HARDWOOD RECORD 



21 



iifacturers who consider themselves already thrifty in the profitable 

 apjilic-ation of wastage. It will lend inspiration for further moves 

 in obtaining the maximum per cent of efficiency from left-over 

 material. 



Association Meeting 



Attendance at the Chicago Exposition by professors of forest 

 school branches of a number of universities is assured. Details of 

 the attendance of these important visitors are being supervised 

 by Prof. Frederick Dunlap of the College of Agriculture, University 

 of Missouri. 



In addition to the annual convention of the National Lumber 

 Manufacturers' Association at the Coliseum, May 5-6, a number of 

 other important gatherings have been scheduled for Chicago and 

 New York during the exposition. The Northern Hemlock & Hard- 

 wood Manufacturers' Association will meet at the La Salle Hotel 

 April .30; the leading yellow pine manufacturers will hold a con- 

 ference at the Congress Hotel, May 4; the National Association of 

 Lumber, Sash, and Door Salesmen will meet at the Chicago Lum- 

 bermen 's Club, May 2; the Michigan Hardwood Manufacturers' 



Association will meet May 5; the annual convention of the 

 National Slack Cooperage Manufacturers' Association is called for 

 May 7, 8 and 9, at the Sherman hotel; and other meetings are to 

 be held in Chicago, while New York will have the quarterly meet- 

 ing of the North Carolina Pine Association, a special meeting of 

 the Philadelphia Wholesale Lumber Dealers' Association, and a 

 number of additional gatherings, including an important concate- 

 nation of the Hoo-Hoo, for which elaborate preparations are being 

 made. 



Exhibits Moving In 

 On Monday, April 27, the exhibits will move in, and from that 

 time until the opening hour there will not be a minute when the 

 sound of the hammer and the activities of operations will not be 

 heard. Of course, practically everything has been planned in 

 advance, and prepared as far as possible, and all that remains is 

 to put the various' exhibits in their proper places. That is no small 

 undertaking, in view of the number of exhibitors and the multi- 

 tudes of exhibits, but there is no doubt that when the hour for 

 the opening arrives, everything will be ready. 



x<^ro^smi;5ia^m:!rojiM!iiiauiaM»i ^^ 





The Penetrability of Wood 





A valuable contribution to science, particularly that part of science 

 ill which users of wood are interested, was recently made in a paper 

 published in the Journal of Agricultural Besearch, issued by the 

 1 )epartment of Agriculture at Washington. The subject of the paper 

 is: "Tyloses: Their Occurence and Practical Significance in Some 

 American Woods." 



The name may not be wholly familiar to all lumbermen and stave 

 dealers, for "tyloses"' is a technical word which has not yet reached 

 everyday speech ; but the thing itself is pretty well known, at least 

 by its effect. White oak is good material for barrels which are to 

 hold alcoholic liquors; red oak is not. White oak is satisfactory be- 

 cause the wood contains tyloses which prevent leakage; red oak 

 does not contain much of the substance, consequently, liquids seep 

 through the wood and escape. 



This is a concrete, practical illustration of the value of tyloses in a 

 wood that coopers use; but some people have never seen and rec- 

 ognized the substance, and many have seen it and did not pay much 

 attention to it. It is a white substance that grows inside of wood 

 pores and stops them up so that air and liquids cannot pass through. 

 It can be properly studied only with the microscope, yet under favor- 

 able conditions the naked eye can detect it. It looks like white foam, 

 or probably like chalk, in the pores of white oak. If a stick is split, 

 and is polished very smooth, longitudinal threads of white may some- 

 times be seen. It develops inside the pores and cells, and is a natural 

 growth in some woods, but is rare in others. 



The investigation has followed practical lines, the presence of this 

 substance in many woods where it was scarcely suspected has been 

 discovered, and it has been found that it has much to do with the 

 •hirability of wood. Those woods which contain tyloses abundantly 

 resist decay better than those which have little. It is not claimed 

 that its presence alone is responsible for the durability of one wood 

 beyond another, but it helps. There are other things, however, to 

 consider. 



Woods filled with this substance resist decay because the pores and 

 cells are plugged; air and water are largely excluded, and conse- 

 quently the threads of fungus, which cause decay, can not readily 

 enter, and if they do enter, the supply of air and water is so limited 

 that decay proceeds slowly. 



It is well known that a white-oak fence post or crosstie lasts longer 

 than one of red oak. The structures of the two woods are almost 

 identical, but white oak is sealed up, while red oak is open, and the 

 agencies of decay are free to enter. 



The bulletin lists sixteen durable woods, every one of which con- 

 tains much of the tylose substance; five that are moderately durable. 



and these are not well supplied with the plugging material; and 

 nineteen which are well known as quickly decaying woods, and they 

 contain little of the material. The durable woods are black locust, 

 catalpa, Osage orange, mulberry, ■ chestnut, black walnut, live oak, 

 sassafras, white oak, post oak, black ash, honey locust, cherry, per- 

 simmon, slippery elm, and bur oak. 



Some of the non-durable woods follow: Cottonwood, red gum, 

 maple, white ash, beech, cucumber, black gum, basswood, buckeye, 

 sycamore, aspen, and willow. It is not claimed that the presence 

 or absence of tyloses alone is sufBcient to i)reserve wood or to permit 

 its speedy decay; but the evidence clearly shows the tendency of its 

 influence. This element has not, heretofore, been much discussed 

 by those who have written of wood decay and durability. 



Timber treating engineers, who inject creosote and other substances 

 into wood to retard decay, long ago made lists of certain species that 

 were hard to treat, and others which were easy. The preservative 

 fluids penetrate certain woods to a considerable depth when moderate 

 pressure is applied; while others are almost impervious, no matter 

 how great the pressure. By examining the lists of woods, it is found 

 that those hardest to penetrate by preservative fluids are those 

 best supplied with tyloses. This throws a new light on the subject. 

 Some woods are so filled with solid deposits in the heartwood that 

 fluids cannot be forced in, and such are hard to treat, whether they 

 contain tyloses or not; but there are others where the difficulty of 

 penetration seems largely due to the presence of the tyloses substance. 

 This is often seen in sapwood where chemical deposits, due to the 

 aging of the tree, are yet slight. It was formerly quite generally 

 belie%-ed that tyloses were confined to heartwood; but the investiga- 

 tions have proved that they occur in the sapwood also, even to the 

 inner layer of bark, and therefore are an important factor to con- 

 sider by those who give timber preservative treatment. 



Millions, perhaps billions, of feet of logs have been lost by sinking 

 in rivers and lakes while on their way from the forest to the mill. 

 Nobody then thought anything about tyloses in the logs; but it has 

 been shown that those most abundantly supplied (hardwoods espe- 

 cially) float longest. The water is hindered from penetrating the 

 cells and pores and filling the cavities. The author's experiments 

 showed that woods in which tyloses were few or wholly lacking in- 

 variably sank before those containing abundant tyloses. A piece of 

 black locust heartwood floated forty-sis days while dogwood and 

 persimmon sank in eighteen hours. 



Hardwoods are most affected by this substance. The softwoods 

 contain little of it, for the probable reason that they have no pores, 

 which are the usual places where the growths are developed. 



