Book II. 



PRODUCTS OF TREES. 



657 



trees, with stems of three or four inches in diameter ; and its virtue, after being laid on, 

 endures at least two years. {Bull, in Cold. Hort. Mem. iv. 190.) 



Sect. VIII. Products of Trees, and their Preparation for Use or Sale. 



4038. The ordinary products of trees made use of in the arts are leaves, prunings or 

 spray, thinnings, seeds, flexible shoots, bark, branches, roots, and trunks. Trees also 

 afford sap for wine and sugar, and extract for dyeing ; but these products are of too 

 accidental or refined a nature for our present purpose. 



4039. The brush-wood or spray of trees may be turned into charcoal, substituted for 

 thatch in roofing cottages, used as common fuel, formed into fences, or distilled for 

 pyrolignous acid. Some sorts, also, as the spray of the oak, the willow, the birch, 

 the mountain ash, and others, may be used in tanning. In a green state with the 

 leaves on, the spray of the elm, the poplar, the lime, and others, may be used in feeding 

 cattle ; or the spray may be dried like hay, and stacked for that purpose, as in Sweden ; or 

 it may be rotted for manure. The spray of all trees not resinous may be used in 

 tlie distillation of pyrolignous acid. This acid is much used in calico-printing works ; 

 and, according to Monteith, sold in 1819, in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, at from 

 ]/. 2s. to \l. lOs. per ton. The distillation is carried on in a cast or malleable iron 

 toiler (Jig. 597. )f which should be from five to seven feet long, three feet wide, and 



say four feet deep from the top of the arch, built with fire-brick. The wood is split 

 or round, not more than three inches square in thickness, and of any length, so as to 

 go into the boiler at the door. When full, the boiler door (b) is properly secured, to 

 keep in the steam ; then the fire is put to it in the furnace below, and the liquid comes 

 off in the pipe above (rf), which is condensed in a worm, in a stand (e) filled with 

 cold water, by a spout (f), and empties itself, first into a gutter below (g), and from that 

 it is let into barrels, or any other vessel ; and thus the liquid is prepared. One English 

 ton weight of any wood, or refuse of oak, will make upwards of eighty gallons of the 

 liquid. There is also a quantity of tar extracted, which may be useful in ship-building. 

 {Gard. Mag. vol. ii.) 



4040. The thinnings, when not beyond a suitable age, and taken up properly, and at 

 a proper season, may be planted in other situations, or as single trees and groups ; or they 

 may be used as hoops, hop-poles, poles for garden training, for fencing, for props in 

 collieries ; and for a great variety of purposes ; those of which the bark is useful for 

 tanning should not be cut down or rooted up till May, but the others at any time during 

 winter. It is common to sort them into lots, according to their kind or size ; and to faggot 

 up the spray for fuel, besom stuff, or for distilling for bleachers' liquid. 



4041. The seeds of trees in general cannot be considered of much use beyond that of 

 continuing the species. The seeds of the oak, beech, and sweet chestnut, however, are 

 valuable for feeding swine, and where they abound may either be swept together after they 

 drop, and carried away and preserved dry in lofts or cellars for that purpose ; or, if other 

 circumstances are favourable, swine may be driven under the trees to collect them. 

 These and other seeds, as the haw and holly, are eaten by deer. The seeds of the trees 

 mentioned, and of all the resinous tribe, are in general demand by the nurserymen, for 

 the purposes of propagation ; and the seeds of almost all other trees and shrubs are in 

 limited or occasional demand : they may also be collected for private sowing. Tree 

 seeds generally ripen late in the season, and are to be collected in the end of autumn or 



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