ON NAVAL TIMBER.

ON

NAVAL TIMBER

AND

ARBORICULTURE;

WITH CRITICAL NOTES ON AUTHORS WHO HAVE RECENTLY TREATED THE SUBJECT OF

PLANTING.

BY PATRICK MATTHEW.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN; AND ADAM BLACK, EDINBURGH.

MDCCCXXXI.

NEILL & CO. PRINTERS,

Old Fishmarket, Edinburgh.

PREFACE.

It may be thought presumptuous in a person who has never had the curiosity to peruse the British classic authors on planting and timber—EVELYN, HANBURY, MARSHALL, MILLER, PONTEY—to make experiment of the public sufferance. The author does not, however, think any apology necessary; as, if the public lose time unprofitably over his pages, he considers the blame attachable to them, not to him. A writer does not obtrude as a speaker does, but merely places his thoughts within reach.

As the subject, notwithstanding its great importance, might, per se, be felt dry and {vi} insipid by the general reader, accustomed to the luxuries of modern literature, the author has not scrupled to mix with it such collateral matter as he thought might serve to correct the aridity. The very great interest of the question regarding species, variety, habit, has perhaps led him a little too wide.

There is one advantage in taking a subject of this kind, that few professional (literary) critics can meddle with it, further than as regards style and language, without exposing their own ignorance. Yet will the author experience the highest pleasure in being instructed and corrected, wherever his knowledge may be found defective, or when speculation or misconception of facts have led him into error. Knowledge and truth, is mental strength and health; ignorance and error, weakness and {vii} disease: the man who pursues science for its own sake, and not for the pride of possession, will feel more gratitude towards the surgeon who dislodges a cataract from the mind’s eye, than towards the one who repairs the defect of the bodily organ.

GOURDIE-HILL BY ERROL,

Sept. 10, 1830.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

NAVIGATION is of the first importance to the improvement and perfecting of the species, in spreading, by emigration, the superior varieties of man, and diffusing the arts and sciences over the world; in promoting industry, by facilitating the transfer of commodity through numberless channels from where it is not, to where it is required; and in healing the products of those most fertile but unwholesome portions of the earth, to others more congenial to the existence of the varieties of man susceptible of high improvement: Water being the general medium of action,—fluidity or conveyance by water, almost as necessary to civilized life as it is to organic life, in bearing the molecules forward in their vital courses, and in floating the pabulum (the raw material) from the soil through the living canals to the manufactories of assimilized matter, and thence to the points of adaptation. {2}

As civilization progresses under the influence of navigation, and the earth exchanges her straggling hordes of savages for enlightened densely-peopled nations, every climate and country will be more set apart to its appropriate production, and the utility of the great conduit, the OCEAN, will more and more be developed, and become the grand theatre of contested dominion—superiority there being almost synonymous with Universal Empire—dry land only the footstool of the Mistress of the Seas[1].

In the still hour which has followed the cannon roar of our victories, we seem disposed to sleep secure, almost in forgetfulness, that we possess this superiority, that we stand forth the Champion of the World, and must give battle to every aspirant to the possession of the trident sceptre.

As soon as the recent principles of naval motion and new projectiles, conjoined to shot-proof vessels, shall have been brought to use in naval warfare, marine will have acquired a great comparative preponderance over land batteries, and every shore be still more at the mercy of the Lords of Ocean.

When we consider the tendency of luxurious peace, the effeminacy thence flowing in upon many of our wealthier population,—when we view, on the {3} one hand, an entailed aristocracy[2], whose founders had been gradually thrown uppermost in more stirring times, the boldest and the wisest, but whose progeny, “in a calm world” entailed to listless satiety, have little left of hope or fear to awaken in them the dormant energies of their ancestors, or even to preserve these energies from entirely sinking; and, on the other hand, an overflowing population, chained, from the state of society, to incessant toil, the scope of their mental energies narrowed to a few objects from the division of labour, all tending to that mechanical order and tameness incompatible with liberty; thus, perhaps, equally in danger of deteriorating and sinking into caste, both classes yielding to the natural law of restricted adaptation to condition:—when we reflect on this, the conclusion is irresistibly forced upon us, that the periodical return of war is indispensable to the heroic chivalrous character and love of freedom which we have so long maintained, and which (Britain being the first in name and power in the family of nations) must be so influential on the morale of the civilized world. It is by the jar and struggle of the conflict that the baser alloy and rust of our manners and institutions must be removed and rubbed away: it is by the {4} ennobling excitement of danger and of hardship that our generous passions must be cherished, and our youth led to emulate the Roman in patriotic thirst for glory—the Spartan in devotion—their own ancestor, the more daring Scandinavian sea-king or rover[3], in adventurous valour. Without, however, seeking the fight, yet in preparation for the perhaps not distant time, when we shall face another foe, it behoves us, without any sickly sentimentality, to cherish our warlike virtues—above all things to attend to what must constitute “the field of our fame,” Our MARINE, and the material of its construction, Naval Timber.

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION.

PART I. STRUCTURE OF VESSELS.

VESSELS are constructed of wood under two forms, Plank and Timbers; Plank, the out and inside skin of the vessel—Timbers, the ribs or frame which support the plank.

SECTION I. PLANK.

Trees intended for plank ought to be reared in close forest, or protected situation, drawn tall and straight, or what is preferable for a part, with a gentle regular bend, technically sny, Figs. v and x, (next page). It requires to be of clean solid texture, from 12 to 40 feet in length, and at least 8 inches in diameter at small end, or any greater thickness. For the conveniency of transport, oak plank timber is generally squared or planked where grown, and is cut out from 2 1⁄2 to 7 inches in thickness, and from 6 to 18 inches in breadth. Plank is needed of such various dimensions, that any oak tree of clean timber, nearly straight one way, and straight, or with a gentle regular bending, the other, may safely be cut into plank, the section to be in the plane of the {6} curve. Figs. v, x, y, z, represent the most advantageous forms of logs for cutting into plank. The dotted lines shew the section of the saw in planking: the straighter the log is in the plane of the saw, it is the more suitable, as the planks bend sufficiently side-way by steaming; Fig. v, of considerable bend and taper, where the planks, when cut, have a bend edge-way, is the most valuable: this form requires to be very free of knots. In straight planks, Fig. z, cleanness from knots is not such a desideratum.

Figs. z, y, of any length—best long; x, from 25 to 35 feet; v, v, from 12 to 24 feet.

In the above cut, for distinctness, the saw is drawn entering the butt. In practice it enters the top.

When planks are cut out where grown, they are sawn from the round log immediately after it is {7} felled and barked, which not only prevents injury from drought-cracks, but produces also a considerable saving of timber and labour, as the wood is softer when green; and the centre planks can thus be had much broader than after squaring the log. The outer part of the matured or red wood, which is partly cut away in squaring, is also the cleanest for bending. The sap or not sufficiently matured wood, when left on the side of the plank in the vessel, wherever it is not always soaking in water, is only useful to the shipwright, as it decays in two or three years, and demands an expensive repair. When plank timber is squared, it is for the conveniency of carriage and stowage, and where timber is of little value.

Of British trees suited for plank, the most valuable are oak, Spanish chesnut, larch, red wood pine, and sometimes beech[4], elm, plane (Acer pseudo-platanus) under water. As no timber decays under water for a considerable length of time, when put in fresh, unless it be devoured by the sea-worm, beech or any other hard tough wood is nearly equally good as oak for outside plank under light water-mark, provided the timber be hastened out of the bush into the vessel, or be kept in pools, either in log or {8} plank, till used, or be planked, and the plank kept dry under cover. One summer on the ground will generally render a beech log in the bark useless.

DIRECTIONS[5] FOR TRAINING PLANK TIMBER.

Divide all branches into leaders and feeders; leaders, the main or superior shoots which tend to become stems, A, a, a; feeders, the inferior branches, B, b, b, b.

{9}

Should more than one leader appear from the time of planting the tree till it attain the required height for the plank, shorten all but the most promising one down to the condition of feeders, making the section immediately above a twig, preferring one which takes a lateral or horizontal direction. Vide dotted line crossing a, a.

Should any feeder, below the required height, become enlarged beyond its compeers, such as B, reduce it to equality (vide dotted line), or prune it close off, if this should be necessary to the symmetry of the tree.

Cut off, close by the trunk, all shoots which rise at a very acute angle with the main stem, such as C. There is a triple reason for this: they rise up and interfere with the more regular horizontal feeders, tending also to become leaders; they do not form a proper junction with the stem, by reason of the wood, as it swells, not being able to throw up the bark out of the narrow angle; thence the bark of both stem and branch is enclosed in the confined breek, and the wood never unites[6], thence disease is {10} liable to be generated between them, or the branches are subject to be torn down by the wind; and should they ultimately come to be removed, being then of considerable size, and the section from their perpendicular position being partly horizontal, as the sides of the wound swell up, the rain lodges in the centre, and generates rot. These nearly perpendicular branches generally originate from improper pruning, springing out where a large branch has been cut away.

Lop off all branches, which, by taking an irregular direction, incline to rub upon the more regular; also remove all splintered, twisted, and diseased branches.

Do not cut away any of the lower branches (feeders) till they become sickly or dead. By pruning these prematurely, you destroy the fine balance of nature, and throw too much vigour into the top, which in consequence puts forth a number of leaders. You also diminish the growth of the tree by the loss of healthy feeders; the timber of the tree increasing in proportion to the quantity of healthy branches and foliage (the foliage being the stomach and lungs {11} of the plant). You also, by diminishing the number of feeders, increase the comparative size of those remaining, which throws the upper part of the stem into large knots, improper for plank, and renders then future excision dangerous, as large feeders, when circumstance or decay require their removal, or, when they are rifted off by winds or snow, leave wounds which often carry corruption into the core of the tree.

After the tree has acquired a sufficient height of bole for plank, say from 20 to 60 feet, according to circumstance of exposure, climate, &c., and also as many branches above this height as may be thought necessary to carry on advantageously the vital functions, as the superior head will now sustain small injury by being thrown out into large branches and plurality of leaders, (if it be oak it will become more valuable by affording a number of small crooks and knees); it will then be proper, in order to have timber as clean as possible, and regularly flexible, to lop clean off all the branches on the stem as far up as this required height. From the early attention to procure very numerous feeders, and to prevent any from attaining large size, the wounds will very soon be closed over, leaving no external scar, and as little as possible of internal knot or breaking off of {12} fibre. There are many salves, panaceæ, and pigments in use for covering over the section of removed branches, which in ordinary cases may occasion no injury, but they are unsightly. In wounds of beech trees where the cut tubes are so prone to die downward a considerable way into the stem and to generate rot, an antiseptic quickly-drying pigment might be beneficial. This and the time of the season for pruning, at which the cut tubes or fibres are least liable to die inward, deserve attention. We consider the spring the least dangerous time. Should a number of small shoots spring out in consequence of this last pruning, they may be swept down if good plank be desired; if not, they may remain, as their presence will not greatly injure the plank, and they occasion the stem to thicken considerably faster where they grow: yet it is probable that, in doing this, by obstructing the flow of the sap downwards, they may interfere with the natural enlargement of the roots, and ultimately be injurious. Some varieties, or rather some individuals of oak, are much more prone to this sprouting upon the bole after pruning than others; where the disposition exists in a great degree it ought to be encouraged, and the tree set apart for the construction of cabinet work. {13}

This system of pruning—encouraging numerous feeders and one leader while the tree is young, and of allowing or rather inducing the branches, after the tree has acquired sufficient height, to spread out into a horizontal top, is in harmony with, and only humouring the natural disposition of trees, and is therefore both seemly and of easy practice[7]. The perfection of naval forest economy would consist in superadding (according to instructions to be given on training of timbers) a top of which every branch is a valuable bend or knee, though in consequence of the situation the timber will be fragile, and of light porous texture.

In pruning and educating for plank timber, the whole art consists in training the tree as much as possible, and with as little loss of branch as possible, to one leader and numerous feeders, and to the regular cone figure which the pine tribe naturally assumes. This can be best and most easily performed by timely attention—checking every over-luxuriant, overshadowing branch and wayward shoot on its first appearance; so that none of the feeders which spring forth at first may be smothered, till {14} they in turn become lowermost; and by the influence of rather close plantation, which of itself will perform in a natural manner all that we have been teaching by art, and will perform it well. This closeness must, however, be very guardedly employed, and timeously prevented from proceeding too far, otherwise the complete ruin of the forest, by premature decay or winds, may ensue, especially when it consists of pines. Of course all kinds of pines require no other attention than this (well-timed thinning), and to have their sickly moss covered under branches swept clean down.

SECTION II. TIMBERS.

Timbers, as before stated, are the ribs of the vessel, spreading out and upward (excepting at the bow and stern) at right angles to the keel and keelson, two large straight logs which form a double spinal support or backbone. The ribs or compass timbers in great public building establishments are sometimes bent by machinery, after being softened by steam or hot liquids[8]; and for this purpose the {15} cleanest straightest wood is requisite. We, however, do not believe that pieces of great diameter, bent artificially, can have equal strength and resilience as when grown bent—the fibre must in some degree be crippled. We admit that timbers and frames may be built of separate bended pieces of no great thickness, and have all the strength and resilience of natural bend: the strongest and most elastic mode of forming vessels would be to compose them of different layers of plank over each other in diagonal fashion, or at an angle 60°, but the labour and inconveniency of these modes would be great. We will not admit that an experiment between the strength of a piece of coarse cross-grained timber, half naturally bent, half cut out of the solid, and that of a piece of clean timber artificially bent, is any proof on the subject. Let us produce a clean natural bend, exactly fitted to its place, without any section of fibre, and make experiment with it. But at any rate, as this plan (bending of timbers) has never been adopted to any extent in our private building-yards, we must doubt its economy,—either {16} that the practice is of no considerable advantage, or that the requisite machinery is too expensive for private establishments, and conclude that fine bent timber still continues a necessary in the formation of at least our mercantile marine.

Of the very ingenious innovations in the structure of vessels contrived by Sir R. SEPPINGS, by which knees and crooked timber might nearly be superseded, we can only say, the practice is not followed, and, at least in private building-yards, not likely to be so;—that the demand for fine crooked timber, comparatively, is, and will continue to be, as great as ever. Should our war navy, from the introduction of steam impulse and bomb cannon, be reduced to fleets of strong gun-boats, the demand for crooked timber, instead of lessening, will greatly increase,—the building of frames of straight timber being more expensive, and less suitable, in small than in large vessels; and should war occur, in the hurry of the formation of a new war navy under a different principle, the speediest and simplest mode of construction will be followed.

Nearly two-thirds of the timbers of a vessel consist of the curves and bends a, b, c, d, e, f; the other third is of straighter timber, and easily obtained. {17} All timbers require to be straight in one way—in the plane of their side, and the sides generally to be square. The under measures embrace timbers of appropriate size for vessels from 50 to 500 tons register; it is seldom that merchantmen are required under or above this size. Of course, large war-vessels require timbers of larger dimension. The corresponding timbers of vessels of different size are nearly similar figures, and the length of their respective lines not far from being in the ratio of the cube root of the tonnage—a little deeper and thicker in the smaller vessels. When timbers are formed of larch or pine, they require to be a little more in diameter than when of oak. {18}

Fig. a, Flat floor, from 9 1⁄2 to 18 feet long (that is, 9 1⁄2 for a vessel of 50 tons, and 18 for one of 500), and from 9 to 16 inches deep at middle; thickness 1⁄4th less than depth, the diameter increasing in proportion to the length. When fillings such as s are used, flat floors are cut from straight logs.

b, Rising floor shorter, and same depth and thickness as former.

c, c, High rising floors, from 4 to 8 feet in length of wing, and a little deeper, and same thickness as former. From the difficulty of procuring this bend, the wings are often used of unequal length, according as the timber turns out, the shorter wing to exceed 3 feet, and more when of considerable diameter. Floors are of every rise from a to c, being flattest at midships, and rising gradually as they approach the bow and stern. In all timbers, it is necessary, for strength, that the fibre of the wood extend from one end to the other without much cross grain. See lines on high rising floor, c.

d, First foot-hook, from 7 to 13 feet long, and from 7 to 14 inches deep; thickness 1⁄5th less than depth.

e, Second foot-hook, from 6 to 10 feet long, and from 6 to 13 inches deep, thickness 1⁄6th less than depth. This curve, when of great size, is valuable as, breast-hooks—curved timbers stretching horizontally within and at right angles to the bow-timbers, to support the bow.

f, f, f, Knees, the one wing nearly at right angles to the other; from 2 to 9 feet in length of wing; depth at middle as much as possible; thickness from 4 to 12 inches,—generally required about 3 1⁄2 feet in length of wing, and from 6 to 8 inches thick. Knees, when large, suit for high rising floors.

Fig. h is a valuable piece, and easily procured by bending the young plant; when cut, it forms two second foot-hooks.

Figs. a, b, c, d, e, are suitable, though the part cut off by the dotted line be awanting. In good work, this plan is often followed, and a cross-chock put on. (Vid. s, left side of the cross-section of a vessel thus timbered, page [20]). By this {19} mode of building, vessels can be constructed from much straighter timber, and the vessels are superior, from being more elastic; but from the nicety and expense of the work and waste of timber, the practice is not much in use.

{20}

Cross-section of a Vessel at midships—knees not inserted.

A first foot-hook alternates with each floor, and second foot-hook, alongside, extending from o to q; and a top-timber, or third foot-hook, alternates alongside of each second foot-hook, and chock extending from q to a. These timbers are bolted together, and constitute a frame or double rib; and the skeleton is composed of a series of double ribs (several inches separate, of course wider above than lower down, as the timbers decrease in thickness), to within a little of the bow and stern, where the timbers are usually placed singly, without framing. {21} In large vessels a fourth futtock is used; thence straighter timber is suitable.

The knees occupy the position at x, stretching horizontally along the inside of the vessel and end of the beams.

Of British trees, timbers are formed of oak, Spanish chestnut, larch, red-wood pine, red-wood willow (the stags-head ozier, Salix fragilis), and sometimes the broad-leafed elm (Ulmus montana) under water.

In Britain, crooked oak for timbers is found chiefly in hedge-rows and open forests, where the winds, casual injury, or overhanging superior branches, have thrown the tree, while young, from its natural balance; or, by the tree, from open situation, or excision of lower branches, parting early into several leaders, which, in receding from each other, form curves and angular bends. On the Continent of Europe, in the natural forest, it is chiefly the tops of old lofty trees which afford the crooks; in consequence, those we import are, for the most part, of a free, light, insufficient quality[9]. {22}

To procure a sufficiency of excellent crooks, every person who has the charge of young plantations of timber intended for naval purposes, ought, in the more exposed situations not favourable to the growth of plank timber, or timber for bending, when the plants are from 3 to 15 feet high, to mark out the most healthy, suitably formed plants, sufficiently close to fill the ground when of the proper size, say 6 yards apart, and to bend these, as the under figures will illustrate. The dotted portion is the growth after being bent. {23}

The bend of floors requiring to be at the middle, and of angular bend, see [Fig. f], young trees of one-half the required length, should have the earth removed from the bulb of the root, from one or both sides, according to circumstances, and the tree and stool partially upset to windward, that is, generally south-west; (the operator, in effecting this, may be assisted by a strong pronged instrument); then fixed in this inclined position, and the earth filled in. This inclination may be given at planting, when the plants are tall.

