200 OBSERVATIONS ON THE DISEASES, &c. 



such numbers of forest-trees are continually injured in their 

 value for public uses, either by unskilful management or pur- 

 pose depredation, or by the violence of boisterous winds, when 

 their limbs and branches being torn ojfF, the trees are left in 

 that unprotected state to imbibe the seeds of decay and rotten- 

 ness, which will in time pervade their very heart, and render 

 them unfit for any of those valuable purposes for which nature, 

 by their frame and texture, appears to have designed them. 



It may also be observed, that where branches have been 

 cut off from the body of the tree, even at the distance of two 

 or more feet from the trunk, with a view to prevent injury to 

 the limber, even that method has not been found effectual to 

 save the tree from very material detriment ; as the remaining 

 stem of the branch so cut away, dying soon after, becomes a 

 ready conduit for conveying pernicious moisture and disease to 

 that part of the tree with w^hich it is connected j and so on, in 

 time, to the whole. 



The practice of others, in lopping their trees close to the 

 trunk, and dressing the part smooth and even, has less objec- 

 tions than the former ; nevertheless, even according to this 

 method, the tree is liable to injury. The effort of nature to 

 heal the wounds thus given discovers itself by encircling the 

 wound with a kind of callus, or lip, which, increasing in size, 

 and swelling out from the annual flow of the juices, forms a 

 hollow or cavity of the central part, where the rain or snow 

 is very apt to lodge ; and penetrating between the bark and the 

 wood, dried and cracked by a hard frost or warm sun, pro- 

 motes that fermentation with the natural juices, which is the 

 certain source of disease and decay. 



Young, healthful, and vigorous trees, when they have 

 been injured by being wantonly cut through the bark, or from 

 other causes, will sometimes recover themselves, and, to all 

 outward appearance, be restored to their original soundness ; 

 but when cut into planks and boards, internal blemishes and 

 faults are discovered in them, which appear to have been oc- 

 casioned by the early injuries which the tree had received ; the 

 texture of the wood not uniting where the wound was origi- 

 nally given ; though, from the youthful vigour of nature, the 

 bark has closed, and an external cure been evidently per- 

 formed. 



As a most efficacious remedy to prevent the evils that I 

 have described, with all their destructive consequences, and 

 to restore sound timber where the symptoms of decay are al- 

 ready apparent, I confidently recommend the use of my com- 

 position, which, being applied in a proper manner to the wound- 



