We have now brought before the reader a pretty fair picture of the Forestry of the present day. Some may wonder that the written science of arboriculture should be so imperfect and inaccurate; but the knowledge of the art, and the power of communicating that knowledge, are of so different a {359} character, it not unfrequently happens, that those write who cannot act, and those who can, are incompetent to write—sometimes unwilling; besides, correct opinions on this subject, as on most others, are only just beginning to be formed. We have endeavoured to assist in disentangling the correct from the erroneous. It is impossible for the most wary always to avoid misconception of facts, but man merits the name of rational only, when he evinces a readiness to break from those misconceptions, to which the narrow-minded, the proud, the vain, and the creature of habit and instinct, cling so obstinately. As a friend, we have stood on no ceremony with our brother arboriculturists. We have laid ourselves open to their criticism, and we hope they will shew as little ceremony with us.
NOTES TO PART IV.
- [36]. This repetition of our directions on pruning is intentional—“Carthago est delenda.”
- [37]. The coniferæ have a weaker or more connected vitality than most other trees—the whole individual participating in the injury of any part. Perhaps this arises from the liability of resinous juice to putrescency—any putrid affection in one spot of the more vital part of the tree spreading quickly over the whole.
- [38]. Transplanting having an opposite influence on the young of herbaceous and woody vegetables, in the former when not already rising into stem, retarding, and the latter accelerating or furthering development of the reproductory parts, is a good lesson to reasoners from analogy. The root-fractured herbaceous plants repairing the injury almost immediately, and before the rudiments of the reproductory parts have time for expansion, the greater quantity of moist nourishment afforded by the unsought newly stirred soil, produces a flush of radical leaves, which react to further the extension of the roots. The new rootlets have again more connexion to promote the growth of the radical leaves, and to induce offsets—tillering—from the sides of the bulb, than to nourish or mature the core part, from whence the stem arises—a certain comparative extension and maturity of the core being necessary to the rising of the stem. Thence seeding can be retarded, and life in annuals be continued, ad libitum. On the contrary, in woody vegetables of perennial stem, the reparation of the root-injury takes place slowly, and the evaporation from the stem and elevated branches and leaves exhausting the little moisture afforded by the inadequate root-suction during an entire season, gives time and bias for the germs to pass into reproductory instead of productory organs even the first season.
- [39]. We rather think Mr Sang mentions this.
- [40]. They say a better management has lately been established. This may be followed for a short time in the high stream of the agitation, or while the present heads of management remain in power; but the system, we fear, contains the seeds of evil, which, like the weeds, will soon overwhelm the alien good.
- [41]. The inferior growth of the part of a hedge which was pruned before the vegetation had begun, may be ascribed to the vital action having been checked at the commencement by the destruction of the buds necessary to stimulate this action; and being deprived of this first strong impulse, life had remained languid throughout the season, the roots never recovering their proper suction or foraging power;—when the pruning was later, a sufficient stimulus had already been given.
- [42]. Vide Sir Walter Scott.
- [43]. The want of the annual layers of cellular tissue of wood, exterior to and separating the annual lineal tubes, is so complete in some cases of slow growth, that the timber seems only a light congeries of tubes, without arrangement; hence the age of the tree cannot be determined but by a section of the root-bulb, where the growths are larger, and the deposits regular.
- [44]. The climate of a country in regard to annual steadiness, can be pretty accurately determined by the appearance of the annual layers of trees, especially of the pine tribe; and in a new settlement where great difference of size of layer, and of resinous deposit is observed, we may be pretty certain the seasons are not steady, or that insect depredations or blights occur; and a reserve of food ought always to be retained. By careful inspection of the nature of the annual wood deposit, or of the locality with regard to moisture, it may be ascertained, whether the irregularity has been owing to difference of temperature, or of moisture. In warm climates the irregularity will generally depend on drought and moisture, and in cold climates on heat and cold; though sometimes the depredations of insects, such as locusts, or of blights, may be the cause.
- [45]. Though we give this experiment, we admit that little dependence can be placed upon a single fact. The trees must have been different in variety, and probably in sex, both of which may occasion a discrepancy.
- [46]. The time the weight is in suspension, must be attended to. A beam will support a much greater weight during a minute than during an hour; and two beams may be found, the one capable of supporting the greatest weight during a minute, and the other the greatest during an hour.
- [47]. We shall not here introduce the interminable discussion of dry-rot, as it remains to be proved that moderately fast grown young timber is at all more liable to dry-rot than small-growthed old, provided the sap-wood be entirely removed.
