THINNING AND PRUNING. 35 



rived at the conclusion that nothing contributes so much to the 

 solidity, strength and durability of timber, as completely strip- 

 ping the trees of their bark, some years, — at least three, before 

 they are to be felled. This should be done in the spring, when 

 the bark is most easily separable. The tree continues to put 

 forth leaves, and to expand and mature them for several suc- 

 cessive seasons. But as no new wood can be formed, after the 

 bark is removed, Buffon supposed that all the action of the 

 leaves goes to add to the substance of the wood previously 

 formed.* It is thus increased in density and weight; and he 

 found that, universally, in the same kind of wood, strength is 

 proportional to weight. By this process, the sap-wood was ren- 

 dered as dry, hard and strong, as heart-wood, and in some 

 instances even stronger. Timber managed in this way was 

 foimd to be sometimes a fourth part stronger than that from 

 trees in the same forest, and in all other respects precisely sim- 

 ilar, treated in the usual way ; that is, felled with the bark on, 

 and dried under the open sky or under sheds, f 



Such are some of the suggestions which I have desired to lay 

 before my fellow-citizens of Massachusetts, for the improvement 

 of their forests and the redemption of their waste lands. I have 

 opened, very imperfectly, the great and important study of the 

 history and management of forest trees. A tree is the most 

 magnificent among the material works of God. The nature, 

 the relations to soil, to climate and to exposure, the affinities, 

 the properties and the uses to man and other animals, the dan- 

 gers from enemies and diseases within and without, and the 

 circumstances necessary to secure the health, growth and beauty 

 of the trees of any one family, are subjects worthy of the delib- 

 erate and mature and long continued attention of any man, of 

 whatever intelligence, and with whatever resources of science. 

 The best disposition of trees in the landscape, the treatment of 

 each according to its character and appearance at all seasons of 



* This it probably does by appropriating the substance destined for new layers of 

 wood, to lining and filling up the cells or tubes, of which woody fibre is composed. 



f See Buffon, Tome II., edition de Richard, 1839. Experiences sur les Vegetaux. 

 Second Memoire, p. 325, et suivantes. 



