FELLING. 311 



across, in lengths of three feet, with the hand-bill, 

 and with its point ripped longitudinally into slips, 

 from six to twelve inches wide. A barking-tool, 

 somewhat like a crutch hand dibber, shod with iron, 

 flattened at the point in the shape of a crescent, the 

 stalk a little bent to follow the rotundity of the tree, 

 is then inserted and pushed under the slips of bark, 

 which fly off with the greatest ease. The bark being 

 thus peeled off, it is afterwards set up to dry. This 

 is done by driving a rank of stakes, (cut from the 

 spray) into the ground about two feet high, having 

 a forked top to receive poles reaching from one to 

 the other. Against this temporary rail, the slips of 

 bark are set up along both sides, pretty closely toge- 

 ther, the rough side outwards ; and along the top 

 some of the widest slips are laid to form a coping. 

 When bark is thus set up, it is sold at so much per 

 yard run. 



In some places the custom is to disbark the trunks 

 in the spring, and fell the trees in the following 

 winter ; and this with the view of having superior, 

 because winter-felled, timber. That timber felled in 

 winter is less liable to rend in seasoning is well known, 

 and this in consequence of the juices being then 

 coagulated, and almost stagnant ; in which state it is 

 preserved in the timber, and not suddenly exhaled 

 away, as would be the case in summer, when the sap 

 is thin and fugitive. The woodman and carpenter 

 incessantly repeat the traditional maxim of their fore- 

 fathers, that winter-felled timber is more ponderous 