- [48]. In fairness, it may be proper to explain, that the greater part of the trees we have thus cultivated have been of Pyrus, although we commenced the practice with common forest trees—yet the pear and apple vary nothing from the oak and ash in the primary stage of life, in as far as respects the extension—we can also profit fully as much by raising apple timber of proper fast grown variety, as by any other timber; and have it in our power to sell this timber to machine-makers at double the price of oak of the same size.
- [49]. We think Sir Henry would find some of the failures of which he owns he cannot well ascertain the cause, but occurring especially in beech and oak, to be owing to a number of the lower roots, which are by far the tenderest, being bruised by the weight of the tree itself, when he turns it repeatedly over from the one side to the other, in order, by throwing in earth beneath it, to raise the root on a level with the surface of the field, the whole weight of the incumbent mass resting upon these soft roots. The oak, and still more the beech, are exceedingly susceptible to injury from cutting or bruises, and die far inward from the laceration. The wounded lower roots, especially when any vacuity is left not filled close in with earth, where mouldiness might generate in a dry situation, or when soaking in moisture for a part of the season, will become corrupted; the putrefaction thence gradually extending upward into the bulb, will contaminate the whole, and the second or third year after planting, the tree will be dead.
- [50]. We understand freezing the earth around the bulb is an old practice.
- [51]. We particularize the oak, cork-tree of arid warm Spain, and much of the timber of New Holland. Owing to the hot parching air in the latter place, the epidermis becomes dried to such a degree, that contracting by the drought, and bursting by the swelling of the enveloped stem, it peels off like the old skin of a serpent, and is often seen hanging upon the tree in large shreds like tattered garments. In several kinds of trees, we have counted regular annual rings of desiccated bark; in some kinds this appeared a growth or deposition, in others, mere parched exuviæ. Trees attain some age before the exuviæ commence; the deposit begins the first season, even in sheltered situations. The cork-tree, and the small-leaved elm, shew the greatest annual deposit of dry bark. The former does, and the latter is said to belong to warm arid countries; both form a better nonconductor of heat than any other dry bark we are acquainted with—infinitely better than the bark exuviæ of trees which approach the polar regions.
- [52]. We do not pretend to explain how it is, that one kind of climbing plant follows the sun in its convolutions, and another traverses his course. There surely cannot be any thing in a habit acquired in the southern hemisphere.
- [53]. In proceeding further on in Sir Henry’s volume, we have noticed an excellent observation quoted from Du Hamel: “The extension of the shoot 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 it.” Although quoting this, Sir Henry recurs to his old opinions, and proceeds to observe, “Trees so circumstanced, push upward to the light; and from the warmth which their situation affords, their stems being thin and slender in proportion to their height, they are destitute of strength to resist the winds.”
- [54]. We do not mention temperature, because we are not in possession of facts sufficient to lead us to form an opinion on the subject. Judging from animal analogy, of which our author is so fond, we notice, that those animals exposed in open atmosphere, have generally warmer blood than those who lurk in holes,—even than those of the same species who happen to live under shelter. Now evaporation takes place from animals as well as from vegetables, and the consequent cold is more than balanced by the heat of what may be termed the vital fire, which, like most other fires, burns brightest on exposure to a current of atmospheric air, being increased either by the result of the new chemical combinations having less capacity for heat, or by the stimulus of the fresh moving air exciting the vital action. Of the general influence of close forest on temperature, we are also not very well assured; but the few facts which observation has afforded, lead to the opinion, that to the northward of 50 deg. Lat. forests have higher temperature than bare country; that from about 50 to 30 degrees Lat. forests are cooler in winter and warmer in summer; and that nearer the equator, forests are generally cooler than bare country. But the temperature is regulated so much by the position of seas and lakes, in combination with the prevailing currents and strength of currents of the air—by the configuration of the country,—moisture and cloudiness of the atmosphere and quantity of rain,—by the composition, arrangement, and colour of the soil,—by the lower vegetable cover, and even by the nature of the forest itself, whether deciduous or evergreen, that particular facts must be very carefully weighed to enable us to reach general conclusions. It is generally understood, that forests render the climate moister.
- [55]. Our experiments have not yet been carried so far, as to determine if, by any arrangement of drying or exposure, they may be seasoned to sustain intense frost, which may affect them differently from moderate frost, either by causing complete congelation of all their structure (moderate freezing appearing only to congeal their fluids, but not entirely the containing vessel, at least only partly congealing the mass), or by killing the vital principle itself through nervous affection. The potatoes became green from the exposure to the light, and we rather think acquired greater hardihood of constitution, or greater vitality or excitability by the exposure, thence greater power to resist the cold, independent of the disposition they acquired by desiccation to endure it.
