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. CORK-TREE. 
hardy, evergreen, economical, and ornamental 
tree, of the ilex division of the oak genus. It 
abounds, in both a wild and a cultivated state, 
in Spain, Portugal, and the south of France; and 
was introduced to Britain, by the Duchess of 
Beaufort, in 1699. But it can thrive or even 
live in England only in warm sheltered situa- 
tions; and it seldom, even in these, attains the 
height or fully develops the cork-producing char- 
acter which belong to it in its native regions. 
Three very distinct varieties of it are known and 
cultivated, the narrow-leaved, the broad-leaved, 
and the toothed-leaved or dentated, each charac- 
terized by the feature of leaf mentioned in its 
name, and the first usually rising to a height of 
30 feet, the second to a height of 40 feet, and the 
third to a height of 50 feet. The toothed-leaved, 
indeed, has sometimes been called pseudo-suber, 
or false cork-tree, or bastard cork-tree; but the 
real Quercus pseudo-suber is a distinct spécies, a 
mere timber-tree, flowering earlier than the true 
cork-trees, and perfectly distinct in both charac- 
ter and habit from the Quercus suber dentatum. 
The three varieties of true cork-tree are so 
closely akin to one another in habit and value, 
that a notice of one will sufficiently describe the 
whole. We select the broad-leaved,—Quercus 
suber latifolium. Its trunk seldom attains a girth 
of more than three feet ; its timber, though com- 
pact and heavy, is not so durable as that of the 
common oak ; its young bark is white and downy, 
and afterwards becomes smooth and grey, but 
exhibits no resemblance to the old, dead, thick, 
rough, and spongy bark which constitutes the 
cork of commerce; its leaves are oblong, oval, 
serrated, smooth and deep green above, downy 
below,—and they grow on strong but very short 
footstalks alternately on the branches, and differ 
very little in appearance from those of many sorts 
of ilex ; its flowers are apetalous and inconspicu- 
ous, and appear in June; and its acorns are 
smooth, longish, brown, and almost undistinguish- 
able, in size, shape, and general appearance, from 
those of the common oak. A cultivated cork-tree 
is barked when about twenty or twenty-five years 
old, and afterwards at the close of every interval 
of ten years. But the produce of the first bark- 
ing is useless for corks, and is removed simply 
with the design that a better may succeed; and 
though the produce of the second barking is bet- 
ter than that of the first, only the produce of the 
third and of subsequent barkings is fit for mak- 
ing thoroughly good corks. The proper season 
of barking is July and August; and the proper 
manner of the operation is to peel off, in one stra- 
tum, and with an instrument for the purpose, all 
the layers of dead bark, using care not to damage 
the living cortex, and expecially not to make any 
incision into the alburnum. The spongy, fun- 
gous, dead cortical matter which constitutes the 
cork, is, as regards the living organism and vital 
processes of the tree, really an excrement; and 
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CORN-BIN. 
great utility to man, actually promotes the health 
and vigour of the plant. See the article Bark. 
“ Wonderful, then,” as old Hanbury piously re- 
marks, “is the wisdom and goodness of Almighty 
God, and calls for our profoundest admiration, 
that he should not only provide us his creatures 
such varieties of things for use, but cause, as in 
this instance, what would be death to one tree, 
to be refreshment to another, for the supply of 
our necessities, and in the formation of this tree, 
not only causing the cork to grow, but providing 
also an interior bark sufficient to nourish the 
tree, and even in a manner exhilarate it, as the 
loaded wool is shorn from the fleecy kind. To 
make our gardening to the utmost degree useful, 
we should be always exercised in these considera- 
tions, and this will inspire us with acts of grati- 
tude and obedience.” 
CORN. The cereal grasses, particularly wheat, 
barley, oats, maize, rice, and rye. By an absurd 
provincial usage, the name corn is restricted by 
most persons of the lower and middle classes in 
Scotland to oats ; and by a general popular license, 
it is occasionally extended, in all parts of the 
empire, to all sorts of seed-crops grown on Brit- 
ish farms, even to all kinds of seeds, domestic and 
foreign, which can in any way be used for food. 
But desirable precision in agricultural language 
requires that the name be strictly appropriated 
to the cereal grass. The articles in which most 
matters of interest connected with corn are dis- 
cussed, are those on WHEAT, BAR Ey, Oats, Ryu, 
Maize, Rice, Sowine, Ruapine, Barn, GRANARY, 
Breap-Corn, Accrpents, Frostrep-Corn, THRASH- 
Ine, StRAWw, and CHAFF. 
CORN. A disease in the feet of horses. It so 
far resembles corn in the foot of man as to occa- 
sion lameness, and to be caused by prolonged 
pressure. It constitutes unsoundness in a horse; 
and though assignable to prolonged pressure as 
its immediate cause, is always the remote conse- 
quence of unskilful shoeing or of bad manage- 
ment of the feet. It occurs in the angle between 
the bars and the quarters, and gives the horn of 
that part a red appearance and a somewhat soft 
and spongy texture. It receives great pain from 
pressure; and, when neglected, it occasions suc- 
cessively inflammation, suppuration, and quittor. 
As soon as it is observed, it ought to be cut away 
with a small drawing knife, and the shoe so ap- 
plied as not to make any pressure upon the tender 
part; and when it is so long neglected as to en- 
tail suppuration, an opening for the escape of the 
pus should be made between the bar and the 
crust, the sore should be dressed with compound 
tincture of benzoin, the cavity should be loosely 
filled with digestive ointment, and the foot should 
be protected by means of a bar-shoe. 
CORN-BARN. See Barn. 
CORN-BIN, or Corn-Cuxst. An oblong box, 
of any convenient capacity, to hold oats or other 
}grain for the use of horses. In any ordinary 
the removal of it, while providing an article of | farm-stable, it may stand in the broad passage 
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