The best mode of securing the larger plants in their bent position, is by rods, forked or hooked at one end, the other end nailed to a ground-stake;—the upper end, if forked, firmly tied to the bent plant by mat or straw rope. Smaller plants may be secured to the notched tops of stakes by ligatures; and the smallest, particularly larch, pinned down by small stakes with hooked tops. Advantage may also be taken of an adjacent tree of small value, and which would ultimately be required to be thinned out, to tie the bended standard down to the most convenient part of its top or stem, lopping off all above the ligature, if it interfere with the standard, and barking it near the ground, to prevent much future growth. When the workmen comprehend {24} the required bends, they will fall upon methods of fixing the plants in the most suitable position, better adapted to the locality than any directions can teach. The plants will require to be fixed down at least two years, and bent a little more than what is requisite, as in their after-growth they have generally a tendency to become straighter, from depositing the thickest layers in the hollow of the bend. A fine regular curve may be obtained by bending the plant for several successive years, a little lower every year; this gradual lowering does not so much check the growth of the leader, nor tend so much to cause the feeders upon the upper side to push as leaders. When oaks are bent, great attention must be paid to cut away any ground-shoots, and to cut off or twist down any strong feeders that stand perpendicular on the upper side of the tree; and also for several years afterwards, to look over the trees twice a-year, correcting any exuberant feeder, and destroying root-shoots. The forester ought to keep in mind that his pupils are proverbially pliant, and that, should his growing timber not be of the most valuable and most appropriate figure, he must rank either with the negligent or the incapable.

Ship timbers being generally required of greater depth than thickness, that is, broadest in the plane {25} of the curve, hedge-row is better adapted to growing them than the forest, especially when the trees are close in the row. The bend generally takes place across the row; and the bole of the tree acquires a greater diameter in that direction than in the line of the row. If the figure of the top of a tree be very elliptical in the horizontal plane, the cross section of the bole, instead of being circular, will also be elliptical (cake-grown). The lateral spread of the roots in thick planted rows being greater than the longitudinal, also tends to give elliptic bole, the stem swelling most on the sides where the strongest roots enter, which, of course, always occurs on the sides affording most nourishment. Forests intended for ship timbers might be planted and kept in rows a considerable distance apart, with the plants close in the row, and thus acquire the elliptic bole. This would also facilitate the bending; by being turned a little right and left alternately, they would spontaneously, from the weight of the top, and their inclination to avoid the shade of each other, increase the original bias. Were forests planted in close double rows, the plants thick in the row, with wide avenues or glades between, many of the trees would acquire crooked boles, and the crooked might be retained when thinning. Avenues of this description {26} would form agreeable diversity from the monotonous irregularity of the forest, and be highly picturesque.

Were close triple rows planted with wide glades between, having spruce, larch, birch, or other trees of more rapid growth than the oak in the mid row, and oak in the side rows, the greater part of the oak would be thrown out into fine curves by the overshadowing top of the superior tree. After the oak had received a sufficient side bias, the central row, which of those kinds comes soon to be of value, might be removed.

The easiest way to procure good oak knees is to look out in hedge-row and open forest for plants which divide into two or four leaders, from 3 to 10 feet above ground; and should the leaders not diverge sufficiently, to train them as horizontally as possible for several feet, by rods stretching across the top, or by fixing them down by stakes; see following figures. Figs. a, b, f, are drawn to a smaller scale than c, d; of course, a stem, after dividing, never extends in length below the division.

{27}

When grown, the main stem, either used whole, sawn in two, or quartered, will form one wing of the knee, and the bent branch the other; see figs. c, d. The dotted lines shew the saw section. Particular attention must be paid to prevent oaks from separating into more than four leaders, and also to train up these leaders a considerable height, without allowing them to divide again, retaining always numerous feeders; thus, when the tree acquires size, {28} many valuable crooks g, h, i, will be formed above the knees. It is necessary, however, to guard against training the branches to too great a height, as, when so, they run much risk of being twisted and torn by high winds.

Knees may also be obtained by cropping the top from plants that have side branches similar to f, and training these branches for leaders as above directed. In this case, the section, where the top is cut off, must not be too large, and the branches, either two or four, well knotted to the trunk, or the situation sheltered, otherwise the trunk at the section may be split down by the strain of the wind on the new leaders. Also, in healthy growing trees of considerable size, which have spreading tops, and which are not to be cut down for a considerable time, the forester, if he have a good eye, may, by lopping off a few branches here and there throughout the top, throw the greater part of the boughs into condition to become knees, or valuable crooks, when of size. This is of most material consequence to the ultimate value of half-grown oak trees, in open situations, and ought to be particularly studied by the superintendent, as, when allowed to run into very numerous stemmy branches, without direction or curtailment, the top, instead of being ultimately of {29} considerable value as timber, is of none. Directions in writing will scarcely suffice to teach a forester this part of his business; he must consider attentively the knee figures and bends we have furnished, fix them in his memory, and use every eligible means to obtain them. Knees, of all descriptions of oak timber are in the greatest request. We have known them purchased at 7s. per computed solid foot, which, from the plan of measuring, is as much as 10s. per real solid foot. The prevailing inattention to judicious training will continue to occasion the supply of knees to be short of the demand, and thence the price high, provided some change does not take place in the structure of vessels, or iron knees be adopted, which are now sometimes used, or vessels, with the exception of the deck and rigging, be formed of iron altogether, which we have seen do very well in inland navigation.

As crooked round oak timber of the natural length is extremely unmanageable, and its distant transport very expensive, it is desirable that it be squared and cut in lengths suited to its ultimate use, where grown. This requires a thorough knowledge of the necessary curves, to which the figs. p. [19], will afford considerable assistance. However, the superintendent of any extensive fall of naval timber either should be {30} a shipwright who has had practice in lining off timbers, or should have passed several months in a dock-yard during the timbering of vessels, observing every piece that is put to use.

As most part of the timbers of a vessel have their sides squared, the cutter cannot err much in hewing away the sides in the plane of, and at right angles to, the curves, at least as deep as the sap-wood reaches, thus leaving only a little sap-wood on the angles; the sap-wood, in all cases (except in those small craft used in carrying lime, which preserves from rot), being worse than useless; by its decay not only weakening the vessel from the want of entireness of the timbers, but also acting as a ferment to further corruption.

In our directions for obtaining curved and angular bent timbers, we may be thought to have been a little too minute with the dimensions and figures: under the hand of the shipwright, or person of skill, a tree of almost any possible bend cuts out to valuable purpose: what is wanted is crooked timber, free of large knots;—first and second foot-hooks and knees are, however, most in demand.

NOTES TO PART I.

PART II. BRITISH FOREST TREES USED AS NAVAL TIMBER.

OAK—Quercus.

Oak appears to be the most prevalent tree about the middle of the north temperate zone, growing, naturally, upon almost every soil, excepting some of the sterile sandy hats. With the exception of the pines, it is by far the most useful kind of tree, almost balancing the accommodating figure of stem, and manageable quality of the pine timber, by its greater strength and durability, and excelling the pines in value of bark. It is not easy to determine whether there be distinct British species in the genus Quercus; but, at least, there are several breeds, or families, or grouped resemblances, which, though the individuals may slightly vary, and though a gradation, or connection, may be traced among these families themselves, yet possess general character sufficiently marked to support names. Botanists, who are so prompt and so well prepared with their classes, {32} orders, genera, species, varieties, long before they acquire much knowledge of what they are so ready to classify, or be able to distinguish between species and variety, or know if species and variety be really distinct, divide the oak of this country into two species, Quercus Robur and Q. sessiliflora, the former with long fruit-stalks, and hard, strong, durable timber, the late leafing old kind once so prevalent in the island: the latter an earlier leafing, faster growing kind, timber inferior, leaves petiolate, fruit sessile, not common, but supposed native. We consider there is no foundation for this specific distinction; we have met with oaks with various lengths of fruit-stalks: Besides, short and long fruit-stalks is a very common difference among seedling varieties. The families or breeds which we have observed in the indigenous oak resemble what are found among almost every kind of vegetable, and graduate into each other,—those farthest removed in appearance, no doubt having power to commix by the pollen. The most remarkable distinction we have observed is in the colour of the bark, whether inclining to white or black. The variety or breed with grey white bark, often very smooth and shining, and sometimes beautifully clouded with green, has also a different form of leaf and figure of top from those with {33} blackish bark, and we have no doubt will also afford a different quality of timber. Those with blackish dingy bark vary considerably from each other, some being of very luxuriant growth and heavy foliage, with thick fleshy bark, affording much tannin; others, though in favourable situation, of stunted growth, thin dry bark, and delicate constitution, often being nipped in the twigs by the frost: some having a round easy figure of top, even with pendulous branching, others extremely stiff and angular in the branching; some with the most elegant foliage, deeply sinuated and finely waved, others with the clumsiest, most misshapen foliage, almost as if opposite principles had presided at their forming. We have observed the earlier kinds, with the dark bark, to have generally the easiest figure of top; the angular branching and stiffness of figure of top being greatest in those sooty-barked late kinds, most disposed to take two growths in the season, the spring and autumnal, which, from the proneness of these kinds to be affected in the terminal bud by monstrosities, and sometimes also to be nipped in the point of the unripened autumn shoot by the frost, are generally thrown out in different directions, the tree, from these causes, growing awkwardly and irregularly, and by fits and starts.

Besides the indigenous Quercus Robur, we have {34} a number of kinds, termed distinct species, growing in Britain, of foreign derivation—the Turkish oak, Quercus Cerris; the Lucombe oak, Q. sempervirens; the scarlet-leaved American, Q. coccinea; the evergreen, Q. Ilex, and several others. The Turkish and Lucombe resemble each other, but the latter generally continues green till the spring, when the old leaves wither, a little before the young appear: Botanists make them varieties. We consider the Turkish oak the most valuable and elegant of these foreign kinds. The leaves are generally very long and slender, deeply and widely sinuated, and the teeth or salient angles sometimes undulated, having a curled appearance; yet there are some individuals with broad, short, flat leaves, not differing in figure from those of the common oak, but the tree in other respects not different from the Turkish, being easily distinguished from the common oak by the reddish hairy appearance of the developing shoot, the scales of the bud having a hair-like extension, visible in each leaf axilla. The acorns are also bristled like echini, with this scaly prolongation. The timber is tough and clean, resembling the white American, and suitable for staves. The stem and branches are generally very straight, as the terminal bud seldom fails, and the growing proceeds steadily, without much autumnal shoot. {35}

As oaks run more hazard in transplanting than most other kinds of trees, the greater care is necessary in procuring well-rooted, short, vigorous plants; in having the soil free of stagnating water, in timing and executing the work in a proper manner, and in hoeing around the plant, keeping the ground clean and friable on the surface during the first two or three seasons. As young oaks grow much more vigorously under considerable closeness and shelter, and as the plants are expensive, it is proper to plant, along with them, a mixture of cheaper plants, larches or other pines, which also sooner come to be of a little value, to be removed gradually as the young wood thickens up. In bleak exposed situations, it is well to plant the ground first with pines, and when these attain a height of 6 or 8 feet, to cut out a number, not in lines, but irregularly, and plant the oaks in their stead, gradually pruning and thinning away the remaining firs as the oaks rise. In general, pitting is preferable to slitting; but when the plants are very small, and the ground wet-bottomed (with close subsoil), liable to become honeycomby with frost, slitting secures the plant better from being thrown out.

Oak is by far the best adapted tree for hedge-row, or for being grown by the sides of arable fields, both {36} with respect to its own qualities, and to the growth of the adjacent crops or hedge. The bark is much thicker, and more valuable in proportion to its bulk here, than in close forest, and the timber more crooked, which is desiderated in oak, but which unfits most other trees for much else than firewood. The oak is, besides, as generally suited for the variety of soils which lines crossing a country in all directions must embrace: this is matter of consideration, as few planters have skill to locate a number of kinds properly. It will also be thought, by reason of British feeling, the most interesting and ornamental; nor is it to be overlooked, that, by the roots taking a more downward direction than other trees, the plough has greater liberty to proceed around, and the moisture and pabulum necessary to evaporation and growth are not drawn from the ground so superficially; thence the minor plants adjacent do not suffer so much. We have observed, too, that, when all cause of injury by root suction was cut off by a deep ditch, the undergrowth seemed less injured by shade of oak than of some other trees. The apple and the pear only, appear to be as little detrimental to the surrounding crop as the oak. The ash, the elm, the beech, in Scotland the most general hedge-row trees, are the most improperly located; the ash and the {37} elm as being the most pernicious to the crops, and the beech as being of little or no value grown in hedge-row. In clays, most kinds of trees, particularly those whose roots spread superficially, are more detrimental to the crop around than in the more friable earths, owing to the roots in clays foraging at less depth, and to the clay being a worse conductor of moisture than other earths. The disadvantages attending the planting of hedge-row with oaks are, that their removal is not in general so successful as that of other trees, especially to this exposed dry situation, and that the progress of the plant, for a number of years, is but slow; and thus for a longer time liable to injury from cattle. Fair success may, however, be commanded, by previously preparing the roots, should the plants be of good size; transplanting them when the ground is neither too moist nor too dry, and in autumn, as soon as the leaves have dropped or become brown, particularly in dry ground; performing the operation with the utmost care not to fracture the roots, and to retain a considerable ball; opening pits of considerable size for their reception, much deeper than the roots, and should a little water lurk in the bottom of the pit, it will be highly beneficial, provided none stagnate so high as the roots; firming the earth well around the roots {38} after it is carefully shaken in among the fibres; and, especially, keeping the surface of the ground, within four feet of the plant, friable and free from weeds, by repeated hoeings during the first two or three summers. Of course, if you suffer the plant to waver with the wind, or to be rubbed and bruised by cattle, or by the appendages of the plough, it is folly to expect success. On this account, stout plants, from 8 to 12 feet high, the branches more out of the way of injury, may, in sheltered situations, under careful management, be the most proper size. Much also depends on procuring sturdy plants from exposed situations. We have experienced better success with hardy plants from the exposed side of a hill, having unfibred carrot roots much injured by removal, than with others from a sheltered morass, having the most numerously fibred, well extricated roots. In cases, where, from the moistness and coldness of the ground in early summer, there was a torpor of root suction, and, in consequence, the developing leaves withering up under an arid atmosphere, we have attempted to stimulate the root action by application of warm water, covering up the surface of the ground with dry litter to confine the heat; we have also endeavoured to encourage the root action by increasing the temperature of cold light-coloured soils, by strewing soot {39} on the surface for a yard or two around the plant, and by nearly covering a like distance by pieces of black trap rock, from three to six inches in diameter. The success from the pieces of trap appeared greatest; they diminished the evaporation from the ground, thence less loss of heat and of necessary moisture; and being at once very receptive of radiant caloric, and a good conductor, they quickly raised the temperature of the soil in the first half of the summer, when bodies, from the increasing power of the sun, are receiving much more heat by radiation than they are giving out by radiation.

The oak should never be pruned severely, and this rule should be particularly observed when the tree is young. We have known several of the most intelligent gardener-foresters in Scotland err greatly in this; and, by exclusively pruning the oak plants, from misdirected care, throw them far behind the other kinds of timber with which they were mixed in planting. There is no other broad-leaved tree which we have seen suffer so much injury in its growth, by severe pruning, as the oak. The cause of this may be something of nervous susceptibility, or connected life, all the parts participating when one is injured; it may be owing to the tendency to putrescency of the sap-wood, or rather of the sap, the part around the section often decaying, especially {40} when the plant is not vigorous; or it may arise from some torpor or restricted connection of the roots, which, when robbed of their affiliated branch, do not readily forage or give their foraging to the support of the nearest remaining branch, or to the general top of the tree, but throw out a brush of twigs near the section.

Although the oak often lingers in the growth while young, yet, after it attains to six inches or a foot in diameter, its progress is generally faster than most other kinds of hard wood, not appearing to suffer so much as others from excessive fruit-bearing. The value of the timber, and also of the bark, and the slight comparative injury occasioned to the under crop, whether of copse, grass, corn, or roots, independently of any patriotic motives, or religious reverence lingering in our sensorium from the time of the Druids, should give a preference to this tree for planting, wherever the soil and climate are suitable, over every other kind, with the exception of larch and willow, which, in particular soils, will pay better.

The planter of oak should throw in a considerable proportion of Turkish oak into the more favourable soils and situations. The beautiful clustered, fretted foliage of this species gives a richness, and, in winter, when it retains the withered leaf, a warmth of colouring to our young plantations beyond any other {41} of our hardy trees and shrubs. We have had this kind, eighteen years old, equal in size to larches of the same age in the same ground. We cut down several of these oaks of about 8 inches in diameter, and compared the timber and bark with those of common oak of the same age. The timber was clean, very tough and flexible, with much flash, and we should suppose might suit for plank when matured; at any rate, from the splendid shew of the laminæ (flash), it would form beautiful pannelling and furniture. It shrunk, however, extremely while drying, which must have been partly owing to the quick growing and youngness, it thence consisting almost entirely of sap-wood, and this sap-wood almost entirely of sap; and, when left in the sun in the round state, after peeling, rent nearly to splinters,—much more than the common oak under the same exposure. The bark was about double the thickness and weight of that of the common oak of equal size, and, in proportion to its weight, consisted much more of that cellular or granular substance most productive of tannin. The varieties of common oak with thick bark are generally of inferior quality of timber; but they are by far the finest, most luxuriant growing trees, with rich heavy foliage, and appear as giants standing in the same row with {42} the thin barked varieties, though planted at the same time.

To the naturalist the oak is an object of peculiar interest, from the curious phenomena connected with the economy of numerous insects who depend upon it for existence. It would be tedious to describe the different apples, galls, excrescences, tufts, and other monstrosities which appear upon the oak. It is something like enchantment! These insects, merely by a puncture and the deposition of an egg, or drop of fluid, turning Nature from her law, and compelling the Genius of the Oak to construct of living organized oak matter, instead of leaves and twigs, fairy domes and temples, in which their embryo young may lie for a time enshrined.

SPANISH CHESTNUT—Castanea vulgaris, (Fagus Castanea, L.)

Spanish or sweet Chestnut, sometimes named Chestnut Oak, sometimes included in the genus Fagus, seems at least a connecting link between Quercus and Fagus. This valuable timber tree, the largest growing, and, in many places, also the most common in the south of Europe, and which was once so {43} abundant in England that many of the largest of our ancient piles are wooded of it, has been for several ages much on the decrease in this country; owing, probably, to a slight refrigeration of climate, which, during this period, appears to have taken place, preventing the ripening of the seed, or, in more rigorous winters, following damp, cold summers, destroying all the young plants (at least the part above ground), whose succulent unripened shoots and more delicate general constitution, from immatured annual round of life, or imperfect concoction of juices, have not power to withstand the severe cold sometimes occurring near the surface of the earth. A very general destruction of the young plants of this kind of tree has occurred more than once within our memory from severe frost; but as the climate, a few years back, rather improved, and the spirit of planting became more general, a considerable number of plants of this tree have attained height and hardihood to withstand the cold, excepting in the points of the annual shoot, which we notice are again nipped (year 1830). This may give encouragement to more extended planting, as the tree is handsome, and, in most places, where water does not abound nor stagnate, acquires great size in comparatively short time. It is said to prefer a gravelly or stone {44} rubble subsoil, but we have seen it in rich clay, in row with large beeches, even exceed them in size. We should prefer for it any deep friable dry soil.

