132 ON HARVESTING BARK. 
of large pieces is then placed with their outsides uppermost, 
which forms a shade and protection for the small. During 
the preparation of bark, the forester should bear in mind that 
the influence of sunshine on its inner side causes a large 
decrease of its weight, by the evaporation of its most valued 
juices, which do not escape while the outside is kept upper- 
most in drying. After the bark has stood on the rails in the 
shed, or in the open ground for a day, it is apt to get compact 
and mouldy ; it should therefore be shifted and disturbed in 
a similar manner every twenty-four hours, for three or four 
days. That in the drying-shed, when crowded, should be 
removed to the outside rails every favourable morning, and 
placed under the roof every night, and during rain. In un- 
favourable weather, two or three weeks are sometimes neces- 
sary to dry it in the open ground, but under more favourable 
circumstances it becomes quite dry in eight days. It is then 
removed into a house and chopped to the size of about two 
inches, an operation which is commonly performed by contract, 
at six shillings per ton; this fits the bark for the tanner. 
The cost of preserving bark must be always regulated by 
the price of labour in the district, and the size of the timber 
which yields it. One person will strip from stout timber 
about five or six cwt. per day; from small timber only about 
one cwt. 
At Darnaway forest, near Forres, where several hundred 
tons of oak bark are frequently manufactured in one season, 
the expense of barking from trees ranging in diameter from 
six to twenty inches, including peeling, drying, and chopping, 
amounts to thirty-six shillings perton. In England,from which 
the larger quantity of bark of course is derived, the process of 
chopping and grinding the bark is generally done by the pur- 
chaser, who buys it on the ground from the timber-merchant 
or landowner. The work of barking, there, includes the fell- 
ing of the trees, the stripping, and the piling of the bark ; 
the smaller pieces against longitudinal supports near the 
ground, to be afterwards covered with the larger bits, outside 
upmost. Large-sized trees may be barked merely—the pieces 
