PRACGCTI Cad: ARBORTCULEORE I9I 
Good, sound cypress timber is of great value on account of its durability, re- 
sistance to decay, and for the ease with which it may be wrought. The wood is 
soft, of straight grain, easily split into ties, and is capable of being dressed into 
very good lumber. 
The wood is subject to a dry rot or decay after the trees have attained to their 
maturity ; the great majority of logs now being cut are thus quite defective. 
One class of decay takes the form of longitudinal holes, not continuous, how- 
ever, which give the wood an appearance of having been perforated by boring 
worms, as is the case where the teredo has burrowed. 
This is simply one of nature's inflexible laws. All trees have a period of 
growth, and after this is completed another period of repose, which may be called 
its durability; then begins decay, and finally it disappears in dust, upon which 
other successive vegetation feeds. 
Such old timber should be cut and used before too far decayed, as it can never 
be of greater value than when maturity has been reached. 
This rule is applicable to all classes of lumber trees. 
Of many train loads of cypress logs which I have examined, scarce one per- 
fect log was fourid. Some were hollow, some rotted on one side, with some good 
wood remaining, while all were seriously defective. 
And of the cross-ties examined, of which I examined many thousands, a large 
inajority were “pecked” with dry rot or in part decaved; few were of perfect 
soundness. 
The cypress is of extremely slow growth, and after the present supply shall 
kave become exhausted the tree will have ceased to exist as far as economic forests 
are concerned. There are comparatively few young trees, and these will not ma- 
ture for several centuries, while the young saplings are being cut for fence posts 
where available. 
One cypress tree section which I examined at New Orleans showed the fol- 
lowing record: 
Diameter of tree, fifty-four inches. 
Age, six hundred vears. 
At 18 years diameter was 4% inches 
At 50 vears diameter was 714 inches 
At 100 years diameter was 13 inches 
At 150 years diameter was 19% inches 
_At 200 years diameter was 2 inches 
At 250 vears diameter was 29 inches 
At 300 years diameter was 33 _ inches 
At 350 vears diameter was 351% inches 
At 400 years diameter was 40 inches 
At 450 years diameter was 431% inches 
At 500 vears diameter was 46% inches 
At 550 vears diameter was 50) 
At 600 years diameter was 54 inches 
Average increase one inch in ten years. Another section gave thirty-two years 
as the radial growth of one inch, requiring one hundred and ninety-two vears to 
reach one foot diameter. A four-foot tree was seven hundred and sixty-eight vears 
twN WN 
tN 
inches 
