848 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



RESULT OF OVERLOADING A WHEEL 



The strongest, toughest wood in the world has 

 its limitations. Overload it and it will crush. 

 The stubs of broken and twisted spokes in this 

 picture betray the enormous strain under which 

 they gave way. They are of hickory. No other 

 wood, under the same circumstances, would have 

 come through with as little wreckage. 



all others for felloes of wagon wheels which are expected 

 to see service in the hot, dry regions of the southwestern 

 part of the United States, in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, 

 and westward. It is extremely strong and durable, but 

 the chief characteristic recommending it for felloes is its 



small tendency 

 to shrink or 

 swell in dry or 

 w e t situations. 

 The tire on an 

 Osage wagon 

 wheel seldom 

 becomes loose 

 (luring the try- 

 ing times of the 

 hot, dry sum- 

 mers of the 

 Southwest, be- 

 cause the wood 

 does not shrink. 

 Under similar 

 conditions, tires 

 can scarcely be 

 kept on wheels 

 made of other 

 woods. In run- 

 ning through deep sand, the paint is quickly worn from 

 the felloes. Most woods, when not covered with paint, 

 soon absorb water when exposed to dampness ; but an 

 unpainted Osage orange 

 felloe is polished by sand 

 and becomes smooth like 

 horn, and moisture has lit- 

 tle efTect on it. Neverthe- 

 less, it has its drawbacks, 

 one of which is its lack 

 of elasticity, jolting over 

 rocks is apt to break the 

 felloe. It does best in hot, 

 sandy roads. An agree- 

 ment recently entered into 

 among wagon manufactur- 

 ers has for its purpose the 

 elimination of this wood 

 as a wagon material, be- 

 cause of the increasing dif- 

 ficulty of procuring it. 

 Though it has been widely 

 planted as shade and hedge 

 growth, the commercial 

 su])ply has always come, 

 for the most part, from its 

 natural range in Texas and 

 Oklahoma, where its origi- 

 nal home did not much ex- 

 ceed an area of ten thou- 

 sand square miles. That is 

 a small range for a com- 



A S.MALL BUT USEFUL VEHICLE 



.-Ml of the important wheeled appliances 

 transportation are not drawn by horses, oxen, or 

 driven by motors. Tlie wheelbarrow in some 

 form is with us always, and there are different 

 forms of this lowly implement. Some have one 

 wheel, and some two, but they all are propelled 

 by pushing. The pattern shown in the picture 

 is for use on factory floors. 



HKiiKK.N l.\ THE INTEREST OF SCIENCE 



These Douglas Fir axles did not reach their present condition by acci- 

 dent or ordinary usage. The Government's testing laboratory at Madi- 

 son, Wisconsin, broke them by powerful machinery to determine what 

 loads they were capable of carrying. Compared with other woods the 

 showing was satisfactory. 



mercial tree, and the supply has become very limited. 

 Locust is a hub wood for light vehicles. Its extra- 

 ordinary strength and durability, in addition to its hard- 

 ness, qualify it for use as hubs. It holds spokes firmly, 

 resists strains and twists which would break most woods, 

 and decay has little effect on it in many years. Elm is 

 also a hub wood, but its place is in heavy wheels instead 

 of light, and it is a competitor of oak in the hub factory. 



H o r n b e am is 

 very strong and 

 hard, but the 

 tiital demand for 

 it is not large, 

 for the reason, 

 a m o n g others, 

 that it is not 

 abundant and is 

 procured with 

 difficulty, but it 

 fills a special 

 place in the ve- 

 il i c I e industry, 

 being preferred as tongues for very large and strong 

 logging wagons and carts. 



The beds or bodies of wagons call for special woods, 

 and the choice falls on yellow poplar, basswood, tupelo, 

 Cottonwood, and red gum. The wood for bodies must 

 be light, tough, fairly strong, not inclined to split, and it 



must possess excellent fin- 

 ishing qualities. The fine- 

 ly-smoothed surface must 

 ]iaint well, for the show 

 part of a wagon or car- 

 riage is the body. The 

 lumber for the bodies or 

 beds of farm and road 

 wagons is known as bo.x 

 boards in the market, and 

 though various dimensions 

 may be had, boards from 

 thirteen to seventeen inches 

 wide, clear and sound, con- 

 stitute the highest class. 

 The foregoing list of vehi- 

 cle woods contains no men- 

 tion of willow, yet some 

 willow box boards are used 

 with satisfactory results. 

 They are probably classed 

 in statistics as Cottonwood, 

 or "brown cottonwood." 



Fine carriages and auto- 

 mobiles display high grade 

 wood finish, the automobile 

 more of it than the carri- 

 age. The government sta- 

 tistics covering vehicle 

 woods (and there are no 



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