trees and carvings

[boomer]

i see that a lot of tree carvings are turning up on the site. i have found many trees with marks on them. but unless you can estimate the age of the tree a lot of time can be wasted. people have been carving on trees since the the first person took a rock and made the first mark. i spent almost a year working on a set of carvings that turned out to be from a tree 90 years old. this simple tree test will save you a lot of pain.

When you look through a section of a tree, you can work out the age of the tree by counting the number of concentric rings. There's one ring for every year of the trees life.
The only problem with this, is that you have to cut the tree down in order to find the age of the tree. Here's an alternative and faster way to estimate the age of a tree. Take a tape and measure the girth (distance around the trunk) approximately 150cms. from the ground.
If the tree is growing close to other trees, and it has a tall straight trunk, it will have been struggling to grow up to the sunlight, so every 12 mm. of girth equals one year of growth.
If the tree is standing on its own with plenty of side branches growing from the trunk, then every 25 mm. of girth equals one year of growth.

i hope this helps, boomer

[Fred]

You could also use an auger made specifically for the task of counting growth rings. Fred