PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 



When the Publishers requested me to undertake the 

 preparation of a New Edition of this Standard Work, 

 I felt that an opportunity was offered for doing a 

 valuable service to the professions and trades to which 

 it appeals, by showing some of the numerous advances 

 made in our knowledge of that remarkable structure, 

 Timber, and the no less remarkable Trees that yield 

 it, gained by the study of modern botany, and especially 

 in its economic aspects, since the appearance of the 

 First Edition of this work nearly twenty years ago. 

 At the same time it had to be clearly understood 

 that the work should not be altered in character to 

 the extent of making it a formal text- book of 

 theoretical science. 



The question whether I should be able to set 

 forth these matters in the limits of the book, and at 

 the same time retain all that is best of the popular 

 style and wide knowledge of his subject shown by 