There is one circumstance connected with this timber in this country, at least in Scotland, which must prevent its general use in ship plank, and be of material injury to it for ship timbers; this is, that few trees of it of size are found without the timber being shaky or split, some to such a degree that the annual rings or concentric growths have separated from each other. This appears to be owing to our climate being colder than what is suitable to the nature of the plant; the sap in the stem possibly freezing in severe weather and splitting, or severing the growths of the timber, but more probably occasioned by the season being too short, and too moist and cold, to ripen or fill up with dense matter, sufficiently, the frame of the annual growths; thence, as each ring of sap-wood, prematurely hastened by the torpor of moisture and cold, turns to red or matured wood, and, in so doing, dries considerably within the other rings of moist sap-wood, the contractile force may be sufficient to separate this growth from the next external sap growth, the cohesion existing between the tissue or fabric of the growth being much stronger than the cohesion between one {45} growth and another. The uncommon dryness of the matured wood, and moistness of the sap-wood of this tree, and smallness of the number of sap-wood rings, commonly only from 2 to 6 in this country, incline us to believe that this is the cause of the insufficiency or defect; and that, in a milder, drier climate, the sap-wood rings will be found to be more numerous, and thus, independent of a better first ripening, affording a longer time for their cells to be more filled up with an unctuous matter (which prevents the shrinking) gradually deposited while they convey the sap, the sap-wood rings being the part of the timber through which the sap circulates. As proof of this unctuous deposit or filling up, we observe that dry sap-wood imbibes moisture much quicker, and in greater quantity, than dry mature. We think this premature maturity (if we may so term it) of timber in cold countries, a general law. Our larch, originally from the Apennine, has not more than one-third of the number of sap-rings of our Scots fir, indigenous in Mar and Rannoch mountains; and our narrow-leafed, or English elm, said to have been introduced from the Holy Land in time of the Crusades, has not more than one-half of the number of our indigenous broad-leafed, or Scots elm. From the sap-growths of Laburnum, {46} scarcely exceeding in number those of the Spanish chestnut, we should suppose that it has been moved northward, or that the proper climate has left it. We have observed that moist, or water-soaked ground, has influence, as well as climate, to deprive the alburnum vessels sooner of their living functions, inducing that torpor of tubes, or semi-vital condition, in which they only serve to support the more active parts, and constitute what is called Mature Timber.

It is a general opinion that Spanish chestnut soon takes rot in situations where the roots come in contact with water. This appears to result from moist soil inducing the too early maturing of the timber already alluded to, and occasioning shaky insufficient fabric, which soon corrupts. We have observed oaks which had fewer layers of sap-wood, from growing in damp situations, have the timber of inferior quality, and sometimes of a shaky, brownish description, when cut across, throwing out a dirty brownish liquid or stain.

From the use of the Spanish chestnut in the Spanish navy, both in planking and timbering, and from the roofing beams and ornamental work of Westminster Hall being also of this wood, we should suppose it was not so liable to this defect of rents in {47} the timber in milder climates. Chestnut timber is a good deal similar to oak, though not quite so reedy and elastic, but is destitute of the large laminæ or plates (flash), which, radiating from the pith to the outside, become so prominent to view in the oak when the longitudinal section is perpendicular to the outside, in the plane of the laminæ. It is, we should think, as capable of supporting weight, when stretching as a beam, as the oak, and is equally, if not more durable, many beams of it existing in very old buildings undecayed: it is said even to have been taken out fresh where it had stood 600 years as lintels. Earth stakes of it are also very durable. It possesses one advantage over oak, which must recommend it for ship-building, that is, having much less proportion of sap-wood; and, from the matured wood containing much less sap or moisture, we should suppose it not so liable to dry rot, or that more simple means, or shorter period, would suffice for seasoning it, so as to be proof against this evil. Spanish chestnut is as yet little known among British shipwrights; but were a quantity of it in the market free of the unsoundness we have alluded to, its merits would soon become known. The bark is used by tanners, but is said not to equal that of oak.

BEECH-TREE—Fagus sylvatica.

This hardy tree occupies fully as wide a range, both of soil and climate, as the oak, and is generally the fastest growing, most vigorous of all our hard-wood kinds, prospering on all soils, on the dry and moist, the aluminous, the calcareous, the siliceous, provided water does not stagnate. It combines magnificence with beauty, being at once the Hercules and Adonis of our Sylva. The timber of our beech, while green, is by far the hardest of our large growing trees, and, in the American forest, the members of the beechen family match better than those of any other, with the perseverance of the ruthless Yankee; the roots retaining the hardness deeper in the earth than those of any other tree, and being so plaited and netted throughout the ground for a considerable space around the bulb, that it is next to impossible to trench or dig over the soil till they have decayed.

As we have before stated, the timber of the beech-tree soon corrupts if it is not speedily dried, or kept in water after being cut down, and is equally liable to corruption in the tree when deprived of life by wounds or other injury. Beech has a matured and sap wood, although they are not very distinguishable, being nearly of one colour. The former has {49} considerable durability when kept dry, the latter is speedily consumed by worming.

The planter of beech should procure the kind[10] with yellow-coloured wood, termed by joiners Yellow Beech, in opposition to the kind with white wood, called White Beech. The yellow grows faster and straighter, and is cleaner and freer of black knots, and also more pleasantly worked than the white, but it corrupts much sooner in the bark when cut down. This variety of beech, when properly trained, is probably the most profitable hard-wood that we can raise; when planked, it bends pleasantly under the shipwright to the curvature of the vessel’s side. The tree is also much superior in size and grace of outline to the white. There are few planters who need be put in mind that beech of small size, or of short or crooked stem, is the least valuable of all timber. Whoever plants with a view to profit will, therefore, throw in only as many beech plants as may ultimately be required for standards, and these in the bosom of plantations; as it is seldom that beech attains to much value in hedge-row or on the outskirts of woods, {50} from its proneness when so situated to ramify and grow crooked. It is, however, quite possible, with a little early attention, to rear beech as straight and clean as to be valuable, on the outskirts, where it forms a beautiful fringe to the plantation, and affords excellent shelter.

ELM—Ulmus.—BROAD-LEAVED, OR SCOTCH, or WYCH ELM—Ulmus montana.

This beautiful and most graceful tree, whose favourite locality is the damp, deep, accumulated soil, free of stagnant water, at the bottom of declivities, is, together with its sister, the small-leaved kind, the English elm, when so situated, the fastest growing of our hard-wood trees. Both delight in easy or gravelly soils, though the small-leaved will also prosper in the more adhesive, the alluvial and diluvial clays.

There are a number of kinds of elm growing in this country, differing rather more from the common run of U. montana and U. campestris, than what occurs among seedling varieties of untamed plants; but as these have very probably a power of mingling by the pollen, thence not specifically different, we leave to {51} botanists to explain their nice peculiarities, and think it sufficient to rank the whole under montana and campestris, especially as the timber seems to range into two kinds—Montana, with large leaves, heavy annual shoots, somewhat zig-zag, thick towards the point, thence drooping a little from gravity; having much sap-wood, and timber of great longitudinal toughness, but, from the great quantity of sap-wood, and want of lateral adhesion, it splits considerably in drying;—Campestris, with smaller leaves, more numerous straight annual shoots, which are small towards the point, thence more erect, has but little sap-wood, and the timber also possessing greater lateral adhesion, and less longitudinal, it does not crack much in drying. We have noticed one broad leaved kind or variety, whose annual twigs often spring out in tufts or knots from one point; this seems to arise from the shoot of the preceding year sometimes dying, probably nipped by frost, and the tuft of shoots springing out from the knot at the lower extremity of the dead twig. From this cause, it has not the graceful easy spread of branches of the U. montana, but assumes a more angular, stiff, upright figure. We have heard this named Dutch Elm, but it does not quite correspond with the elm in the parks at London said to be Dutch. We consider it a kind {52} not very nearly allied to U. montana, yet the above peculiarity of appearance may only arise from individual tenderness, and may not be accompanied by other difference of character.

The elm, more especially the broad-leaved Scotch elm, has a peculiar fan-like sloping-to-one-side spread of branches, most perceptible while young; hence the tree when grown up, has generally a slight bending in the stem, which renders it very fitting for floor-timbers of vessels, the only part of a ship, excepting bottom plank, to which it is applicable, as it soon decays above water. Its great toughness and strength, however, render it good floors.

There are some kinds of foreign elm which deserve attention. Some time ago we planted several of these, and lately cut down one of about six inches diameter, which we found a great deal harder and stronger timber than our U. montana. We had this kind under the name of the Broad-leaved American. The bark was rather lighter in colour, and smoother, than U. montana; the leaves were rough and large, and the annual shoots extremely luxuriant; but, probably owing to climate, or difference of circumstance, the exposed situation where we had it growing being very unlike the close American forest, it did not carry up its vigour of growing into {53} the top, although the top was healthy, but continued throwing out numerous annual shoots, five or six feet long, from the bulb and side of stem, which disposition we did not succeed in correcting by pruning. This did not seem to arise from grafting, as some of the shoots broke out higher up than the graft must have been, and there was no difference between the lower and upper shoots.

U. montana, when come to some size, on the primary branches being lopped off, like the oak, often throws out a brush of twigs from the stem, and these twigs impeding the transit of the sap, the brush increases, and the stem thickens considerably, in consequence of a warty-like deposit of wood forming at the root of the twigs. This excrescence, when of size, after being carefully seasoned in some cool moist place, such as the north re-entering angle of a building, exposed to the chipping from the roof, forms a richer veneer for cabinet-work than any other timber. This disposition to form brush and excrescence might be given by art to almost any kind of tree, excepting the coniferæ and beech, and might be made a source of considerable profit. This could easily be effected by slitting, pricking, and bruising the bark at certain periods of the season. A very beautiful waved timber might also be formed by {54} twisting the stems of trees tight up with round ropes, the screw circles of the rope not being quite close to each other; the ropes to remain several seasons, then to be kept off for a season or two, and again applied. The practice of forming warty excrescences might be combined with that of forming wavy fibres, with the finest effect. Of course, those trees with timber of rich colour, and susceptible of high polish, would be the most suitable for undergoing this process. U. campestris also throws out a brush, but from the great inferiority of the timber in beauty, and from its unfitness for cabinet-work, it would be useless to encourage it by art. Some plants of montana, not covered with brush, have a curious unevenness (laced appearance) of the timber in the stem, which renders it a beautiful cabinet plank.

NARROW-LEAVED OR ENGLISH ELM—Ulmus campestris.

There are few Scotchmen, as they migrate southward, who have failed to remark the tame subdued appearance of the landscape of the middle and south of England, where a number of straggling tufted-headed poles, along with windmill towers, occupy {55} the horizon. These straggling, tall, tufted poles, stuck in, perpendicular to the flat surface, are composed of living narrow-leaved elm-trees, which the perseverance of the peasantry in quest of billets, has reduced to this condition. Some varieties of this elm, however, when uncurtailed in lateral expansion, attain the grandest development, stretching forth a hundred giant arms aloft, supporting masses of foliage, fantastically magnificent.

In the neighbourhood of London, this tree is attacked by an insect, which, running along the outside of the timber, within the bark, in a few seasons deprives the individual of life, the bark peeling off in large girdles, threatening to bereave this capital of the finest ornaments of its parks. We have observed, in different kinds of growing trees, such as the apple and oak, the roads of insects traversing between the rhind and wood, although the individual thus affected appeared to suffer little or no injury; and we consider the agency of the insect in the destruction of the English elm around London to be merely sequent to disease—perhaps a taint of corruption, or slight putrescency of the sap, occasioned by the impurities of the London air, assisted by the hard beaten state of the ground[11] above the roots. Should {56} any one examine the inside of the bark of a cut tree, when corruption has just begun with the bark, and see how thoroughly it is undermined by insects, he will, we think, admit the strong probability, that the insect is only subordinate in the destruction of those fine old elms around London. We do not wonder at the condition of the trees—it would not surprise us if the human race in London were swept off by some similar secondary cause.

The small-leaved elm has great disposition to spread by suckers from the roots, and thus extended has become very prevalent throughout most parts of England, in the broad wastes (termed fences), which, from the indolent husbandry, consequent to tithes and the want of leases, generally surround the pasture and corn fields, but which are so necessary to these unvaried plains, as some prominent object, or characteristic land-mark, on which the amor patriæ of the population may perch; the finest remembrances and associations of youth being mixed up with these bushy flower-covered enclosures.

It is with country as with society, strong lasting {57} attachment occurs only where there is individuality of character to give distinctness of image.

“Oh! how should I my true love know,

From many other one?”

There is design and utility in this fascination of peculiarity. If individual distinction be but strongly marked, it signifies little of what character. Love of country often hangs upon features of the harshest and most fearful description, with which the associations and feelings become entwisted, as attachment to individual is often rivetted by fierce, austere, or even morose qualities.

The narrow-leaved elm is valuable for forming the blocks and dead-eyes[12], and other wooden furniture of rigging, being particularly suitable for these purposes, from its hard and adhesive nature, and indisposition to crack or split, when exposed to sun and weather.

We have observed many minor distinctions, perhaps individual, in the above kinds of elm, in figure, size and smoothness of leaf, in colour and roughness {58} of bark, &c. Some varieties or individuals of the English elm have the bark of the young twigs and branches covered with corky ridges: others want this excrescence.

REDWOOD WILLOW, or STAG’S HEAD OZIER,—Salix fragilis[13].

This kind of willow, once very common in the alluvial parts of Scotland, before the introduction of Salix alba, S. Russelliana, &c., is probably the most profitable timber that can be planted in such soils. It was our district’s maxim, that “the willow will purchase the horse before any other timber purchase the saddle,” on account of its very quick growth, and the value of its timber. It delights in {59} the rich easy clay by the sides of our pows (the old Scottish term for those sluggish natural drains of our alluvial districts), throwing out its fibril roots in matted-like abundance under the water: it also flourishes in the more sandy and gravelly alluvion, by the sides of rivers and streams, which does not become too dry in summer.

This tree, similar to some others which, like it, are continued by cuttings or layers, is, in certain seasons, especially when of considerable size, subject to a derangement in the sap-concoction, which leads to the death of some of its more recent parts, particularly the uppermost branches; whence its withered top sometimes assumes the appearance of a stag’s head of horns, which, from the indestructibility of these dead branches, it retains for many years; new branches springing out from the sides, of much luxuriance. This disease, similar to canker in the genus Pyrus, is generally concentrated to certain places of the bark and alburnum, the portion of branch above these places thence withering, the connection with the root being cut off; though sometimes the points of the twigs appear to be nipped, without any previous disease. From these affections, and also on account of the branches and stem being often rifted by the winds, the tree is frequently found with rot {60} in the stem, when it has stood long. It agrees in this with the larch, that, though its timber, when cut down, or withered and dried, as on the top of the tree, is little liable to corruption, yet it is very subject to it, as part of the stem of the living tree, perhaps under certain circumstances of semi-vitality. To determine whether this tree, raised from seed, would be liable to these disorders, the same as when continued by slips, would be an interesting, though tedious, experiment. We never have seen any young seed-plants rise around old trees.

The use of the red wood willow, as timbers of vessels, has been of long standing in this part of Scotland, and has proved its long endurance, and excellent adaptation. By reason of its lightness, pliancy, elasticity, and toughness, it is, we think, the best, without exception, for the formation of small fast-sailing war-vessels. We are pretty certain that our Navy Board would not have cause to regret trial of it in a long, low, sharp schooner, of sufficient breadth to stand up under great press of sail, moulded as much as possible to combine great stability with small resistance from the water, and when in quick motion to be buoyant—especially not to dip forward,—provided it could be procured not too old, and free from rot, large knots, and cross-grain; a very {61} little attention in the cultivation would afford it of the finest bends, and clean and fresh. Our Navy Board have received some slight teaching from our transatlantic brethren, of the superior sailing of fir-constructed vessels, to those of oak, the result of their superior lightness, pliancy, and elasticity.

The writer of this has also had experience of two vessels, one of oak, and the other of larch, on the same voyages, at the same time, and has found the latter superior in sailing to the former, in a degree greater than the difference of build could account for. From the superior elasticity and lightness of the willow, even to larch, the lightest and most elastic of the fir-tribe, we should expect that vessels of it would outstrip those of fir, at least of Scots or red pine, as much as the latter do those of oak; and that, from this greater elasticity and lightness, they would move through the water, yielding to the resistance and percussions of the waves, compared to those of oak, as a thing of life to a dead block. For vessel-timbers, this wood requires to be used alone; as, when mixed with other kinds less pliant or elastic, the latter have to withstand nearly all the impetus or strain, and are thence liable to be broken, or from the vessel yielding more at one place than another, she is apt to strain and become leaky. {62}

Some years ago, when demolishing an old building which had stood fully a century, the writer found the large frames of the building, or ground couples, which, from their situation, could not have been renewed, to consist of this timber; and, with the exception of the outside, which was so much decayed, for about half an inch in depth, as the finger could pick it away, the body of the wood was as fresh as at first, still fit for any purpose, and of a beautiful pink or salmon colour. When we observed the mouldering exterior of these pieces, we laid one of the smallest hollow over a log, and struck it with a large wooden mallet, not doubting that it would go to fragments; such, however, was the resilience, that the mallet rebounded so greatly as almost to leap from our hands.

For country purposes, red-wood willow is employed in the construction of mill water-wheels, of the body or hoarding of carts, especially of lining of carts employed in the carriage of stones, or of any utensil requiring strong, tough, light, durable boarding. Formerly, before the introduction of iron-hoops for cart-wheels, the external rim or felloe was made of willow; when new, the cart or wain was driven along a road covered with hard small gravel (in preference, gravel somewhat angular), by which means {63} the felloe shod itself with stone, and thus became capable of enduring the friction of the road for a long time, the toughness and elasticity of the willow retaining the gravel till the stone was worn away. Under much exposure to blows and friction, this willow outlasts every other home timber. When recently cut, the matured wood is slightly reddish, and the sap-wood white. When exposed to the air and gradually dried, both are of salmon colour, and scarcely distinguishable from each other. Willow-bark is used in tanning; it also contains a bitter, said to be febrifuge.

RED-WOOD PINE—Pinus.

This tribe of the order Coniferæ, at once the most useful, and the most plentifully and widely extended over the North temperate zone—that portion of the earth more congenial to man, and which contains about four-fifths of his numbers, has a similitude of character and qualities more distinguishable by one glance of the eye than by laboured description. It consists of a number of kinds, which again divide into families and individuals perceptibly different from each other. The following are those whose timber is best known to us: {64}

Scots fir, or Norway pine,Pinus sylvestris.
Pinaster,Pinus Pinaster.
Canadian red Pine[14] (foreign),* * * *
Pitch pine (foreign),* * * *

And, though a little more distinct,

Yellow American, or Weymouth Pine,Pinus Strobus.

Very little observation will distinguish these from the next useful great tribe of the Coniferæ with white wood, the Spruces and Silver Firs—Abies.

There are a number of foreign kinds of pine, some of great promise, recently introduced into Britain, but of whose adaptation for ship-building we cannot speak. Samples of the timber of P. laricio, P. tæda, P. cembra, P. maritima, P. rigida, &c. of British growth, may, however, soon be had of sufficient size for experiment. The common Scots fir is the only pine of British growth which has been employed as a naval timber; for which purpose, however, since the last peace, and the introduction of our larch, it is in very little demand.

An acute botanist, Mr G. Don of Forfar, a number of years ago, gave a description of the varieties of cultivated Scots fir which had come under his notice. The following is an abstract of his observations: {65}

“Varieties of Pinus sylvestris.

“Var. 1st. The common variety, well known by its branches forming a pyramidal head, the leaves marginated, of dark-green colour, but little glaucous underneath, the cones being considerably elongated and tapering to the point, and the bark of the trunk very rugged. This variety seems short-lived, becoming soon stunted in appearance.

“Var. 2d, Distinguishable from the former by disposition of branches, which are remarkable for horizontal disposition and tendency to bend downwards close to the trunk. The leaves are broader than var. 1st, and serrulated, not marginated; leaves are distinguishable at a distance by their much lighter and beautiful glaucous colour, the bark not so rugged as var. 1st, and the cones thicker and not so much pointed, and also smoother. This tree seems a hardy plant, growing freely in many soils: this variety may be named Pinus horizontalis. Var. 1st, much more general than var. 2d, and also sooner comes to seed, which is also easier gathered from the position of the branches.

