330 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



CAUSE OF DECAY IN TIMBER. 



SEASON FOR FELLIN'G. 



Considering the magnitude of the interests involved 

 in the preservation of timber, it is surely a disgrace 

 to us of the present day, that doubts should be as 

 strong as over concerning the true causes of its decay. 

 In an absence of certainty as to those, for many 

 years, attention has been turned away from the essen- 

 tial part of the inquiry, and directed merely to sec- 

 ondary points. The problem to be solved is, What 

 causes the decay of timber ? 



In the first place, it is presumed that no one will 

 dispute the fact that ancient timber lasted longer 

 than modern. That being granted, we have only to 

 ascertain what can have caused the difference. Our 

 Anglo-Saxon forefathers know nothing of bi-chloride 

 of mercury, sulphate and pyrolignite of iron, chloride 

 of zinc, nor creosote. There were no Kyans nor 

 Burnetts, no Paj'nes nor Boucheries, in their days ; 

 yet they perfectly understood the art of rendering 

 wood imperishable, as is sufficiently attested by what 

 remains of their works. The great, though forgotten 

 architects, who fixed the wooden roof of Westminster 

 Hall, in the time of Richard II., and those who 

 erected the old country churches and corner castles 

 of England, must have known much better than the 

 architects of the present day how to prepare their 

 timber, or their wood work would not have remained 

 as sound as when it was put together by their 

 artisans. 



As ancient practice is not sufficiently recorded, we 

 can only look to the nature of the timber itself, in 

 order to learn the causes which hasten its decay. 

 Foremost among these is its exposure to any moist 

 atmosphere exceeding a temperature of 33° Fahr. ; 

 and the decay will proportionably be hastened as the 

 temperature of that atmosphere is increased. Timber, 

 absolutely dry, would be unable to undergo decom- 

 position at any appreciable rate. A piece of wood 

 found at the back of one of the friezes, at Athens, by 

 Lord Elgin, is as sound at present as it could have 

 been in the days of Phidias, more than two thousand 

 years ago. Even animal matters, rapidly as they 

 putrefy, are preserved for centuries in the absence of 

 moisture. Travellers assure us that in the arid plains 

 that stretch northwards beyond the Himalayan range, 

 the corpses of men and the carcasses of animals dry 

 up, instead of rotting. The Gaucho hangs his beef 

 in the sun, and in the dry climate of the pampas it 

 hardens as so much hide, like which it may be kept 

 for use. 



If, then, mere dryness is sufficient to arrest the 

 decay of animal matter, how much more effectual 

 must be its action upon vegetable substances, in which 

 a natural tendency to rot is infinitely less inherent. 

 Sawdust is but timber broken to pieces ; damp saw- 

 dust rots rapidly ; dry S9,wdust will all but last for- 

 ever. Charcoal, one of the most unchangeable forms 

 of vegetable matter, is unly timber from which the 

 last trace of water has been expelled by heat. Ab- 

 sence of moisture is therefore the great cause of 

 preservation, as its presence is that of decay. 



Complete dryness may be assumed to have been 

 the cause of the durabilitj' of ancient timber. At 

 least, in the present state of our information, we can 

 refer it to nothing else ; and dryness is amply suffi- 

 cient to account for it. In the opinion of one of the 

 most experienced and philosophical of modern writers, 

 the late Sir Samuel Beutham, dryness was the great 

 object to be obtained in preparing timber for naval 

 purposes. Drying houses were recommended by 

 him ; and during all the period of his employment as 

 civil architect of the British navy, this distinguished 

 officer never ceased to point out the indispensable 

 necessity of securing the dryness of timber before all 



other things. To the artificial methods available for 

 this purpose we need not here allude. What wb 

 have to deal with is the natural means of bringing it 

 about. Those natural means are much more effectual 

 than any others, and it is a question whether they 

 can be superseded by any artificial method what- 

 soever. The means which trees possess of relieving 

 themselves from moi'^turo are their leaves, which 

 serve as a very powerful pumping apparatus, inces- 

 santly drawing moisture from their interior, and 

 giving it off to space. It is true that the same action 

 which produces a discharge of fiuid from the surfao* 

 of leaves, has at certain seasons, the counter effect of 

 again charging the apparatus with more fiuid, to 

 replace that which is thrown off; but this happeq/s 

 only at certain seasons. In spring, a tree is in full 

 force ; the roots then draw fluid from the soil, the 

 trunk draws it from the roots, leaves draw it from 

 the trunk — and waste it ; and this goes on so long 

 as the soil is filled with the rains of spring — so long 

 as vitality is active. But as the summer advances, 

 the earth becomes dry, refuses the same abundant 

 supply as before, and all vegetation slackens. Tli« 

 leaves, however, still go on — pump, pump, pump ; 

 till at last, the roots becoming torpid, the leaves 

 draw off all the free fluid that the trunk contains ; 

 and when the last supply that it can yield is ex- 

 hausted, they perish. At that time, the trunk, by 

 natural means, is dried to a great degree ; the free 

 water lying in its cavities is gone ; and the whole 

 fabric acquires a hardness it did not know befojc. 

 Until the leaves are renewed in the succeeding 

 spring, but small internal change occurs ; the root* 

 are torpid, and will scarcely act ; the pumps are 

 broken ; and little more fluid is introduced into the 

 wood. Hence it is obvious that the period when the 

 timber of a tree is naturally free from moisture, and 

 therefore least prone to decay, is between the fall 

 of the leaf in autumn and the renewal of vegetation 

 in the spring ; and the nearer the fall of the loaf, the 

 most free. 



In this point of view, timber which is intended to 

 be durable should bo felled late in the autumn, or in 

 midwinter. No artificial processes will relieve it 

 of its moisture so economically and so well as the 

 means which nature has provided. On the other 

 hand, if it is felled when the tissue is full of fluid, 

 it is much to be doubted whether any artificial 

 methods of exhaustion are capable of seasoning it 

 properly. — American Agriculturist. 



EVERY MAN A FARMER. 



The cultivation of the earth is congenial to the 

 nature of mankind ; and a very large proportion of 

 men, during some share of their lives, either do, or 

 have a desire to, become farmers. Besides those 

 who, in civilized countries, are bred to the culture 

 of the soil, and make it their sole pursuit through 

 life, there are thousands of others who retire from 

 the bustle and anxieties of trade, the vexations of a 

 professional, or the turmoils of a public life, to rural 

 quiet and the undisturbed cultivation of a few acre* 

 of land. The merchant, whose youth has been spent 

 behind the counter, whose prime of life and middle 

 age have passed between the leger and the strong- 

 box, between the hopes of gain and the fears of loss, 

 having at length realized a plum, retires, from the 

 crowded city and the anxieties of trade, to the pure 

 air of the country and the peaceful cultivation of a 

 farm. The lawyer, having acquired wealth and pro- 

 fessional fame, abandons his causes for a more tempt- 

 ing cause, — the pursuit of agriculture, — or minglea 

 with his professional labors the exercise of the spade 

 and the plough. In like manner, the physician and the 

 divine, the curers of physical and moral diseases, 

 consxilt their own health and quiet, and find a balm 



