Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1903-07-10
THE TURPENTINE TREE.
Which Offers Valiant Resistance to the Raw.
ages Of Various Enemies.

! Trees are not always the happy, green, Inn
mune things one is accustomed to suppose
them. They have the wind to wreste with,
and the lightning loves to tease them with its
red sword.play. Yet, these are not the worst
tortures to which they have to submit. 1t is
the tree with the long death at its heart, like
the man with the lingering disease, that most
deserves our pity. The wind sinks and the
lightning passes, but the slow, quiet. eating
worm pursues its death work, day and night,
till the tree is ruin. And yet even the
worm is not the trees worst enemy. 1t has
no foe like the white ant of Australia One
need only take an hours ride into an Austria.
liam forest to observe this. He will become
aware of mysterious, brown mounds built up
around the boles of forest monarchs. These
he will find to be whlte.ant nests, the camp.
ing place of voracious army, which has sat
down to the siege of a tree. A tree Is their
world-their beginning and their end. They
enter into possession of it, eat its heart out,
till nothing of its sap and wood Is left save
what has been turned into brown dust and
shetland, at the end of their work, die amid
its ruins. No tree is able to Withstand their
ravages-sooner or later all that are attacked
succumb; but there is one handsome myrta.
ceous shade-tree, growing on the coast of
New South Wales, which. at least, offers
them gallant and prolonged resistance. This
is the turpentine-tree, and some virtue which .
it possesses renders it distasteful to the white
ant. Neither is its partial immunity from in
sect destroyers restricted to the land. As any
old ships under-sea timbers will show, the
ocean teens with insects that prey on wood.
OF these the teredo is at once the most harm.
full and the most universal. He bores with
much skill and assiduity, and his numbers
are legion. He il the white ant of the sea;
but while his task Is an easy one with most
timbers, the turpentine will withstand him
for years. Turpentine piles, dressed only in
their own natural clothing of bark. have been
known to preserve their soundness In teredo-
infected waters for a period extending over
thirty years. Oregon pine in the same local.
ity has been eaten through and through in
less than six months. The preservation of
the turpentine is attributed to layer of oleo.
resin, which lies between the bark and the
wood; and this would seem to be the case, as
stripped timber does not enjoy the same Inn
munity. One of It's virtues or yices-it lies in
the point from which it Is viewed-is that it
will not take fire easily. Housewives may &C.
count this a disadvantage, but it is not all
ways disadvantage; as was amply proved
in recent YEAR,. A Sydney building, in the
of which the owner had speci-
fed that ironbark timbers should be used.
was some time since attacked by fire. The
building was not Quilted, although the fire
mad put in some fierce work. The Orders
we're backened and charred, but, for the rest,
lninjured. On examination they proved to
De turpentine. Had they been irOnbark the
damage would have been much more extern
i've. a, ironbark burns readily. 1t is not re-
,erded that the owner sued for breach of con.
ract. There are times when even duplicity
nay be forgiyen.-From articles prepared at
he instance of the government of New South
II ales