“Var. 3d, Is of a still lighter colour than var. 2d, being of a light glaucous hue, approaching to a silvery tint; its branches form, like var. 1st, a pyramidal head, but it differs remarkably in its cones from {66} both the former varieties; the cones of this seem beset with blunt prickles bent backwards, the leaves serrulated. This variety is rather more common than var. 2d; like it, it is a good tree.

“Var. 4th, The leaves somewhat curled or rather twisted, and much shorter than the others: this variety is very rare.”

Our observation does not go to confirm these subdivisions. We think they are little more distinct than the fair, the red[15], the black haired, the fair, the sallow, the brown complexioned, the tall, the short, of the same community or even family of men. There is variation and individuality more or less strongly marked in all kinds of organized beings: at least those vegetables which have exposed fructification possess it; many whose fructification is secluded also possess it; and the others of more constant character, such as some of the Gramineæ, with a little art (removing their anthers before the pollen bursts forth, and applying the pollen of others as near to them in the chain of life as can be found to be different, or changing the circumstances by culture), can also be rendered equally {67} variable. These minor distinctions or individualities of vegetables become more perceptible as our observation closes in upon the object. We have never yet found one individual apple plant, raised from seed, to be the counterpart of another; but differing even in every part and habit, in bud, leaf, flower, fruit, seed, bark, wood, root; in luxuriance of growth; in hardihood; in being suited for different soils and climates, some thriving in the very moist, others only in the dry; in the disposition of the branches, erect, pendulous, horizontal; in earliness and comparative earliness of leaf, of flower, of fruit.

We hope the above remarks will not be lost on those who have the management of the sowing, planting, and thinning of woods, and that they will always have selection in view. Although numerous varieties are derived from the seed of one tree, yet if that tree be of a good breed, the chances are greatly in favour of this progeny being also good. Scots fir of good variety will thrive and reach considerable size and age, in almost any soil which is not very moist, or very arid and barren (such as our sand and gravel flats much impregnated with iron or other deleterious mineral), provided the plants from their earliest years have room to throw out and retain a sufficiency of side branches. This is especially necessary to their health where the soil is {68} ungenial, the resulting vigour often overcoming the disadvantages. From the pine being found chiefly in the light sandy districts on the continent of Europe, and in the sandy pine barrens of America, an idea has gone abroad that these barren districts are more congenial to it than the more clayey, the more rocky, or the richer vegetable mould; but its natural location in the barren sandy districts results from its being more powerful in this soil than any other plant of the country, not from preference of this soil. Should any one doubt of this, let him take a summer excursion to Mar Forest, where no other tree having been in competition with Pinus sylvestris, and where it is spread over the hill and the dale, he will observe that it prospers best in good timber soil, and though comparatively preferring an easy soil, and having superior adaptation to thin or rocky ground, that its taste does not differ very materially from that of the plane or the elm, the oak or the ash.

In Mar Forest he will also observe (if they be not now all cut down) several well marked individuals of the splatch pine, esteemed a very valuable and hardy kind; and with the right which a botanist has in a plant sown by nature, he may bear off some of the seeds, and endeavour to spread this rare indigenous kind throughout the island. Should he be unsuccessful in finding these at Mar, he may return {69} by Kenmore, where, on the side of the hill on the right bank of the Tay, near the confluence of the Lyon, he will find several trees, we think five, of this kind of pine, of considerable size, growing at one place, apparently planted: we were told the plants had been brought down from the natural forest farther up on the mountains. These are sufficiently distinct in character from the common Scots fir growing around, having a horizontal, straggling disposition of branches, the leaves being of a much lighter, different shade of green, and more tufted, and the bark of a yellower red, so as to merit a distinct name; and we should consider Pinus horizontalis as descriptive as any other, if it shall not appear to be only a sub-species of P. sylvestris. The descriptive name splatch fir, is from the prominences of the rugged bark not being in longitudinal ridges or flutes, but in detached flat oblong lumps, such as soft clay or mud takes when cast with force upon a wall. We, however, do not think this the same as Mr DON’s var. 2d, at least we have noticed in our lowland woods raised by planting, such as Mr DON examined, individuals here and there having less or more resemblance to his described varieties, but none of them approaching the distinctness of this alpine Scots fir. The proprietors of this kind of pine will confer a benefit on the public by causing the timber {70} be examined and compared with that of trees of equal size of the common Scots fir growing near, and making a public report of the number and size of annual growths, the number of these of matured and of sap wood, the comparative strength, density, quantity of resinous deposit, hardness, &c.

The Pinaster is a valuable kind of red-wood pine, with strong resinous timber, and from not having one-half the number of sap-wood layers of the common Scots fir, we should consider it deserving attention as a naval timber; but perhaps the small number of sap-layers is from want of climate: owing to the branches being larger, and, in proportion to their size, being joined to the stem with a larger swell than those of P. sylvestris, the timber is rougher with larger knots. In the very barren sand and gravel district near Christchurch, scarcely affording sustenance to lichens, and where even heaths will not grow, we have observed this tree make considerable progress, and outstrip the Scots fir in growth.

The Canadian Red Pine has been employed to a considerable extent in this country, both as planking and spars. It is inferior in strength and durability to the Baltic red pine, and would seldom make its appearance on this side the Atlantic while the Baltic was open to us, did not a very ill advised {71} duty obstruct the supply of the better article. This timber is sometimes supplied with a good character by the shipwright, as it is soft, pliant, and easily worked. The Canadian red pine has a greater number of layers of sap-wood than any other red pine we are acquainted with; we have repeatedly counted 100 sap-wood layers. We have never seen this kind of pine growing in Britain.

The most common American pine, with yellow timber, Pinus strobus, has been introduced for a long time back into Britain, it is said first by the Earl of Weymouth, thence sometimes named Weymouth Pine. This rather elegant tree requires a warm sheltered situation, as it is easily torn down by wind, from the weakness of the timber, which is inferior in hardness and strength to any other pine we are acquainted with; and from its slender needle leaf not having substance to withstand the evaporation of much exposure. Altogether, the kind appears rather out of climate in Britain, and, though the monarch of the pines in Canada, holds here but a very subordinate place. Although extremely tender and light, the matured timber does not soon decay when cut out thin and exposed to wind and weather, nor worm when kept dry in houses; but when employed in shipbuilding,—remaining always between the moist {72} and dry, the condition most favourable to putrefaction, and surrounded by a close, warm, putrid atmosphere,—it very soon, especially in masses, becomes corrupted. It requires more time to season or dry in the deal than any other wood, owing to the fineness of fibre, smallness of pores, and want of density. From this quality of parting with its moisture with extreme slowness, it forms convenient deck-planking for vessels on tropical stations, or when employed in carriage of unslacked lime, as the plank does not readily shrink and become leaky under the great evaporation occasioned by the heat and arid air. Yellow pine has generally about 40 growths of sap-wood.

We have had no acquaintance with American pitch pine as a growing tree. As a timber, it is superior in several respects to all the others, having a great deal more resinous matter, so much, as often to render it semitranslucent. It is strong and weighty, and is used as a naval timber for most of the purposes to which other pine timber is applied. It forms the very best bottom planking. The shipwrights of the docks at Devonport will attest its quality, as the bottom planking of the Gibraltar of 80 guns: this vessel carried home to England from the Mediterranean, a piece of coral rock of about ten tons weight sticking in her bottom, her preservation {73} in all probability resulting from the adhesive quality of this timber. Its great weight is, however, a considerable inconveniency attending its use as spars, and the abundance of resin, we should think, would unfit it for tree-nails; resinous tree-nails,—probably from some derangement of the structure or disposition to chemical change produced in the resin by the very great pressure of the hard driving,—soon corrupting and infecting the adjacent wood. In some cases we have also known very resinous Baltic plank decay soon in vessels. The pitch pine, from the quantity of resin, contracts little in drying, at least for a long time, till the resin itself begins to dry up. It forms the best house-floors we have seen, being strong and durable, continuing close at joinings, and the fibre not readily taking in moisture when washed.

Our red-wood pine, when come to some age, is in wet ground attacked by rot, which commences in the bulb and adjacent roots and stem, in a manner very similar to the rot in larch. The red-wood also approaches nearer to the outside where this rot exists, and on the side of the tree where the rot is greatest. Most of our planted red pine forest, especially in poor wet tills, and in all flat sandy moorish ground of close subsoil, fall by decay at from 30 to 60 years old. This decay is gradual, owing to the {74} difference in strength of constitution of the individuals. Closeness of rearing and consequent tall nakedness of stem, and disproportion of leaves to stem, would alone induce this in a few years longer even in good soil, excepting perhaps in protected narrow dells; but the decay commences much sooner when the soil is unfavourable, and is no doubt accelerated by the mode of extracting the seeds by kiln-drying the cones, and by using a weak variety of the plant. The approach of this decay may often be noticed, several years previous, in the saw-cross section of the stem mid-way up the tree—an irregular portion of the section appearing of a different shade, from breaking off free and irregular before the teeth of the saw, and not having so much fibrous cover as the healthy part. When Scots fir rises naturally, it is not nearly so subject to this decay even in very inferior soils: the plants having generally much more room from the first, do not rise so tall, have more branch in proportion to stem, thence are more vigorous. The cones not being injured by kiln-drying, may also account for this.

The fact that the red pine in Scotland has fewer sap-wood layers than the red pine of Memel or of North America, and also the fact that, in most situations in Scotland, the red pine soon {75} decays—soonest in the places where the trees have fewest sap-wood layers, and where the timber has been planted, that is, where the cones have been kiln-dried—is worthy of notice. Scots red pine has generally from 15 to 40 layers, Memel from 40 to 50, Canadian often 100. We consider the long moist open winter and cold ungenial spring in Scotland, and the till bottoms soaking with water, perhaps aided by the transplanting, and the kiln-drying of the cones, to be the cause of this early loss of vitality or change of sap-wood into matured. In Poland and Prussia, the earth does not remain so long cold and moist as in Scotland, but is either frozen or sufficiently warm and dry;—this occurs even to a greater degree in Canada[16], and neither the Memel nor Canadian have any chance of being planted or kiln-dried.

WHITE LARCH—Larix communis, (L. pyramidalis).

White Larch is a timber tree combining so many advantages, its properties so imperfectly known, of {76} so recent introduction, and of such general culture, (about 10,000,000 plants being sold annually from the nurseries of the valley of the Tay alone), that any accurate notice of its history, its habitudes, and uses, must possess an interest sufficient to arrest the attention of every one, from the statesman and economist down to the mere lord and the squire. We shall therefore devote to it a little more of our attention than we have bestowed on those already treated of.

Larch is scattered over a considerable part of the northern hemisphere, inhabiting nearly the same regions with the other Coniferæ. White larch, the kind[17] common in Britain, is found growing extensively on the alpine districts of the south of Europe, in Italy, Switzerland, Sardinia; this may be termed the European temperate species. Another, native to the country around Archangel, and extending from {77} Norway eastward through Russia and Siberia, of inferior size, may be styled the European Hyperborean. North America, like the old world, is said to possess a temperate and hyperborean species. The first, Black Larch (L. pendula), more generally extending along the longitudinal parallel of the United States; the other, Red Larch (L. microcarpa), along that of Lower Canada and Labrador. We have seen the American temperate attain 18 inches in diameter in Scotland, but it is much inferior in figure and growth, and also cleanness of timber, to the Appenine or European temperate, being covered with knots and protuberances. Though rough, the timber is said to be of excellent quality.

It is now upwards of 80 years since the larch, so common in Britain, was brought from the Appenines to Strath-Tay. The rapidity of its growth and striking novelty of appearance, assisted by the influence of the family of Athole (to a female of which some say we owe its first introduction), soon attracted general attention: it quickly spread over the neighbouring country, and was planted in every variety of soil and situation, from the unfitness of which, in most places of the low country, it is already fast decaying. About 40 years ago it began to be planted in many parts of Britain. It is now introduced into almost every new plantation in the two islands, and {78} the space of country covered by its shade is extending with a rapidity unparalleled in the history of any other ligneous plant.

Larch is generally conceived to be an alpine[18] plant, and its decay in the low country attributed to situation or climate. This idea seems to have arisen from its locality in Italy, and from observing it succeed so well in our alpine districts, not taking into account that the soil is different,—that it may be the soil of these districts which conduces to the prosperity of the larch, and not the altitude. Throughout Scotland, wherever we have observed the decay, it appeared to have resulted almost solely from unsuitableness of soil. We have witnessed it as much diseased on our highest trap hills, 1000 feet in altitude, as on a similar soil at the base. Yet the freeness from putrescency or miasma of the pure air of the mountain, {79} and deficiency of putrescent matter in the ground, or other more obscure agencies connected with primitive ranges, may have some influence to counterbalance unsuitableness of soil. It is not probable that the coolness and moisture of altitude would be necessary in Scotland to the healthy growth of a vegetable which flourishes under Italian suns, on the general level of the Appenine and on the Sardinian hills.

The rot, so general in growing larch, though sometimes originating in the bulb or lower part of the stem, seems to have its commencement most frequently in the roots. Thence the corruption proceeds upwards along the connecting tubes or fibres into the bulb, and gradually mounts the stem, which, when much diseased, swells considerably for a few feet above the ground, evidently from the new layers of sap-wood forming thicker to afford necessary space for the fluids to pass upward and downward—the matured wood through which there is no circulation approaching at this place within one or two annual layers of the outside. In a majority of cases, the rot commences in the roots which have struck down deepest into the earth, especially those under the stool; these having been thrown to a considerable depth by the young plant, as the tree enlarges, are shut out from aëration, &c. by the {80} superior increasing stool and hard-pressed earth underneath it; this earth at the same time becoming exhausted of the particular pabulum of the plant. It is, therefore, quite probable, from these parts of the roots being the weakest, that they will be most susceptible of injury from being soaked in stagnant water in the flat tills[19], starved during droughts in light sand, tainted by the putrid vapours of rich vegetable mould, or poisoned by the corrosive action of pernicious minerals. It may also be supposed that these smothered sickly roots, not possessing sufficient power or means of suction (endosmose), will be left out in the general economy of vegetation of the plant, thence lose vitality, and become corrupt. But this affords no explanation why the larch roots, under these circumstances, are more liable to corruption than those of other trees, or how the bulb itself should become contaminated. {81}

We have cut off the top, where the diameter of the section was about three inches, from sound young larch trees, and found a similar rot proceed downwards in a few months from the section, as rises from the diseased roots in improper soil. There is something favourable to the quick progress of this rot in the motion of the sap, or vitality of the tree; as, under no common circumstances, would the wood of a cut larch tree become tainted in so short a time.

The rot, though most general in trees which are chilled in wet cold tills, or starved in dry sand, or sickly from any other cause, is also often found to take place in the most luxuriant growing plants in open situations, branched to the ground, and growing in deep soil free from stagnating water. There must, therefore, be some constitutional tendency to corruption in the larch, which is excited by a combination of circumstances; and we must limit our knowledge for the present to the fact, that certain soils, perhaps slightly modified by other circumstances, produce sound, and others unsound larch, without admitting any general influence from altitude, excepting in so far as its antiseptic influence may go.

The fitness of soil for larch seems to depend more especially upon the ability the soil possesses of affording an equable supply of moisture; that is, upon its {82} mechanical division, or its powers of absorption or retention of moisture; and its chemical composition would seem only efficacious as conducive to this.

Soils and subsoils[20] may be divided into two classes. The first, where larch will acquire a size of from 30 to 300 solid feet, and is generally free of rot; the second, where it reaches only from 6 to 20 feet solid, and in most cases becomes tainted with rot before 30 years of age.

CLASS I. SOILS AND SUBSOILS FOR LARCH.

Sound rock, with a covering of firm loam, particularly when the rock is jagged or cloven, or much dirupted and mixed with the earth.—In such cases, a very slight covering or admixture of earth will suffice. We would give the preference to primitive rock, especially micaceous schist and mountain limestone. Larch seldom succeeds well on sandstone or on trap, except on steep slopes, where the rock is quite sound and the soil firm. {83}

Fully the one half of Scotland, comprehending nearly all the alpine part, consists of primary rock, chiefly micaceous schist and gneiss. These rocks are generally less decayed at the surface, better drained, and fuller of clefts and fissures containing excellent earth (especially on slopes), into which the roots of trees penetrate and receive healthy nourishment, than the other primitive and transition rocks, granite, porphyry, trap, or the secondary and tertiary formations of nearly horizontal strata, red and white sandstone, &c. Primary strata are generally well adapted for larch, except where the surface has acquired a covering of peat-moss, or received a flat diluvial bed of close wet till or soft moorish sand, or occupies a too elevated or exposed situation—the two latter exceptions only preventing the growth, not inducing rot.

Gravel, not too ferruginous, and in which water does not stagnate in winter, even though nearly bare of vegetable mould, especially on steep slopes, and where the air is not too arid, is favourable to the growth of larch. It seems to prefer the coarser gravel, though many of the stones exceed a yard solid.

The straths or valleys of our larger rivers, in their passage through the alpine country, are generally {84} occupied, for several hundred feet of perpendicular altitude up the slope, by gravel, which covers the primitive strata to considerable depth, especially in the eddies of the salient angles of the hill. Every description of tree grows more luxuriantly here than in any other situation of the country; the causes of this are, 1st, The open bottom allowing the roots to penetrate deep, without being injured by stagnant moisture; 2d, The percolation of water down through the gravel from the superior hill; 3d, The dryness of the surface not producing cold by evaporation, thence the ground soon heating in the spring; 4th, The moist air of the hill refreshing and nourishing the plant during the summer heats, and compensating for the dryness of the soil; 5th, The reverberating of the sun’s rays, between the sides of the narrow valley, thus rendering the soil comparatively warmer than the incumbent air, which is cooled by the oblique currents of the higher strata of air, occasioned by the unequal surface of the ground. This comparatively greater warmth of the ground, when aided by moisture, either in the soil or atmosphere, is greatly conducive to the luxuriancy of vegetation.

Firm dry clays and sound brown loam.—Soils well adapted for wheat and red clover, not too rich, {85} and which will bear cattle in winter, are generally congenial to the larch.

All very rough ground, particularly ravines, where the soil is neither soft sand nor too wet; also the sides of the channels of rapid rivulets.—The roots of most trees luxuriate in living or flowing water; and, where it is of salubrious quality, especially when containing a slight solution of lime, will throw themselves out a considerable distance under the stream. The reason why steep slopes, and hills whose strata are nearly perpendicular to the horizon, are so much affected by larch and other trees, is, because the moisture in such situations is in motion, and often continues dripping through the fissures throughout the whole summer. The desideratum of situation for larch, is where the roots will neither be drowned in stagnant water in winter, nor parched by drought in summer, and where the soil is free from any corrosive mineral or corrupting mouldiness.

Larch, in suitable soil, sixty years planted, and seasonably thinned, will have produced double the value of what almost any other timber would have done; and from its general adaptation both for sea and land purposes, it will always command a ready sale.

CLASS II. SOILS AND SUBSOILS WHERE LARCH TAKES DRY ROT.

Situations (steep slopes excepted) with cold till subsoil, nearly impervious to water.—The larch succeeds worst when moorish dead sand alone, or with admixture of peat, occupies the surface of these retentive bottoms. Where the whole soil and subsoil is one uniform, retentive, firm till, it will often reach considerable size before being attacked by the rot. When this heavy till occupies a steep slope, the larch will sometimes succeed well, owing to the more equable supply of moisture, and the water in the soil not stagnating, but gliding down the declivity.

