THE 



GARDENER'S MAGAZINE, 



NOVEMBER, 1839. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. On the Kyanising Process,, and on other Modes of seasoning 

 Timber. By James Monro, Forester to the Marquess of North- 

 ampton. 



The premature decay of timber, and especially of the oak, by 

 what is technically called the dry rot, is a subject which has 

 occupied no small share of public attention. If we may credit 

 all that we read and hear, the immersing of timber in Ryan's 

 mercurial preparation is the nearest approximation to the long 

 wished for desideratum. Still I cannot conceal my doubts as to 

 its general utility. Its application to timber for lighter purposes 

 may be of much use in promoting durability ; but its action on 

 the huge timbers of even a third-rate man of war will, I fear, 

 come infinitely short of expectation : and, indeed, I think it highly 

 probable that after-experience will prove that, from the claims 

 of a decided specific, Kyan's process must degenerate to the rank 

 of an expensive auxiliary. 



In all our attempts to arrest the progress of dry rot, there 

 seems to have been an obvious misdirection of enquiry ; our 

 investigations not having yet been directed toward the more im- 

 mediate cause of the malady. In organic bodies preventives 

 are always preferable to cures ; therefore, wherever detrimental 

 effects present themselves, we ought at once to turn our atten- 

 tion to the producing cause with a view to its removal, rather 

 than to the application of temporary palliatives. That the ap- 

 pearance of precocious decay in manufactured timber may be 

 traced to the presence of alburnous matter, in its fluid state, in 

 the sap vessels, is a fact generally admitted. When an oak tree 

 with its vegetative powers in full operation is felled, the sap, or 

 alburnous fluid, not having been perfected, or converted by the 

 process of foliaceous elaboration to its ultimate purpose, becomes 

 stagnant; putrefaction speedily commences, and in a short time 

 communicates with, and contaminates, the sounder parts of the 

 fibrous column. The direct means employed by nature in de- 

 composing vegetable matter does not appear to have received 

 Vol. XV. — No. 116. r r 



