478 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The difference in carriage alone would represent a fair profit, 

 especially in view of the railway companies' preferential rates 

 for foreign goods. 



A collection, not received in time to be included in the cata- 

 logue, was sent in by The Wood Syndicate, Ltd., 2 Newgate 

 Street, London. It consisted of specimens of a large number 

 of woods used in manufactures and arts, treated by their super- 

 heated steam drying and seasoning process. This collection 

 deservedly received marked attention. The process, as carried out 

 by this Company, is very important. One can go to the forest to- 

 day, cut down an oak, an elm, an ash, or a fir, and in three days' 

 time may begin to build a carriage or house with thoroughly 

 dried and seasoned timber. This must be a great boon to coach- 

 builders, cabinetmakers, and others, who have to maintain a 

 large stock of wood, now requiring from three to five years to 

 season in the log or plank. Tbe wood thus treated has been 

 thoroughly tested, and found to be harder than that seasoned by 

 the time method. The same Company have, by their method of 

 creosoting, overcome every obstacle to the proper impregnation 

 of the timber. The timbers creosoted by them are found to be 

 impregnated to the very centre. In this case, also, the timber 

 can be tanked quite green, and in a few hours it is fully and 

 properly seasoned, and even Pitch pine becomes thoroughly im- 

 pregnated. Besides the proper impregnation of the wood-cells, 

 any cellular contents are coagulated and " cooked," freeing the 

 wood from the chances of being infected with the spores of the dry 

 rot (Merulius lacrymans) — a pest now only too common in most 

 timber yards. This exhibit was certainly a most instructive one. 



The inventor was also in evidence. Mr Boyd, forester, Pollok, 

 exhibited his guillotine for cutting wire netting used to make pro- 

 tecting cages for young plants. The machine did its work well, 

 and it could easily be seen that, where wiring to a large extent 

 was necessary, this machine would pay for itself very quickly. 



Mr Campbell, Rosemill Cottage, Strathmartin, showed some 

 ingenuity in piecing together an ornamental table, containing 

 over two hundred pieces, chiefly of home-grown woods. His 

 pitched chain and ratchet wire-strainer seemed a useful article 

 in the hands of a capable workman. 



Altogether, this Forestry Exhibition was an unqualified suc- 

 cess. It showed, in the clearest possible manner, that good and 

 useful timber can be profitably and rapidly grown in this country, 

 if it be given the opportunity of doing so. 