- [56]. Is the rending of the stems of trees, during intense frost, internal only, and occasioned by the alburnum expanding more by congelation than the drier mature wood? or, is it external, and caused by the contractile effect of the dry air and cold on the alburnum rendering it insufficient to surround the mature wood, which, from dryness and want of living susceptibility, may not contract so much.
- [57]. The fineness of vessel or fibre of the Siberian crab, may be induced by the arid warm air, the continued radiation of heat and light upon the portion above ground, and the coldness of the ground around the roots during the short summer in Siberia, where the air and surface of the ground is warm, and vegetation progressive, while the ground remains frozen at a small depth. Like all varieties of plants habituated to colder climate, the Siberian crab developes its leaves under less heat than varieties of the same kind which have been habituated to milder climate.
- [58]. We have not taken Sir Henry in the literal sense. Timber is well known to decay sooner in a warm than in a cold country, cæteris paribus.
- [59]. See Appendix F.
- [60]. The preliminary sentence is very vaguely worded; we suppose, “increasing the annual circles,” means increasing them in thickness, not general contents of length multiplied by thickness. But even in the latter sense, we hold pruning tends generally to diminish the annual circles.
- [61]. It is a theory of Mr Sheriff, Mungo’s Wells, that all plants have excrementitious deposit from the roots, the deposit from one kind affording a good manure to another kind. Thence the advantage of mixed grasses and legumes in pastures, and of the rotation of different kinds of crops.
- [62]. Vegetable soil is sometimes buried deep under volcanic mud, sand, and ashes, or mixed with the subsoil by earthquakes. In some districts of South America, the country, from being fertile, has been recently reduced to sterility, by the vegetable mould being so much scattered through the subsoil by repeated upheavings and tossings about by earthquakes, as to be out of the reach of plants.
- [63]. There is a deposition from the atmosphere of saline matter going on at the surface of the earth, either evaporated from the ocean, and falling with the rain and dews, or formed by gaseous combinations—most probably both. In countries where the quantity of rain is insufficient to wash this saline accumulation away into the ocean as fast as it is formed, it increases to such a degree as almost to prevent vegetation, only a few of what are termed saline plants appearing. This saline accumulation in warm dry countries, bears considerable analogy to tannin deposit in cold countries.
- [64]. The matured timber of the larch, in some cases, remains for a considerable time stained before the rot proceeds rapidly; in other cases, the rot makes quick progress; in this rapid decomposition, certain kinds of fungi assist greatly. When once seated, they seem to form a putrid atmosphere or tainted circle around them, either by their living exhalations, or corrupt emanations when dead, which is poisonous to the less vital parts of superior life, and also expedites the commencement of decay in sound dead organic matter, such as timber, thus furthering the decomposition so far as to render it suitable food for their foul appetite, and paving the way to their further progress.
- How their seeds enter into the heart of a growing tree having no external rottenness, is not very obvious, unless they are inhaled or imbibed by the root tendrils: from the resemblance which the growth of some of them has to fermentation, it is not even very improbable that the animalcules of supposed molecular or inferior life, have, of themselves, a disposition to unite into some of these aggregates without the presence of any disposing germ.
- The modifications of material attractions, by the varied germs of superior life—the fixity of some of these deposites after life is gone—the resolution of these into inferior animalcular, or even molecular, life—and the instrumentality of zoophytes of the lower order of organization, in hastening this decomposition by the balancing of the attractions of this secondary life, afford a wide field for investigation. Those uncouth sportings of nature quickly appear and disappear as material spectres, feeding on corruption, and mocking at primary life.
- [65]. We have raised crops among young trees (as well timber as fruit trees), not four yards apart, by plough culture, and have found the process, after the ploughmen and horses were accustomed to it, not much more expensive than common cultivation, and the crop, till the trees became too close, scarcely inferior. By means of a long muzzle to the plough standing out towards the left side, and a driver to the horses beside the ploughman, we succeeded in getting the two first furrows lapped a little over each other in the row of trees, where the gathering of the ridge commenced (we gathered up at every other row). In the row of trees where the finishing of the ploughing of the ridge occurred, we were obliged to leave a stripe of ground about two feet wide, to be dug by the spade. The horses required to be yoked in file, and to drag by ropes (traces) rather than by chains, as the bark of the trees was liable to be rubbed off by the latter. The more to guard against rubbing, we had the swingletree constructed so that the trace-ropes came out from a hole in the ends, without any hook. In harrowing the ground, one man is required to lead the horses, and another to direct the harrows. In rich soil, under cultivation of green crop, in this manner, trees progress very rapidly, and from the open arrangement acquire very healthy constitutions. Of course, when not coniferæ, the plants require a little more attention to train to one leader and equality of feeders, than when close planted. We should consider plough cultivation of young woods, provided ploughmen as expert and careful as the Scots could be obtained, much more worthy the attention of the English planter than the Withers’ system (trenching). Need we mention, that in green crop, every thing depends upon plenty of manure and of well-timed plough and horse hoe labour? Excepting in the case of larch, we should dread no injury to the trees or timber from plenty of manure.
