them; the branches with least vigour had fewest sap circles. {124}
| Of Home Growth. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Common oak, some trees | 10, others | 14, others | 18 |
| Spanish chestnut, | 2, | 5, | 6 |
| Scots elm, U. montana, | 16, | 25, | 32 |
| English elm, U. campestris, | 0, | 10, | 0 |
| Red-wood willow, | 8, | 14, | 0 |
| Laburnum, | 3, | 5, | 0 |
| Wild cherry, Prunus cerasus, | 16, | 24, | 0 |
| Black Italian poplar, | 9, | 0, | 0 |
| Scots fir, | 20, | 30, | 40 |
| Pinaster, | 0, | 10, | 0 |
| White larch, free of rot, | 5, | 12, | 18 |
| Of Foreign Growth. | |||
| Memel fir, | 0, | 43, | 0 |
| Red Canadian pine, | 0, | 100, | 0 |
| Yellow Canadian pine, | 38, | 44, | 0 |
The process of maturing in several did not proceed regularly, some of the rings being reddened on one side and remaining white on the other: this did not seem to be influenced by position to south or north. In the larch, particularly in those trees {125} where the rot is incipient, this maturing is very irregular, in the view of the cross section dashing out into angles and irregularities, and being darker red than in the healthy plants: in those where rot had made considerable progress, the red-wood was within a circle or two of the bark. This approach of red-wood to the outside is so regularly connected with rot, that we needed no other indication of the roots being unfit for knees, and therefore not worth grubbing, than merely a slight notch by two cuts of a hatchet.
Those kinds of timber whose matured wood assumes a brown or reddish colour, are generally much less susceptible of change, either by simple putrefaction or by attack of fungi, or gnawing of insects, than those whose matured wood remains of a whitish colour. In many of the latter, there does not even appear to be any particular change of constitution, or greater capability of resisting corruption or insects, between the alburnum and mature wood, although the difference between the two is generally perceptible when the cross section is drying, and immediate, as in the brown or red; there being no gradual change or softening in either between the mature and immature. Although the change in those which become brown and red does not much affect {126} the hardness or strength of the timber (mature and immature being nearly equal in these when dried before corruption injures the latter), yet it materially influences its nature or quality. We have taken down Laburnum trees in the round natural form from the roofing of an old building, from which nearly the whole yellow or sap-wood was eaten away by insects, although they had not made the least impression upon the brown[28]. {127}
Whether timber be more lasting when cut at one time of the season than at another, is not yet determined. The matured wood does not seem to be much affected by the season, continuing nearly equally moist throughout the year; life or action in it, though not quite, being nearly extinct, and little or no circulation remaining; yet the matured wood of the stool of the pine throws out a little resin when the tree is cut down in summer,—perhaps only a mechanical effect of heat and drying. Steeping in water for a considerable time is of far more importance to the duration of timber than any thing depending on the time of the season when it is cut down; steeping causes some acetous {128} change in the timber (easily recognisable by the sense of smelling when any section of it is made), which, judging from the effect the acetous change has to preserve other vegetable matter from putrefaction, is probably of considerable use in preserving the timber from decay, either by rot or worming. The time of cutting, although of considerable importance to the quality and durability of the sap-wood, appears to be of little or none to the matured.
The age at which timber may be cut down being uncertain, the height to which it should be trained up of clear stem is not very determinable,—say that the trees are to be allowed to stand till nearly full grown,—as long as the timber continues to retain its strength and toughness when growing in proper soil, that is for hard-wood trees 100 years and upwards, and for pines from two to three hundred. On crowns of eminences and exposed bluffs, particularly when the latitude or altitude is rather high, the soil inferior, or the climate arid, from 15 to 30 feet of clear hole may be as much as can judiciously be attempted; upon plains under common circumstances, from 30 to 50 feet is an attainable stem; in sheltered dales and valleys, they may be trained clean, and without branch, from 50 to 70 feet in altitude; and in cases where soil, situation, {129} and climate, are all propitious, and it is desired that nature’s fullest, grandest, development should be displayed, from 70 to 150 feet, clear of branch, maybe gained. Lewis and Clarke describe a spruce, in a sheltered dell on the river Columbia, which they measured, lying upon the ground, 312 feet long from root to top. We have little belonging to earth more sublime, or which bears home to man a deeper sense of his bodily insignificance, and puny transient being, than an ancient majestic forest, whose luxuriant foliage on high, seems of itself almost a firmament of verdure, supported on lofty moss-covered columns, and unnumbered branched arches,—a scene equally sublime, whether we view it under the coloured and flickering lights and shadows of the summer eve and morning, resounding to the song of the wild life which harbours there,—or under the scattered beams streaming downward at high noontide when all is still,—or in winter storms, when the wild jarring commotion, the frightful rending and lashing of the straining branches, like the arms of primeval giants, contending in their might, bear accompaniment to the loud roar and bellow of the tempest, forming a drone and chaunter to which demons might dance.
CONCERNING OUR MARINE, &c.
Can we consider the Briton sane who speaks of bounding this country to her home resources? Can any one doubt that our name, our wealth, our power, are not wholly attributable to our Marine? Can any one be ignorant that the superiority of our marine is wholly dependant on our foreign trade, particularly the bulkier part of it, on foreign supply? Does any one dread the necessity of foreign supply, from the foolish fear that it may be cut off by war? Keeping out of view the argument, that ere the British pride would suffer other domination on the waters, our numbers would be well thinned away, they know little of the influence of circumstance on man, who do not perceive that, in the event of free trade, and of the population of Britain increasing beyond what the country, under the best possible culture, could support, the very necessity of being mistress of the seas would make her so. They know little of what Britain is, country and people, who doubt of her continued supremacy, should she not be ruined, indeed, by following the narrow selfish {131} views of a party—a party alike ungrateful[29] for the past, and blind to, or heedless of, their own ultimate good. The position of Britain,—her stretch of sea-coast, serrated with harbours,—her minerals, the principle of mechanical motion, so necessary in the arts,—her navy, docks, canals, roads, implements, and machinery, so superior to those of the whole world beside,—her fertile soil,—her capital,—her protection of property,—her insular situation,—her steady government and consequent ingress of capital from the continent on any commotion,—her habits of industry,—her knowledge of trade,—her sciences,—her arts,—her free press,—her {132} religion[30],—and the stamina and indomitable spirit of her people. All these, causes and effects combined, brought into action under a climate the most favourable for developing the moral and physical energies of man, where the extremes of temperature neither relax nor chill, where the human muscle and human mind are more capable of continued strong exertion, and machinery less influenced by hygrometric and calorific change, than on any other spot of earth. When all these are condensed into a nucleus of power of so small compass that one spirit, one interest, may pervade all, but drawing support by ramifications from every nook of the habitable world, should an infatuated party not render unavailable these unmatched advantages, cowardice could not even dream of peril to the supremacy of British naval power.