Splash Damming on the Big Sandy 



IteiJiintid fiuin Ihc Ainciicnn Carpenter ami Builder, June, 1912. 



The public hears much about forest deuuilation and the extinc- 

 tion of forest growth, but there are but few types of American 

 forest trees that are nearing their end. One of the splendid 

 varieties whose lumber product is not increasing, owing to timber 

 scarcity, is yellow poplar (IJriodendron tuUpifera), which has 

 been known for years commercially in the eastern section of the 

 United States as whitewood; and in Great Britain and the Conti- 

 nent, where it is a favorite, as yellow wood, or tulip wood. 



There is only one variety of tulip wood, that of the United 

 States. The original rauge of growth was extensive, ranging from 

 Massachusetts southwest to middle Georgia, with a heavy growth 

 in Ohio, Indiana and the southern part of Illinois, a scattering 

 growth of inferior quality in other sections, and even along the 

 seaboard of the lower Atlantic it is found in tide level areas, but 

 here the color and quality of the wood is not of as good a type. 

 The original forest growth of poplar in Ohio and Indiana is said 

 to have been excellent, but these forests have been practically 

 denuded for more than a quarter of a century. 



The real home of the highest type of poplar is in the Alle- 

 ghenics. Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains, where it often 

 attains a length of bole of one hundred feet, and a diameter of 

 five to eight feet at the stump line, and specimens ten, eleven and 

 twelve feet are not infrequent. 



Poplar is a wood of almost universal utility. From it were 

 made the canoes of the aborigines; from it were rived the 

 shingles and .-iiding of the homes of the pioneers; from it were 

 carved the chopjiing bowls and tubs of the housewives of a de- 

 parted age. In a latter day it was the general housebuilding 



material of the Middle West, antedating white pine. The wood 

 is soft and of a rich yellow tinge of heart-wood and very thin 

 and white sap-wood. It withstands alternate dryness and damp- 

 ness, and holds paint in a most wonderful way. Therefore for 

 years it has been the favorite material in woodwork constantly 

 exposed to the weather. Every Pullman car, passenger coach, 

 express and baggage car that has been built up to the last year 

 or two, when steel coaches came into questionable vogue, was 

 sided with poplar. Every street car panel is of poplar; likewise 

 nearly every sign board on the front of merchandising estab- 

 lishments. The wood is also used almost to the exclusion of all 

 other material in the making of coach and carriage bodies, high 

 class automobile bodies and the bodies of grocers', butchers' and 

 laundrymen's wagons? It has alwaN's been popular for the in- 

 terior finishing of houses, where permanent paint or enamel 

 work was desired, and also for general furniture and cabinet 

 work. As a matter of fact poplar has been the chief material 

 of general utility for the making of everything from the cradle 

 of the pioneer to the coffins of his sons. 



The forest in which poplar has its habitat is a splendid sight. 

 Its best growth occurs at elevations above the sea level of from 

 one thousand to four thousand feet, seeking higher altitude in its 

 southern ranges, and is intermingled with hickory, hemlock, 

 buckeye, chestnut, cucumber, the oaks, the walnuts, and various 

 other varieties. However, the poplar trees, growing in the deep 

 coves of the mountains, are predominant in the forest, although 

 rarely existing in groups, as the growth generally is scattered, one, 

 two or three to the acre; but they have shot straight up with their 



A TVi'K'.\L LOGGINi; C.^MI' l.N TIIK CU.MBEKI.AXD MOUNTAINS 



—Zia— 