- [66]. We are indebted to our friend Mr Gorrie, Annat Garden, for the fact, that English acorns throw up a much more luxuriant stem than the Scots; they forming a step of several inches when planted next each other in the nursery line. We should consider this to arise from the largeness of the rudiments of the plant, and greater quantity of garnered nourishment in the English acorns, which are nearly double the size of the Scots, our present climate being insufficient for the proper development. This leads to the question, will the greater luxuriance balance any tenderness from want of acclimatizing? Would the oak keep its present locality in Scotland if left to nature? A careful inspection of the most elevated peat mosses in which remains of timber exist, and a comparison of the size of the seeds found there, with that of those of the present day, grown the nearest to this in situation, would resolve the question of refrigeration.
APPENDIX.
NOTE A.
It is only on the Ocean that Universal Empire is practicable—only by means of Navigation that all the world can be subdued or retained under one dominion. On land, the greatest numbers, and quantity of materiel, are unavailable, excepting around the spot where they are produced. The most powerful army is crippled by advancing a few degrees in an enemy’s territory, unless when aided by some catching enthusiasm; its resources get distant—communication is obstructed—subjection does not extend beyond the range of its guns, and it quickly melts away. The impossibility of dominion extending over a great space, when communication is only by land, has often been proved. The rule of Cyrus, or Alexander, the Cæsars, the Tartar conquerors[67], or Bonaparte, did not extend over a tithe of the earth; and we may believe, that, by some of these chiefs, dominion was {364} extended as widely as under land communication could be effected—further than under it could be supported.
On the contrary, when a powerful nation has her warlike strength afloat, and possesses naval superiority, independent of being unassailable herself, every spot of the world, wherever a wave can roll, is accessible to her power and under her control. In a very short time she can throw an irresistible force, unexhausted by marches, and with every resource, upon any hostile point, the point of attack being in her own choice, and unknown to the enemy. In case of her dependent dominions being scattered over the two hemispheres, her means of communication, and consequent power of defending these and supporting authority, are more facile than what exists between the seat of government of any ordinary sized continental kingdom and its provinces. Were a popular system of colonial government adopted, many islands and inferior states would find it their interest to become incorporated as part of the Empire.
NOTE B.
There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every reproductive being the best possibly suited to its condition that its kind, or that organized matter, is susceptible of, which appears intended to model the physical and mental or instinctive powers, to their highest perfection, and to continue them so. This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the {365} fox in his wiles. As Nature, in all her modifications of life, has a power of increase far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by Time’s decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without reproducing—either a prey to their natural devourers, or sinking under disease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place being occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on the means of subsistence. The law of entail, necessary to hereditary nobility, is an outrage on this law of nature which she will not pass unavenged—a law which has the most debasing influence upon the energies of a people, and will sooner or later lead to general subversion, more especially when the executive of a country remains for a considerable time efficient, and no effort is needed on the part of the nobility to protect their own, or no war to draw forth or preserve their powers by exertion. It is all very well, when, in stormy times, the baron has every faculty trained to its utmost ability in keeping his proud crest aloft. How far hereditary nobility, under effective government, has operated to retard “the march of intellect,” and deteriorate the species in modern Europe, is an interesting and important question. We have seen it play its part in France; we see exhibition of its influence throughout the Iberian peninsula, to the utmost degradation of its victims. It has rendered the Italian peninsula, with its islands, a blank in the political map of Europe. Let the panegyrists of hereditary nobility, primogeniture, and entail, say what these countries might not have been {366} but for the baneful influence of this unnatural custom. It is an eastern proverb, that no king is many removes from a shepherd. Most conquerors and founders of dynasties have followed the plough or the flock. Nobility, to be in the highest perfection, like the finer varieties of fruits, independent of having its vigour excited by regular married alliance with wilder stocks, would require stated complete renovation, by selection anew, from among the purest crab. In some places, this renovation would not be so soon requisite as in others, and, judging from facts, we would instance Britain as perhaps the soil where nobility will continue the longest untainted. As we advance nearer to the equator, renovation becomes sooner necessary, excepting at high elevation—in many places, every third generation, at least with the Caucasian breed, although the finest stocks be regularly imported. This renovation is required as well physically as morally.