124 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
and as Oak wood and Oak-bark will sell for more 
than the same quantity of Oak wood alone, we 
scarcely hear of such a thing as a winter-cut Oak. 
In order to have both; in order to have the skin 
as well as the body, and to have the body sound 
too, some persons have barked their Oaks stand- 
ing, and cut down the trees the succeeding winter. 
This was practised, sometimes, hundreds of years 
back; but, if it had been of any solid utility; if 
it really had, in the end, been attended with 
profit, the practice would have become general ; 
instead of which, I never saw an instance of it in 
all my life. Ihave seen small Oak stuff, in the 
hedge-rows in Cornwall and Devonshire, thus 
skinned alive, and there may be here and there 
a man that applies the practice to large trees. 
But, at any rate, the practice is very rare, and 
very rare it could not be, if it were unequivocally 
profitable. The method is only likely to be 
tried experimentally in woods managed on busi- 
ness principles; and a few experiments would 
soon show far better than any mere theoretical 
opinions, pro or contra, whether or not solid 
advantages are to be gained by adopting such 
processes. That the seasoning of standing trees 
