SPLITTING OUT AND ASSEMBLING 65 



or grain perforce must run parallel with the sides 

 of the strip throughout its length, in the sawed strips 

 you can have anything from astonishingly good to 

 atrociously bad results. Of course machine sawing 

 saves much labor, and hence is cheaper. If you 

 have a very narrow strip that has been split out, so 

 that you know its grain runs properly, there is no 

 reason why you should not use a fine saw if you want 

 to rip it lengthwise exactly through the middle, into 

 two still slenderer strips, without risking an attempt 

 at splitting, when you have no margin to spare. In 

 short, from a strip that first has been split out from 

 the stalk, another strip sawed out parallel to the 

 edge of the first is every whit as good as one rent 

 from it. In such sawing, place the strip, rind upper- 

 most, obliquely in the vise, with the end projecting 

 only a little above it, and saw not more than two or 

 three inches at a time, the saw running between the 

 jaws; then shift the, strip above the vise two or 

 three inches more, and so continue, sawing and shift- 

 ing, little by little, until it is wholly divided. 



The reader may judge for himself about how 

 much of detailed care, in seasoning, selection, and 

 utilization of material, is represented in a $2.75 

 department-store rod that is turned out in lots by 

 the hundred; and yet the writer knows of one such 

 that weathered a Nipigon campaign with flying 

 colors. Our illustration suggests how great may be 