In general, soils whose surface assumes the appearance of honeycomb in time of frost, owing to the great quantity of water imbibed by the soil, will not produce large sound larch. More than half the low country of Scotland is soil of this description.

Soft sand soil and subsoil.—Sand is still less adapted for growing larch than the tills, the plants being often destroyed by the summer’s drought before they attain size for any useful purpose: the rot also attacks earlier here than in the tills. It appears that {87} light sand, sloping considerably on moist back-lying alpine situations, covered towards the south by steep hill, will sometimes produce sound larch; whereas did the same sand occupy a dry front or lowland situation, the larch would not succeed in it. The same moist back situation that conduces to produce sound larch in light dry soils, may probably tend to promote rot in the wet. The moisture and the less evaporation of altitude diminishing the tendency to rot in dry light sand, and increasing it in wet till. Larch will sometimes succeed well in sharp dry alluvial sand left by rivulets.

Soils incumbent on brittle dry trap, or broken slaty sandstone.—Although soil, the debris of trap, be generally much better adapted for the production of herbaceous vegetables than that of sandstone or freestone, yet larch does not seem to succeed much better on the former than the latter. The deeper superior soils, generally incumbent on the recent dark red sandstone, are better suited for larch than the shallow inferior soils incumbent on the old grey and red sandstone.

Ground having a subsoil of dry rotten rock, and which sounds hollow to the foot in time of drought.

Rich deaf earth, or vegetable {88} mould.—Independently of receiving ultimate contamination from the putrid juices or exhalations of this soil, the larch does not seem, even while remaining sound, to make so much comparative progress of growth, as some of the hard wood trees, as elm, ash, plane.

Black or grey moorish soils, with admixture of peat-moss.

Although the soils specified in this class will not afford fine large larch for naval use, yet they may be very profitably employed in growing larch for farming purposes, or for coal-mines, where a slight taint of rot is of minor importance. The lightness of larch, especially when new cut (about one-third less weight than the evergreen coniferæ), gives a facility to the loading and carriage, which enhances its value, independent of its greater strength and durability. Those larches in which rot has commenced, are fully as suitable for paling as the sound: they have fewer circles of sap-wood, and more of red or matured. When the rot has commenced, the maturing or reddening of the circles does not proceed regularly, reaching nearest the bark on the side where the rot has advanced farthest.

A great amelioration of our climate and of our soil, and considerable addition to the beauty and salubrity of the country, might be attained by {89} landholders of skill and spirit, did they carry off the noxious moisture, by sufficient use of open drainage, from their extensive wastes of mossy moors and wet tills, which are only productive of the black heath, the most dismal robe[21] of the earth, or rather the funeral pall with which Nature has shrouded her undecayed remains. This miserable portion of our country, so dreary when spread out in wide continuous flats, and so offensive to the eye of the traveller, unless his mind is attuned to gloom and desolation, lies a disgrace to the possessor. Were a proper system of superficial draining executed on these districts, and kept in repair, most of our conifers, particularly spruce and Scots fir, with oak, beech, birch, alder, and, in the sounder situations, larch, would thrive and come to maturity, ultimately enhancing the value of the district an hundred fold. This could be done by fluting the ground, opening large ditches every 30, 50, or 100 yards, according to the wetness or closeness of the subsoil—the deeper, the more serviceable both in efficacy and distance of drainage. These flutes should stretch across the slope with just sufficient declivity to allow the {90} water to flow off easily, The excavated matter should be thrown to the lower side; and when the whole, or any part, of the excavation consists of earth or gravel, it ought to be spread over the whole mossy surface, whether the field be morass or drier hill-peat: this would be useful in consolidating it, and in preventing too great exhaustion of moisture in severe droughts, from which vegetation in moss-soil suffers so much. Even though planting were not intended, this fluting and top-dressing would facilitate the raising of the gramineæ. These ditches, when the ground is not too stoney, or too moist, or containing roots, might be scooped out, excepting a little help at the bottom, by means of a scoop-sledge, or levelling box, worked by a man and two horses, the surface being always loosened by the common plough: one of these will remove earth as fast as twenty men with wheelbarrows.

ON BENDING AND KNEEING LARCH.

We cannot too forcibly inculcate the urgent necessity of attending to the bending of the larch: for our country’s interest, we almost regret we cannot compel it. In all larch plantations, in proper {91} soil, not too far advanced, and in all that may hereafter be planted, a proportion of those intended to remain as standards should be bended. The most proper time for this would perhaps be May or June, before the top-growth commences, or has advanced far; the best size is from three feet high and upwards. The plants should be bent the first season to an angle of from 40° to 60° with the horizon, and the next brought down to from 10° to 60°, according to the size of the plant, or the curve required,—the smallest plants to the lowest angle.

From experience we find that the roots of larch form the best of all knees; they, however, might be much improved by culture[22], although it does not {92} seem as yet to have been attempted or thought of. To form the roots properly into knees, should the plants be pretty large, the planter ought to select those plants which have four main roots springing out nearly at right angles, the regularity of which he may improve a little by pruning, and plant them out as standards in the thinnest dryest soil suited for larch, carefully spreading the roots to equal distances and in a horizontal position. To promote the regular square diverging of these four roots, he should dig narrow ruts about a foot deep and three feet long out from the point of each root, and fill them in with the richest of the neighbouring turf along with a little manure. When the plants are small, and the roots only a tuft of fibres, he should dig two narrow ruts about eight feet long crossing each other at the middle at right angles, fill these as above, and put in the plant at the crossing: the rich mould of the rotted turf and its softness from being dug, will cause the plant to throw out its roots in the form of a cross along the trenches. When the plants have reached five or six feet in height, the earth may be removed a little from the root, and, if more than one stout root leader have run out into any of the four trenches, or if any have entered the unstirred earth, they ought all to be cut excepting one, the stoutest {93} and most regular in each trench. In a few years afterwards, when the plants have acquired some strength, the earth should be removed gradually, baring the roots to from two to five feet distance from the stool, or as far as the main spurs have kept straight, cutting off any side-shoots within this distance, should it be found that such late root-pruning does not induce rot. This process of baring the roots will scarcely injure the growth of the trees, as the roots draw the necessary pabulum from a considerable distance, nor, if done carefully, will it endanger their upsetting; and the roots, from exposure to the air, will swell to extraordinary size[23], so as to render them, ere long, the firmest rooted trees in the wood. The labour of this not amounting to the value of sixpence each, will be counterbalanced thrice {94} over by the ease of grubbing the roots for knees; and the whole brought to the shipwright will produce more than double the price that the straight tree alone would have done.

The forester should also examine and probe the roots of his growing larch, even those of considerable size, in sound ground; and when several strong horizontal spurs, not exceeding four, are discovered nearly straight, and from two to five feet long, he ought to bare these roots to that distance, that they may swell, carefully pruning away any small side-roots, and reserve these plants as valuable store, taking good heed that no cart-wheel in passing, or feet of large quadruped, wound the bared roots. In exposed situations the earth may be gradually removed from the roots.

The rot in larch taking place in the part appropriate to knees, the forester cannot be too wary in selecting the situations where there is no risk of its attack, for planting those destined for this purpose. It is also desirable, if possible, to have the knee timber in ground free of stones or gravel, as the grubbing in stoney ground is expensive, and the roots often embrace stones which, by the future swelling of the bulb, are completely imbedded and shut up in the wood, particularly in those places between the spurs {95} where the saw section has to divide them for knees. Were the roots carefully bared at an early period, it would tend to prevent the gravel from becoming imbedded in the bulb. Nothing can be more annoying to the shipwright, when he has bestowed his money, ingenuity, and labour, upon an unwieldy root, and brought his knees into figure at the cost of the destruction of his tools by the enveloped gravel, to discover stains of incipient rot which renders it lumber.

This plan of baring the roots might be extended to oak trees for knees, baring and pruning about a foot out from the bulb annually. By exposure to the air, the timber of the root would mature and become red wood of sufficient durability. When covered with earth, the root of the oak remains white or sap wood, and soon decays after being dug up, the matured wood of the stem scarcely extending at all underneath the surface of the ground. The roots of the pine tribe are the reverse of this, at least the bulb and the spurs near it, are the best matured, reddest, toughest, most resinous, part of the tree. It is probably unnecessary to observe, that it would be folly to remove the earth from the bulb of trees in situations where water would stand for any length of time in the excavation. {96}

Larch knees are possessed of such strength and durability, and are of such adaptation by their figure and toughness, that were a sufficient quantity in the market, and their qualities generally known, we believe that none else would be used for vessels of any description of timber—even for our war-navy of oak. In America, where it is difficult to procure good oak knees in their close forest, it is customary to use them of spruce roots even for their finest vessels. The knees of vessels have a number of strong bolts, generally of iron, passing through them to secure the beam-ends to the sides of the ship. Larch knees are the more suited for this, as they do not split in the driving of the bolts, and contain a resinous gum which prevents the oxidation of the iron.

As the larch, unlike the oak, affords few or no crooks naturally, excepting knees, the artificial formation of larch crooks is of the utmost consequence to the interest of the holders of larch plantations now growing. In order to obtain a good market for their straight timber, it is absolutely necessary to have a supply of crooks ready as soon as possible to work the straight up. This would increase the demand, and thence enhance the price of the straight more than any one not belonging to the craft could {97} believe. In good soil many of the crooks would be of sufficient size in twenty years to begin the supply, if properly thinned out. In a forest of larch containing many thousand loads, and which had been untouched by any builder, we have seen the greatest difficulty in procuring crooks for one small brig. It is only on very steep ground, and where the tree has been a little upset after planting, that any good crooks are found. From the rather greater diameter required of larch timbers, and also from the nature of the fibre of the wood, we should suppose that steam bending of larch timbers would scarcely be followed, even as a dernier ressort.

Larch, from its great lateral toughness, particularly the root, and from its lightness, seems better adapted for the construction of shot-proof vessels than any other timber; and opposed end-way to shot in a layer, arch fashion, several feet deep around a vessel, would sustain more battering than any other subject we are acquainted with, metal excepted. Were the part above water of a strong steam-vessel, having the paddles under cover, a section of a spheroid or half egg cut longitudinally, and covered all around with the root cuts of larch five or six feet deep with the hewn down bulb, external; well supported {98} inside, having nothing exposed outside of this arch, and only a few small holes for ventilators and eyes; there is no shot in present naval use that would have much impression upon it. Had such a vessel a great impelling power, and a very strong iron cutwater, or short beak wedge-shaped (in manner of the old Grecian galleys), projecting before the vessel under water, well supported within by beams radiating back in all directions, she might be wrought to split and sink a fleet of men-of-war lying becalmed, in a few hours. This could be done by running successively against each, midships, and on percussion immediately backing the engine, at same time spouting forth missiles, hot water, or sulphuric acid from the bow to obstruct boarding; but even though the external arch were covered with assailants like a swarm of bees, they would be harmless, or could be easily displaced. To prevent combustion by red hot shot, the larch blocks, after drying, might have their pores filled by pressure with alkali. However, the employment of bomb-cannon about to be introduced in naval warfare, throwing explosive shot, regulated with just sufficient force to penetrate without passing through the side of the opposed vessel, will render any other than metallic defensive cover ineffectual; but {99} this circumstance will, at the same time, completely revolutionize sea affairs, laying on the shelf our huge men-of-war, whose place will be occupied with numerous bomb-cannon boats, whose small size will render them difficult to be hit, and from which one single explosive shot taking effect low down in the large exposed side of a three decker will tear open a breach sufficient to sink her almost instantly. For the construction of these boats, larch, especially were a proportion bent, would be extremely suitable, and thence larch will probably, ere long, become our naval stay.

Larch has been used in the building-yards of the Tay for 20 years back; and there is now afloat several thousand tons of shipping constructed of it. The Athole Frigate built of it nearly 12 years ago, the Larch, a fine brig built by the Duke of Athole several years earlier, and many other vessels built more recently, prove that larch is as valuable for naval purposes as the most sanguine had anticipated. The first instance we have heard of British larch being used in this manner, was in a sloop repaired with it about 22 years back. The person to whom it had belonged, and who had sailed it himself, stated to us immediately after its loss, that this sloop had been built of oak about 36 years before; that at 18 years {100} old her upper timbers were so much decayed as to require renewal, which was done with larch; that 18 years after this repair this sloop went to pieces on the remains of the pier of Methel, Fifeshire, and the top timbers and second foot-hooks of larch were washed ashore as tough and sound as when first put into the vessel, not one spot of decay appearing, they having assumed the blue dark colour which some timber acquires in moist situations, when it may be stiled cured; being either no longer liable to the putrid change constituting dry rot, or which forms timber into a proper soil for the growth of dry rot; or, from this blueness caused by the union of the tannin with iron acting as a poison on vegetation: this blueness, resulting from some alteration in the balance of affinities, occurs chiefly in timber containing much of the tannin principle, in which larch abounds. The owner of a larch brig who had employed her for several years on tropical voyages, also assures us that the timber will wear well in any climate, and that he would prefer larch to any other kind of wood, especially for small vessels; he also states that the deck of this brig, composed of larch plank, stood the tropical heat well, and that it did not warp or shrink as was apprehended.

From the softness of the fibre and want of {101} density of the larch, we would not deem it suitable for planking vessels beyond the size of ordinary merchantmen, say 500 tons, as in the straining of very large vessels, when the greatest force comes upon the outward skin, the fabric of the wood might crush before it, along the edge of the plank, and throw (chew) the oakum. In ordinary sized vessels, however, larch plank retains the oakum better than oak, from greater lateral elasticity. For the purpose of timbers, if root-cuts[24], and properly bent, we would think larch suitable to the largest class of vessels; as, though light, it is tough and quite free from knot, crack, or cross-grain, which is so common in oak, and which occasions dense old oak in large masses to give way at once, before a shock or strain, the hardness and unyielding nature of the fibre concentrating the whole dirupting impetus to one point. Larch may also be advantageously employed in the ceiling or inside skin of the part of war vessels above water: shot bores it, comparatively, like an auger,—thence the structure will endure longer under fire, and life be much economized.

In all places where larch has become known, it has completely superseded other timber for {102} clinker-built boats, surpassing all others in strength, lightness, and durability. For this purpose, young trees of about 9 inches diameter, in root-cuts from 10 to 20 feet in length, with a gentle bend at one end, such as the larch often receives from the south-west wind, are the most suitable. The log should be kept in the bark till used, and in dry weather the boards put upon the boat’s side within two or three days from being sawn out, as no timber we are acquainted with parts sooner with its moisture than larch; and the boards do not work or bend pleasantly when dry. When dried, the thin larch board is at once strong, tough, durable, and extremely light. The tough strength, almost equalling leather, is owing to the woven or netted structure of the fibre of the wood, entirely different from the pine, whose reedy structure runs parallel with very slight connecting or diverging fibres. It is very difficult to split larch even by wedges.

For rural purposes generally, larch is incomparably the best adapted timber, especially for rail or fence, or out-door fabric exposed to wind and weather. It is also getting into use for implements of husbandry, such as harrows, ploughs, and carts. We have seen a larch upright paling, the timber of which, with the exception of the large charred posts, {103} had only been eight years in growing, standing a good fence, sixteen years old, decked out by moss and lichen in all the hoary garniture of time.

In the construction of buildings, larch is valuable only for the grosser parts, as beams, lintels, joists, couples. For the finer boarded part, it is so much disposed to warp, and so difficult to be worked, as generally to preclude use. It is, however, asserted that if larch be seasoned by standing two years with the bark stripped from the bole before being cut down, that the timber becomes manageable for finer house work.

Although larch timber be extremely durable in exposed situation, yet it yields to the depredations of insects fully as soon as any pine timber in close houses. We have proof of it in house-furniture about 50 years old, but it is considerably moth-eaten by apparently a smaller insect than common. Larch stools also disappear in forests sooner than the stools of Scots fir, being eaten by a species of beetle; and the sea-worm devours larch in preference to almost any other wood.

We have looked over some experiments conducted at Woolwich, in trial of the comparative strength of larch and other fir timber, where the larch is stated inferior to Riga and Dantzic fir, Pitch pine, {104} and even Yellow pine. Larch, in the districts of Scotland where it is grown and much in use, is universally allowed to be considerably stronger than other fir; and the sawyers of it have one-fourth more pay per stated measure. We, ourselves, have had considerable experience of the strength of larch applied to many purposes, and have found it in general much superior in strength to other fir. We have known a crooked topmast of this timber, to which the sailors bore a grudge, defy their utmost ingenuity to get carried away. We once had four double horse-carts, made (excepting the wheels) of peeled young larch of rather slow growth, for the carriage of large stones; these, by mistake, were made very slight, so light, that, without the wheels, a man could have carried one of them away. When we saw the first loading of stones nearly a ton weight each, two in each cart, and the timber yielding and creaking like a willow-basket, we did not expect they would have supported the weight and jostlings of a rugged road many yards; yet they withstood this coarse employment for a long time. The timber of larch near the top of the tree is, however, very inferior and deficient in toughness; and it is not improbable that the experiments above alluded to at Woolwich had been made with larch {105} timber deficient in strength from being a top. White larch has comparatively smaller and more numerous branches than any other of the Coniferæ; consequently the timber is freer of large knots, and has more equable strength, as well in small spars as when large and cut out into joists and beams, provided the timber be not too far up the tree. Larch, however, compared with pines and firs, has the timber much stronger when young, and several inches or below a foot in diameter, than when old and large: this may partly be owing to its deficiency in resinous deposit.

NOTES TO PART II.

PART III. MISCELLANEOUS MATTER CONNECTED WITH NAVAL TIMBER.

NURSERIES.

Much of the luxuriance and size of timber depending upon the particular variety of the species, upon the treatment of the seed before sowing, and upon the treatment of the young plant, and as this fundamental subject is neither much attended to nor generally understood, we shall take it up ab initio.

The consequences are now being developed of our deplorable ignorance of, or inattention to, one of the most evident traits of natural history, that vegetables as well as animals are generally liable to an almost unlimited diversification, regulated by climate, soil, nourishment, and new commixture of already formed varieties. In those with which man is most intimate, and where his agency in throwing them from their natural locality and dispositions has brought out this power of diversification in stronger shades, it has been forced upon his notice, as in man himself, in the dog, horse, cow, sheep, poultry,—in the apple, {107} pear, plum, gooseberry, potato, pea, which sport in infinite varieties, differing considerably in size, colour, taste, firmness of texture, period of growth, almost in every recognisable quality. In all these kinds man is influencial in preventing deterioration, by careful selection of the largest or most valuable as breeders; but in timber trees the opposite course has been pursued. The large growing varieties being so long of coming to produce seed, that many plantations are cut down before they reach this maturity, the small growing and weakly varieties, known by early and extreme seeding, have been continually selected as reproductive stock, from the ease and conveniency with which their seed could be procured; and the husks of several kinds of these invariably kiln-dried[25], in order that the seeds might be the more easily extracted! May we, then, wonder that our plantations are occupied by a sickly short-lived puny race, incapable of supporting existence in situations where their own kind had formerly flourished—particularly evinced in the genus {108} Pinus, more particularly in the species Scots fir; so much inferior to those of Nature’s own rearing, where only the stronger, more hardy, soil-suited varieties can struggle forward to maturity and reproduction?

We say that the rural economist should pay as much regard to the breed or particular variety of his forest trees, as he does to that of his live stock of horses, cows, and sheep. That nurserymen should attest the variety of their timber plants, sowing no seeds but those gathered from the largest, most healthy, and luxuriant growing trees, abstaining from the seed of the prematurely productive, and also from that of the very aged and over-mature; as they, from animal analogy, may be expected to give an infirm progeny, subject to premature decay.

