20 TREES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



sels, remarkably light and durable, have been wholly made of 

 pitch pine. This tree grows well on sands so barren as to fur- 

 nish nourishment for no other tree. Pitch pine is also used in 

 preference to other timber for the upper works of large vessels, 

 and for top-masts. White pine is also used; especially for 

 decks, as it retains the oakum in its seams; and for knees, 

 hacmatack and spruce; and rock maple for keels. The du- 

 rability of all kinds of wood under salt water, is considered 

 nearly or quite equal. Spruce and pine are also used for the 

 upper spars. For boats, cedar and oak are necessary. 



For fencing materials, chestnut and cedar are found most du- 

 rable. The former is remarkable for its rapid growth. White 

 cedar grows luxuriantly in wet swamps where nothing else 

 will flourish. The various native and foreign thorns, the hem- 

 lock, red cedar, and numerous small trees, furnish fit materials 

 for hedges, which, in many parts of the State, must ultimately 

 take the place of other fences. 



Furniture, of the most ornamental kinds, is now made of our 

 beautiful maples, birches, cherries, and beech. Tables of ex- 

 treme beauty are sometimes made of the root of oak, or maple, 

 or birch. These four trees, with the oaks and pines, must con- 

 tinue to be indispensably necessary for the manufacture of 

 chairs, tables, bedsteads, and other kinds of furniture. 



For implements of husbandry, the ashes and hickories, the 

 lever wood, the hornbeam and the oaks, must always be want- 

 ed. The carriage-maker and wagon-builder will want ash for 

 springs and frames, oak for spokes and fellies, elm for hubs 

 and white wood or bass for pannels. The basket-maker will 

 want young white oaks, ash and willow; the plane-maker, beech; 

 the last-maker, maple ; the pump-maker, oak and pitch pine ; 

 the bucket-maker, white and red cedar. 



The tanner will continue to want the bark of the black, 

 the white, and the chestnut oak, the hemlock and the birch, in 

 regard to materials from all which there has hitherto been great 

 wastefulness. And the dyer will want quercitron, sumach, bar- 

 berry root, in addition to foreign stuffs, for some of which he 

 might substitute the bark of alder, birch, and some other native 

 trees. 



