COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. 
191 
Age of Trees.— -There are various opinions as regards the full 
age or natural life of trees. Evelyn and others imagine, that from 
three to four hundred years form the life of the oak. In Mr. Gilpin’s 
work on Forest Scenery, there is an account of oak trees in the New 
Forest, that had marks of existing before the conquest. The tree in 
tiie same forest, against which the arrow of Sir Walter Tyrrel glan¬ 
ced and killed King William Rufus, remains still a tree, though 
much mutilated. In Mr. R. Lowe’s View of the Agriculture, of 
Notts, several trees are said to have been felled in Sherwood Forest, 
« 
in which were found to have cut into them I R and some In Rex, 
with a crown over the letters. 
Of Pruning to Improve the Quality of TiMBER.---With 
regard to the purpose of improving the quality of the timber, I do 
not know in what manner it can be imagined to have the effect of 
producing an union between the old and new wood ; for all the ef¬ 
fects I know of are injurious to the quality of the timber. It is a 
fact not generally known, that whenever a bough is cut from a tree, 
no union ever can take place between the wounded part and the new 
wood. The end of a branch, where cut off, ma}^ be imbedded in the 
new wood, but I believe there never can be a perfect union; I never 
could, in any of the timber I have seen sawn open, discover the 
slightest inclination in the new wood to unite with the end grain of a 
bough cut off; and no person has so good an opportunity of observ¬ 
ing the effects of pruning, as he who is continually seeing pruned 
trees opened. Pruners would, perhaps be more cautious were they 
continually to bear in mind, that every bough cut off near the stem, 
causes an irremediable blemish in the timber. If the bough cut oil, 
be too large for the new wood to grow over before decay takes place, 
a rotten part is enclosed, or partly enclosed; and if, either through 
protection, by means of cement or otherwise, the wound be covered 
by new wood before decay takes place, still there is a blemish in the 
timber ; for the new and old wood wall not unite. It is said by some 
that the sap of wood will unite with the young or newly formed wood, 
this is not true; no union ever takes place between any part of the 
end grain of a bough cut off, and the wood that is afterwards formed. 
Experienced timber-dealers know well that pruned timber is less va¬ 
luable than unpruned timber, and that the more trees are pruned, 
the less valuable is the timber they produce. Trees that have never 
been pruned nor had their limbs, stems, nor roots mutilated, may be 
depended on as sound: their stems are almost certain to be free from 
decay, or any other kind of blemish, for this plain reason, because 
the whole of their substance, even to their centre is alive. It has 
