616 INDUSTRIAL USES OF WOOD. 



Cheap palings are made of chestnut laths bound together with 

 wire by a machine. Tr.] 



Withes for fastening faggots, bundles of corn, oak- bark, 

 hemp, etc., are made of coppice-shoots of hazels, willows, and 

 different shrubs ; sometimes oak and beech saplings are stolen 

 for the purpose. 



Brooms are made usually of young shoots and twigs of birch 

 trees, and should be cut before the foliage has appeared. 

 Vigorous birch trees afford the best shoots for brooms. 

 Brooms are made also of broom, Genista, peeled osiers, etc. 



[In India large quantities of prickly bushes are used 

 annually for making temporary dead fences round the crops 

 in the dry season, and are used for fuel, or left to rot, when 

 the cattle come into the fields to graze on the stubble after 

 the harvest in April. Tr.] 



SECTION XVII. EEFUSE WOOD. 



The refuse wood, after sawing or splitting has been effected, 

 and the bark, are cut by the circular saw into convenient 

 lengths, fastened into bundles and sold as kindling material. 

 Wood-shavings serve a similar purpose, but attempts have 

 been made to press them into briquets mixed with cement 

 to form Xylolith. 



Sawdust has many uses, it is burned in specially-made 

 furnaces to supply heating-power to steam-engines. Saw- 

 dust and cellulose acted on by dilute nitric acid and boiling 

 solution of common salt are used for fodder (Wendenburg's 

 system). It is used as litter in stalls and wet places; to place 

 in layers between seeds in winter ; also between rows of 

 seedlings in forest nurseries as a protection against frost ; as a 

 packing for fragile goods; with cement, soluble glass and 

 gypsum, it is converted into xylolith or papyrolith ; mixed with 

 chromium gelatine and immersed in boiling oil it produces a 

 substance resembling gum. Sawdust is used for making 

 oxalic acid and methyl-alcohol ; when heated it is pressed into 

 briquets, nearly MS serviceable as coal, or if soaked and pressed 

 it is easily kindled (Hugendudel system) ; when steamed, it 

 may be pressed into permanent shapes, 



