May 2.:>, I'JIT 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



19 



with bauds of distorted fibers. Tliese figures are often luKlily colored, 

 especially in walnut, and the real birdseyes are somewhat obscured. 



Solid burls are used as well, as the veneers sliced from them. Wal- 

 nut is usually sliced, and ash quite frequently, but in California the 

 enormous redwood burls are generally manufactured into woodenware 

 and novelties, such as breadboards, fruit trays, nut bowls, lamp 

 stands, and small articles of furniture. Eurls six or more feet in 

 diameter are taken from the enormous redwood trees on the coast of 

 northern California. The large surfaces of figured wood that may be 

 cut from them are excelled noAvhero. 



The ash burl is usually small. Old time furniture makers, who 

 workeil by hand, liked to employ small panels of such ash. 



The black walnut burl is more familiar than any other. The figures 

 are usually a combination of birdseyo effects anil differently-colored 

 streaks and bands of wooil. 



Kpj-ect .\xc Cause 



WAVY REDWOOD VIGURE 

 This figure occurs also in ash. chfstnut. maple, ovpres.s anil occasionally 

 in other lonunerclal domestic anil forcitn woods. 



Abnormal buds cause burls; 

 not one bud, but clusters and 

 masses of them. In the case of 

 walnut they frequently develop in 

 a band or zone around the tree "s 

 whole circumference. That pro 

 duces a burl shaped like a door- 

 knob, and the tree 's trunk has ap- 

 parently grown u]> through the 

 center of it. However, the trunk 

 was there first, and the burl is a later growth. 



SPRUCE WITH STRAIGHT GRAIN 

 Curly, wavy, and Iiird's-eye figures are inipossible bee 

 fleeted evenly from all parts of the surface. 



Ill curly and wavy grain we have an effect that is visible in the fig- 

 ured wood, but a search for the cause of the wave, the curl, the spiral, 

 and the twist is apt to end in disappointment. Several theories and 

 explanations have been jiut forward to account for these peculiar dis- 

 tortions of growing wood, and it is not improbable that some of these 

 theories have truth in them ; but if any man knows why the fibers of 

 the growing tree will lean to one side and grow round and round the 

 trunk like a winding stair, oi' bend back and forth in recurring waves, 

 the information has not been published so as to be generally known. 



It cannot be held that environment does it, or trees side by side 

 would develo|p the same grain ; but it is known that such trees may be 

 as different as if they ttooil a thousand miles apart. In some in- 

 stances, at least, environment and accidents of growth have nothing 

 to do with distorted grain. Let the chestnut tree illustrate. Its fig- 

 ure is not handsome because too coarse, but the ilistorted fibers of 

 chestnut are somewhat jieculiar. This tree grows from the seed and 

 also from the sprout. A forester can walk through a chestnut woods 

 whore the trees may be one, two, or three iiundred years old, and can 

 pick out the trees that grew from seeds and likewise those which came 

 from sprouts, and not make many mistakes. The trees from seeds 

 have spiral grain, round and round the trunk ; while the sprout trees 

 have straight grain. There may 1 e a few exceptions. 



Here, apparently, the direction of the grain was determined before 

 the seed germinates. No environment and no aeciilent influenceil it. 



If that view may be accepted 

 as a fact, it seems to put far 

 back in a tree 's ancestral his- 

 tory the causes governing the 

 direction of grain and the de- 

 velopment of figures depending 

 upon grain. That, at least, ap- 

 pears to be the case with chest- 

 nut, and if true of chestnut, why 

 not of other treesf 



5^ MAXWELL 



light 



Burls of that form on 

 walnut are often at or near the surface of the ground. The ash burl 

 is less regular in form, and in ]ilace of growth on the bole. 



Curly Gk.mn Figure 



Considerable latitude should le allowed when one talks of curlv 

 grain and the figures developeil from it. The figure cannot be very 

 exactly defined. Sometimes the direction of the grain runs spirally 

 round the trunk, at other times the fibers lie in waves or folds, like the 

 letter S, with innumerable modifications. The grain of redwooil may 

 follow to many folds and convolutions that if a billet is split, the 

 direct distance from end may not he half the distance if the exact sur- 

 face is followed. Strange as it may appear, such redwood splits easily, 

 the rift winding in and out among the convolutions. 



The fibers constituting the grain may cross and interlace, which is 

 notoriously the case with black gum (Xjixse sylvatica) . Such a wood is 

 difficult to split because the interlocking fibers must be broken. Black 

 gum may be split when frozen through and through. lee renders the 

 fibers brittle and the force of the wedge breaks them. Black gum does 

 not enjoy much reputation as a figui'ed wood, yet some logs show nice 

 figure if the fibers are cut in the proper direction, and considerable 

 use is being made of the figured wood. 



The figure of curly birch ranks high in beauty. The grain is dis- 

 torted, but the folds or waves follow one another in regular sequence, 

 and the figure repeats itself in a way to increase greatly the value of 

 the wood. 



Trunks of oak trees produce many excrescences, large and small, 

 but the wood of such excrescences has no reputation for figure. It is 

 shaped for mallets and mauls hut not for panels. Reiieated patterns 

 are lacking, and little beauty can be brought out, no matter how 

 highly the surface may be polished. The oak excrescence appears not 

 to be due to concealed buds but rather to the nests and burrows of 

 gall flies. 



s r MAXWtio. 



CROSS SECTION Or BIRDS-EYE FKilRE 

 The dormant buii that caused the distorted grain peisi.-^tcd iIuriiiL- furty- 

 eight years of growtli. ilii;ilicating tie figure year alter yi'ar. 



For the first time in a good many years, in fact since about the 

 Civil war period, American shipyards have taken the lead over 

 the British yards in shipbuilding operations, and the best 0? it 

 is this is but one of the many lines in which our country is row 

 standing out as a world leader. 



The cost of burping mill refuse is a theme that has received 

 serious discussion this year. That is well enough for the time 

 being, but like the hungry boy with the apple, we should get to 

 the point soon where there isn 't going to be any refuse that it 

 will cost money to burn up. 



Some people may still claim that advertising is a waste of 

 moi>ey, but even they will have to admit advertising campaiyns 

 have proven effective in putting a number of our native woods 

 before the public m a light that means more business and better 

 values. 



