What will be the fate of such a girdled tree ? That must 

 depend entirely on whether the connection between the portions, 

 of bark will after some time be re-established or not. Soon after 

 the operation of girdling, a process of growth of a peculiar kind 

 that tends to close up the wound, is noticeable on the girdle. On 

 the two incisions, chiefly through the activity of the cambium,, 

 protruding pads of cortex arc formed, that are termed wound-calli. 

 These pads grow upwards and downwards towards each other 

 across the exposed wood, till they touch and at last coalesce. 

 When coalescence has been accomplished, the connection in the 

 bark has been re-established, and the organic nutritive matter can 

 be conveyed again into the basal parts of the tree and into the 

 roots. But if, for some reason or other, the union between the 

 wound calli is not completed, possibly because through too frequent 

 girdling the wound-calli have repeatedly been removed, the 

 available constructive substances below the girdle will sooner or 

 later become exhausted. The tree will become sickly; the roots 

 will no longer find the nourishment required for their existence; 

 consequently they can no longer absorb nor convey upwards an 

 adequate supply of water and salts for the wants of the tree. The 

 crown consequently suffers, and finally the tree will die. Under 

 such conditions, at what period the tree will begin to sicken, 

 must obviously depend entirely on the rapidity of its growth, on 

 the size of the reservoirs in its stem, and on the quantity of reserve 

 material accumulated in them. For that reason, young trees will 

 as a rule suffer sooner than old onelT~~ 



The experiment of girdling has a different result when carried 

 out on plants that contain medullary bast in the pith. They will 

 not suffer so easily, as by means of the bast in the pith, a 

 continuous transport of food substances to the base of the tree 

 can be maintained. 



It requires but little imagination to see, that in trees without 

 bast in the pith, the transport of material to the base of the tree 

 will be disturbed by circular incisions, even though they have not 

 penetrated right through the cortex and the bast down to the 

 wood. The normal sap transport will be disturbed, even if only 

 some of the channels for instance, those in the cortex and in the 

 oulcf layer of bast have been severed. How far such an interrup- 

 tion of sonic of the conducting channel-, will 'disturb the vitality of 

 the tree depends on Various factor^ : lirstf \\ on the amount of matter 