As, from many facts, a considerable influence is known to result in several vegetables from drying severely the seeds from whence they had sprung[26],—from exposure of these seeds to the sun and air,—from long keeping, or from injury by mould or {109} impure air, which all tend to shorten the life of the resulting individual, to accelerate the period of its seeding, and to increase its reproductiveness; the nurseryman should pay the utmost attention to the seeds he makes use of, procuring them as recent as possible, and preserving them in well-aired lofts, or under sheds, and also retaining them in the husks till the time of sowing: the superior germinating power of the seed thus treated will repay this attention.

From facts we are also assured, that, in some hard wood kinds, and also in the Coniferæ, the hanging of the growth of the young plant, the spindling up in the seed-bed, or injudicious deterring treatment afterwards, have a tendency to injure the constitution of the individual, inducing premature seeding, and diminutive old age; and also, that when plants, especially of some size, of these kinds of trees have their roots much broken, the secondary or new roots often partake something of the nature of the infirm runners, which, in most kinds of trees, are thrown out by layers,—the resulting tree, as in the case of those from layers in fruit trees being dwarfish, sooner exhausting itself by reproduction, and sooner decaying. For distinctness, we shall recapitulate: {110}

That the seed be from the largest, hardiest variety of tree in luxuriant growth.

That the seed be recent, and carefully preserved in husk till sowing, and extracted from the husk or cone without artificial drying.

That the nursery be in an open, rather exposed situation,—most eligible without shelter either of tree, hedge or wall, of rather light dry soil of ordinary quality, of dry climate, and, in preference, soil naturally good to that made so by high manuring.

That the plants be not too close, nor remain too long in the seed-bed; that they be extricated without much fracture of root, and be replanted in wide rows, with good space between the plants in the row, keeping the roots as superficially extended as they will thrive, and without doubling the main root up to the surface of the ground.

That the plant receive no pruning, excepting in the case of more than one leader appearing, or feeder unproportionally extended; and no root-section, in order to retard its growth, or increase the number of root-fibres; and that its ultimate removal be accomplished without much fracture of root or branch.

By exposed situation of nursery, ordinary quality of soil, and much room in the seed-bed and rows, we {111} shall have plants with firm fibre and hardy constitution, with thick juicy bark, thick stem at the surface of ground, and numerous feeders all the way down the stem. Roots are most easily extricated from light soil, and with least fracture. They are large in proportion to stem in dry soil and climate, and when they are situated near the surface of the ground.—A healthy growing plant, of firm fibre, large root, and sturdy short stem of one leader and numerous feeders, is the great desideratum: a large root is the more desirable, as a considerable part of it is generally broken off in transplanting, rendering it disproportioned to the top, which, in consequence, either languishes, or receives deterring cropping.

We consider, that a tree grows more luxuriantly, acquires larger size, and is much longer of reaching senility, when it is furnished with several large roots, say one or two to each of the cardinal points, extending horizontally out with bold leaders, than when numerous small rootlets diverge in all directions from the bulb, as is the case in some kinds when much fracture of root takes place from frequent removals, or, when the nursery is of moist or mossy soil, the plants being removed when of considerable size. We have cut down old stunted hard wood trees having extremely numerous crowded roots, all {112} engrafted into a matted net throughout the soil near the bulb, and without any strong extended leaders. We attributed this crowded rooting to the plants having been of considerable size when put in, and losing their natural leaders; the situation, an avenue exposed to cattle, went to confirm the probability that the defect of the rooting had been owing to the largeness of the plants.

When a tree is supplied by numerous, consequently small and not wide-extending roots, as the tree acquires size, the wide spreading branches and leafy top shed off the rain and dews from the space occupied by these roots, very few of them extending beyond this shade; at the same time, this narrow space becomes soon exhausted of the more particular pabulum necessary to the kind of plant, the exhaustion being accelerated by the dryness. This dryness and exhaustion of the soil very soon show their effects aloft; the living hark of the tree becomes covered from its connexion with the air, and constricted by a thick hard dead crust, which, with the consequent very thin alburnum affording an inefficient communication between the supply and demand, react to impair the general vigour, and particularly to impede the descent of the proper sap necessary to the enlargement and further extension of the roots. The buds {113} not receiving sufficient supply of root-moisture, instead of pressing on to new formation of wood, only find enough to burgeon out into flower-buds, which the following season drain the tree by reproduction; this fruit-bearing alternates with periods of exhaustion, when the buds have not even supply sufficient to swell into the embryo of flower and seed, but extend only into a few leaves; and sometimes, in the event of a benign season, the buds may throw out a small extension of new shoots. The tree progresses very slowly in thickness of bole all this time, and generally soon falls a prey to disease. On the other hand, when the tree has its naturally fine large roots preserved, and is situated in open forest, and mixed with other kinds, these large roots diverging widely from the tree and each other, have a much larger less-sought space to forage in; and the tree enjoying a long period of luxuriant growth before it fall much into seed-bearing, acquires strength of constitution to thrive and increase for ages under this drain.

We are satisfied that cutting or fracture of the root-leaders, especially near the bulb, when they have acquired some size, is injurious to the extension and longevity of the tree, in pines and most kinds of hard wood; and that branch-pruning, as generally practised, is not less pernicious, first, by the {114} derangement which the plant receives, from the regular connexion between the rootlets and their affiliated twigs and leaves being destroyed by the section, and afterwards from the distance between the manufacturing parts, the leaves and the sources of supply in the ground being unnaturally extended, especially when the stem is long, slender, and much denuded.

Although we consider severe root fracture at planting pernicious to some hard wood and resinous trees, yet there are kinds to which it is advantageous. All plants which grow freely by cuttings, strike better to have the roots pruned in near to the bulb. Many kinds of seedling-plants also strike sooner, and throw out stronger new root-leaders, when the long straggling fibres are cut in a little, similar to the branches above, which, when over-numerous and slender, throw out more vigorous shoots by being cropped at planting.

PLANTING.

In regard to planting, soils divide into the dry and the moist; the former require to have the plants put in as soon as possible after the leaves drop off—at any rate, not to allow February to pass without completing the planting; excepting evergreens, {115} which should not be delayed beyond the middle of April. In dry soils, if the expense be not limited to a very low rate, pit-planting should be adopted, and the pits are better to be dug some months previous, in order that the earth may be aërated, and the turf partly rotted. The moist soils may be divided into those which are much disposed to throw the plant from the frosts and thaws, and those which are not; the former consisting of moory, soft, or spongy earth, upon a retentive subsoil; the latter, of the firmer, more equable loams, clays, and tills. Unless the plants are large, they should always be slitted into the former soil, and the work performed as soon as the ground becomes sadded in spring—as, though the lateness of planting should preclude throwing of pitted plants the first season, they will often be thrown the ensuing winter. When plants are very small, they may be put into the latter, by slitting; but if middle-sized, or large, they are better pitted. It is of the greatest importance to these moist soils, to have very deep, open[27] drains executed previous to planting, cutting off all the springs at their sources, and, if possible, drying the subsoil to such a degree that water will not stand in the pits. Should this be {116} accomplished, it is highly advantageous to dig the pits in time for the excavated clay to have its cohesion broken by frost: the planting should afterwards be performed exactly at the time when this frosted mould is sufficiently dry, and no more, to shake conveniently in among the fibres of the roots, and not to knead into mortar, by the necessary pressing of the feet. After this pressure, a little of the tenderest of the soil should be spread loose over the surface, to exclude drought. Should this dryness of subsoil not be effected, the pits must be dug in spring, at the time the clay is most friable; that is, between the moist and dry; and the plants put in immediately, breaking the clay as fine as possible, and closing it well around the roots. It is better to delay planting even till May, than to perform it too wet. When planting is delayed late in spring, the plants should be kept shoughed in the coldest situation that can be found, at the top of a hill exposed to the north, or in some cold, damp, back-lying place. Care should also be taken not to expose them much while planting, as they, especially if the buds be bursting, very soon wither when root and stem are both exposed to the sun and dry air. When late planted, they ought always to be dipped as far up as the branches in a puddle of clay and water: {117} should they be dipped over head in the puddle, it will not injure them.

What is of most importance to the success of planting, is to have the soil put very closely in contact with all the root-fibre, and these fibres in due natural separation, with a little tender mould on the surface;—not to have water stagnating around the root, at any rate during the first spring;—to have the planting done in time, to receive a good sadding by rain before the spring droughts commence;—to prevent rank weeds, furze, &c. from smothering the young plants;—and to exclude or destroy all bestial, as cattle, sheep, rabbits, hares, mice, &c. In keeping the latter in check, a few families of foxes are very efficient.

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON PRUNING.

Every forester is aware, that when feeders are pruned off, they should be cut away as close as possible to, and without tearing the hole. To perform this without danger of injury to the tree, when feeders of considerable size are to be removed, the branch should first be sawn over at about one foot beyond the intended section, and a second section then performed at the proper place. This {118} requires a little more time, but not nearly so much as an inexperienced person would suppose, as the section a foot out is made very quickly, and the pruner generally takes as much time to reach the branch as to cut it off. The neatness and advantage of this method will be acknowledged by those who have seen it practised, to compensate for the longer time it requires.

We find the saw, shears, and knife, the best instruments for pruning; in some cases of difficult approach, the long-handed pruning-iron may be resorted to. When the lopping is performed by a percussion tool, the wood and bark at the section is often shattered by the blow, and thence is less likely to cicatrize soundly; and even when executed in the best manner, the surface of the section is smooth and hard, consequently a good conductor of heat, dries much, and thence shrinks and cracks near the centre of the cut, opening a deep crevice, into which the rain penetrates, and often rots deep into the stem. When the section is made by the saw, a slight fibrous clothing is left upon the place, which in some measure protects the ends of the cut tubes from the frost and drying air, and excludes the heat; in consequence the wood at the section does not lose its vitality so far inward, and is not so liable to shrink {119} and crack in the centre and receive rain. The section can also generally be made much neater and closer by the saw than by any other instrument. The common erroneous belief, that a section by a sharp-edged instrument is less injurious than by the saw, is merely hypothetical, from wide analogy from animals. The pernicious influence on the whole individual, received and transmitted by the nerves from mangled section of animal fibre, is probably entirely awanting in vegetables; the whole process of life and of cicatrization is also totally different.

The forester should also be very wary in cutting off a considerable branch, whose section would incline upwards, as such a section, when it has received a circle of new bark and wood, forms a cup which receives and contains rain water, which quickly corrupts the bottom of the cup, and often rots the centre of the tree down to the ground. It is better to crop such a branch several feet from the main stem, close by some small feeder, unless the branch be dead. In pruning, every considerable section should be as near as possible at right angles with the horizon, or rather inclining inward below. Of naval timber, the beech is by far the most likely to take rot by being pruned, and should never have a large limb cut off, as the divided fibres generally die {120} downward a number of feet below the section, and soon afterward decay, leaving a hole in the bole.

As nothing retards the growth of trees more than full flowering and seeding, if pruning diminish this flowering and seeding, so that the gain from the prevention of this exhaustion more than counterbalances the loss of the pruned-off part, the pruning will of course accelerate the growth of the tree; but the removal of lower branches, although in the first place promotive of growing buds and extension of the top, in a year or two longer only tends to throw the tree more into flowering and seeding. The rich dryness, or want of fluidity of the juices which occasions flower-buds, is also induced by hot, dry atmosphere, and short supply of moisture from the roots during the preceding summer, both of which disposing causes are increased by a long naked stem. When the proportion of the part above ground of a tree to the roots is diminished, growing buds result, at least to a certain extent; yet it would be very difficult to practise a proper system of pruning on this principle, as the consequent lengthened stem is, in the end, promotive of flower-buds, especially in dry seasons, and the loss of feeders might greatly counterbalance the gain from not flowering, did a succession of wet cold seasons follow. {121}

The season when pruning should be performed, is something dependent upon the kinds, whether they bleed when pruned in early spring or do not. Almost any convenient time will suit for pruning the latter, but we rather prefer March, April, May, June, or autumn after the leaf has fallen. The former, sycamore, maple, birch, &c. ought either to be pruned in autumn, or after the buds are beginning to break in spring, as they bleed and suffer considerable exhaustion when pruned in the latter part of winter or early spring. From some facts, we consider that pruning in winter, especially in severe weather, gives a check to the vigour of the tree; others agree with this.

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 trees10, others 14, others18
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.

Let us continue to extend our foreign intercourse and home cultivation—let the merchant legislate in affairs of trade—the landholder in country matters; each in that in which his judgment has been formed by experience, acting always on the principle that the general prosperity of the country is the interest {133} of every class—that, like the branch and the root, their prosperity is indissolubly combined.

When we view the advantages of Britain—almost to a wish,—when we view her able and ready to supply the necessities of man in every clime, in exchange for his superfluities, and to scatter science, morality, the arts of life, all that conduces to happiness and improvement over the nations,—when we view all this, being blasted by an exclusive system of monopoly, of very doubtful advantage to one party of the nation, and tyrannically oppressive upon all others, can we refrain from execration? We would desire the casuist to draw a distinction between the criminality of preventing the operative from exchanging the produce of his labour (otherwise unsaleable) for cheap food[31], when his family is famishing; and compelling the labour of the Negro (whom you support with food) with the whip. Men will be found of a virtue sufficiently easy to advocate either system. We only wish that the supporters of {134} monopoly and their abettors were sent off to some separate quarter of the world with all their beloved restrictions, duties, tariffs, passports, revenue officers, blockade men, with the innumerable petty interfering vexatious regulations, and all the contrivances which surely the devil has invented to repress industry and promote misery, where they might form an Elysium of their own.

There is nothing more certain, should we by restrictions continue to banish knowledge, capital, and industry from our shores[32], than that the Genius of Improvement will fix upon some other place for the seat of her throne. Maritime dominion will follow in her train; and on the first war, all exportation of the products of our manufacturers being at an end, unexampled misery will involve four-fifths of our population, and an explosion will ensue, from its origin and character of unparalleled fury, which will sweep to destruction the insane authors of the calamity—tear to shreds the whole fabric of society—and give to the winds all the institutions which man has been accustomed to revere. {135}

It is disgraceful that our MARINE is not directly represented in the British Parliament. Is it possible that every clown in England, who is owner of a few acres or miserable hovel, is carried to the poll,—and that our shipping interest, and brave seamen, to whom the rest of the nation is indebted “for all they have, and almost all they know,” are passed over—have not one direct representative—have not even one direct vote, and that their interest is totally neglected[33]? Will it be credited that our most sage legislators, as if on purpose to ruin our marine, have laid on a tax of L. 4 per load (above 1s. 7d. per solid foot) on oak-plank, and L. 2, 15s. per load on rough oak-timber, imported from other nations; which, as only a small part of what is (not of what would be) used, is so derived, at the same time that it raises the price of the whole[34] nearly 100 per cent., tends comparatively little to swell the revenue,—nearly the whole of the high monopoly price reverting to our landholders and our grateful Canadian {136} colony? As about a load (50 solid feet) of timber is required for the construction of a ton of trading shipping, this duty, together with the high duty on hemp, increases the cost of our vessels nearly L. 4 per register ton, independent of the higher price of building and sailing them, from other monopolies; and it is only from the very superior skill, honesty and industry of our seamen[35], that our shipping, since the peace, under this very great disadvantage, has been at all enabled to compete with foreign. At Shields and Newcastle a new merchant-vessel of oak, rigged and ready for sea, uncoppered, can be purchased for L. 10 per register ton. Were the price, by the removal of monopoly, reduced to L. 6 per ton, scarcely a foreign bottom, American excepted, would compete with British, in the carrying trade, or would enter a British port. Can it be believed that our very liberal late minister (Mr Huskisson), and our very non-liberal member for Newark (Mr Sadler), have both made a full exposè of the distresses of our shipping interest, and not once have adverted to the cause of this, and of the comparative decline of our naval preponderance—the very high duty on the {137} material? Does our Government perceive the rapid strides which our rival brothers in America are making to surpass us in marine—and will it be so besotted as continue laws to the speedy fulfilment of this?

May we hope that, through the energy of OUR SAILOR KING, Britain will lead the van in the disenfranchisement of man from the old bondage of monopoly and restriction—that a more sane system of taxation (a tax on property) will be adopted, as well as a necessary retrenchment—that the true interest of Britain will be understood and followed, and a new era begin. We are sick of the drivelling nonsense of our closet economists about loss by colonies and foreign connexion. Bonaparte well knew the value of SHIPS, COLONIES and COMMERCE, and dreaded the power which eventually wrought his fall. The existence of China depends upon her Agriculture, and the sovereign devotes a part of his time annually to the plough. The existence of Britain depends upon her Marine, and the king should always be bred a sailor—the heir-apparent and presumptive being always sent to sea. In the case of a female, if she did not take kindly to the sea-service, a dispensation might be allowed, on her marrying a sailor, and the foolish law prohibiting our Royal Family from marrying a Briton be put aside.

NOTES TO PART III.

PART IV. NOTICES OF AUTHORS RELATIVE TO TIMBER.

After throwing together several of our own observations, we bethought ourselves of examining into the ideas and experience of recent writers on the same subject. Having taken notes of the more prominent matter contained in their pages, we believe we shall do the public a service by printing these notes, accompanied by slight remarks. This may be the more useful, especially as almost every author has his own particular mania, which few common readers have sufficient knowledge of the subject to discriminate from the saner matter: and as, from the nature of hobbies—from some shrewd enough guesses by the owner that they are his own undoubted property—and, perhaps, from some misgivings, that what he advances on these is not perfectly self-evident, he is thence the more disposed to expatiate upon them, and embellish. The {139} credulous and inexperienced, partly from this, and partly from the fascination of the very improbability, rush at once into the snare; bring the speculations or assertions to practical test; get quickly disenchanted by realities, and ever after are disposed to treat all written directions on material science with contempt. We bring forward these authors in the order of perusal. We have found several remarks similar to our own; this was to be expected.

I. THE FORESTER’S GUIDE, by Mr Monteath.

This volume is the work of a man of some experience, and of considerable observation and ingenuity, not much assisted by botanical or physiological science or literary attainment, which he, indeed, disclaims. His principal forte, and what he seems to have been most engaged with, is oak-coppice—his besetting sin, cutting and cropping. His directions on rearing and cutting coppice may be sensible;—those who wish to practise the sacrilege of destroying young oak-forest, we refer to him, as we have always had a horror at seeing a beautiful sapling untimeously cut down, like an American bullock for its hide. At present, and while peace continues, it is very easy to obtain plenty of foreign bark, and also oak-timber, for consumption, at a very cheap rate, for this reason—and also, because, in the event of war, the price of these articles would be nearly doubled—we would request the holders of coppice, and, indeed, of all growing oak-timber, to pause in their operations of cutting, and not to sacrifice their property so unprofitably, to their own ultimate disadvantage, and also to the detriment of {141} the national resources; but immediately to set about converting their coppice-hags into oak-forest, by careful thinning and selection. For performing this, we refer them to Mr Monteath in person, who seems to comprehend the utility, and to be pretty well versed in the practice, of thinning; only we would desire him, in pruning, to attend to the functions of the leaves; that the more abundant the covering of healthy foliage, the tree will progress the faster; and that the repeated cutting down of a young plant, year after year, as he recommends, even sometimes extending it to five years in succession, will either destroy the plant altogether, or be extremely injurious to its growth: although, if the plant be stunted, cutting it down, once, as every body knows, is the plan which should be adopted with all kinds of our common forest trees—the coniferæ, beech, and birch, excepted.

