Bark
The bark of the oak was until recently a valuable source of revenue in England, but, owing to the introduction of other materials for tanning, has now fallen so much in price that in some districts it hardly pays to take off, and large areas of coppice oak in the western counties have become almost worthless in consequence. Whether the leather made by these modern substitutes is as durable as that produced under the old system is doubtful, but the comparative slowness of the process of tanning by oak bark seems to be one of the chief reasons for the change.
Professor H. R. Procter of the Leather Industries Department of the Leeds University, whom I consulted on this question, tells me that though he agrees with me that no tree at present grown in England is worth growing for the sake of its bark alone, yet he thinks that it will be long before the demand for oak bark entirely disappears. He considers that though leather tanned with oak bark alone is perhaps the best for boots and shoes, the cost of the slow process is so much greater in proportion to quality, that the leather so tanned is practically an article of luxury.
In the Land Agents' Record for October 29, 1904, there is an article on the price of oak bark, which is stated to have fallen from £8 a ton in the writer's experience to 47s. 6d.; and when the cost of peeling, which averages about 25s. per ton, the cost of loading and delivering to the station, and the cost of railway carriage is added, little or nothing is left for bark grown at any distance from its market. Since then the price in some districts has risen a little, but in this case, as in others, it is clear that chemically prepared substitutes are killing an industry of much importance to landowners and labourers.
Timber
With regard to the difference in the timber of the two varieties of oak, we have, strange to say, little or no certain experience in England. Laslett says that though he agrees generally with the opinion then prevalent, that Q. sessiliflora was slightly inferior to pedunculata, he feels bound to admit that during a long experience in working them, he has not been able to discover any important difference between the two varieties. He says that very fine specimens of long clean oaks of the sessile form were found in the Forest of Dean, which, however, were liable both to cup and star shake, and that he is inclined to believe that these defects are less common in Q. pedunculata.
Though little attention is now paid to the difference of winter- and spring-felled oak timber, and it seems as if most users of wood will pay as much for the latter as for the former, yet, considering the low price of bark and the importance of durability, I should strongly advise the former being used for all first-class work.
Laslett,[1] who, as timber inspector to the Admiralty, had probably as much experience as any man of his day, and more than any one at the present time,
- ↑ By far the best account that I know of is in Laslett's Timber and Timber Trees, of which a new edition, revised by the late Prof. Marshall Ward, was published in 1894.
