1885.] BARK-STRIPPING AND TIMBER-FELLING. 205 



many pounds may be lost by a little carelessness in neglecting to 

 embrace every opportunity to secure it. 



After drying, the bark is usually stacked in a large pile similar 

 to a wheat stack, and thatched over with straw to shade the rain 

 off, as if rain gets into it the bark is rendered useless. Although 

 the bark of most of the different species of trees possess tanning 

 properties to a certain extent, the importation of foreign chemicals 

 lias so reduced the market prices that the cost of peeling any other 

 tree is greater than the realizable value of it. The oak bark is 

 indispensable to the tanner ; without it, leather would not Avithstand 

 the usage to which it is subject in this country. 



Continuing the subject of felling of trees : — For the securing of 

 good quality of timber, the proper time of cutting down — except in 

 those cases where the bark has to be peeled — is in mid-winter, 

 when the tree is entirely free from growth. Indeed, the majority 

 of the species of trees are unfit for seasoning if felled when 

 growth is going on. Different localities adopt different methods of 

 bringing down the tree from its proud position. The best, most 

 practicable, and most profitable to the timber merchant, is that 

 adopted in the greatest fox-hunting districts, where landlords bind 

 them to exercise the method that will least disturb or interfere with 

 their pleasure — namely, by cutting with an axe, commencing at the 

 .surface of the ground and chopping downwards all round, so that 

 when the tree is removed, the root bears the form of a saucer. 

 Thus when the huntsman rides over it, the horse's hoof does not 

 slip, as it would do were the tree sawn across and left smooth. 

 This plan is more economical for the timber merchant, as the best 

 part of the tree, namely, that nearest the root, is secured, and the 

 root when left in this form, is more liable to grow up slender shoots, 

 which in many varieties of trees are valuable for wicker-work, the 

 sawn roots not producing such shoots. Immediately on being cut 

 down, the branches and limbs are lopped off and piled together, and 

 these reduced to charcoal by burning, for the purpose of making 

 gunpowder. The removal of trees from the woods is one of the 

 most laborious works which men and animals can undertake, and 

 in many cases demands much ingenuity. The removal of a 

 large oak weighing from ten to fifteen tons — a very common 

 weight — from the bottom of a glen, inaccessible to any kinds of 

 mechanical appliances, is necessarily very slow, and often very 

 dangerous. The usual method is by fixing two upright poles, one 

 on either side of the tree, and, with blocks fixed at the top, to fasten 

 ropes or chains to the tree and passing through the blocks, a team 

 of horses, trained for the purpose, then hoist it gradually up until it 

 is sufficiently high to place a carriage under it. A whole day, or 



