CART-GREASE. 
59 
I think, dees no harm to the tree.” “Where tar has been used, I have 
found the tree alive up to the place where the band was put on, but 
above the band dead.” This observation as to the bad effects of tar is 
particularly valuable, and in another letter Capt. Corbett (Manager) 
further wrote on the same subject:—“Please note I have discarded 
tar, for I have found instances where, even when mixed with grease, 
it has, on drying, formed a tight band round the bark, and destroyed 
the tree.” 
There is of course no doubt that tar, or tar and soft-soap mixed, 
will stop progress of the moths travelling over the sticky surface; also 
it is very possible that on old trees (where the thickness of the bark 
protects the vital layer of young bark and wood forming beneath, 
almost as effectually as if a cradle of pieces of cork was fastened round 
the tree) there may be no damage caused by tarring; but this is very 
different to use on young trees, and I believe myself that tar should 
not be used on young bark, and in any case with care and caution. 
With regard to cart-grease itself, so far as a regular form can be 
given, it appears to be usually compounded of tallow, palm-oil, and 
soft-soap, or, what comes to the same thing, tallow, palm oil and water, 
and caustic soda. Many recipes are given, but the following notes of 
the ingredients of some of the mixtures or preparations commonly 
made use of or sold under the names of “ waggon,” “axle,” or “ railway 
grease,” may probably be of service in showing the ingredients of the 
ordinary compositions, and also that some of the additions or special 
makes suitable for special machine use are by no means what can be 
recommended for spreading at haphazard on living vegetable tissues.* 
Of two kinds of railway- or waggon-grease mentioned, one consists 
essentially of a mixture of a more or less perfectly-formed soap, water, 
carbonate of soda, and neutral fat, whilst the other is a soap of lime 
and rosin-oil, with or without water. Frazer’s axle-grease consists of 
rosin-oil of various numbers saponified with a solution of Sal-soda in 
water and softened lime. These two rosin recipes are apparently very 
similar to a composition used with success at Toddington, and of 
which the analysis by Prof. Bernard Dyer is given further on. 
The following recipes are merely of greasy or soapy compositions; 
one is of tallow and palm-oil melted together and mixed with soda. 
Two others are of palm-oil and tallow for the foundation, mixed 
respectively with sperm-oil and caustic soda, or with Bape-seed-oil and 
soda; another, the “Austrian Railway Grease,” is of tallow, olive-oil, 
and “old grease.” 
So far, there would be nothing deleterious to bark beyond what 
injury may occur from grease gradually soaking into the tissues. 
The following recipes are given just as a sample or two of mixtures 
* See pp. 376—379 of paper on “ Lubricants ” in ‘Workshop Recipes,’ by C. W. 
Warneford Lock, published by E. & F. N. Spon, Charing Cross, London. 
