REMARKS ON THE DRY ROT. 307 



in ten, wood is painted too soon. The upright un- 

 painted posts^ in the houses of our ancestors, though 

 exposed to the heats of summer, and the blasts of 

 winter, have lasted for centuries ; bedause the pores 

 of the wood were not closed by any external appli- 

 cation of tar or paint; and thus the juices had an 

 opportunity of drying up gradually. 



In 1827? on making some alterations in a passage 

 I put down and painted a new plinth, made of the 

 best, and, apparently, well seasoned, foreign deal. 

 The stone wall was faced with wood and laths ; and 

 the plaster was so well worked in the plinth, that 

 it might be said to have been air-tight. In about four 

 months a yellow fungus was perceived to ooze out 

 betwixt the bottom of the plinth and the flags ; and 

 on taking up the plinth, both it, and the laths, and 

 the ends of the upright pieces of wood to which the 

 laths had been nailed, were found in as complete 

 a state of decomposition as though they had been 

 buried in a hotbed. Part of these materials exhi- 

 bited the appearance of what is usually called dry 

 rot ; and part was still moist, with fungus on it, 

 sending forth a very disagreeable odour. A new 

 plinth was immediately put down ; and holes 1^ in. 

 in diameter, at every yard, were bored through it. 

 This admitted a free circulation of air ; and to this 

 day the wood is as sound and good as the day on 

 which it was first put down. The same year, I 

 reared up, in the end of a neglected and notoriously 

 damp barn, a lot of newly felled larch poles ; and I 

 placed another lot of larch poles against the wall 

 on the outside of the same barn. These are now 

 X ^ 



