WAY-SIDE HINTS 



thickness of skin, which admirably fits it for 

 rustic use. The white ash, assuming after 

 fifteen years a similar thickness of outer cov- 

 ering, holds its coat with almost equal tenac- 

 ity. The ordinary "pig-nut" hickory holds 

 its bark well ; the oak does not ; neither does 

 the chestnut. The cedar is perhaps most com- 

 monly employed for rustic decoration; cut in 

 the proper season, and due precaution being 

 taken, by coating of oil or varnish, against the 

 ravages of the grubs (which have an uncom- 

 mon appetite for the sapwood of cedar), it 

 may hold its shaggy epidermis for a long time. 

 I would suggest to those using it for archi- 

 tectural purposes a wash of crude petroleum; 

 it is a wash that, so far as I know, is proof 

 against the appetite of all insects. Its objec- 

 tionable odor soon passes away. Very many 

 of the smooth-barked trees, such as beech, 

 birch, maple, and sycamore, will hold their 

 bark firmly if precautions be taken to exclude 

 the air by varnishing the ends and all such 

 cuts as have been made by the excision of a 

 limb. Old and slow-grownng wood will, it must 

 be observed, have less shrinkage, and maintain 

 a better bark surface, than young saplings or 

 trees of rapid growth. But, irrespective of 

 all questions of durability, is there not some- 



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