56 THE BOOK OF FORESTRY 



which was used by the early Swedish settlers in New 

 Jersey and Pennsylvania, while from the roots of flower- 

 ing dogwood the Indian warriors obtained the brilliant 

 color known as "Indian red" which they used to stain 

 their buckskins and feathers for their head dresses. 

 With the present scarcity of foreign dyes it is extremely 

 probable that vegetable dyes will play a still more im- 

 portant part than at the present time, and the forest 

 trees may be called upon again to yield their coloring 

 matter, especially since they are more durable than coal- 

 tar dyes. 



Grain. One of the first questions that is likely to 

 be asked regarding the quality of a wood is, whether 

 or not it is straight-grained, for upon the direction of 

 the growth rings depends the ease with which a board 

 may be broken. Sawed boards are often easily cracked 

 because the course of the saw did not follow exactly the 

 direction of the fiber. When wood is split, however, 

 the ax or knife follows between the fibers which 

 accounts for the fact that split wood is much stronger 

 than sawed. Certain species are notoriously cross- 

 grained and boards from such trees as elm and red 

 gum not only season with difficulty, but the extreme 

 irregularity of their growth rings makes them hard to 

 work after sawing. The figured grain in certain species 

 like oak and beech is due to the presence of narrow 

 bands of pith called medullary rays, but in addition 

 to patterns of this sort certain species, like the sugar 

 maple, are very likely to have variations in growth 

 which make them extremely attractive. The so-called 

 "bird's-eye maple," resulting from a lifting of the 

 growth ring by a tiny knot, is highly prized and such 

 a tree is worth considerably more than the normal 

 straight-grained maple. A fine-grained wood, of course, 



