800 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Sepr., 1899 
Forestry. 
FELLING TIMBER IN THE TROPICS DURING THE 
WANING MOON. 
Mr. D. H. Maury, engineer and superintendent of the Peoria Waterworks 
Company, Illinois (U.S.A.), writes as follows to Hngineering News :— 
In your issue of 11th May, I note an abstract from a paper read by Mr. 
Ernest R. Woakes, before the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the item 
quoted relating to the necessity in the tropics of felling timber during the 
waning moon. I can entirely corroborate Mr. Woakes’s statements in this 
connection, and I am all the more glad to do so because he is an old friend, as 
I happened to be for several years engaged in engineering work near him in 
Columbia, South America. 
Tt was an absolutely invariable rule there that all timber should be felled in 
menguante, or during the waning of the moon: ‘The creciente, or the periods of 
the moon’s increase, was employed in sawing the felled timber, all work having 
to be done by hand with a pitsaw. I have repeatedly tested the effect of the 
tropical moon on timber. On one occasion, in building a fence of the native 
bamboo, I had all the bamboo cut from the same thicket, and felled it all, except 
enough for one panel, during the waning moon. ‘his one panel, which was cut 
while the moon was waxing, turned black in a few days, and had begun to rot 
in less than six weeks. The rest of the fence grew white and hard, and was in 
perfect condition when last I saw it, some three years after it was built. In making 
clearings for mining work, I have frequently noticed the rise and fall of the sap 
in the stumps of the felled trees, and ies observed the sap to continue 
during each ereciente to run out of the pores on the top of the stump down the 
sides of the stump for several months after the tree had been felled. During 
menguante, the same stump would be dry. 
CALIFORNIA REDWOOD. 
Catitrornra redwood (says Mr. Henry Gannet, in the National Geographic 
Magazine) covers an area of about 2,000 square miles, lying in a narrow strip 
along the Pacific coast, chiefly between San Francisco Bay and the Oregon 
boundary. ‘The present “stand” of timber is roughly estimated at 
75,150,000,000 feet B.M.; and the annual cut is 250,000,000 feet B.M. This 
tree is exempt from destruction by fire, as it contains no resin, but has in it 
much water, and will not burn when green. It is a cheap timber, worth 14 
dollars (£2 18s. 4d.) per 1,000 feet in Eureka for the best. A redwood forest 
is probably the densest forest on earth, both from the size of the trees and their 
closeness. ‘Ihe sun never shines about the base of these trees. 
The New York State College of Forestry, which was recently established 
under the direction of the University of Maine, U.S.A., has planted, so far this 
spring, 50 acres of Adirondack burned land with white pine and other conifers. 
The work was performed by wood-choppers, who had during the preceding winter 
felled 3,000,000 spruce-trees. A nursery has also been started, which, inside of 
two years, will furnish 3,000,000 seedlings, or enough to plant 2,500 acres. ‘The 
intention is to plant each year fully 500 acres, which can be done, according to 
Director Fernow, for about 3 dollars (12s. 6d.) per acre. 
