BARKING 309 



the risk of injury to the men, is hardly warranted ; and if 

 standards growing over coppice were thus felled, considerable 

 harm would be done to the coppice, which would have made a 

 year's growth by the time the trees were felled. 



After the bark is stripped, it is stacked up. Occasionally, 

 a regular staging is made of small poles supported by forked 

 stakes, but unless the land is very wet, all that is necessary is 

 to support a single long pole, at about 2 feet from the ground, 

 by means of two or three forked stakes and then to pile the 

 bark against this. 



Medium-sized pieces are placed face inwards against 

 either side of this pole their ends on the ground, and their 

 tops resting against the pole these two sides thus form an 

 equilateral triangle with the ground. On the apex, as it 

 were, of this triangle, the smallest pieces of bark are placed ; 

 and then, above this row of small pieces, the largest slabs 

 of bark from the trunk are placed, face downwards, so as to 

 form a capping and keep the wet out. 



The bark is then left like this for about 3 weeks x or until 

 it be dry, when it is sent off to the tannery. Good bark, 

 when dry, should be a pinky colour, and should snap easily 

 when broken, and not bend or be pliant. The small thin 

 bark of coppice shoots and young trees is more valuable than 

 the coarse bark of older trees. And the bark of trees 

 growing on hot southern aspects is more valuable than the 

 bark of trees growing on cool northern aspects. The more 

 quickly it has seasoned, the more valuable will it be. In 

 drying, bark will lose about one-third of its weight when green. 



The amount of Bark obtained from Timber. This will 

 vary very greatly, but, on an average, it may be taken that : 



One ton of bark will be yielded from : 



no to 130 cub. ft. (q. g.) of large hedgerow timber, 

 150 175 of mature high forest trees, 



380 500 ,, of coppice shoots, down to i in. diameter, 



the rotation being 12 to 15 years. 



It must be remembered that bark is usually sold by the 

 ton of 21 cwt. 



1 Sometimes the bark will season in about 10 days. 



