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 ; bediause 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 2 