Mr Monteath advises a naturalization of young plants, after they are got from nurseries, in a soil and climate similar to that which they are ultimately to occupy. We see no necessity for this. All that is required in a young plant, is, that it be of good variety, of firm fibre, in a healthy growing state; with a stout stem, in proportion to the height, {142} with numerous side branches, and with a root rather large in comparison to the part above ground.

Our author’s mode of preparation of turfy peat-moss soils for planting we think good, but conveniently applicable in heathy moss ground, only with the assistance of the late Mr Finlayson’s ingenious device of the self-clearing plough. At every seven feet of breadth, Mr Monteath excavates a deep rut, by means of a plough with three coulters and two mould-boards,—two of the coulters cutting, each, a side of the rut, the other dividing it in the middle, and the double mould-board turning out a furrow to each side. He passes this plough twice along in forming the rut, each time turning out from four to six inches in depth, so that the whole depth of the rut is about ten inches. These minor drains communicate with larger ones dug by the spade across the field. The thrown up slices are then cut into lengths of eighteen inches, and carefully dried, by turning and by piling a few together, as openly as possible, that the wind may blow through. A small pile, about six in number, is then burnt upon the intended site of each tree, if necessary, aided in the combustion by furze or other fuel; taking care, by proper regulation of the quantity of fuel, or otherwise, to prevent the combustion from proceeding too {143} far, and the ashes from becoming white and light, as in this case a considerable part of their virtues is dissipated. This ploughing, drying, and burning, being performed as early in the summer as the weather will permit, the earth under the ashes is immediately dug over, from two to four feet in breadth, and mixed with the ashes, and the following spring the planting is performed. In situations where Mr Monteath’s plough could not be worked to advantage, these minor drains may be formed by the spade; and in heathy peat soils, not requiring drains, the burning of the heathy turfs on the site of the plants might be efficacious in correcting the tannin, and in reducing and enriching the soil within the immediate reach of the young plant, which would thus acquire strength to subdue the more distant part, and gradually reduce and form the whole into soil capable of affording healthy nourishment.

We also approve of the plan mentioned by Mr Monteath, for covering with timber, rocks or stony ground, so bare of soil as not to admit of planting, by means of placing seeds in the crevices, or on the shelves of the rock, and scraping together a little mould to cover them; or, when practicable, placing the seeds in the middle of the mould. Here, however, we think he errs, in recommending the {144} cutting down of the young resulting shoot, year after year, that the plant may acquire long roots, extended down the crevices, to give the future stem stability and sufficient foraging. We would never cut down but when the plant appeared stunted, and not then in succession, nearer than three or four years from the last cutting. Those who possess rocky precipices, so steep or inaccessible that the above method of our author could not be practised with conveniency, may cause a quantity of the cheapest seeds of trees be sown down over the top of the crags during the winter: we would prefer the end of January, as the mouldering effects of the frost and the rains would cover numbers of these, so as they would come to vegetate.

Mr Monteath advises, in rearing oak-forest or copse, to put in only about thirty plants per acre, and by layers from these to cover the interstices. In order to recommend this practice, he states the celerity with which these could be extended, layer beyond layer, making steps, every second season, of eight or nine feet, by relaying the last layer’s shoots, and he affirms, that a forest could be sooner, and more economically raised by this means, than by planting the whole at first. This is sufficiently imaginative. He seems not to be aware of the fact, that life is {145} very languid, and growth slow, in any branch horizontally extended, especially when upright stems from the same root are suffered to remain. He also expects the layer-roots to become strong and capable to forage for large trees. That they will, in the oak, ever become so, we think very improbable. Examination of the roots which proceed from oak-layers would place this beyond dispute; if they are, as we presume, fibrous and slender, similar to those produced by apple-layers, no tree or bush of any great size will result. Large trees, generally, cannot be procured by layers, but only in those semiaquatic kinds which grow readily by slips. Whether it may be advantageous to fill up the vacancies of copse by layers, in preference to seed-plants, experience only can determine. The bark of trees or bushes raised by layers or cuttings is generally thicker than that of those raised from seed:—this might balance some deficiency of the growth in the case of oak-coppice.

Our author advises the cutting off the upper part of spruce-trees on the outside of plantations, in order that their lower branches may extend the more, and remain vigorous,—thence affording more adequate shelter to the within plantation. Perhaps it is quite unnecessary to guard any person from practising this piece of folly. On the outside of woods, spruce-firs {146} will retain the branches in vigour, sufficiently low for all the purposes of shelter: nothing could be more unseemly than the decapitated trees; and in a few years most of them would become rotted in the stem, die, and fall down.

From observing, on the western side of Scotland, thriving plantations exposed to south-west winds and sea-spray, and also to north-east winds and sea-spray, in woods extending along the western side of the salt lochs in Argyllshire, our author predicts, that, under his panacea of repeated cutting down, trees would grow luxuriantly in exposed situations on the north-eastern margin of our island. We do not desire to see Mr Monteath’s sanguine hope turned to disappointment, which a trial would certainly effect. There is something peculiarly hard and cutting in our vernal north-eastern breeze fresh from ocean, which withers up the tender spreading leaves of every plant raised from the ground, and placed in its immediate draught. This is occasioned as well by a cold moist, as by a cold dry wind, the new vegetable structure in the developing process, when the tissues of tubes and cells are only in the state of pulp, and all the molecular germs floating into figure, under the direction of vital and chemical impulses and attractions, being very susceptible {147} of derangement. We attribute this effect on vegetables principally to the coldness and saline matter. The depressing effect on the spirits or vital energy of man, occasioned by the eastern breeze, does not appear to be dependent on the same cause. The great rivers, the Rhine, the Weser, the Elbe, independent of the English rivers, throw a great quantity of decaying vegetable matter into the lower part of the German sea, which, being there only a shallow muddy gulf, may thence have its waters so far contaminated as to throw off pernicious exhalations. Or, what is much more probable, the eastern breeze, sweeping along the swamps (at this time in high evaporation, of malaria) which extend from Holland upward, and along the whole southern shore of the Baltic, and thence eastward nobody knows how far, must bear these exhalations, uncorrected, over the narrow sea which intervenes between these flats and our shores. It is even likely that a slight diffusion of saline matter from this gulf, instead of correcting, may have the opposite effect, as a small quantity of salt tends to promote putrefaction. It is evident that this miasma-atmosphere, borne across the German sea, is not pernicious to vegetables; as, when the breeze is not too cold, or too violent, they progress rapidly in growth, {148} and acquire a deep green colour: and, on the north-eastern Scotch coast, where timber suffers most, the breeze has little of that depressive influence on man, although it may derange his respiratory and transpiratory organs; while down on the shores of Suffolk and Essex, where the malaria of the breeze is greatest to man, the exposed trees receive less injury. Yet something may depend upon the electric state of this air, or upon the greater pressure of the atmosphere, which, we believe, are connected. On the exposed east coast, when it is desired to grow timber, we must estimate the most enduring kind of tree, perhaps sycamore plane, and place it to seaward, covering it as much as possible by wall, and planting other kinds under its lee. We have noticed several instances where timber throve well, without shelter, close by the sea, on our north-east coast, which we attributed to a diminished draught of the eastern breeze, owing to the configuration of the adjacent higher country.

Mr Monteath ascribes the sickliness and decay which, in many places, is perceptible in the timber of narrow belts, to the want of shelter, and recommends to form belts wider. There is some truth in this, and the advice is good, although he does not seem to be aware of the whole cause of the evil. {149} Trees in single rows thrive latterly much better than in narrow belts, because, from the planting, they are habituated to open situation, and acquire roots, branches, and stem, suited to this: whereas trees in narrow belts, from being in a thicket while young, acquire great length of stem, and roots and tops unproportionably small; and, when thinned out, and from the narrowness of the belt, exposed nearly as much, as, though in single row, they become sickly, from delicacy of constitution unsuited to this exposure, and from deficiency of roots to draw moisture commensurate to the increased evaporation. To obviate this evil, resulting from narrow belts, timely thinning, so as to retain numerous side-branches downward to the ground, of course, should be adopted. In a drier climate, or in high and exposed situation, continued forest will have great effect in promoting the luxuriance and health of timber; but in the southern part of Scotland, there are few situations, keeping away from high elevation and the eastern coast, where any of our common trees would prosper in forest, which would not grow pretty well singly, provided the plant be allowed from the first to accommodate its figure to the situation.

Mr Monteath’s system of pruning severely while {150} the trees are young, we think very prejudicial; and his restricting pruning to trees under 15 or 20 feet in height, equally erroneous. About 15 years ago, we selected a number of young trees several years planted, and low and bushy, in an open situation. We treated one half of these in a manner similar to what our author inculcates, pruning away most of the lower branches, and also any irregular top ones: and the other portion, though very bushy, we left to nature’s own discretion, merely correcting several which threw up more than one leader. The result has been, that those much pruned up have required constant attention to the top and repeated pruning, they continuing to break forth into irregular branches and numerous leaders, and thence have sustained considerable loss of growth; while those let alone, after hanging several years in bush fashion, of their own accord have thrown up fine leaders, which now form beautiful, upright stems, with sufficiency of regular lateral branches or feeders, requiring little or no attention; while the original bush at the ground, from the size and overshadowing of the superior tree, appears now so diminutive as to be unworthy of notice. We do not mean to inculcate that pruning is superfluous; on the contrary, when judiciously executed, under regulation of the purpose for which the {151} particular kind of timber may be required, it is highly useful: but the cutting off and diminishing the number of lower feeders, thence deterring the growth of the tree, and encouraging the superior feeders to push up as leaders; or to increase in size so as to render their removal, should it be necessary, dangerous to the health of the tree, and the upper part of the stem useless from large knots (a practice which in nine cases out of ten is followed), cannot be sufficiently reprobated. In pruning, every means should be taken to increase the number of feeders, in order that none of them may become too large; and no healthy regular feeder should be lopped off till the tree has reached the required height of stem, and a sufficient top above this for the purpose of growth; at which time the feeders upon the stem, as far up as this necessary height, may be removed[36].

Mr Monteath states that Scots fir should not be thinned to greater distance than 20 feet apart, and larch 15 feet. This shews very little consideration: the distance apart necessary for these kinds of timber, and of all other kinds, must be relative to the soil, situation and climate, and the intentions of the owner, whether he means to bring them soon to {152} market, or carry them forward to great timber. When fir trees are intended to be early cut down, or when disease in larch from unfitness of soil may be apprehended, as it is thence of small consequence though their future ability to become great timber be destroyed by closeness, the plants should be retained pretty near each other from the first, that the timber may be tall, straight, and clean. On the other hand, when the soil is suitable and great timber intended, early attention to thinning and great openness from the first is absolutely necessary, as they (the firs), different from other trees, can never repair the loss of their lower branches by throwing out new ones from the naked stem; and double the distance stated by Mr Monteath at least for larch, which, instead of less, needs more space than Scots fir, will be required. We believe the decay of Scots fir, occurring so generally at about 40 years of age, although also dependent on inferior variety and kiln-drying of cones, arises principally from want of timely thinning; that is, that the infirm variety of Scots fir in common use, when supported by numerous feeders, and not weakened by being drawn up into a tall slender stem, will often have hardihood to continue growing, and acquire considerable size in our cold, wet, moorish tills, or even in our moorish {153} sandy flats. Many casualties will, however, occur among resinous trees[37], especially in unsuitable soil, even when the plants rise from the seed naturally sown, and have sufficient room for lateral expansion. The same cause, viz. closeness or want of thinning, induces early maturity, old age and decay in larch, although it does not seem to have any influence, either as inducement to, or prevention of, the rot. We have heard men,—even men reasonable on other subjects—speak of allowing a pine wood to thin itself: as well might a farmer speak of allowing his turnip field to thin itself. When woods are planted of various kinds of timber, the stronger, larger growing kinds will sometimes acquire room by overwhelming the smaller: but when the forest is of one kind of tree, and too close, all suffer nearly alike, and follow each other fast in decay, as their various strength of constitution gives way; unless, from some negligence or defect in planting, a portion of the plants have come away quickly, and the others hung back sickly for several years, so that {154} the former might master the latter: or when some strong growing variety overtops its congeners. In the natural forest of America, when a clearance by any means is effected, the young seedlings, generally all of one kind, spring up so numerous, that, choaking each other, they all die together in a few years. This close springing up and dying is sometimes repeated several times over; different kinds of trees rising in succession, till the seeds in the soil be so reduced as to throw up plants so far asunder as to afford better opportunity for the larger growing varieties to develope their strength; and, overpowering the less, thus acquire spread of branches commensurate to the height, and thence strength of constitution sufficient to bear them forward to large trees.

Mr Monteath, apparently to encourage the destruction of young oak, and keep his merciless hatchet agoing, asserts that “oak trees, at the age of 24 or not exceeding 30 years, have as thick a rind or fleshy part of bark, as when they arrive at 50.” If by this he means to say, that the useful part of the oak bark of the stem of a tree at 50 years old is no thicker than that of one of 30, we say he is wrong, widely wrong. A thriving oak tree of 100 years will still continue to increase the thickness of the valuable part of the bark on the stem, although part of the {155} outer layers or cuticle may lose vitality, and become corky. We have taken down a luxuriant growing oak, exceeding three feet in diameter, the living bark of whose stem was about two inches in thickness, resembling thick plank, and which was considered by the tanners much stronger in quality than bark of younger growth. Has Mr Monteath seen any bark resembling this on 24 years old sproutings? If, by the above quotation, our author means to say, that the valuable part of the bark on the branches of a tree 30 years old, is equal in thickness to that on the same sized branches of a tree at 50, we say he errs still; that is, provided the older tree be in a healthy thriving condition, and growing equally open and exposed as the younger. Trees, as they increase in years, increase also in the thickness of the living bark, from the root upwards to the smallest twig, provided they have not begun to get dry and sickly from over maturity. When this period arrives, the living part of the bark upon the stem and larger branches becomes very thin, with a great proportion of dead corky substance; although, on the twigs and smaller branches, it still continues to thicken. The age at which the external part of the bark begins to lose vitality, is considerably dependant upon luxuriance of growth, climate, and exposure; and the {156} period when this loss proceeds faster than the annual increase within, is altogether dependent on the vigour of the tree, not on the age, and never takes place till the timber is ripe for the dock-yard.

We would warn the readers of Mr Monteath’s volume, that his calculations and statements regarding the worth of coppice and timber generally, seem more suited to flatter the owner’s wishes than to be useful to him as a merchant; or to be adjusted to the value of money during the late war—not to the present value. We also do not very well comprehend his re-establishment or resuscitation of life in dead trees. We observe several other slight errors, such as the duration of his paling,—and the affirmation that the sap-wood will not extend so as to cover over the section of a pruned branch which contains any red or matured wood. Most readers will be able to detect such errors as these.

In taking leave of Mr Monteath’s volume, we would offer our acknowledgment for the attention he has bestowed on the subject of the seasoning of timber, by steaming with extract of wood (pyroligneous acid) and by scorching, as prevention of dry rot. The greatest objection we see to his plan is, that all timber dried quickly is liable to crack and split, and loses a considerable portion of its {157} toughness and elasticity; at least, timber when dried slowly is harder and stronger than when dried quickly, the dryness in both cases being carried to the same extent. The comparative strength of timber scorched and timber not scorched, after both are soaked in water, as in the lower timbers and plank of vessels, should be subjected to experiment.

Our author’s directions (although the practice is also not new) to season larch by peeling off the bark one or more years previous to cutting, in order to prevent it from warping or twisting in framed housework; and his hints recommending stripping off the bark from most kinds of timber a season previous to cutting, are also deserving of notice. We greatly wonder that something efficacious has not been done in regard to dry rot by our Navy Board, and consider the subject of such importance, that we think a rot-prevention officer or wood physician should be appointed to each war vessel from the time her first timber is laid down, to be made in some shape accountable if rot to any extent should ever occur; and that this officer should be regularly bred to his profession at an institution established for the study of this branch of science at the King’s largest building yard. Perhaps it might be as well to endow several professors’ chairs at the universities to follow {158} out and lecture on this science, as being of far more importance than many which are already endowed. We think that steeping in fresh water pits for several years, till a kind of acetous fermentation take place in the timber, or till it become of a blue colour; or in tan-pits; or for a shorter period in strong brine pits; or even salting the timber like herrings, after it is blocked out; or forcing pyroligneous acid, or composition of chlorine, or other solution, antiseptic or obnoxious to life, into the pores of the timber when dry, by pressure; or perhaps by charring the timbers after they are cleaned down on the stocks ready for the plank, by playing on them a jet of flame from a flexible gas pipe,—might, some of them, be found preventive of the rot, and at same time not to impair any of the valuable qualities of the timber.

We are a little shy in committing ourselves, lest we should be impressed as a dry-rot physician or professor; but if the following plan for preservation of vessels when unemployed has not already been tried, we recommend it to the notice of our Navy Board.

Let every part of the vessel be cleared out, and every port-hole or external opening be made as air-tight as possible.

Let a quantity of recent-burned limestone {159} (lime-shells) be spread thin over every inside deck or floor, and over the whole bottom and sides of the vessel, and every door or hatch in the main-deck be immediately closed down air-tight. A number of rods or shreds of timber would require to be nailed slightly to the inside skin of the ship where the slope is considerable, in order that the lime-shells may rest and not roll down.

As soon as it is found that the lime-shells are completely slaked—become hydrate of lime—let it be sold to the farmer or house-builder, or be used in any government erection going forward at the time; and let another quantity be laid in. We would consider a sloop of 80 tons load of lime, value, prime cost and freight, about L.70, would suffice for covering the internal surface of a seventy-four gun ship. When slaked to powder, the lime might be disposed of at little loss. It is impossible, without trial, to say how often the lime would require renewal, but we think twice or thrice a-year would suffice to preserve the vessel dry and free of any corruption; perhaps even once might be found effectual. Suppose that the lime was renewed every four months, and that when slaked it only sold at two-thirds of the whole cost, the preservation of a line-of-battle ship would be nearly as follows. The price of the lime {160} and work is correct, according to the rates in most of the harbours of Scotland.

A quantity of rods or shreds of timber, about three inches in diameter, for nailing on the sloping sides of the vessel, material and labour,

L.2000

Eighty tons lime-shells = 560 bolls, at 1s. 7d. per boll, prime cost,

4468

Freight of 560 bolls, at 1s.

2800

The slaked lime is supposed to sell at 2-3ds of the cost, thence the whole loss on a year would equal the value of one cargo.

Carrying three lime cargoes of shells aboard, and spreading them,

3000

We allow here for the greater distance of carriage, and spreading out of the cargo, nearly thrice the sum requisite to remove lime-shells from a vessel into a cart.

Removing the slaked lime of three cargoes,

3000
Cost first year,L.15268
Deduct rods,2000

Cost, second, and each following year,

L.13268

The complete efficacy of lime-shells in preventing dry-rot is already proved—the coasting small craft frequently employed in the carriage of lime-shells not being liable to it. All that requires to be ascertained, is the minimum quantity which will effect it; and if the expense of this quantity will greatly exceed the average loss by dry-rot in our unemployed {161} shipping. If the quantity necessary be not greater than what we have supposed—even Mr Hume himself would not consider the expense extravagant—the preservation of a line-of-battle ship not exceeding that of one of our numerous army captains while lying in ordinary.

