OF FRUIT AND FOREST TREES' 



291 



health and vegetation ; the wounds being expofed to all the 

 rigours of an inclement feafon, and thereby contracting thofe 

 difeafes which contain the principles of decay. Hence it is, 

 that fuch numbers of foreft-trees are continually injured in 

 their value for public ufes, either by unfkilful management 

 or purpofed depredation, or by the violence of boifterous 

 winds, when, their limbs and branches being torn off, the 

 trees are left in that unprotected ftate to imbibe the feeds of 

 decay and rottennefs, which will in time pervade their very 

 heart, and render them unfit for any of thofe valuable pur- 

 pofesfor which nature, by their frame and texture, appears to 

 have defigned them. 



It may alfo be obferved, that where branches have been cut 

 off from the body of the tree, even at the diftance of two or 

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

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

 fave the tree from very material detriment ; as the remaining 

 Hem of the branch fo cut away, dying foon after, becomes a 

 ready conduit for conveying pernicious moifture and difeafe 

 to that part of the tree with which it is connected ; and fo 

 on, in time, to the whole. 



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

 trunk, and drefling the part fmooth and even, has lefs objec- 

 tions than the former ; neverthelefs, even according to this 

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

 heal the wounds thus given difcovers itfelf by encircling the 

 wound with a kind of callus, or lip, which, increafmg in fize, 

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

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

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

 the wood, dried and cracked by a hard froft or a warm fun, 



Q^o_ pro- 



