124: THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



It is only after the cork tree is fifteen years of age 

 that it has a parenchyma sufficiently developed to 

 serve for this purpose. From this time onward to 

 its last years we can strip the tree of its bark every 

 eight or ten years, and each barking will produce 

 90 or 110 pounds of cork. In Catalonia, the true 

 home of the cork-tree, or the cork oak as it is also 

 called, a sufficient quantity of cork is reaped every 

 year for the manufacture of 500,000,000 of corks, 

 which are put up in bales of 30,000 each. 



The manner in which the cork is gathered is thus : 

 two incisions are made in the bark round the tree, 

 and then two perpendicular incisions, taking care not 

 to reach the liber the innermost layer of the bark. 

 Through one of the horizontal cuts a thin sharp blade 

 is introduced and a square piece of the bark carefully 

 removed. Other incisions are made and other squares 

 of cork removed from the tree until it has been com- 

 pletely stripped. A liquid resembling melted wax 

 flows in between the liber and the parenchyma and 

 facilitates the operation. After being stripped, the 

 cork oak is soon covered again with a viscous matter 

 which escapes from tiny openings in the liber, and 

 which spreads over the surface, hardens, and forms 

 the basis of a new bark. But there must be an inter- 

 val of about ten years before the tree can be stripped 

 again. 



This tree belongs specially to warm climates, and 

 Algeria possesses whole forests which are now being 

 worked by French colonists. 



