4 FAEMERS' BULLETIN 718. 



EVIDENCE OF ATTACK AND CHARACTER OF POWDER-POST 

 INJURY. 



Infested wood may be detected by the fine, floiirlike powder found 

 on or beneath piled or stored hickory, ash, oak, and other seasoned 

 hardwood products. During the first year of infestation the powder 

 comes from exceedingly minute holes in the wood, but after the 

 second year the small holes from which the beetles have emerged are 

 more or less conspicuous, and from these the powder will fall when 

 the infested material is moved or jarred. When the wood is cut 

 or split the interior is often found converted into a mass of closely 

 packed powdery material which has been held together by an outer 

 thin shell and intervening fibers of sound wood. The gi'ubs, burrow- 

 ing through the solid wood in all directions, have pulverized the 

 wood fiber and have packed their burrows with this powdered wood. 

 The injury by Lyctus beetles is always confined to the white wood 

 or sapwood, although the heartwood is sometimes penetrated when 

 the matured beetles are emerging from the wood. 



CLASSES OF FOREST PRODUCTS DAMAGED. 



A great variety of seasoned hardwood products is subject to powder- 

 post damage, especially hickory, ash, and oak woodwork of farming 

 piachinery and implement handles (see illustration on title-page, 

 and figs. 1, 2, and 3); ladder stock, as rungs, etc.; and vehicle 

 stock, as hubs, spokes, felloes, rims, singletrees, poles and shafts. 

 Other products affected include woodwork of electric street cars; 

 shipbuilding lumber (fig. 4) ; the Army and Xavy stores of han- 

 dles, tent poles, wheelbarrows, oars, and many other hardwood 

 articles ; interior finish or trim and ornamental woodwork, as panels, 

 mantels, doors, doorposts, staircases, wainscoting, flooring, etc.; 

 construction timber, including beams, joists, roof framing, etc.; 

 furniture, including tables, chairs, bureaus, cabinets, refrigerators 

 (before use), filing cases (fig. 5), piano stock, bookcases, cabinet- 

 work, etc.; inside rustic work; wood specimens and curios in 

 museums; cooperage stock (barrel-stave bolts); shoe-last blocks; 

 walking sticks, umbrella handles, measuring rules, and blocks to be 

 converted into golf -stick heads; fish-net hoops; ornamental bamboo 

 (fig. 6); Japanese fans; shuttle blocks, and "picker" sticks (for 

 driving shuttles in looms) , etc. 



Hickory, ash, and oak are the kinds of wood most liable to injury, 

 but persimmon, osage orange, black walnut, butternut, maple, elm, 

 wild cherry, locust, poplar, sycamore, eucalyptus, sassafras, orange 

 wood, fig, bamboo, and other woods are also attacked. 



