I 



added. There is no doubt that he knows 

 the taste, since the pictures which he 

 draws are very, very black, and he needs 

 to sharpen his pencils often. He does 

 this sharpening with his teeth, like 

 a squirrel. 



The " smelly " wood in lead pencils is 

 red cedar, or red juniper, and is about 

 the only wood that is used for pencils. 

 It is made into pencils very easily because 

 it has a straight smooth grain; but the 

 real reason for its use is that most folks 

 carry a dull pocket-knife, and red cedar 

 is the one wood which can be whittled by 

 a knife which is said to be " so dull it 

 won't cut butter." 



Red cedar is also a good wood for 

 fence posts and arbors and garden furni- 

 ture. It contains an oil that helps it 

 resist decay. This oil gives it the pleasant 

 odor, which caused the little lad to desig- 

 nate it as the " nice smelly wood." 



Cypress also is noteworthy for resist- 

 ing decay; other woods that make good 

 fence posts because they do not rot out 

 soon are locust, chestnut, catalpa, sassa- 

 fras and osage orange. The main trouble 

 with osage orange is that it seasons so 

 hard that one can hardly drive a staple 

 into it. 



EUROPE'S great war calls attention 

 to many special uses of wood. One 

 of the most pitiable results of the 

 war is the call for willow to make 

 parts of wooden arms and legs. It is 

 strong and light, and tough. Aeroplane 

 frames are almost all made of spruce, 

 not only because it is stronger for its 

 weight than other woods, but because it 

 is so free from flaws and hidden defects. 

 The very life of the air-man depends on 

 this quality. 



Aeroplane propellers are made largely 

 of black walnut, sometimes glued in 

 strips with spruce and ash. Warplanes 

 are the most likely to have all black 

 walnut propellers, because the wood holds 

 its shape, is strong and even-grained. 

 There is no way the propeller can be pro- 

 tected, because it must have all the air 

 it can get to push against. But if a bullet 

 hits it, the wood does not crack and 

 splinter; there is only a small clean hole. 

 For somewhat the same reason black 

 walnut is practically the one wood used 

 for gun stocks; the woodlots of the 



M' 



central hardwood states, and even old 

 gate posts and buildings are being 

 stripped to supply the armies in France 

 and Russia. 



The decks of battleships are made of 

 teak because it stands wear, is hard and 

 strong, but mainly because water does 

 not affect it. Its chief quality is that iron 

 bolts, spikes, or rings set in teakwood do 

 not rust out from the moisture held by 

 the wood itself. The surface of teak 

 always seems oily, and once it becomes 

 seasoned or dried out, it does not readily 

 take up water again. Like black walnut, 

 it does not splinter when struck by shot 

 or shell. 



[ANY others can be mentioned; 

 if one set out to make a list 

 it would be a very long one ; 

 boxwood for wood-engravings, 

 spruce for violins, because its fibers 

 carry tones so well ; spruce also for pulp 

 from which paper is made. Rugs, furni- 

 ti-re, pulleys, buckets, cloth, and all sorts 

 of things are now made of wood by way 

 of pulp. 



THESE odd uses of wood have a real 

 bearing on the work of foresters, 

 because the forester must know 

 how to grow the kinds of woods 

 that are wanted, and to keep out of a well- 

 managed forest those trees which do not 

 furnish useful lumber. Such poor trees, 

 therefore, are like weeds in a field of good 

 grain; they take up room and are not 

 worth the room they take. Foresters 

 may go even further than that, to make 

 individual trees grow so that they will 

 suit special uses. Hickory and chestnut 

 grown rapidly from sprouts furnish the 

 best material for the peculiar uses to 

 which these woods are put. 



BY side-tracking them from the 

 Trojan horse I thought I had been 

 able to make them forget the first 

 question; but that is a trick that 

 all children seem to see through, and I 

 finally had to own up that I did not know 

 any more about it than they did. Then 

 I told them that my newspaper was made 

 of wood, and left them busy hunting for 

 the ground up splinters and fibers that 

 showed in the unprinted margin. They 

 had their piece of newspaper and I had 

 my newspaper in peace. 





^^ 



