38 
TIMBER AND TIMBER TREES. [chap. 
be attended with some danger, and should not, I con¬ 
sider, be done if it can be avoided. The safer plan 
with trees of moderate growth is to let a part of the 
branch remain ; say a foot or two in length, taking care 
at the same time not to leave it rugged at the end. 
It should be neither cut horizontally nor square to 
the branch, but perpendicularly, or in the direction most 
certain to prevent water lying on the surface (Fig. 14). 
A tree is occasionally wounded and damaged by a 
blow. It may have been struck by the fall of another 
contiguous to it, or in some other way ; but such bruises 
often penetrate 
no farther than 
the bark, and 
simply leave 
evidence of it 
later on, in what 
is technically 
termed “ rind- 
gall” (Fig. 15). 
This is a defect, 
inasmuch as the 
concentric layers 
at this part are not solidified upon each other; but 
there is usually no decay of the fibre. If, however 
the injury be more severe, and the alburnum and 
duramen are contused, the wounded part no longer 
resists, but largely absorbs moisture, which tends directly 
to decompose it, and, decay having once set in, a species 
of rot soon supervenes, to the detriment of the tree. 
This is often difficult to discover while the tree is stand¬ 
ing, as, unless the blow is of quite recent date, the bark 
will have grown over it again, and effaced every trace of 
the wound. 
