178 AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE BULLETINS. 



showing how two elm boards warp when exposed to the sun on one side only, 

 and showing which way the board near a slab or the side of a log will warp. 

 Also near them a large number of specimens showing various defects in wood 

 caused by branches, checks, decay, etc. 



Here are four panels, each eight by fourteen feet, covered by polished 

 boards, and some not polished, each usually eight by sixteen inches. There 

 is an assortment of duplicates, especially of our most valuable woods, and 

 show various good and weak points, different sections, etc. The enterprise 

 of one grange is still manifest by the large gilt letters as follows, " Sassafras, 

 by Port Huron Grange, Mich., No. 480." 



In the ceiling of the wall, by some choice native woods, a chestnut board 

 from Wayne county shows a bullet left long ago by some marksman. One 

 suit of specimens contains the core of a birch log three feet long, which had 

 been steamed and the veneering turned off. This was dried, several layers 

 placed at right angles to each other and pressed, and held together by hot 

 glue. The surface of the veneering cut around the log in this way is often 

 very beautiful, and presents a different appearance from boards cut from a log. 



There is a beginning of a collection of cork, tan-bark, sawdust, thin wood 

 for covering walls of houses, business cards made of cross sections of two 

 sorts of soft maple, four large samples of hard wood mosaic suitable for 

 floors of dining rooms. Here are short cross sections steamed and stamped 

 to imitate carving, and they are very pretty. 



Over there are some young trees twisting about each other, doubtless the 

 work of some student, and a beech slab, with names and dates carved in the 

 bark; a vine of Virginia creeper, with an enlargement above a string tied 

 years ago ; a hollow buttonwood log, such as was once used for smoke-houses, 

 samples cut through the heart, showing that a young tree grows straighter as 

 it grows older, by filling in most in the hollows ; samples of American elm 

 and catalpa, in which the defect of weak crotches is illustrated ; samples of 

 maple, white an.d blue ash, and beech and walnut that are curly; blocks 

 showing bird's eye maple, as seen below the bark, as well as in polished 

 boards. There are fifty-four sticks of wood of thirteen kinds of timber, 

 once set in the ground to decide whether it was of any use to set posts top 

 end down to increase their durability. The results were given in a former 

 report, and show that it makes no difference which end up the post is set. 

 Here a few rough boards of our leading sorts of timber for students to study, 

 also boards to show some of the grades of white pine, and cross sections to 

 show the various ways in which unprotected logs check at the end ; several 

 hundred truncheons, a polished cross section of each native tree, samples of 

 Michigan willow ware, with willow as it grew, some peeled, some split; a 

 lot of nuts, fruits, cones and seeds of trees ; cocoanuts, coacoanut fibre, 

 tampico used instead of hair for brushes, and " rice roots " used for coarse 

 brushes. There are the gums and dyes, mostly from the pulse family, some 

 St. John's bread (sweet edible pods), some wood from the bottom of a deep 

 well in Dakota where no wood is now found ; products of southern pines, as 

 turpentine, lampblack, rosin, tar. We have some wood-pulp for making 

 paper, and samples of charcoal, and other products taken from the kilns. 



In one case are partially decayed limbs, boards, black knot of plum, 

 cherry, oak, hickory, etc. These knots are caused by certain fungi. Wood 

 will not decay until bacteria and other fungi work upon it. Here are cedar 

 apples, caused by a fungus, and galls caused by insects. 



