154 ANNUAL REPORT. 



Mr. Harris. I bought some of the trees that Mr. Sias pruned in 

 September, and they dried up so as not to show any particular injury 

 to them, but I like to trim when the leaf is full size, by taking the 

 branches off that are not more than a quarter of an inch in diameter. 

 Large branches are better taken off some other season of the year. I 

 have done it as late as October, and I have seen no bad effects from 

 trimming at that time. 1 never saw a black-hearted tree but what 

 would bleed. About cutting the cions; I know that Mr. Pearce's ex- 

 perience has been that of others. have had them rot when others 

 would not, put up in the same box, in the same condition; they will 

 rot a piece from the end. Why it is or what, I cannot tell. 



Mr. Smith. If you cut them when they are frozen they will rot 

 some distance; usually, I think, from one-sixteenth to half an inch. 



Mr. Pearce. There are facts with reference to trees rotting or drying 

 up that are well known to old settlers, I lived in a country where 

 they sometimes wanted to clear ten or twelve acres of timber in a 

 season, where we used to rot it and burn it. If they wanted to saw the 

 timber they took a certain time in the summer to girdle and cut it. If 

 they wanted a tree to rot right out they always girdled in the winter. 

 If girdled in the summer time the tree will always dry up, and it 

 will stand there for years; you may cut them down a year afterwards 

 and saw them up; but the same trees if girdled when there is no sap 

 in them will tumble down in three years. There is that difference in 

 the condition of trees growing and when they are not growing, and 

 there is something about it that we don't exactly understand. 



Mr. Smith. Mr. Pearce, haven't you made a mistake and just 

 reversed the thing? If you girdle your elms and basswoods in the win- 

 ter, any time from December to March, the stump will throw up 

 suckers. Timber cut in June isn't supposed to be valuable for any 

 purpose. I guess you have just reversed your theory. 



Mr. Tuttle. I have seen that done in white oak. White oak cut 

 in February will rot, but I noticed the same kind of timber that was 

 cut in August two years ago, and a short time since I saw that the 

 leaves were still hanging to the branches and twigs, and the timber 

 did not rot at all. 



Mr. Cutler. I think Mr. Pearce is correct. The tree cut in August 

 has an immense absorbing surface; there is not a large amount of sap 

 coming from the roots at that time, and when the tree is girdled what 

 is left in the tree is very speedily absorbed, and the tree is much more 

 rapidly dried. If cut in the winter, the reverse is true; the sap is in 



