112 PKOPERTIES OF WOOD. 



plane, quince, Turkey-oak, elm, beech, sessile oak, sweet 

 chestnut. 



Soft : Spruce, silver-fir, horse-chestnut, black alder, white 

 alder, birch, hazel, juniper, larch, black pine, Scots pine, bird- 

 cherry, sallow. 



Very soft : Paulownia, Weymouth-pine, poplars, aspen, 

 most willows, lime. 



[Great attention is paid in France to the cultivation of oak, 

 and Ma they 's remarks on the different qualities of oakwood 

 as grown as standards over coppice or in high forest are very 

 appropriate here. The French distinguish bois-maigre from 

 bois-gras. The former contains a large percentage of summer- 

 wood in the annual zones, and is hard and horny, the wood, 

 chiefly of pedunculate oak grown as standards, is dense, hard, 

 and elastic, though subject to warp and crack. Such wood 

 is particularly suitable for constructing buildings, ships or 

 barges. Sawn oakwood of this quality when once seasoned 

 is unrivalled for durability and beauty. 



The softer bois-gras has less summer-wood, so that the 

 percentage of porous spring-wood is often equal or superior 

 to that of the harder summer-wood. Such wood splits and 

 breaks easily. Sessile oaks grown on rocky ground in dense 

 high forest yield soft wood. Such wood is not strong, but is 

 easy to work and yields excellent wood when split or sawn, 

 especially when the silver-grain is exposed, it is suitable 

 chiefly for indoor usage. 



Mathey remarks that calcareous soils, which produce soft 

 oak timber, usually yield the best beech, in which whiteness 

 and fineness of grain are the chief factors of good quality. 

 Ash yields its best and most elastic timber on moist quaternary 

 alluvium, and its most brittle timber on dry oolitic soils. 

 That produced at the junction between the oolitic and lias 

 clay, where there are numerous springs, is of intermediate 

 quality. The best ashwood is produced in Britain. 



In France, in the case of coniferous wood, altitudes below 

 1,600 feet yield soft, rapidly grown wood, with annual zones 

 of 15 20 mm. Above this altitude the annual zones gradually 

 diminish to 3 6 mm., and the wood is hard, elastic and well 

 lignified, with a large percentage of summer-wood, Near the 



