104 
MATURITY. FELLING. SPLITTING. 
open air or placed in contact with the ground. It is the decay of a dead part in the 
living tree. If the tree had been felled in due time, the central heart might have 
proved exceedingly durable in the most trying situation. 
In the natural forests of Australia, where there are many over mature 
Eucalyptus trees, it is the common practice of sawmillers to reject both the 
sap wood and the central heart. Many of the very ancient forest giants are really 
only hollow cylinders of comparatively little value. In New Zealand most of our 
eucalypts are still so young that the question of heart decay does not yet concern 
us very much; but even here a good many trees have been felled in which the central 
heart had deteriorated to the brittle stage. Some species are much more liable to 
heart decay than others and suffer from it at earlier ages. Experience will 
gradually teach us the age of maturity for each species. Then, when that has been 
learned, it will become a question in each case whether the annual increment of new 
timber at the circumference of the tree more than equals the loss at its centre. 
Generally, prompt felling of our trees as soon as they have really reached maturity 
will be the policy that will pay best. 
Where species and genera are mixed, great care must be used to ensure that 
the trees shall all ripen together and may be reaped in one process of clear felling. 
CONVERSION OF MATURE TREES TO USE. 
FELLING. 
The correct time for felling timber trees is when their vital forces are least 
active, or, as the foresters put it, when the sap is down. In the case of deciduous 
trees a long dormant period follows the falling of the leaves, and the trees may be 
felled at any time during that period. The case of evergreens is different. Leaf 
function with them may be checked by drought or by low temperature, but it does 
not entirely cease for a definite period. The eucalypts are evergreens with a 
particularly persistent vitality; and generally in this country they may be found 
making new leaves in almost any month of the year. The seasons when their sap 
is least active may perhaps be set down as late summer (January and February) 
and middle to late winter (June, July, and early August). Either season may be 
chosen for felling; but, if it is desired that the stumps shall sprout again, middle 
to late winter will be preferable. 
SPLITTING. 
Every owner of trees cannot possess a sawmill, but he can easily provide 
himself with the ordinary appliances of the practical bushman — crosscut saw, axes, 
mauls, and a full set of good iron wedges. If some of his logs are large and tough, 
he will further need a supply of explosive and fuse, a large-sized auger, and a 
hardwood rod for tamping. The explosive should be blasting powder, a sufficient 
charge of which centrally placed and firmly plugged with dry clay, so as equally to 
divide the resistance, will rend the log into two parts with a clean rift. Other 
explosives are liable to shatter the log and waste the timber. The value of mature 
trees depends in part upon the quality of their content, but also largely upon the 
facility with which they can be converted to use. Good tools and a" little skill 
will lay them all, whether fissile or tough, under tribute for the uses of the farm and 
homestead. Bad tools make hard work and needlessly raise cost. 
