102 SEASONING. 



cumstances as shall ensure their yielding good available timber when 

 they have come to maturity. 



If wet soils then be unfavorable to the growth of timber of the 

 highest value, in ship-building especially, what h;is b.een said mnst 

 be taken as of application to those trees only which will grow in a 

 great variety of soils. Damp and even marshy lands are well known 

 to be favorable and even indispensable to certain trees, which, by 

 their nature, delight in the neighborhood of water ; but these are 

 generally kinds which are rather sought after for their height and 

 lightness, than for their strength and durability.* 



Excessively dry soils, on the other hand, have also their disad- 

 vantages for forest cultivation. In such ground, trees seldom ac- 

 quire a sufficient growth to admit of their beini? applied to any im- 

 portant purj)ose. It is certain, however, that absolute uniformity is 

 never encountered in any piece of timber. The woody layers that 

 have been formed in a wet or a dry year, in a warm or a cold year, 

 feel and manifest the effects of the varying meteorological influences. 

 They are of different thicknesses and densities, and, when carefully 

 examined, are found to present the characters of the timber grown in 

 soils of the most opposite description in point of wetness and dry- 

 ness. f 



The treatment of trees after they are felled, the drying and sea- 

 soning of the timber, are points of the highest importance. Standing 

 trees contain a large (piantity of water in their composition. After 

 being cut down the moisture is dissipated, rapidly at first, much 

 more slowly afterwards. This drying process is, of course, favored 

 or retarded by the varying stales of heat and moistness i)f the atmo- 

 sphere. At length there comes a time when the wood no lonijer 

 suffers any sensible change by longer exposure to the air; or if it 

 does, the change is now on the one side, now on the other, and 

 merely in harmony with the hygrometric stale of the atmo.sphere. 

 Timber has then lost the whole of the moisture which it can gel rid 

 of by this mode of drying; it is now fit for use; it is seasoned, to 

 use the technical expression. 



Timber is sometimes seasoned by previous total immersion in 

 water. It has been held that this process favored the ihorou^h dry- 

 ing, by dissolving out certain deliquescent sails which are founil in 

 the sap, and prevented after-shrinking. However this may be, il is 

 quite certain that in warm countries especially, it is advantageous to 

 sink fresh-cut limber in water, with a view to prevent it from split- 

 ting, apparently in consequence (tf drying loo quickly. The old 

 Venetians sank for a season in the sea, the oak limber which was 

 destined for the construction of their galleys. Elm and beech, in 

 particular, are said to improve greatly by the process of submersion 

 in salt water, and to dry afterwards perfectly by simple exposure to 

 the air | 



* We ImMicvp. however, that the live-oak. of which the American navy Is con 

 striuted. and wliich supplies one of the most imperishable kinds of timber knowi^ 

 grows exclusively in swamps. — Eso. Ed. 



t Dulianiel, t. i.. p. 57. 



t Knuwlos, Maritime and Colonial Annuls, 1835. 



