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NOTICES OF AUTHORS. 



when compared, after being dried, with younger 

 oak. 



No. 5. We cut a row of ash trees, about 50 years of 

 age, in dry Carse clay, by the side of a deep ditch, 

 and consequently of slow growth ; the timber was 

 excellent, hard, strong, and weighty, rather most so 

 where the size was smallest. At one end, where the 

 row approached a brook, and the soil became richer 

 and moister, several of the trees were of good size, 

 but rather inferior in quality of timber, excepting 

 one (the largest, though not the nearest to the 

 brook), which was of very hard, strong, and reedy 

 fibre, evidently a variety differing much from the 

 others. It is always easy to discriminate pretty ac- 

 curately the quality of the wood, by examination of 

 the saw cross section of the trunk, that is, provided 

 the same saw be employed, and be kept equally 

 sharp ; the best timber having the glossiest, smooth- 

 est section. 



No. 6. We have examined Scots fir grown in many 

 different situations; by far the best quality, of its age, 

 of any we know, stands upon a very adhesive Carse 

 clay, which, from the proprietor's neglect, is all winter 

 and in wet weather soaking with water, and the trees 

 not of very luxuriant growth. These, till a few years 

 ago, stood in close order, without the stem being 



