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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



about one hundred and forty of these logs. I 

 was advised to use chesnut in preference to 

 other timber, not only as being more lasting, 

 when placed below the surface of the earth, but 

 as not being liable to the obstructions, occasioned 

 by the formation, or growth of small roots, or 

 fibrous matter within the conduit, effectually 

 checking the passage of water, and to which 

 oak and pine are peculiarly liable. The year 

 following the construction of mine, a friend also 

 made an aqueduct of oak logs, several of which 

 he has been compelled to take up, but for what 

 cause I have failed to learn of him, which I 

 now regret. Oak, too, imparts a very unplea- 

 sant taste to the water. But all this is somewhat 

 apart from the point of Mr. T.'s inquiry. The 

 durability of chesnut as a material for fencing- 

 rails is universally known ; and it is a fact, per- 

 haps, not so generally known, that no timber of 

 the valuable kinds decays with greater rapidity, 

 when in immediate contact with the surface of 

 the earth, where it is exposed to the combined 

 action of the elements, as moisture, heat, &c. 

 When chesnut is used for posts, there are only 

 two methods, I am acquainted with, to guard 

 against rapid decay at the part just referred to. 

 The first is, to fill up the post-hole with stones, 

 so that the rain-water may pass, as it falls, into 

 the earth ; and the direct contact with earth and 

 water in a measure be avoided, and thus the 

 action of the sun, which follows, is beneficial, 

 instead of being injurious. This plan is suited 

 only to high and rolling land, and not to flat 

 and low ground, when the water must collect 

 around the post in greater or less quantity. One 

 fact should be specially borne in mind ; no kind 

 of timber, whether locust, walnut, chesnut or 

 other, made into posts, ought to be set up in 

 fence, for at least nine months after being cut. 

 If not well seasoned, and particularly if green, 

 the process of decay, which otherwise is scarcely 

 perceptible, becomes very apparent in a few 

 years. The other method, and it is the better, 

 (though it is practicable to unite the two, but I 

 have never seen it done,) is to cause the posts 

 to be well charred for several inches above and 

 below the point where they touch the surface. 

 In hewing them, the workman should take care 

 not to reduce them too much at this part, viz: 

 at and below the first mortice, so that in burning, 

 the danger of weakening the post may be 

 avoided. In short, both oak and chesnut posts, 

 prepared in this way, will last very many years ; 

 and all kinds should be kept from nine to twelve 

 months before being put in the earth. Besides 

 the kinds already mentioned, sassafras, chinka- 

 pin, white walnut as well as black, mulberry, 

 box oak, and I believe, catalpa, (sed queere de 

 hoc,) are excellent for posts ; and all should be 

 seasoned, but oak and chesnut require charring 

 to the depth of half an inch as before remarked. 

 The other inquiry, as to the season of the 



year in which timber should be cut, involves a 

 mooted point and leads to some little specula- 

 tion. The return of the sap into the roots in 

 winter is a very ancient and a very common 

 fallacy, as Mr. T. intimates. "What then be- 

 comes of it ? Why, if I dare utter Latin again, 

 it is functus officio ; or in vulgar parlance, it is 

 used up. Possibly the necessary answer to a sin- 

 gle question may satisfy him. How does he 

 account for that umbrageous foliage beneath the 

 refreshing influence of which he has so often 

 reposed, while luxuriating in the beauties of na- 

 ture, as they evolved before him in all their ex- 

 pansive loveliness, to the charms of which, one 

 of his refined taste and keen sensibilities is ever 

 alive? or whence those concentric circles, trace- 

 able by the naked eye, when the tree is sawed 

 asunder, one of which is added every year, and 

 denotes its age with such unerring certainty ? 

 Now I submit, with all deference, that the sap 

 is the material of which, in part at least, the 

 leaves and new wood are formed ; in a word, 

 the food of the plant, and to form which must 

 require a large amount, The pores being cer- 

 tainly the conduits, are we to be taught to be- 

 lieve, that the sap is the mere agent by which 

 the nutriment, forming the new growth, is con- 

 veyed, and that it does not enter into organic 

 combination ; whose office is analogous to the 

 expanded leaves, which are said to act as lobes 

 in supplying the plant with atmospheric air? 

 But even upon this latter idea, may not the dis- 

 appearance of the sap be explained upon the 

 ground, that having performed its office, it has 

 passed by evaporation from the body of the tree, 

 just in the same manner as aqueous particles 

 are passing off momently from the surface of 

 the human system, when in health ; except that 

 in the former case, it is periodical ; in the latter, 

 without intermission. The other, however, seems 

 to me to be the better opinion. For wood, as 

 we all know, is a compound substance of which 

 water is a component part, but in what propor- 

 tion I am not chemist or botanist enough to tell. 

 We know that the formation of the leaf and 

 wood begins with the first signs of vegetation. 

 When the operation ceases is a little more doubt- 

 ful. The leaves -are fully developed long before 

 the arrival of summer; but the growth of the 

 wood goes on actively to a much later period ; 

 probably to the first of August. Afler which, 

 if I might hazard an opinion, timber may be 

 cut with safety. With few exceptions, any 

 kind may be destroyed in August, root and 

 branch, without danger of sprouting, by simply 

 cutting it down, which seems to show, that the 

 sap is exhausted and all power of reproduction 

 effectually paralyzed. 



It is an express order, I believe, of the Navy 

 Department, to have all the timber for the con- 

 struction of our public vessels felled between the 

 20th October and the 20th of February, and for 



