REMARKS ON THE DRY ROT. 285 
If you rear a piece of timber, newly cut down, 
in an upright position in the open air, it will last 
for ages. Put another piece of the same tree into 
a ship, or into a house, where there is no access to 
the fresh air, and ere long it will be decomposed. 
But, should you have painted the piece of wood 
which you placed in an upright position, it will not 
last long ; because, the paint having stopped up its 
pores, the incarcerated juices have become vitiated, 
and have caused the wood to rot. Nine times in 
ten, wood is painted too soon. The upright un- 
painted posts, in the houses of our ancestors, though 
exposed to the heats of summer, and the blasts of 
winter, have lasted for centuries ; because the pores 
of the wood were not closed by any external appli- 
cation of tar or paint; and thus the juices had an 
opportunity of drying up gradually. 
In 1827, on making some alterations in a passage, 
I put down and painted a new plinth, made of the 
best, and, apparently, well-seasoned, foreign deal. 
The stone wall was faced with wood and laths; and 
the plaster was so well worked in the plinth, that 
it might be said to have beenair-tight. In about four 
months, a yellow fungus was perceived to ooze out 
betwixt the bottom of the plinth and the flags; and 
on taking up the plinth, both it, and the laths, and 
the ends of the upright pieces of wood to which the 
laths had been nailed, were found in as complete 
a state of decomposition as though they had been 
buried in a hotbed. Part of these materials exhi- 
bited the appearance of what is usually called dry 
rot; and part was still moist, with fungus on it, 