Lime is preventive of dry-rot in several ways,—when uncombined as an antiseptic, simply by drying, from its attraction for water; by its causticity, which remains for a number of months after it is slaked, destroying organic life; and by its absorbing putrescent gases. It is not easy, without trial, to form a correct estimate of the quantity of moisture which would enter through the inside planking of a man-of-war; but were the bottom of the vessel in good condition, the pumps attended to, and external air excluded, we should consider that the moisture would not greatly exceed 60 tons of water yearly, which would nearly be required to convert 240 tons of lime-shells into dry hydrate of lime. No very great injury or inconvenience would be produced by the opening of the seams of the ceiling (the inside skin), or of the inner decks or floors, or by the warping of the plank, resulting from the contraction of the timber by the dryness; but the caulking of the main deck would require to be looked to. {162} No danger from fire need be apprehended, from the sudden slaking of a thin layer of shells, even though a leak in the main deck should occur. The thickness beyond which shells could not be suddenly slaked upon dry boards without danger of fire, might be tried.

It is necessary to mention, that, though lime-shells, or dry hydrate of lime, when timber is so dry as to be liable to corruption by insects or by dry rot, is, by destroying life and increasing the dryness, preventive of this corruption; yet lime, in contact with timber for a considerable time in very moist air, from its great attraction to water, draws so much moisture from the air as to become wet mortar or pulp, which, moistening the timber, promotes its decay by the moist rot.

II.—NICOL’S PLANTER’S CALENDAR.

This volume, which ought to have been named Sang’s Nurseryman’s Calendar, is a work of very considerable merit and usefulness, where the craft of the common nurseryman is plainly and judiciously taught. The editor, Mr Sang, admits that he was very little indebted to the notes of his friend (the late Mr Nicol) for the matter of the volume; and the work itself bears evidence of this, being principally devoted to the operations of the nursery, the sowing and planting of hard-wood trees, which are described with a judgment and accuracy attainable only by long experience in that line, to which we understand Mr Sang belongs. Every person engaged with the sowing, planting, or rearing of timber, if he be not too wise or too old to learn, should forthwith procure this volume.

Mr Sang recommends sowing of forests in preference to planting, which many before him have done, we believe, more from conjecture that nature’s own process must be superior to any method of art, than from any experience of the fact or accurate {164} knowledge of—at least without giving sufficient explanation of, any cause rendering the tree of more puny growth in consequence of being transplanted. In the case of simple herbaceous vegetables, we find, on the contrary, that transplanting increases the size, protracts the period of full development, and retards the decay, the individual suffering no lasting injury from root fracture, or that injury being more than compensated by change to a new and more recently wrought soil; or even the root fracture, instead of being of prejudice to the growth, by throwing the energy of the plant in this direction to repair the injury, not only may do so, but delaying the superior process towards reproduction[38], may also give a {165} new vigour to the soft fibrous rootlets, and greater extension than they otherwise would have attained. But in regard to some kinds of compound plants of perennial stem, transplanting, especially when the plant has attained some size, by fracture, throws the main wide diverging roots into numerous rootlets and slender matted fibres, none of which has individual strength to extend as a leader far beyond the shade of the spreading top, thence forage in a drier, more exhausted soil, and, from consequent want of supply of moisture, the sap of the tree stagnates into flower, or merely leaf-buds, instead of flowing out into new wood. The fibrous softer rooting vegetables sustain no lasting injury from root-fracture and transplanting; but the harder, more woody, larger growing roots, losing their leader, never entirely recover their original power of extention. Yet we think that one or two year old plants, taken from the seed-bed, would suffer little or no injury from removal, as the tap-root, which is ultimately of no consequence, never constituting a leader, but eventually {166} disappearing, is the only part which suffers fracture in the woody state; and the side shoots, which become the grand root leaders, are in the fibrous state, which easily repairs small injury. These observations refer only to certain kinds of timber trees. The willows, poplars, and lindens, succeed better when their roots are cropped in near the bulb when removed. We planted a piece of trenched ground, partly with poplar plants, with good roots, from a nursery, and partly with poplar loppings, about the same size as the plants, stuck into the ground: the loppings grew more luxuriantly than the nursery plants. The same occurs with willows—with this difference, that willow-loppings do better with the top entirely cropped, without any twigs or external buds; the poplar only pruned a little, with a terminal bud left on every twig, especially on the top shoot. The superiority of the growth of those without roots, results from their having fewer buds and twigs to exhaust the juices before the formation of new fibrils to draw from the ground, these few buds thence continuing to push more strongly, and from the roots growing more vigorously when sprung anew, than when they are a continuation of the wounded deranged old ones.

New rootlets spring out much sooner and more {167} boldly from the thick vigorous green stem bark, than from the delicate tender root bark, and also more vigorously from the bark of the bulb than from the bark of the remote roots, of those soft-wooded trees; indeed, it appears to be owing alone to the great strength of the vitality of the bark of the stem, that those kinds are so capable of continuation by cuttings. The roots have nearly the same delicacy of those of other kinds of trees, and show no particular readiness to throw up sprouts when bared.

Mr Sang, in furtherance of his advocated scheme of raising forests in situ from the seed, sensible of the general impracticability of fallowing or working the ground all over previous to sowing, gives directions for pitting or stirring the earth the previous spring and summer, in spots about fourteen inches square, and from six to nine feet separate, burying the turf under the soil, in order that it may be rotted, and a fine friable mould obtained for reception of the seeds to be sown the following spring; several seeds are then deposited in each spot, equidistant; these require to be hand-weeded the first season, and the resulting plants hoed around for several successive years, till they have mastered the weeds, after which they are all plucked out but one (the most promising) in each spot. This is all very well, {168} if we could have patience and assiduity to proceed thus systematically; and if the mice, birds, and other enemies, would “let them be;” but although this plan, when a braird is obtained, and the tufts cleaned, and seasonably thinned, is probably the best, yet landlords, in general incapable of exertion, but under the excitement of a fresh thought, are so infirm of purpose; tenure of life and property are so precarious; and trusted servants, especially when the procedure has originated with another, are so liable to be negligent, that our amateurs ought to gratify their passion for improvement while it lasts, and proceed at once by purchase of plants, and pitting or slitting, which procures them a forest immediately palpable to view. There is no doubt, however, that wooing the soil to kindliness, rearing the infant plant from the germ, and superintending a principio the entire beautiful process of vegetable development, will afford a deeper charm to a patient lover of nature; and that the continued solicitude and attentions required during this process acting upon man’s parental instinct, will excite an interest hardly to be felt towards a child of adoption.

A nursery gives such facility to the rearing of the plants, that, taking into account the greater chance of failure by sowing in situ than by planting, the {169} latter practice will be executed for one half the expense of the former. Supposing that the progress, after twenty years’ occupancy of the ground, be equal in both cases,—at which period, however, we think the transplanted would still have the advantage,—it would require a considerable ultimate superior progress in those sown, to outbalance the accumulating value of the extra expense. It is probable a combination of both practices might be advantageously followed—sowing the soils and situations most suitable, and transplanting the thinnings of these into the more exposed unpropitious places[39]. The matter, however, must, after all, be left to the test of experiment in a variety of soils and situations.

This volume, being principally a monthly detail of a nursery practice, which has supported the test of competition, has, on this account, a very different credit and value from much that has been published of landlords’ practice, theorists’ conjectures, or adventurers’ quackery. The burthen of our author’s song, which, from the nature of the work, falls to be repeated at several of the calendary periods, and which perhaps cannot be too often repeated, is nearly as follows.

Procure good seed of the best varieties from large healthy trees, and preserve these in husk in dry {170} well-aired places till sowing; with the exception of ash keys, haws, holly-berries, roans, and yew-berries, which require to be put in the rot-heap as soon as gathered. The rot-heap consists of seed mixed with sandy earth formed into a layer not exceeding ten inches in thickness; this is turned several times before midwinter, when it is covered with a layer of earth about seven inches deep, to exclude the frost. After remaining in this heap one year—till September, or the following February, these seeds are sown out.

Sow seeds of trees during the last half of February, March, or April, on beds of high manured easy soil, in very fine tilth, and clear of weeds, such as follows hoed green crop, in distance and depth in proportion to the size of the seed, or rather of the annual stem or braird. To deposit the seed at an equable depth, the upper friable mould is pushed (cuffed) off the bed to the interstices between by the reversed head of a rake, as deep as necessary; the seed is then deposited by the hand, and rolled over by a very light roller to fix it, that it may not suffer derangement by the return of the earth which is then evenly cuffed back from the sides, and no harrowing or raking given.

Watch most narrowly, and ward off or destroy all {171} kinds of vermin, mice, snails, birds, till the time when the rising braird has disencumbered itself of the husk of the seed thrown up by the ascending stem, and nip out every weed as soon as discernible by the naked eye. In order to diminish the toil of watching, the different kinds should be sown as near the same time as their nature renders prudent, and the seed-beds be situated as near each other as circumstances will admit.

At the end of the first or second season, according to size and closeness of plants, remove the seedlings from the bed to nursery rows, at any time when the leaf is off, and the ground sufficiently dry not to poach; before April for deciduous trees, and during April for evergreens, placing them in rather open order, either by dibbling or laying, according to the nature of the root, firming the plants well in the ground; in case of dibbling, taking good heed to leave no vacuum of hole under the root, and to work the tool so as to compress the earth more below than above.

Keep the soil loose and friable on the surface, and clear of weeds between the transplanted rows by repeated seasonable hoeings, and let the plants rise with a single leader.

After the plants have stood one or two years in {172} the nursery-row, remove them to their ultimate destination with as little fracture or exposure of root as possible,—the larger rooted by pitting, and the smaller by slitting, or as the nature of the soil may require; paying most particular attention to plant the dry ground early after the leaf has dropped, and the moister and more adhesive soils in succession, as they become so dry in spring as not to adhere to the tools in working, or poach in treading the plant firm in; removing the evergreens earlier, or later, in April, according to the dryness or moistness of the ground; dipping the roots in a clay-puddle, and endeavouring to seize the opportunity of planting before a shower, should the spring be far advanced and dry, especially in the more arid situations.

Stout healthy seedlings, one or two years old, may be at once removed from the seed-bed to their place in the forest, and will often succeed as well as when nursed in rows, as above.———We have preferred the pick of the seedlings to the common run of the transplanted, as being probably stronger growing varieties.

In cases where it is practicable, work over the new plantations for several years with crops of potatoes, turnips, lettuce, &c., manuring the ground, if {173} possible; and then sow out with perennial rye-grass and white clover, if the trees are not become a close cover, making economical use of the grass as early in the season as it can be mowed with a short scythe.

For seeds that require to lie a season in the rot-heap, such as ash keys, haws, &c. September-sowing is preferable to deferring it to the following spring, as they are liable to chip in the heap. If not sown in September, they must be got in as soon in February as possible.

Acorns, Spanish and Horse Chestnuts, are best sown when they drop from the tree; but when the seed is not procured till spring, the sowing ought not to be deferred beyond February and March. The best soil is a deep rich loam.

Elm-seed may be sown in June, when it is new from the tree, or carefully dried and kept over season till next spring; one-half may then be sown in March, and the other in April, as the March-sown is sometimes injured by late frosts. The utmost care is required to prevent this seed from heating when newly gathered.

Beech braird is also liable to be cut off by spring frost; the seed should therefore be sown partly in March and partly in April, to diminish the chance {174} of entire failure. The soil requires to be rich, and is benefited by a dressing of well-made manure previous to sowing.

Sycamore Plane braird also suffers by late frost, and for greater security ought also to be sown partly in March and partly in April. Planes require dry, poor, rather exposed sandy soil, for seed-bed; as, in rich damp soil, the top of the annual shoot does not ripen: the seed ought to be thinly sown.

Birch and Alder seeds require to be sown in March, or beginning of April, on very fine, rich, easy mould, giving them very slight cover, especially the birch.

The Coniferæ, Scots Fir, Spruce, Silver Fir, &c. should be sown in April, on very rich easy soil. The greatest care is required to deposit these different seeds at proper regular depth, from an inch to the fourth of an inch, in proportion to the size of the seed.

Larch should also be sown in April; it succeeds best on the clean mellow ground which has produced a crop of seedling Scots fir. It is worthy of remark, that the larch seedlings and row-plants are liable to die under a putrescent disease, when much recent manure is employed.—We remark this accordance with its tendency to putrid disease in after life. {175}

Acorns, Chestnuts, and other large seeds, may be economically sown in drill: where the soil contains much annual weed seed, this admits of expeditious cleaning by the hoe. Ground which has borne a crop of potatoes the preceding season, is unfit for seed-beds, as the tubers and seed of the potato give much trouble.

These are the chief of Mr Sang’s directions on raising timber-plants. With the exception of kiln-drying of cones, and being rather too prodigal of manure to the seed-beds (perhaps necessary in a sale nursery), we see nothing in the volume to censure.—A premium should be offered for a convenient plan of distributing fir-seed suitably in the seed-bed, without the aid of artificial drying.

It is perhaps unnecessary to state, that, in the culture of trees, there are thousands of incidental circumstances to which general directions will not apply, and which demand a discriminating judgment in the operator: this acts as a school to the mental acumen; and there is no class of operative men, which has the faculties of attention, activity, discrimination, and judgment, more developed, than nurserymen and gardeners,—whose diversified labours, requiring, at the same time, constant mental and corporeal exertion, keep up a proper balance of the human powers. {176}

We leave to the judgment of the operator to proportion the thickness of sowing of the different kinds of seed to the expected size of stem and leaf, under regulation of soil, season, and quality of seed; and to determine whether the plants may be continued more than one season in the seed-bed, or be entirely or partly drawn the first, which must depend on their luxuriance and closeness; also to notice if all the seeds have vegetated the first season, or if many of them still be inert; in the latter case, the seedlings must be picked out; to facilitate which, the earth may be gently raised by a three-pronged fork, with as little superficial disturbance as possible.

In nurseries, the great and general error is having the plants too close together, particularly in the row. Every nursery-row plant should be of a regular cone figure, with numerous side-branches down near to the root, and gradually widening in the cone downwards. These would, indeed, occupy more space of package, and probably not please the ignorant purchaser, who generally prefers a clean, tall body; but they would support the hardships of removal to the moor, and be stately trees; when the comely, straight, slender plants would either have died altogether, or have become miserable, unsightly skeletons, or stunted bushes. {177}

In cases where plants are required of considerable size, for hedge-rows or park-standards, it is matter of doubt, how far frequent removals in nursery, or cutting of roots, is profitable. This occasions fibrous matted roots, which tend much to the success of the ultimate removal, and to the growth of the plant for several years after; but, by checking the disposition the roots naturally have to extend by several wide-diverging leaders, probably unfit the plant for becoming a large tree.

Mr Sang remarks that sycamore planes and birch should not be pruned in the latter part of the winter, as they bleed greatly at that season: we have often noticed this as early as midwinter, which also occurs to the maple tribe. Our author introduces the mountain-ash as a forest tree, a rank it by no means merits, at least for value as a timber tree. When exceeding six inches in diameter, it is generally rotted in the heart, and is only valuable as a copse for affording pliant, tough rods; or twigs, as a charm or fetiche against witchcraft! It is, however, one of our most beautiful trees.

Mr Sang gives directions for kiln-drying fir cones previous to thrashing out, or extracting the seeds. We have before adverted to this, and would {178} particularly reprehend the practice. It is difficult to determine how far early fruitfulness and consequent infirmity of constitution, diminutiveness of size at maturity, and early decay, may originate from kiln-drying the cones; but, from the same process of drying in a less degree having been ascertained to induce early seed-bearing in the case of other seeds, we may infer almost to certainty, that the coniferæ of this country, not naturally planted, are very materially injured by this practice.

It is of small consequence, in reference to the tree itself, at what season deciduous trees are planted, provided they be naked of leaf, and the ground not too dry, as they are not liable to lose much by desiccation or evaporation by the bark alone, before the roots strike anew in spring, and draw freely from the soil; and the skin of the bulb, although the small rootlets be broken, sucks up moisture from the damp soil to repair the loss by superior evaporation: but evergreens—firs, hollies, laurels, yews, sometimes suffer by removal at a time when the roots do not immediately strike, as in winter, owing to the torpor from cold. We have often seen their juices exhausted, and their leaves entirely withered, by a continuation of dry northerly winds, the manifest cause of which {179} was the great superficial exposure of the leaves evaporating faster than the fractured torpid roots afforded supply. Therefore, although winter planting seldom fails, yet it is perhaps better to seize the exact time in spring, immediately before the roots commence to strike anew, before there is any new top-growth, and while the soil and air remain somewhat moist and cold, that the evaporation may not be too great. In this climate, April is a good season for removing evergreens to the field, although, to throw the work from the busy season, it is often practised in the nursery in September, when their annual growths are completed, and while there is yet warmth to enable the roots to strike anew; this, however, is only advisable where the soil for their reception is in the most favourable state, friable, and inclining to moist, or when there is great indication of rain, and the air near the dew point. Of course they require to be planted as soon as extracted. In winter or spring, when it happens that evergreens must lie in the shough, the most protected situation, where the air is moist and still, ought to be chosen, and the earth carefully closed to their roots, which is best done by watering, if rain be not expected; the stems and branches should also lie as close to the ground as possible. {180}

There is appended to this valuable Planter’s Calendar a treatise on the Formation and Management of Osier Plantations. As this will not bear compression well, we refer our reader to the volume itself.

III. BILLINGTON ON PLANTING.

We have perused Billington’s account of the management of the Royal Forests with much profit; it affords us an excellent series of experiments, shewing how much conduct and integrity may exist in Government establishments, even although the strictest watch be not kept over their motions by the nation itself. Words are awanting to express our admiration of every thing connected with the management of our misnamed Royal Wastes. We scarcely could have hoped to find such pervading judgment and skill of calling, as have been displayed by the Commissioners, and Surveyors General and Particular; but it is true, the noble salaries attached to these situations must induce men of the very first ability and knowledge of the subject, to accept of the office.

Our author, Mr Billington, proceeds with great naiveté to relate how they sowed and resowed acorns—how they planted and replanted trees, persevering even to the fifth time, sometimes covering the roots, and sometimes not, “but all would not avail,” nothing would do; the seeds did not vegetate, and the {182} plants refused to grow, excepting in some rare spots, and a few general stragglers. Then how the natural richness of the soil threw up such a flush of vegetation—of grass, and herbs, and shrubs, that most of these plants were buried under this luxuriance; and how the mice and the emmets, and other wayfarers, hearing, by the bruit of fame, of the wise men who had the governing of Dean, assembled from the uttermost ends of the island, expecting a millennium in the forest, and ate up almost every plant which had survived the smothering. Now, this is well; we rejoice over the natural justice of the native and legitimate inhabitants of the Royal Domain, the weeds mastering the invaders the plants, who, year after year, to the amount of many millions, made hostile entrance into the forest. We only deplore the cruel doom of the mice, on whose heads a price was laid, and of the emmets, who, acting as allies of the native powers, merited a better fate than indiscriminate slaughter.

May we hope that our Government will no longer persist in unprofitable endeavours to turn cultivator, or to raise its own supply? We laugh at the Pasha of Egypt becoming cotton-planter and merchant himself, in a country where the exertions of a man enlightened beyond his subjects, who has influence {183} to introduce intelligent cultivators, possessing the knowledge of more favoured nations, may be necessary to teach and stimulate the ignorant Copt to raise a new production: And here, where discovery in every branch of knowledge almost exceeds the progressive—here, where so many public and government fixtures stand out, as if left on purpose to indicate the recent march of mind, contrasting so strongly with private and individual attainment in science and art,—with every thing the reverse of what affects the Egyptian’s conduct; or, at least, with no excuse beyond affording a cover for a wasteful expenditure of the public money;—will our Government continue the system, heedless of reason or ridicule? or will they not at once end these practices, and immediately commence sales of every acre of ground to which the Crown has claim, excepting what is necessary for the use of royalty, abolishing Woods and Forest Generals, Rangers—every one who has taken rank under Jacques’ Greek, or the devil’s own invocation, and pay off a part of the debt which is crushing the energies of the first of nations?