COMMERCIAL USES OF WHITE OAK 



cutter. It was the wood for oxboes, 

 sandspikes, and levers. Farmers made 

 feed troughs and hcklogs of it for horses 

 and mules. It was selected because of 

 its hardness. The animals did not gnaw 

 it to pieces as they did Ijoughs of softer 

 woods. For a similar reason it was 

 made into corn and wheat bins, because 

 such bins were seldom gnawed through 

 by rats. It was the principal material 

 for flax brakes in early times when 

 nearly every house had one, and tow 

 linen was manufactured by hand in most 

 cabins. The old flax brake has held its 

 ground to this day in some of the iso- 

 lated regions of the southern .Appalach- 

 ian mountains. Inventiirs have patented 

 nearly three hundreil machines fur break- 

 ing flax, and still the old style, crude, 

 white oak contrivance is not entirely ob- 

 solete. The fly of the old Bradford 

 printing press, the first in New York, 

 was of white oak, and it has survived the 



WHITE OAK 



Tangential or bastard cut, in 

 wtiich tlie pith rays appear as 

 interrupted dark vertical lines 

 of different lengtlis. These 

 should not be confusetl, how- 

 ever, with the vessels or pores 

 which show as short vertical 

 dotted lines seen also in the 

 radial section. 



Radial or quarter sawed section, 

 the pith rays showing as con- 

 spicuous large flakes or irregu- 

 lar size. It is this so-called 

 "silver grain" which makes 

 quarter sawed white oak so at- 

 tractive and desirable as a 

 finish wood. 



SHIP AND BOAT BUILDING 



A century ago in building large vessels wood was the inost important and valuable material 

 used, but the substitution of steel construction has progressed so rapidly that at the present 

 time the use of wood in this class of boats is only incidental, answering principally for 

 decking, interior finish, ships' furniture, masts, spars, booms, etc. For 

 smaller boats, however, sucli as yachts, launches, row boats, canoes and 

 other pleasure craft, wood is still the raw material used. White oak is 

 extensively employed for keels, ribs, stern posts, stems and in some in- 

 stances for coaming for open cockpit boats and interior trim for cabin 

 boats. 



vicissitudes of time though long ago retired from active 

 service. 



The frontier wheelwrights and wagon makers drew 

 heavily upon oak when they had the boundless wilder- 

 ness to choose from with full license to take what they 

 would. The chucking wagons which sustained their 

 maker's reputation and their own on the rutted roads 

 and rocky hills in early times, were oak-hubs, spokes, fel- 

 loes, hames, bolsters, axles, standards, sandboards, and 

 tongues. Lighter vehicles in late years brought hickory 

 in, but the everlasting wagons of the frontiers were oak. 

 The staunch felloes sustained the tires, which were in 

 two or more pieces, and were bolted on. \\'agons of that 

 kind, strong as gun carriages, were made in Pennsylvania 

 and in the South Branch \^alley in Virginia, and they 

 carried across the Allegheny Mountains the military sup- 

 plies which accompanied Washington's ill-fated expedi- 

 tion to the Great Meadows in 1754, and Braddock's more 

 disastrous one the next year. Those were the first 

 wheeled vehicles to cross from the Atlantic slope to the 

 drainage basin of the Mississippi River. Oak wheels 

 trundled in the van of civilization's march toward the 

 West in the early as well as in later years. 



The homemade pack saddles and stirrups, with which 

 horses were equipped for forest trails, were usually oak. 

 Furniture was made of it centuries before quarter-saw- 

 ing was invented and before stains and fillers for deep- 

 ening the tones were thought of, or ammonia fumes 

 were known. When whipsaws and the rude sawmills 

 began to supplant the broad a.x, oak became a frame 

 material for houses. Massive old residences of New 



