TINIBER and Fancy Woods.
Khashab, . . . ARAB. Aruneya, . . . MAHR. Arunyavu, . . . CAN. Arunuyum, MALEAL.,SAN. Nath . . . DUKH. Heem, Chob, . . Timmerhout, . . DUT. Cembrowina, . . POL.
Bois de charpente, . FR. Stroewoi gess, . . Itus.
Bois h batir, . . . . „ Davou, . . . . SANSK.
].ialliHAZ, Zimmer, . GER. Madera de construccion,SP.
. . . . GU.T. Kadu kambu, . . TAIL Lakra, . HIND., NtAtin. Karra, Koia, . . . TEL. Legname da fabbricare, Ir.
ln contradistinction to dye-woods, woods for engraving, ornatnental woods, etc., wood felled and seasoned, and fit for building purposes, is called timber, from Saxon, Timbrian, to build. Wood is a term commonly applied to those por tions of the vegetable axis that are sufficiently hard to offer considemble resistance and soliday, so as to be used for purposes requiring various degrees of firmness and strength. Every flower ing plant is composed of an axis and appendages of the axis ; the fortner consisting of the stem and root, the latter of the leaves and flowers. In trees, shrubs, and undershrubs, the axis is said to be woody ; in herbs it is termed herbaceous. In the former, stems are permanent, and do not die to the ground annually, 88 is the habit of the latter. A shrub, a tree, an underblirtib, a 1/11511 are merely gradations of magnitude in perennial plants ; woods valuable for purposes of art and manufac tures are derived from all of thein. But bulk and dimensions are necessary to make thnber available for extensive use.
The trunk of a tree, with or without boughs or branches undressed, is termed round timber; when hewn into logs, square timber ; when quartered, billets ; when split, staves and lathwood ; when sawn, deals, battens, planks, boards, and scantling,. The sterns or trunks of seventl kinds of young trees are called spars, poles, and rickers, also prop wood and post-s ood.
In the south of India, the stem of the palmyra palm, cut longitudinally in four, is called reciter, and luta is applied to squared timber.
Sap-wood is that part of the wood next the bark, and heart-wood, near the centre of the bole or stem. Sap-wood is softer and generally lighter coloured than heart-wood; it decays more rapidly, and is more subject to attacks of insects. The proportion of sap-wood varies much in different trees. In many trees, such as those that produce
the ebonies of commerce, the line of demarcation between the heart-wood and sap-wood is so strongly defined as to permit the application of those two parts of the timber to different economic purposes, and the sap-woods and heart-woods in such cases, though the products of the same tree, receive in commerce distinct names. In other trees the change from the sap-wood to the heart-wood is gradual ; but in all cases the sap-wood pre ponderates in young trees, and the heart-wood in the old. Also, in trees that have not arrived at maturity, the hardness and solidity of the wood are greatest at the heart, and decrease towards the sap-wood. But in the mature tree the heart wood is nearly unifortn, while that of a tree on the decline is softer at the centre than it is next the sap-wood.
As with the animal world, so with the vegetable creation, trees have the three stages of infancy, maturity, and old age ; and Tredgold (p. 196) tells us that the oak and chesnut trees, under favour able circumstances, sometimes attain an age of about 1000 years ; beech, ash, and syclunore, of half that age. The plane tree, the Chinar of N.W. India, is said to live to a great age. If felled too young, there is tnuch sap-wood, and even the heart-wood has not acquired a proper degree of hardness, and such timber cannot be durable. On the other hand, if the tree be not felled till on the decline, the wood is brittle and devoid of elasticity, is tainted and discoloured, and soon decays. The rule therefore is to fell the mature tree when the quantity of sap-wood is small, and the heart wood nearly uniform, hard, compact, and dumble; but too early is worse than too late. Therefore, for S.E. Asia, a tabular statement showing tho ages at which its various timber trees reach maturity is very necessary, though still a desideratum. Dr. Brandis tells us that in British Burma, a full-grown teak tree of 9 feet in girth cannot be supposed to be less than 160 years old. And a writer has mentioned that teak should not be cut for timber under 80 years of age. In England, Tredgold tells tts (p. 198) oak is never cut for timber under 50 nor above 200 years of age.