18 



NEW E-NGLAXD FARMER. 



Bui why should limber tree's be foiled in May, 

 (or when (he sap is trcfly running.) as in the 

 r.a^e stated by .loseph Cooper; or barked and 

 left standing until dry, according to EulTon, be 

 more -durable tiian timber felled according to 

 the prevailing & popular notion, of the old of liie 

 Moon in February ? For an answer 1 olfer the 

 ibllowing conjecture. — The thinner and more 

 fluid any body is, the sooner and mure pci iVct- 

 ly it will evaporate. The sap of trees is doubt- 

 less more inspissated, or of thicker consistence, 

 in winter than in the spring, when it is appa- 

 rently thin and watery. In the lalter state it 

 will IJnd its way, and escape, tlirough tlie pores 

 of the wood, with vastly greater case and ex- 

 pedition than when, as in winter, it is much 

 inspissated. Moia^ses, conden-'^ed by tlie "in- 

 ter's ccM, runs very slowly through tubes of a 

 large size. In summer, the same molas=es 

 swelling to a large volume, and becoming very 

 thin, w:ll pass through very small tubes, and, I 

 believe through the pores of some sons of wood. 

 The same substance (molasses) exposed, in a 

 small quantity, to the hot sun of summer, would 

 soon discharge its more tluid parts, and at length 

 leave, as I suppose, a solid substance behind : 

 but if much diluted with water, would not the 

 whole substance be nearly if not cpiite carried 

 otl" by evaporation ? — the same reasoning may 

 apply to trees left standing, alter being divested 

 of their bark in the spring. 



It appears by some English books that their 

 usual time lor felling oaiis is in the month of .\- 

 pril, when the sap is running, and they can strip 

 otr the bark for tanning. But the commodore 

 states, " tkat in all their contrccis for !i,nberj'nr 

 naval purposes, the influence of the moon on the 

 sap is more guarded against than any other;"' 

 and he adds, what seems very extraordinary, 

 that " more attention is paid to the time of the 

 ■moon when timber should be cut, than to the 

 neason of the year; for (;is before remai'ked) 

 seeing tlie moon is at the =ams distances from 

 the earth during its decrease us its increase, its 

 power of attraction must be the samp in both ca- 

 ses ; and consequently all the different effects 

 which tradition has a.scribed to the icani:!'; and 

 the ^caxing moon must be vis'ionary. 



The miUuritij of t.mlier is quite another thing ; 

 ;ind probably of more unportance than the time 

 of telling it. There i> a point of ripeness when 

 freci acquire tlieir gn-atest soli<lity, strength 

 and^durablo (piality for timber. The late Dr. 

 .Tames Anderson,* says — -' It is now well known 

 that the best lir timber which comes from Riga, 

 and other places on the Baltic, is the produce 

 of the same tree that is commonly cultivated 

 here [in Scotland] under the name of the Scotch 

 fir ; but having gro-vn more slo'^i-li/ in those coun- 

 tries than the planted trees do here, and having 

 been allowed to attain a much greater Af,E, that 

 wood is beyond comparison closer and four times 

 ut least more durable, in any kind of work, than 

 the young razt.' deals [boards and ]ilank>] which 

 are made of wood the usual growth of this coun- 

 try. 



i)r. .•\nderson, in early life a prartic;il farmer, 

 a man of letters, and an ingenious and philoso[)h- 

 ical observer of nature, appears, nevertheless, 

 to be entirely mistaken in his ideas of the cause 

 of the liarilncss and strength of wood, and in 

 ascribing to the same cause in part, its dura- 

 bility. Mentioning the rings in trees which 



mark their growth, he says — "as one of these 

 rings is added to the circumference of the free! 

 each year of it< growth and forms the whole m- 1 

 crement of the tree for that year, it follows, thatj 

 the less that increment is, or in other word~, ; 

 the sloii-er the trees grow, the less will be the j 

 breadth [thickness] of those rings, and of course, 

 the closer the grain of the wood, and the harder 

 also it will be." Just the reverse of this is the' 

 fact. Kvery farmer and carpenter, in the United 

 States, knows that the thicker the annual ring, 

 or, in the common language, the larger the grain, 

 the harder and stronger is the wood. Hence 

 the butt-cuts oiv.hite oak are preferred for the 

 spokes of wheels, and ol hickory for axe helves. 

 Every wood-chopper also knows how much eas- 

 ier it is to fell and cut np the trees growing 

 with small grains in a close forest, than trees of 

 the same kinds which have grown singly and 

 faster in open grounds. And every man who 

 has used husbandr}' tools, a fork or rake for in- 

 stance, whose handles are of ash, knows how- 

 much harder, stronger, and heavier, because 

 more solid, they are when made of timber with 

 large grains, which had grown la^t in good soils, 

 or at such distances from tree to tree as not to 

 rob one another of their food, — than v.hen of 

 small grained slow growing timber. But the 

 timber of trees, pasture oaks for instance, stand- 

 ing singly and at distances from others, and 

 which are of rapid growth and consequently 

 with large annnal rings, or grains, though twice 

 as tough and strong, is found, I have long under- 

 stood less durable than the timber of oaks of 

 slou'cr grovith. The reason is obvious. The 

 oaks in forests do not attain the sizes fitting them 

 for ship timber, until they have reached the age 

 oC iiiaturily or ripeness. In this state they may 

 probably continue stationary for some years : 

