There is another point in connection with the time of felling timber, which ought to be noticed. It is a widespread opinion that trees should be felled during the wane of the moon. This planetary influence is open to doubt, but the opinion prevails wherever there are large forests. Columella, Cato, Vitruvius, and Pliny, all had their notions of cutting timber at certain ages of the moon. The wood-cutters of South America act upon it, so do their brethren in the German forests, in Brazil, and in Yucatan. It was formerly interwoven in the Forest Code of France, and, we believe, is so still. Vitruvius recommends this custom, and we find Isaac Ware writing of the suggestion: “This has been laughed at, and supposed to be an imaginary advantage. There may be good in following the practice; there can be no harm: and therefore, when I am to depend upon my timber, I will observe it.” The Indian wood-cutters believe that timber is much more liable to decay, if cut when the moon is in crescent. An American writer, in 1863, thus writes of his experience in the matter: “Tradition says that the ‘old’ of the moon, in February, is the best time to cut timber; but from more than twenty years of observation and actual experience, I am fully convinced it is about the worst time to cut most, if not all kinds of hard-wood timber. Birch, ash, and most or all kinds of hard wood will invariably _powder-post_ if cut any time in the fall after the tree is frozen, or before it is thoroughly leaved out in the spring of the year. But if cut after the sap in the tree is used up in the growth of the tree, until freezing weather again comes, it will in no instance produce the _powder-post_ worm. When the tree is frozen, and cut in this condition, the worm first commences its ravages on the inside film of the bark, and then penetrates the wood until it destroys the sap part thereof. I have found the months of August, September, and October, to be the three best in the year to cut hard-wood timber. If cut in these months, the timber is harder, more elastic, and durable than if cut in winter months. I have, by weighing timber, found that of equal quality got out for joiners’ tools is much heavier when cut and got out in the above-named months than in the winter and spring months, and it is not so liable to crack. You may cut a tree in September, and another in the ‘old’ of the moon in February following, and let them remain, and in one year from the cutting of the first tree, you will find it sound and unhurt, while the one last cut is scarcely fit for firewood, from decay. Chestnut timber for building will last longest, provided the bark be taken off. Hemlock and pine ought to be cut before being hard frozen, although they do not _powder-post_; yet if they are cut in the middle of winter, or in the spring of the year, and the bark is not taken off, the grub will immediately commence its ravages between the bark and the wood.