On training the Oak for curved Timber. 557 



Art. X. On training the Oak Tree, so as to produce curved 

 Timber, for Use in the Construction of Ships. By Mr. James 



MUNRO. 



Sir, 



The superiority, in point of durability, of such oak as is 

 to be found in many parts of Scotland over that which is 

 grown on richer soils and in warmer climates, is generally 

 admitted ; and this superiority can only be accounted for 

 by attributing it to the slow (so slow as to be almost im- 

 perceptible) accumulation of vegetable fibre; while, on the 

 contrary, the inferiority of the oak of milder climates is a 

 consequence of a condition of growth the reverse of this. * 

 Indeed, it seems to be an unalterable law in the appointed 

 economy of vegetable bodies, from the mushroom, the child of 

 a night, to the tree that has braved the storms of a thousand 

 winters, that in an inverse ratio to the rapidity of the form- 

 ation shall be the durability of the substance formed ; and so 

 will it be with any particular species, according as the form- 

 ation of its substance is, by a variation of treatment, hastened 

 or retarded. 



Sir Henry Steuart, in his able refutation of the " mucking 

 system," says that " the Scottish mountain oak seldom rises 

 to a fifth part of the English tree." Such an assertion, from 

 such an authority, is certainly ill calculated to advance the 

 interests of that species of tree from which we derive our 

 national bulwarks ; particularly as there is not a very great 

 difference, in the degree of temperature, between the low 

 country and some of the highland glens. Those who are 

 aware of this, and who, at the same time, have read Sir 

 H. Steuart's statement, can scarcely be blamed if they should 

 form a rather contemptuous opinion of the oak, regarding 

 its cultivation as a forest tree, or entirely overlook its 

 merits for any thing else than a mere coppice bush. Un- 

 fortunately, there remains no living specimen of what Scot- 

 land was capable of producing. Ever a prey to external 

 as well as internal foes, her primeval forests were, in the 

 course of her long and destructive wars, either given to the 

 flames by the enemy, or they fell by the wasting hand of 

 time. Yet, in absence of these, there are records that prove 



* Might not the cause of the dry rot be traced to this source ? Since 

 the attacks of the rot are partial, it might be worth while to learn whether 

 the planks infected with the rot were taken from the heart of the log ; for, 

 as such planks would, for the most part, consist of the earlier-formed 

 layers of woody matter, this would, in consequence of having been de- 

 posited in large quantities, be more porous in the grain, and therefore less 

 durable, than the layers more recently formed. 



