Norwich bulletin., 1916-03-11

#CWrttten Specially for The Bulletn) It is astonishing how many people rare slaves to words and phrases. 7 It's an old saying that soft words butter no parsnips': equally true to gadd that hard words break no bones |. EFEhe meaning of both is that mere Swords are not very important; that sthey are, indeed, utterly ineffective as scompared with deeds or things. No sdog ever died yet merely from being stold that he ought to be killed: but smany a mongrel has really perished at the business end of a club, without a word being said on either side.
 N And yet there are plenty Of people t-who are always ready to squabble or pull hair over word.
 err long time ago we talked together about the preparation of stovewood for the kitchen fire. It must have been a year or more. In the time since then I've over and over again heard 4as had over and over again heard it Fbefore,-that certain wood made good fuel, If it can be seasoned under cover" It's not an uncommon phrase. at seems actually to be believed by many otherwise practical woodsmen. And now, year or more after our talk, in which set forth the idea that while wood can be and should be dried" under shelter it cannot prac-
 
 a correspondent who questions me as to my right to make any distinction between the words.
 He does not state what dictionary he uses, but refers to one as defining the verb season, ito dry out, to ma .tHre".
 F1-Hence, he maintains that to dry" fuel and to season" it are really the tBane thing and should be effected at the same time by the same process. ioJoI xr-I1 J7-IT fo ocfn md more thoroughly under roof, protected from rains. than in the open. There fore he claims it will at the same time season better in those conditions
 This is really a matter of words. As I have said they are not very inn portant in themselves, and I am not disposed to quarrel over them. except in so far as they stand for deeds or things. Nevertheless, I maintain that had and have warrant for using the word season" as I did. MT. Web sters Unabridged gives no less than eight meanings for the transitive verb Ito season. One is ITO render suit able or appropriate; to prepare; to fit: a second is ITO fit for any use by time or habit; to habituate; to accustom; to mature; third is Hence, to prepare by drying or hard ening, or removal of natural juices. as to season timber and the like"
 Note that the seasoning of timber and the like' is used to illustrate that meaning of the verb which is defined as the removal of natural juices" That is, when you season" timber and the like you remove the natural juices (Which is exactly the sense in which I used the word in our former talk.
 But now let's drop all consideration for the words and consider just tho things involved.
 For, when you make a fire in tha kitchen stove, you don't expect o- want it to burn words, but things,- such things as stovewood sticks. Yol know perfectly well that you'd have t wait a long, long time for breakfas if the Missus hadn't anything to cool ftwith but words.
 The real nub of the question is no what you or l call the method of pre- pairing that wood for fuel, but whethe we prepare it so that it will make good fire and boil eggs and fry bacoT It's the quality and condition of tn wood that is important not the word we use about it. nor even what W call it.
 For instance. the Romans used t call one sort "fagus' and the. Russian call it "buk" and the swedes call ''bok'' and the Welsh call it "faydd and we call it 'beech". And it make just as good a fire when it's calle ''bok'' or '"bulz'' or "ffawydd'' as whe it's called beech"-provided it equnlly we'll seasoned and dried i each case.
 When one cuts green, living trees i the forest they contain a considerabl amount of their natural juice, i. sap. It isn't necessary to bring proc of this every woodman knows it. No0 this sap is a lquid.-has to be to soa its way up and down through tn spongy "sapwood". But it isn't jus clear rainwater. Not by considerabl It is liquid, to be sure, but a liqui holding in solution a good deal ( solid matter, the solid particles b which the hard woody structure slowly built up. Every one who fla ever eaten maple sugar knows that is simply the boiled-down sap of th rock rlap1e,-the solid residuum whic is left when the watery part of tt sap is evaporated. It hapens that tn :residuum is sweet and eatable in tt case of the maple. But there are ott CT residuuns in the sap of other tree In most cases, instead of evaporatin to a sugar, saps dry down to a gul of one sort or another. But whatev<