32 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



them out, but when a limb dies it ceases to grow and the 

 body of the tree grows out over it ; the limb turns black, 

 and when you saw the lumber you find a black knot, and it 

 is apt to be so loose that it will drop out. That could all 

 have been prevented by cutting off the limb in its early 

 stages. 



Mr. Pkatt (of North Middleborough). In cutting off a 

 growing liml), the turpentine oozes out. Is that any injury 

 to the tree ? 



Mr. Lyman. I do not believe it is, Init in some instances 

 there may be in one board some turpentine. If you have 

 your trees stand thick enough, you will not have to cut off 

 many live limbs. They will die when small. Some say that 

 wherever you cut off a liml) there will be a rotten place ; but 

 a man who was brought up in a saw-mill knows better. 



Question. Then you would cut only dead limbs? 



Mr. Lyman. Sometimes I would cut live ones. I would 

 be sure to cut all the dead ones, so far as I thought it would 

 pay. I should probably cut them up thirty or forty feet, if 

 I were a young man like yourself, but at my age proba])l3^ 

 not over twenty feet. I have fixed a saw that I can stand on 

 the ground and use up twenty feet. Here is a block from a 

 tree that was growing at the rate of over an inch in diameter 

 a year. You know just as well as I do that that tree had an 

 immense top and large sjjace. They sawed it through at the 

 butt, and went off and left it standing. They went back an 

 hour or two afterwards, and it was still standing. The lum- 

 ber answered for various purposes, but it was too coarse. 



Here is a section cut from the butt of a tree only three 

 inches in diameter. It was examined under a glass, and it 

 was concluded that the tree was ninety years in growing, 

 while I know of a tree ninety years old that is more than 

 three feet in diameter, and my friend Hersey knows them 

 still larger of their age. By the way, I might say that a 

 dead limb not bigger than a pipe stem may stay on a tree 

 fifty years after the limb dies, and there will run far into the 

 tree that dead black knot. The little dead liml)s are very 

 persistent in staying ; they run right through to near the 

 heart of the log. 



Now, gentlemen, I wish to say to you that it is my firm 



