70 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



the surface of the plaster till the whole is covered 

 over with it, letting it remain for half an hour 

 to absorb the moisture ; then apply more powder, 

 rubbing it on gently with the hand, and repeating 

 the application of the powder till the whole plaster 

 becomes a dry and smooth surface. Where lime 

 rubbish of old buildings cannot be easily got, take 

 pounded chalk, or common lime, after having been 

 slacked a month at least. 



As the best way of using the composition is found 

 by experience to be in a liquid form, it must there- 

 fore be reduced to the consistence of pretty thick 

 paint, by mixing it up with a sufficient quantity of 

 urine and soap suds, and laid on with a painter's 

 brush. The powder of wood ashes and burnt bones 

 is to be applied as before directed, patting it down 

 with the hand. 



When trees are become hollow, you must scoop 

 out all the rotten, loose, and dead parts of the trunk 

 till you come to the solid wood, leaving the surface 

 smooth; then cover the hollow, and every part 

 where the canker has been cut out, or branches lop- 

 ped off, with the composition, and as the edges grow, 

 take care not to let the new wood come in contact 

 with the dead, part of which it may be sometimes 

 necessary to leave; but cut out the old dead wood 

 as the new advances, keeping a hollow between 

 them, to allow the new wood room to extend itself, 

 and thereby fill up the cavity, which it will do in 

 time, so as to make, as it were, a new tree. If the 

 cavity be large, you may cut away as much at one 

 operation as will be sufficient for three years. But 

 in this you are to be guided by the size of the wood 

 and other circumstances. When the new wood, ad- 

 vancing from both sides of the wound, has almost 

 met, cut off the bark from both the edges, that the 

 solid wood may join, which, if properly managed, it 

 will do, leaving only a slight seam in the bark. If 

 the tree be very much decayed, do not cut away 



