REMARKS OX THE DRY ROT. 285 



If you rear a piece of timber, newly cut down, 

 in an upright position in the open air, it will last 

 for ages. Put another piece of the same tree into 

 a ship, or into a house, where there is no access to 

 the fresh air, and ere long it will be decomposed. 



But, should you have painted the piece of wood 

 which you placed in an upright position, it will not 

 last long ; because, the paint having stopped up its 

 pores, the incarcerated juices have become vitiated, 

 and have caused the wood to rot. Nine times in 

 ten, wood is painted too soon. The upright un- 

 painted posts, in the houses of our ancestors, though 

 exposed to the heats of summer, and the blasts of 

 winter, have lasted for centuries ; because the pores 

 of the wood were not closed by any external appli- 

 cation of tar or paint : and thus the juices had an 

 opportunity of drying up gradually. 



In 1827, on making some alterations in a passage, 

 I put down and painted a new plinth, made of the 

 best, and, apparently, well- seasoned, foreign deal. 

 The stone wall was faced with wood and laths ; and 

 the plaster was so well worked in the plinth, that 

 it might be said to have been air-tight. In about four 

 months, a yellow fungus was perceived to ooze out 

 betwixt the bottom of the plinth and the flags ; and 

 on taking up the plinth, both it, and the laths, and 

 the ends of the upright pieces of wood to which the 

 laths had been nailed, were found in as complete 

 a state of decomposition as though they had been 

 buried in a hotbed. Part of these materials exhi- 

 bited the appearance of what is usually called dry 

 rot; and part was still moist, with fungus on it, 



