AMONG THE OAKS 123 
the seasoning. Shortly after girdling, the sap 
throughout the whole of the tree above the 
‘girdle’ becomes exhausted by the action of 
the foliage. As the upward flow of sap from 
the roots is thus quite cut off, the leaves very 
soon wither and die. Gradually the bark loosens 
its hold on the trunk and main branches, the 
twigs and smaller branchlets decay and fall off, 
while the dead stem remains gaunt and bare like 
a blasted tree, becoming seasoned and dried by 
sunshine and wind till it be felled and removed. 
This would be no method for trees like pine or 
spruce or ash, whose dead stems would soon 
furnish breeding-places for swarms of noxious 
bark beetles; but it might prove advantageous 
for the treatment of oak. At any rate it seems 
worth a trial. The danger of damage from 
insects would certainly be removed altogether if 
‘girdling’ and stripping of the bark of mature 
trees were undertaken simultaneously in spring. 
This is, of course, no new suggestion. In The 
Woodlands, 1825, Cobbett says that ‘with regard 
to the felling of Oaks, the Oak which is cut in 
winter is much more valuable than that which is 
Cut in summer; but as Oak wood is Oak wood, 
