.Field Gates. 
45 
into lengths ; the fewer ends while seasoning the less is the end- 
splitting, and the retention of the bark preserves the timber 
from side cracking, whilst the smooth hard surface carries off 
moisture. Before it is fixed it is well to clear off the ring of 
sapwood from the part to be underground ; if the tree is what it 
should be, this will be very thin. Such a post has a life little 
short of one of good oak. A sawn post will not last so long. 
There is always a good deal of cross-grain and end-wood which 
is more open to hurtful atmospheric influences ; this is modified 
by planing. A post cut from a quartered tree or log will last 
much longer than one with the heart in it. Quartered larch is 
too rare to be spoken of as being in use. 
Oak, when seasoned, is greatly benefited by being painted, 
and so is larch ; and painting is all but a necessity for Baltic 
redwood unless it is creosoted, in which case its life is doubled 
or trebled and made all but equal to that of oak. Oak sawn 
into posts will cost 2s. 9 d. per cubic foot ; creosoted Baltic 
redwood will cost, say. Is. 9 d. per cubic foot ; Swedish timber 
can be had 8 to 12 inches on the side, and can be purchased at 
Is. 2d. per cubic foot, whilst od. per cubic foot will creosote it. 
It takes creosote well, and will last a long time. The hooks 
have not the hold in it as in oak, but this can be met by their 
going through the post, and having a screwed nut at the end. 
The general purpose of field gates is so utilitarian that it 
cannot be amiss to point out that creosoted Norway spars, such as 
are used for the larger telegraph poles, will prove cheap and useful 
gate posts. This may be safely argued from the condition of 
telegraph poles. The experience of a Government engineer in 
this department is that he has “ never seen a pole rotten in the 
ground. He has heard of one or two being found rotten, but in 
these cases the timber bore evident signs of having been rotten 
before it was creosoted/’ “ The average life of posts in the 
ground is practically everlasting. Out of the ground it takes 
something like twenty-five years for the creosote to dry out of 
the timber, then the ordinary disintegrating action of dry rot 
begins. This would be entiredy obviated by a coating of gas 
tar or creosote before the poles had begun to rot.” 
John Ridd stripped the lead from the church porch to make 
pellets for his Armada gun, and Mr. Irwine’s first question to 
his excited parish clerk when he came to Broxton Rectory was : 
“Have the theaves been at the church lead again?” Our 
altered social conditions secure the church lead from such 
attacks, and a recent enactment does much to prevent illicit 
traffic in such materials. But if an old practice was revived, 
of protecting the tops of gate posts by a covering of sheet lead, 
