HARDWOOD RECORD 



33 



ness, just as in the other case it makes a greater outlay by the 

 lumberman necessary in order to pile up business of that amount. 

 In every direction, therefore, practical conditions make it impos- 

 sible for the lumber operator to realize upon his investment as 

 rapidly as manufacturers in most other lines; and the fair conclu- 



sion, then, is that the sawmill owner, as well as his collaborator, 

 the wholesale yard man, is entitled to a much larger profit upon his 

 product than is justly accorded to the producer of goods which can 

 be manufactured and sold more rapidly and more easily than lumber. 



G. D. C, Jr. 







Distinguishing Between the Gums 







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There are several trees of this country commonly known as gums. 

 One of them, the red or sweet gum, belongs to the witch hazel 

 family (Eamamelidaceae) and bears no close relation to black gum, 

 water gum, tupelo and sour tupelo which are in the dogwood family 

 {Comaceae). The name "gum" is also applied to several species 

 of eucalyptus. 



Eed or sweet gum {Liquidambar styraciflua) is widely distributed 

 through the swamp forests of the eastern United States from south- 

 west Connecticut to Texas. It reaches its best development on low 

 bottomlands subject to overflow in the basin of the lower Mississippi 

 river and in the coastal region of the south Atlantic states. In the 

 northern portions of its range it is a medium si^d tree but at its 

 best there are few that can equal it for size, straightness of trunk, 

 and clear length. 



The wood is rather heavy, the average weight of thoroughly dried 

 material being thirty-seven pounds per cubic foot or about ten pounds 

 lighter than white oak. The specific gravity is 5.9. The wood is 

 moderately hard, fine-textured, often with cross or interlocked grain 

 which interferes with working and makes boards very liable to warp. 

 There are no large pores but the numerous small ones are scattered 

 throughout the wood and are scarcely visible to the unaided eye. 

 The rays are fine but distinct. The color is reddish brown, usually 

 with irregular dark streaks producing a ' ' watered ' ' effect on a 

 smooth longitudinal surface resembling closely the markings in Cir- 

 cassian walnut. The sapwood is nearly white, in some trees being 

 quite thin, in others making up a very large proportion of the trunk. 



Eed gum was rather late coming into commercial importance, largely 

 on account of the difficulties of handling the lumber under the 

 careless methods usually employed. Proper attention to time and 

 methods of logging, to sawing, and to pUing, seasoning and handling 

 the lumber has changed all this so that many industries could 

 scarcely exist without it. 



In 1910 this wood stood eleventh in production of sawed lumber 

 with a cut of 610,000,000 feet. This was nearly 100,000,000 less 

 than in 1909. The lumber was cut at 3,716 mills in 22 states. Arkan- 

 sas furnished 30 per cent of the cut and Mississippi a little over 24 

 per cent. 



In the production of slack cooperage staves red gum is an easy 

 leader with a third of a billion or 22.8 per cent of the total in 

 1910 as against 18.3 per cent of pine, the nearest competitor. 

 Nearly three-fourths of these staves were made in Missouri and 

 Arkansas. In slack heading red gimi ranks fourth with over 11,- 

 000,000 sets out of a total of nearly 100,000,000. 



Eed gum has gained a good foothold in tight cooperage and in 1910 

 furnished 23,000,000 sawed staves, or 7.5 per cent of the total. It 

 furnished 4.2 per cent of the oil and tierce staves, none of the spirit, 

 wine, Bourbon and pork staves, but a larger share of the half -barrel 

 staves, cut-offs and lead staves. In the production of tight cooperage 

 heading red gum ranked fourth with 975,540 sets of 4 per cent of the 

 total in 1910. 



Eed gum is much more widely used for veneer than any other wood 

 and for the last four years upon which statistics are available con- 

 stituted approximately thirty per cent of all wood used. The large 

 increase in consumption over other woods is due to the fact that it is 

 considered an ideal wood for the rotary machine and that the stump- 

 age is more easily obtained than that of any other wood except yellow 

 pine. The tendency of red gum to check and warp when used as 

 lumber is overcome by converting it into veneer. Not only does it 



cut readUy but with improved driers is easily kiln-dried. It takes 

 glue readily thus making it valuable for built-up stock, where it can 

 be used either as face wood or cross banding. The total amount of 

 red gum consumed in 1910 in the manufacture of veneers was over 

 158,000,000 feet log scale. It is used for packing boxes, veneer 

 barrels, fruit baskets, chair bottoms, drawer bottoms, three-ply lum- 

 ber, butter dishes, and wooden plates. Some of the finest rotary cut 

 veneer is finished to imitate Circassian walnut. 



Eed gum is much used for furniture, but very often under some 

 other name than its own. In European markets it is known as "satin 

 walnut" and is in considerable demand. Italy admits all timbers, 

 except cabinet woods, duty free. Misled by the name "satin walnut" 

 and the optimistic claims of the exporters of this wood, red gum 

 was for a time subject to an import duty of ten dollars per thousand. 

 Getting the matter adjusted without retracting anything was a dip- 

 lomatic feat of high order. It is said that red gum furniture is 

 reshipped from Italy and France to this country and sold under the 

 name of French and Italian walnut. 



Gum lends itself readily to imitation of other woods by staining 

 and printing. The sapwood can be put through a machine with a 

 brass die and reddish ink and made to look like Spanish cedar with 

 the reddish markings in it. Printing plates are made from impres- 

 sions taken directly from oak, mahogany or other wood it is desired 

 to imitate, and with the proper color of ink it is possible to feed in 

 gum and take out a figured wood. None of these, however, can com- 

 pare with the natural beauty of "watered" or "clouded" specimens 

 of the gum wood. 



The other important gum woods belong to the genus Nyssa. All 

 except the sour tupelo yield woods that are now being used exten- 

 sively for commercial purposes. While the trees can be readily dis- 

 tinguished in the forest, the woods are less easily identified and are 

 usually sold together as tupelo. There is considerable variation in 

 the characteristics of wood from different trees of the same species, 

 which adds to the difficulty of ready separation by superficial charac- 

 ters. 



The heartwood of these gums is not always easily distinguishable 

 from the sapwood, which is quite thick in all species except sour 

 tupelo. The color varies from nearly white to cream-color or light 

 brown in some cases. The wood is light, soft, tough, fine and uniform 

 textured, cross-grained, and diflicult to split. Of the four the black 

 gum is considerably the hardest and heaviest. The wood of the 

 others is easily indented with the thumb nail. 



Tupelo was rather slow coming into use in this country, there being 

 much the same prejudice against it as against red gum. It has 

 long enjoyed a sale in European markets under the name of "bay 

 poplar." The home demand for it is rapidly increasing, especially 

 so as the supply of other timbers is being reduced. 



It is well adapted to a great many purposes. Its uniformity of 

 color and texture, its freedom from knots and defects, the large 

 size and quantity in which it can be obtained, the readiness with 

 which it takes paint and stain, are features which far outweigh the 

 difficulties of manufacture and seasoning of the lumber. The cut of 

 tupelo lumber in 1910 was over 92,000,000 board feet. This figure 

 includes lumber from all species of Nyssa. The cut of the wood 

 previous to 1906 was too small to warrant separate tabulation and 

 in that year about 48,000,000 feet was reported. Louisiana is the 

 center of production. 



In 1907 tupelo was just beginning to be heard of as a slack cooper- 



