be attended with some danger, and should not, I consider, be done if it can be avoided. The safer plan with trees of moderate growth is to let a part of the branch remain; say a foot or two in length, taking care at the same time not to leave it rugged at the end.
It should be neither cut horizontally nor square to the branch, but perpendicularly, or in the direction most certain to prevent water lying on the surface (Fig. 14).
A tree is occasionally wounded and damaged by a blow. It may have been struck by the fall of another contiguous to it, or in some other way; but such bruises
FIG. 15.
often penetrate no farther than the bark, and simply leave evidence of it later on, in what is technically termed "rindgall" (Fig. 15). This is a defect, inasmuch as the concentric layers at this part are not solidified upon each other; but there is usually no decay of the fibre. If, however the injury be more severe, and the alburnum and duramen are contused, the wounded part no longer resists, but largely absorbs moisture, which tends directly to decompose it, and, decay having once set in, a species of rot soon supervenes, to the detriment of the tree. This is often difficult to discover while the tree is standing, as, unless the blow is of quite recent date, the bark will have grown over it again, and effaced every trace of the wound.
