TIMBER AND TIMBER TREES. [CHAP. 



had always been a deficiency of water, the extensive 

 planting of trees has remedied the defect. 



It would seem that the fine trees found in forests 

 and elsewhere, whether it be natural to them to have 

 straight stems or curved ones, have not always been so 

 fair looking or so symmetrically shaped as we find them 

 when of an age and size fit for felling, 

 but that in early life they have not 

 unfrequently assumed a wavy, ram- 

 bling, or, it may be, unsightly ap- 

 pearance, which was only improved 

 upon as they attained to greater 

 strength and approached maturity. 

 This supposition will, I think, be 

 readily allowed by anyone who has 

 passed through a copse, or maiden 

 forest, in search of a straight sapling 

 for a walking-stick, and experienced 

 the difficulty of finding one suitable 

 for the purpose. 



A short time since a piece of Oak 

 timber of moderate dimensions came 

 under my notice which fully illus- 

 trated this fact, as it had sufficient 

 of its wavy and rambling form laid 

 open, while under conversion for em- 

 ployment in ship-building, to satisfy 

 the most sceptical that it could have 

 FIG. 7. had little of beauty to recommend it 



to notice during the first thirty years 

 of its growth ; while the large straight block of timber 

 which encased it showed that later in life it had assumed 

 a much fairer form, and was even considered, when 