 but if left standing for many years after they are 

 01 full age, the toughness and strength of the 

 wood are greatly impaired. But patture or oth- 

 er fast gro-i'ing oaks, attaining, i'l much fewer 

 years, sizes suitable for ship-building and other 

 uses, arc sometimes cut down heforo they come 

 of age, before they are mature, or perfected h>j 

 time : and hence t'.- earlier <lecay of such tim- 

 ber. The fact stated by Dr. Anderson, in com- 

 paring the " rarv'"' Scotch and the mature Baltic 

 tirs, exemplifies this doctrine. And in corres- 

 pondence with it, I will mention a maxim which 



I probably had been handed down from genera- 

 tions, and v.as repeated to me by my lather 

 when I was a boy, upwards of sixty years ago, 

 which 1 perfectly remember, and have repeat- 

 ed to others : "My father used to say (so the 



j maxim was introduced to me) youiig v. ood for 



>fire, old wood for timber.''' 



In reference to the memoir of M. BulTon, he- 

 foro mentioned, the authors of the British En- 

 cycl(q)a'dia, say that '-By many experiments, par- 

 ticularly d(scrd)ed in that essay, it ap[iears that 

 the tree shoulil not bo foiled till the third year 

 after it has been stripped of the bark ; that it 

 is then perfectly dry, and the sap [saj) wood] be- 

 comes almost as strong as the rest of the timber, 

 and stronger tlian the heart of any other oak 

 tree which has not been so stripped : and the 

 whole of tho timber stron'zcr and heavier,* and 

 harder ; from which he thinks it fair to con- 

 clude, that it is also more durable." And they 



'Essay.s on AsiiciUturc, Vol. III. 



* \i heniirr -when of (1ip .samf hulk with coinmnn tim- 

 ber, its f'llircs must lir cin.trr tni;rlhir^ be tlurd'orc liss 

 fcrvious Iq moisture, :\atl conscqu;-utly mure durulU. 



add, that " the navy board, m answer to ihe en 

 quirics of the commissioners of the land revenue 

 in May, 1739, informed them thr.tthey had thei 

 standing some trees stripped of their bark t\V( 

 year= before, in order to try the experiment o 

 building one half of a sloop of war with tha 

 timber, and the other half with timber fellec 

 and stripped in the common way." — '• We an 

 sorry that we are not able to inform our reader- 

 of the re-^ult of the experiment." 



Commodore Porter and his colleagues of IIk 

 American Navy Boanl, may have it in theii 

 power to make, and can-y into complete etfec 

 the same cxi)eriment. So may fanners possess 

 ed of timber trees. To render tho experimen 

 more fair and conclusire, trees as nearly as pos 

 sible o!' the same size, and growing in the sam( 

 soil, sliould be selected. Growing in the vicini 

 ty of each other, the equality of size will be at 

 indication of an erpnilitij of age, — a point proba 

 bly, of material importance. 



The-c experiments I hope will be made ex 

 tensively i>y farmers, in preparing their tree^ 

 for (encing, find for carts and other implement- 

 much exposed (ot'tcn unnecessarily) to al 

 changes of the weather. For however plausibb 

 theories may appear, careful experiments alone 

 can determine their correctness. — Experiment: 

 by farmers may very easily be made, in Iheii 

 fences ; by having some panels (or lengths o 

 rail-*) of timber prepared in one way and ther 

 a like number of timber prepared in the other 

 .\t tiie same time too. they can try an expori- 

 ment to ascertain whether, in post and rail fen- 

 ces, tho rails, with their heart edges downwards, 

 will last longer (as the commodore supposes] 

 than with those edges ujiwards, in the modt 

 universally practised. He suggests that the 

 concentric rings (the annual growths) in tree- 

 split into rails, and those placed in fences with 

 their edges upwards, form so many cups or hol- 

 lows, into which the rains and dews tailing on 

 the rails enter ; and ha\ ing no other way to es- 

 cape, soak through the rings to the sap wood 

 and bark on the under side, and thereby hasten 

 the rotting of the heart wood above, I muci) 

 doubt the correctness of this theory. Rails 

 placed with their heart edges upwards, have 

 very sleep r«ofs, by which water spceilily runs 

 off. Their heart-wood soon seasons, and its 

 surface becomes close, without visible cracks 

 But place the broad bark side upwards, the fall- 

 ins; water rests louger upon it, an^l enters the 

 sap wood, often an inch or more in thickness, and 

 as soon as this siiall become rotten, it will bo a 

 spungc to receive and hold water, to soak into 

 and gradually rot the heart-wood below. Such 

 is my view of this subject : but lot experiments 

 bo made. For the purposes of the navy, or oth- 

 er shi,pbui!ding; experiments may also be easily 

 made; though not so satisfactorily as by con- 

 structing a vessel with the two sorts of timber 

 as designed by the Engli.-h Navy Board. An 

 equal number of pieces of timber lolled in the 

 two ditfcrcnt ways, may be dressed to the same 

 sizes, and equally exposed to the weather in all I 

 its changes; and to expedite the result, they 

 may be often immersed in water, so as to be 

 almost daily wet and dry. 



Hickory (in New England generally called 

 Walnut) grows in many parts of our country. 

 It is a tough and hard wood ; but when exposed 

 to the weather, soon decays ; yet may, it seems 

 be advantageously used in salt waters inlestcd.; 



