444 TRANSACTIONS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



if tlie bark was of no value whatever, peeling would be very 

 frequently resorted to for the sake of reducing the weight 

 of the trees, as is done with spruce and other firs wliose 

 bark is heavy and useless. This barking process effects such a 

 large reduction in the weight, as to save considerably more in 

 railway carriage, if conveyed any distance, than recuperates the 

 expenses of peeling off the bark, without in any way interfering 

 with, or detracting from, the value of the timber itself. 



In regard to the oak, quite a different state of matters have to 

 be dealt with ; the quality of the timber is materially affected by 

 the season in which the tiee is cut down. This is a point that 

 foresters and landlords frequently lose sight of, and even timber 

 merchants sometimes do not consider it too closely. It is needless 

 to mention that the bai'k is most valuable at the particular 

 season of the year when it possesses, to their fullest extent, those 

 astringent properties for which it is preserved. This occurs at 

 the time when the inner bark is saturated wdth sap, which is 

 at the beginning of the yearly formation of new wood, and it is 

 at that season that the bark can be easiest removed from the trunk 

 and branches of the oak. But for many industrial purposes the 

 oak is not well suited when felled at the period when the tree 

 contains the lai-gest quantity of sap. The sapwood of previous 

 years is not yet consolidated into heartwood, and is thus rendered 

 more unfit for seasoning, and exposure to the weather only makes 

 it the more liable to decay. This part of the tree is therefore in 

 a great measure lost, being of no value to the merchant or con- 

 sumer ; whereas, if oak is cut down in mid-winter, the sapwood, 

 being practically free from any fresh sap, is for all ordinary 

 purposes of equal value to the heartwood, and is no more liable 

 to decay. In therefore deciding as to the profitable results of 

 bark peeling, this loss of timber must be taken into consideration. 

 Of course this only applies to matured timber, and in the case of 

 the peeling of oak underwood, or coppice, no account requires to 

 be taken of this item. The question seriously to be considered 

 is whether or not the market price of the bark of the year is 

 equivalent to the expenses of production, adding thereto that 

 ])roportion of the value of the timber lost by the deterioration of 

 the sapwood. 



For the purpose of illustrating this, we may take a hedgerow 

 oak, which yields on an average a ton of bark to IGO cubic feet 

 of wood, or theieby. 



