FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 293 



instead of casing a post, have the post sawed the required size, say ten inches 

 square or so, and omit the casing; thoroughly season it; treat the part going 

 into the ground and six inches above ground as above stated ; plane smooth, 

 cap, finish, and paint the balance. It is good to set posts with wood ashes, 

 leached or otherwise ; set firm two inches at bottom, and surface of the ground 

 likewise. From four to six inches above, or rather at the surface of the ground, 

 the post is most liable to decay, and should be thoi'oughly treated, and the post 

 should be perfectly free from sap wood. 



A riven post or stake, riven from center to circumference, mind, is far better 

 •than sawn. Why? Because the surface of the post or stake is bounded by 

 walls of perfect lignum fibre, parallel and in line of the tree growth, and not 

 across sap cells, except at the bottom of the post or stake, while a sawn post, 

 more or less, unless the tree from which it is sawn is very straight and thrifty, 

 crosses the sap-cells, and therefore introduces the moisture into the interior of 

 the post. There is not room in this paper to give all the reasons for the posi- 

 tions above taken. 



How to Make a Kijanizing Bath. 



Dissolve one pound of corrosive sublimate in twenty gallons of water, in a 

 tight half hogshead or rectangular box of the proper height, and stand up the 

 posts in the liquid for two Aveeks. Be sure all the necessary parts of the posts 

 to be Kyanized are under the liquid during the time, then take out and dry, 

 and fill up the bath with more posts. If tlie liquid evaporate, add water and more 

 of the solution, when necessary. 



A bath of strong lye from potash or wood ashes makes a fair substitute, and 

 it is presumed the cheaper solution made from copperas (sulphate of iron) and 

 water would form a styptic equally eifective. The corrosive sublimate sohition 

 ■will not, however, be very expensive, as so large a number can be treated with 

 so small a quantity. 



Now for the reason of the rule and a little vegetable physiology : As to the 

 best time for cutting the tree, as stated above, there are numerous opinions 

 among farmers. A prevalent notion has been the first of February, both for 

 rails and posts ; some contend June the better time, when the bark peels easily, 

 but numerous experiments have fixed upon the last of July or first of August, 

 being about the close of the chemical and beginning of the thermal period or 

 crisis in vegetable growth when the terminal bud is formed, although the par- 

 ticular day cannot be determined. I am aware of various opinions of vegetable 

 physiologists in regard to the exogenous movement of sap and its conversion 

 into wood in our deciduous trees, but I am confident in the theory that the sub- 

 cells are so formed as to move the sap from the root upward to the buds or 

 leaves, anastomosing between the wood-layers from one cell to another, and by 

 the inhaling and exhaling powers of the leaves the sap becomes decarbonized 

 and flows down the outer side of the tree, between the bark and sap-wood, and 

 forms the annual wood growth. The course of the sap-cells to conduct the sap 

 is from the root upward, therefore a post set with the butt down in the ground 

 will naturally, by capillary attraction, raise moisture upward in the sap-cells 

 and rot it, and the reverse, if the butt is set upward. The tree is in rest during 

 the winter. The greatest flow of sap is in the spring, and the least at the sum- 

 mer crisis ; the tree the largest in the former case by the expansion of the sap- 

 cells, and the smallest in the latter case by their contraction. The flow of sap 

 gradually decreases until the terminal bud is formed and hardened on the limbs 



