230 ARAUCARINE^ 



very bark at the butt looked like healing over and 

 starting afresh upon a new lease of life, and, be it 

 truthfully admitted, to the consternation of all who 

 had planned the downfall, and brought about its 

 extinction from a scene that it failed, in their ideas 

 of true beauty, to harmonize with. The complexity 

 of emotions that surged round that poor old prostrate 

 Chilian trunk recalls the story of the meribund 

 patient carried into hospital. When the faculty 

 made pronouncement of his death he began to show 

 signs of revival, whereupon his wife peremptorily 

 bade him lie still, since the doctors, she said, must 

 know best what was the matter with him. 



It has been my lot to see some well-sized butt-length 

 boards, shown at Forestry Exhibitions of the Royal 

 Agricultural and Shropshire and West Midland Shows. 

 The consensus of opinion among the timber-dealing 

 fraternity and the cognoscenti oi wood-structure value, 

 was decidedly in the wood's favour. It exceeded their 

 expectations, but, as timber is not readily disposed 

 of to timber merchants unless it be in quantities, 

 further experience of it upon those rare occasions when 

 it finds its way into a timber-yard, must be confined 

 for the present to estate work by private owners. 



We need not waste any words upon the subject 

 of its identification. It was told to St. Paul, in a 

 forcible way, that it is hard to kick against the pricks. 

 Any experiments upon these lines would establish 

 the fact and truth of its prickly nature, and the 

 undesirability of attempts to entrust any parts of 

 your person to contact or competition with its foliage. 

 There is no use blinking the fact that our now old 

 homespun friend, the Puzzle Monkey, is beginning 

 to attain an unenviable fame of unpopularity with us. 



We are not holding in any way a brief on its behalf, 

 but there are one or two little scraps and tittles of 

 evidence in the direction of extenuating circum- 



