270 



PAKT III. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. Foreign Notices. 

 FRANCE. 



Qualities of Timber, and Vigour, Maturity, and Decay of Trees, — 

 The qualities of wood depend much on the state of the tree when cut 

 down. It appears, from the experiments of M. Hartig upon wood applied 

 as fuel, that trees which have attained maturity, without passing into decay, 

 are the best for the production of heat. Thus, the value of an elm of 100 

 years is to that of one of 50 years as 12 is to 9; that of an ash of 100 

 years to one of 30 years as 15 to 11. When the trees begin to decay, their 

 value rapidly diminishes. Thus, if an oak of 200 years yields wood worth 

 15 francs per cord, a tree of the same kind passing to decay yields wood 

 only worth 1 2 francs. When the wood is used for other purposes, the 

 advantages conferred by a mature and healthy state are still more consider- 

 able. The common elm, growing in a forest, and in good earth, acquires 

 its full increase in 1 50 years ; but it will live many ages, even 500 or 600 

 years. Large forest elms are cut down with advantage when of an age 

 between 100 and 130 years, and then furnish a large quantity of building 

 wood. The duration of the life of the elm depends much upon the soil ; 

 in a dry soil it becomes aged, as it were, in 40, 50, or 60 years. Elms which 

 have been lopped live for a shorter period than the others. Those which 

 grow by the road-side, or in thin plantations, may be cut when 70 or 80 

 years of age. In general, the increase of hard woods, as the oak and elm, 

 is small at first; it successively augments until the 20th or 25th year; 

 is then uniform until the age of 60 or 80 years ; after which it sensibly 

 diminishes. For these and other reasons, it is important that trees should 

 be cut down when they are at their mature state, and not simply when 

 they undergo no further increase. When the period has art-ived after 

 which the increase of the tree would be less and less from year to year, 

 then the tree should be felled, for no advantage accrues from its re- 

 maining longer in the ground. The indications of the mature state of a 

 tree are by no means so evident as those of decay ; but still certain signs 

 of this state, as well as of the vigorous condition of the tree, may also be 

 observed. {M. Bandrillac in Bihlioth, Pliys. Econom., 1826, p. 13., and in 

 Jam. Phil. Jour., Dec. 1827, p. 191. )_ 



Venerable Orange Tree. — There is an orange tree, still living and vigo- 

 rous, in the orangery at Versailles, which is well ascertained to be above 

 400 years old. It is designated the Bourbon, having belonged to the 

 celebrated constable of that name in the beginning of the 16th century, 

 and been confiscated to the crown in 1522, at which time it was 100 years 

 old. A crown is placed on the box in which it is planted, with this inscrip- 

 tion, " Sown in 1421." {Extract from the Journal of the Bristol Nursery 

 Library Society.) 



