corky

by Hilary Ash

on channel 9's today show the other morning there was a
brief story about canberra's cork trees. burley
griffin planted a grove of corks 90 years ago,
intending them to provide an income-producing crop for
the capital. a local winemaker who was interviewed was
very excited by the novelty prospect of local wine with
local corks. however, i was more intrigued by the
portugese men who were invited here to show the locals
how to harvest the cork. they began by sharpening their
axes with the care of craftsmen. next they chopped a
ring around the bark at the height of the first branch
- sometimes quite high, and another vertical cut all
the way down to the ground. this cut offered purchase
to lift an edge of the bark from the trunk, after which
they levered it off in one large piece using the handle
end of the axe. the bark made a crisp creaking crackle
as it came away, falling softly to the ground. the
denuded trunk looked soft and raw, vulnerable, velvety.
how easy it looked. one of the channel 9 crew had a go,
and showed how easy it was to get wrong: on the spot
where he bruised the bark the fragile layer of the
trunk was also bruised, and cork will not grow there
again. it will take 9 years for the trees to be ready
for another harvest, and so on for another 400 years.

to process the bark it is boiled or steamed to make it
flat, then corks are drilled out of it. the remains are
chopped up for assorted uses, such as floor tiles,
inside cricket balls, and spacecraft insulation.
nothing is wasted. evidently the canberra cork grove is
relatively small.

when i told a friend this story, he told me about a
woman he knows who has managed in one year to collect
enough corks through schools and other wine-drinking
communities to earn $20,000 for a charity.

(28/2-01)

More on the architect Walter Burley Griffin by Ian Reeve.

hilary's e-mail address: quincetree@gmail.com

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