TIMBER. 



Whether tmiber be more lasting when cut at 

 one time of the season than at another, is not yet 

 determined. The matm-ed wood does not seem to 

 be much affected by the season, continuing nearly 

 equally moist throughout the year ; life or action 

 in it, though not quite, being nearly extinct, and 

 little or no circulation remaining ; yet the matured 

 wood of the stool of the pine throws out a little re- 

 sin when the tree is cut down in summer, — per- 

 haps only a mechanical effect of heat and drying. 

 Steeping in water for a considerable time is of far 

 more importance to the dm*ation of timber than 

 any thing depending on the time of the season 

 when it is cut do\Mi ; steeping causes some acetous 



rishraent from these upward, without returning mucli or any of 

 the digested matter downward. This branch above the place of 

 the stagnation of the bark vessels becomes enlarged, running into 

 numerous shoots^ which are generally unnaturally thick and un- 

 healthy, approaching to dropsical— often, however, beautifully 

 pendant down to the ground, from their weight and the smallness 

 of the supporting branch. We do not know whether this is an 

 awkward effort towards increase — that these branches, under the 

 influence of a not entirely matured instinct or faculty, droop in 

 search of earth to root, and extend by layers, in conformity to a 

 habit of some tribes of trees, in which this mode of increase is 

 efficient, or that it is a disease unconnected with design or final 

 cause. These overgrown branches of the small-leaved laburnum 

 are generally thrown out by trees, which, owing to circumstances, 

 are little disposed to seeding. 



