SUPPORTING HEAVY BRANCHES 39 



trunk or branch. However carefully this 

 operation may be performed, there are grave 

 risks from insect and fungoid attacks in holes 

 that have been made in living wood, as the 

 friction caused by the movement of the tree 

 renders healing of the wound quite problema- 

 tical. Then the movement of an embedded 

 iron rod is not only apt to cause friction with 

 the wood, but the strain must often be in an 

 opposite direction to what was intended, this 

 increasing with the diameter of the stem or 

 branch. In an instance that came under my 

 notice lately, the rod had not only become 

 quite bent, but had cut deeply into the timber 

 at the inner or tree side of the borings. Again, 

 boring a hole through the centre of a branch, 

 be it live or dead, must considerably weaken 

 it at that point, and render it more liable to 

 snap across in windy weather than if encircled 

 by a properly adjusted band. The rigidity, 

 too, of an iron rod that extends in one piece 

 from stem to branch must cause a certain 

 amount of friction at the points where it 

 enters and emerges from the wood. 



Granted that boring a hole through the 



