There are a number of trees which yield wood that is pre-eminently suitable for cabinet work or for interior finish of the finer sort, or for beautiful furniture. Two of them, black walnut (Juglans nigra) and the wild cherry (Prunus serotina), are so scarce at present that they have become very valuable. Wild cherry was formerly plentiful, especially along the northern Appalachians, where it .attained to its greatest size, about 100 feet in height. It has shining and poisonous foliage, a medici nal bark and bears heavy crops of small black berries, most attractive to birds. The heart wood is reddish-brown, readily seasoned, straight and fine of grain, capable of receiving a satiny, finish. It was a favorite material for furniture and cabinet work since it did not warp or shrink and took glue well. Early set tlers finding cherry growing on the best farm ing soils destroyed it ruthlessly before dis covering its value, consigning it to the fire or fence. They did the same to the easily-split black walnut which encumbered the earth with huge trunks that shot up for a hundred feet, clear of trunk if crowded in the forest, thrqw ing out great limbs when growing in open spaces. Its rich-brown heartwood, straight grained in general, but mottled and waved in crotch and root, heavy, hard and durable, satiny when polished, was in great demand as a cabinet .wood and also valuable for gun-stocks and veneers. Nowadays the demand has re vived and old fence-rails, stumps and even furniture are being sought for veneers and the like. Its congener, the butternut (Juglans cinerea) or white walnut, is also used for in terior finish, having a charming satiny wood of a paler tint and lighter weight than black wal nut. Both have rich-kerneled nuts that are valuable and were made into a kind of paste or milk by the Indians. Bark and shells of the latter species furnished that Colonial dye called °butternut brown.° Beeches (Fagus) are favorite trees for lawn planting on account of their splendid forms, delicate spray and silvery, smooth bark. They bear many small, sweet, triangular nuts that are a favorite food of hogs, being known as
Maple, especially in its waved and mottled forms, oak and ash are also made into furni ture, but their wood is of greater general value. Maple particularly is in demand for flooring. The sap of the most important species. (Acer Saccharum) is sweet and is crystallized into sugar, an art learned from Indians. Being regular in form and prodigal of handsome foliage the maples are adapted for ornamental uses. The leaves assume very brilliant colors, flaming scarlet in the soft maple (A. rubrum). This species, with the large-leaved (A. macrophyllum) and the silver
maple (A. saccharinum) are to be planted in France to mark the graves of fallen Canadian soldiers, a maple leaf being the badge of that country and of its troops.
The slow-growing white oak (Quercus alba), often spared by the farmer to shelter his stock in pastures, where it spreads wide its heavy branches, forming a wide dome-shaped head, represents the most durable, strongest and most generally suitable wood of all the valuable timber trees in this group, for the in finite variety of uses to which the timber is put. The acorns of certain Western species furnish a regular crop of acorns gathered by Indians in the locality as a staple food.• The bark of other species, particularly that of the chestnut oak (Q. Primus) of the East, and the tanbark oak O. den flora) of the West, is used for tanning, while that of the quercitron (Q. velutina) or black oak, contains a yellow dye-stuff. The Garry oak (Q. Carryana) of the West is important because it is the only oak of that region which has valuable wood The pin oak (Q. palustris) is often planted for ornament, its lower branches sweeping the ground, while the middle ones are horizontal and the upper ones ascending.
Carriage- and wagon-building has always called for woods that are tough, elastic, pliable, strong and durable or unsplittable, according to their predestined use. Tough ash (Fraxinus), which is also a favorite material for oar-mak ing and agricultural implements, is one of these necessary woods. The white ash (Fraxinus Americana), is one of the straight stemmed forest trees that exceed 75 feet in height and are scattered more or less among other hardwoods throughout the East, arriv ing at its best estate in the bottom-lands of the lower Ohio. Ash trees, on account of their rapid growth and comparative freedom from disease, are favorite ornamental trees for street and lawn and pasture. But the graceful elm is more frequently seen, especially in New England. Although distressed by noxious in sects, the American elm ((Emus Americana) is one of the most beautiful trees that can be planted, its slender arching branches forming a vase-shaped head, with pendulous spray. Like that of the ash, its tough, hard wood, split with difficulty, is used in agricultural im plements as well as vehicles, for small cooper age, the bottoms of wheelbarrows and for other purposes where its peculiar qualities are utilized. The slippery elm (U. fulva) furnishes a mucilaginous bark.
Several hickories (Hicoria) are employed in vehicle-building, the wood being unique for its toughness and elasticity, which makes it in valuable for light but strong carriages. The hickories also bear edible nuts, those from trees with "shag" or ((shell" bark as (H. ovata) being preferred. H. Pecan bears the thin shelled, sweet pecan nuts of commerce. Linden trees (Tilia) whose drooping flowers are so prodigal of nectar and so alluring to bees that they are often called "bee trees," supply a soft, fine-grained wood that by steaming can be bent into shapes suitable for carriage panels. In the spring, too, its bark can be separated into "bast," long, tough ribbons used by florists as a tie-material instead of strings, whence its common name of basswood. The tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) has several names, yellow poplar being perhaps the most common one, although carpenters speak of the pale-tinted kinds as "whitewood." Among the soft woods it ranks next to white pine and "cuts like cheese" and is superior to linden for carriage panels. The tree has a a characteristic ally straight tapering trunk if grown in for ests, arriving at more than 100 feet, but throws out limbs forming a huge cone where it has room. The orange-splashed, tulip-shaped, lemon-colored flowers borne at the tips of branches among pale-green quaintly-shaped' foliage, as well as its stately growth, make this a fine ornamental tree.