74 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



shake the powder on 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 re- 

 peating the application of the powder *ill 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 therefore 

 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 lopped 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 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 suf- 

 ficient for three years. But in this you are to be 

 guided by the size of the wood and other circumstan- 

 ces. W'hen the new wood, advancing 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 



