On Naval Timber and Arboriculture: With Critical Notes on Authors who have Recently Treated the Subject of PlantingMatthew, Patrick
Science
On Naval Timber and Arboriculture: With Critical Notes on Authors who have Recently Treated the Subject of Planting
Matthew, Patrick
Forests and forestry -- Great Britain
Mr Forsyth presents us with numerous models of knives, irons, and
gouges, suited to the operation of removing the dead parts of his
patients. Where the gangrene occurs in the outside, he hews and scrapes
away with these till every portion in which the vital principle is
extinct be detached, and the surface all regular and smooth, so
scooped out as to afford no hollow where water may rest. He then
gives a coating of his composition salve to all the space operated
on, wherever the cuticle of the bark has been broken, which prevents
the drought, rain or air, from injuring the bared parts till the bark
spread over it. In cases where the removal of all the dead part at once
would endanger the stability of the tree, he first removes it along
the borders of the decayed part all round, close to the sound bark,
of such a breadth as to give full room for the bark to spread over in
one season, and covers this with his pigment, annually repeating the
cutting out, and painting around the rim or edge of the new-formed
bark, till the whole of the dead part be cleared away. {194} Under
this treatment, the excavation is gradually filled up with the new
wood forming under the spreading bark, and the wound becomes cleanly
cicatrized. Mr Forsyth has effected complete renovation, where the
sound vital part consisted only of a narrow stripe of bark and alburnum
upon one side of the stem, and where two cart loads of the diseased
trunk had been scooped out.
When the heart of the tree is decayed, he makes a section
longitudinally in the side of the tree, as far up and down as the rot
extends, and of sufficient width to admit the working out the diseased
part; and managed as above, the bark and wood gradually extend from
the two sides of the section into the vacuity, and fill it up entirely
with new sound timber. When the tree is of considerable diameter, the
opening formed in the side of the stem must be wide, nearly extending
to half the circumference, otherwise the sides of the section would
meet before the bark extended over all the inside. When the bark from
the two sides approaches to touch in the bottom of the hollow, he pares
off the cuticle from each side where they join, in order that they may
unite thoroughly. Should any of the roots be diseased, he removes the
earth, and pares away the corrupting parts; and if the top be stunted
or {195} sickly, he crops it at the joints where the smaller branches
separate, whence numerous fine strong shoots spring forth, whose new
vigour of vegetation, and absence of drain by seeding for several
years, generally renovate the whole plant, and occasion the filling up
of the wounds (should the trunk be under cure) to proceed rapidly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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