BOOK XVI. Lxxii. 182-LXX111. 185 



even in a hard oak and liable to wood-worm, for 

 whicli rcason il \\i\\ always be removed. Lndcr 

 this fat is the llcsh of thc tree and iinder the flesh 

 the bones, that is thc best part of the timber. Those 

 trees which have a drier wood, for instance the oUve, 

 are more Uable to bear fruit only every other year 

 than trees whose wood is of a fleshy nature, Uke the 

 cherry. And not aU trees have a large amount of 

 fat or flesh, any more than the most active among 

 animals ; there is no fat or flesh at aU in the box, 

 the cornel and the oUve, nor any marrow, and only 

 a very smaU quantity even of blood, j ust as the service- 

 tree has no bones and the elder no flesh — though both 

 have a great deal of marrow — nor have reeds for the 

 greater part. 



LXXIII. The flesh of some trees contains fibres Wood fibres 

 and veins. It is easy to distinguish between them, ""'^ ^^'^*- 

 the veins being broader and whiter than the fibre. 

 Veins are found in wood that is easy to split, and con- 

 sequently if you put your ear to one end of a beam 

 of wood however great its length you can hear even 

 taps made with a graver on the other end, the sound 

 penetrating by passages running straight through 

 the wood, and by this test you can detect whether 

 the timber is twisted and interrupted by knots. In 

 the case of trees in which there are tuberosities 

 resembUng the glands in the flesh of an animal, these 

 contain no vessels or fibres, but a kind of hard knot 

 of flesh rolled up in a baU ; in the citrus and the 

 maple this is the most valuable part. The other 

 kinds of wood employed for making tables are cut 

 into circles by spUtting the trees along the Une of the 

 fibre, as otherwise the vein cut across the round 

 of the tree would be brittle. In beech trees the 



507 



