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renewal. Every five or six years a rail-fence must be thrown down and reset, 

 that the change of the crossing may make them last longer. Yet there has 

 never been a series of experiments carefully and extensively made to determine 

 the best modes of preserving timber by the time and manner of their cutting, or 

 by applications to protect posts and exposed timbers from decay. One of the 

 most useful duties of our agricultural colleges will be in making these experi- 

 ments. 



Our attention has been called to this important subject in reading an article 

 in a newspaper, headed " Old Ships." The first of these mentioned is the 

 Princess Mary, built on the Thames, England, in the early part of the 17th 

 century, and famous as bfeing the vessel which brought Mary and "William, of 

 Orange, over from Holland into Great Britain in 16S8. That vessel remained 

 good until 1827, when it was lost by being wrecked. In connexion with the 

 old ships named in this article these facts are stated : 



" The Sovereign (an old vessel) was built in 1637, and when repaired in 1684, 

 forty-seven years after, her timber was so hard that it was difficult to work it. 

 It was the practice in the north of England to bark timber standing, and in 

 StaflPordshire especially, and let it remain in that state for a time to season. The 

 Achilles was built by contract in 1757 of timber barked in the spring and felled 

 the next winter. She was docked in 1770 and found exceedingly sound, and 

 was sold in 1784 because too small for a line-of-battle-ship. The Hawke 

 (sloop) was built half of timber barked in 1787 and felled in 1790, and half 

 of timber felled in the usual way, from the same soil and neighborhood. In 

 1803 she was taken to pieces, and both sides were found equally decayed." 



There is great difficulty in determining the precise results of experiments 

 made on the durability of timber. There is much difference in individual trees 

 standing near each other, and of the same kind. There is still greater differ- 

 ence in trees grown on poor ridges and in rich bottom lands. But still experi- 

 ments could determine the value of different modes of preparing the timber for 

 special purposes. 



Of the experiment given in the above account of old ships we have tested its 

 practical utility to a certain extent. Having purchased an old dilapidated farm, 

 on which some of the fences had not been repaired for thirty years, we found 

 that of the rails in them the kind in best preservation was hickory. White oak 

 rails had become very light, but some of the hickory were scarcely affected at 

 all, whilst in others the sap was entirely rotted. Of the sound hickory some 

 were shell-bark, but most were red hickory. Of the sound rails many had the 

 sap-wood in excellent preservation — these had had the bark stripped. All 

 hickory rails unstripped had their sap-wood entirely destroyed. 



We acted on these facts, and where we could do so, made hickory rails in the 

 spring when the sap was in lively flow, stripping the bark from each of the 

 rails as fast as they were made, and piling them closely to prevent their warp- 

 ing. These rails now, ten years after making, show no signs of decay in the 

 sap-wood, and are as hard, perhaps more so, than the heart-wood. But hickory 

 rails made in the winter, and the bark adhering, rotted in the sap-wood in two 

 years. 



