HARDWOOD RECORD 



13 



ways to excellent advantage. Instead of 

 the huge piles of cedar flooring, chest 

 boards and smooth railings of the old 

 days, one now sees at points of distribution 

 great piles of knotty, rough poles, ten to 



TYPICAL FIELD GROWTH OF RED CEDAR. 



forty feet long, which years ago would have 

 been discarded. Today they represent 

 bridge piling and "highway" piling; the 

 better and smoother among them being 

 used for telephone and telegraph poles. 



Middle Tennessee has produced more red 

 cedar than any other part of the United 

 States, but the bulk of production has been 

 confined to a few counties, which produce 

 a higher class and more aromatic variety of 

 wood than that found elsewhere. A cen- 

 tury ago these counties abounded in splen- 

 did forests of cedar. The early settlers 

 built their cabins of huge cedar rafters; 

 their smoke houses were built of them; 



their barns; even the roofs were shingled 

 with cedar and the rooms and porches 

 floored with the sweet-scented wood. Not 

 many years ago trees three feet or more 

 in diameter were often found. Now, how- 

 ever, a log fourteen inches thick is consid- 

 ered good, and the average run is much 

 smaller. 



Red cedar is remarkable for its lasting 

 qualities. It will resist dampness, soil, or 

 any agency of destruction more effectively 

 than any other wood, and in addition, it 

 can perhaps be used for more commercial 

 purposes than any other. An illustration 

 of its wonderful lasting qualities is fur- 

 nished in the fact that cedar logs which 

 had been covered by earth for thirty years 

 were recently dug up in Nashville and 

 were found to be in a perfect state of pres- 

 ervation. The Nashville, Chattanooga & 

 St. Louis railway has a trestle built of 

 cedar piling, many years old, and the struc- 

 ture is still in good shape and the wood 

 well preserved. 



The poet has written of the "old oaken 

 bucket that hung in the well," but had 

 he ever taken a cool drink from a cedar 

 one he would have cut out oak and sub- 

 stituted red cedar, for a certainty. The 

 authentic history of one red cedar bucket 

 that was exhibited at the St. Louis World's 

 Fair traces it back to the year 1767. The 

 pail first belonged to the Estes family at 

 Water Hill, Tenn., and has been handed 

 down from generation to generation. Not 

 long ago it was polished, the brass hoops 

 brightened up, and the old pail made to 

 look as though it had just come out of the 

 factory. 



Although the most general use at the 

 present time is for lead-pencils, few peo- 

 ple who sharpen one and smeinhe fragrant 

 wood, stop to wonder where it came from. 

 One would smile were it suggested to him 

 that perhaps his pencil was formerly part 

 of some Tennessee farmer's worm fence. 

 The best timber obtained now is hewn into 



export logs and shipped to Europe, partic- 

 ularly Germany, where a great quantity is 

 converted into Johann Faber pencUs. The 

 red wood is made into the higher grades 

 and the sap or streaked wood is used for 



FOLIAGE AND FRUIT OF RED CEDAR. 



the cheaper varieties. The smaller and in- 

 ferior logs are cut into slats, while odds 

 and ends, cutoffs, etc., are collected and 

 sold by the hundred pounds to pencil fac- 

 tories. There are many such factories in 

 the United States now, as well as in Europe, 

 and pencil men are scouring the cedar sec- 

 tions to buy all they can. The farmer who 

 has a red cedar picket or worm fence can 

 sell it to these companies at a round price. 

 Pencil men are even going back over tracts 

 from which the timber was cut twenty-five 

 years ago, buying up the stumps. When 

 the wood was plentiful lumbermen were 

 not frug;il, and usually cut down a tree 

 about two foet above the ground, allowing 

 the best part of it to be wasted. 



Red cedar takes a splendid polish and is 

 a favorite with cabinet makers and furni- 

 ture mannf.'icturers. Again, its delightful 

 and refreshing aroma makes it popular. It 

 has special value for coffin boxes and is 

 often finished in the natural wood for the 



:0\\S OF STATELY CEDARS AT HERMITAGE. 



LARGEST CEDAE BUCKET IN THE WORLD. 



