8 
elm, for annual rings; and all so-called investigations of this subject 
leading to contradictions were performed, not on forest trees, but in 
apple and peach orchards, and by men who failed in their attempt to 
count what actually existed. A few of the most striking cases of this 
kind came to this Division from Kansas and Nebraska, which, when 
the actual specimens were sent, proved not the fallacy of the ring 
record, but the utter ignorance on the part of the men attempting to 
disprove a theory which has for more than a century been a help to 
the practical forester of Kurope—as important as his ax and saw. 
COVERING OF BLAZES, WOUNDS, AND KNOTS. 
When a slight blaze is cut, as in the running of survey lines, the 
wound involves not only the bark but also commonly passes into the 
wood, cutting through several, often many, annual rings, as is shown 
=D). 
SF | 
1 
ei it e OT 1 thas 
20 2517 3032 171 
Fic. 9.—Blaze twelve years after cut was made, the callus having completely grown over the 
cut: cross section. 
in fig. 6, aand b. The cambium being removed, and also part of the 
outer wood, there is no growth on the wood surface of the blaze, and 
this surface soon dries and takes on the dingy brownish-gray appear- 
ance characteristic of the ‘‘ spot.” 
On each side of the blaze the cambium is killed for but a very 
short distance, and growth not only continues in the uninjured part, 
but is commonly even stimulated by the process of wounding, so 
that the cambial growth, together with the growth of the uninjured 
part of the live bark, soon form a rampart-like thickening, the ‘‘cal- 
lus,” around the blaze. This callus is thickest on the two sides,’ least 
so on the lower point, and thickens and encroaches more and more 
on the wood surface. (See fig. 7, a and 6, where, after five years, 
the callus has begun to reduce the width of the original blaze.) In 
time this growth covers the entire blaze, the callus from one side 
1 Supposed to be due to the normal tendency in cambium of the stem to divide 
in planes parallel to the long axis of the stem. 
