38 



WOOD-USING INDUSTRIES 



CHERRY 



Numerous species of cherry are found in Ohio but the black 

 cherry (Prunus serotina) is the only lumber tree and its wood is 

 reported by the Ohio wood-using- industries. It is found quite 

 g-enerally throughout the woodlots and forests of the State but is 

 never abundant. The principal demand for cherry has always 

 been for furniture and finish. It goes into expensive furniture 

 mostly as veneer and is seldom seen in any other form. It does not 

 warp readily and the quality gives it a place in the manufacture of elec- 

 trical appliances, musical instruments, and commends it above any 

 wood electro type backing. The wood is light, hard, strong, close- 

 straight-grained, compact, easily worked. Medullary rays are 

 numerous and thin. Color is red, growing darker with exposure. 



TABLE XIX. Cherry 



RED GUM 



Twenty-two industries call for red gum and the quantity 

 demanded equals more than 3 percent of the total of all woods- 

 manufactured in Ohio. The several industries and the amount of 

 red gum they consume are listed in the following table, tat the 

 specific use for which the wood is demanded and the qua 1 lcies com- 

 mending it are referred to later on in the discussion of the individual 

 industry tables. Red gum {Liquidambar styraciflud} is of ten called 

 sweet gum. In Ohio it grows only in the southern part in the wet 

 soil of bottomlands and is easily identified by its beautiful star- 

 shaped leaves and the characteristic wing-like projection of the 

 bark from its smaller branches. Compared with other woods it is 

 not an important lumber tree, though in 1910 the sawmills in the 

 State cut one and one-half million feet. 



