Light-induced growth
You can tell the age of a tree by counting the growth rings across the
cut trunk. These annual rings also tell you something about the con-
ditions under which it grew, and about the climatic variations. Con-
ventionally, a wider space between rings is regarded as a good year
for the tree, because it put on more growth; but greater quantity
does not mean better quality. What it actually signifies is a tree
under heat stress. This is best seen in Fig. 14.4; where the rings are
widely spaced on the sunny side of the trunk, the heat caused the
wood to expand; on the shaded side the metabolism has not been
disturbed and the annual rings are close together.
In a tree that grows in the shade with good soil conditions, the sap-
ducts are virtually straight, producing strong vertical growth, and the
timber has what might be termed a 'resonant' quality.^5
Man-made depredations
Viktor measured the biomagnetic energies in a tree that are respon-
sible not only for its physical upward growth, but also for transfer-
ring energies from the Earth to the atmosphere. The tree is in fact a
- THE LIFE AND NATURE OF TREES
Fig. 14.4. Tree rings showing unbalanced
growth.