428 HORTICULTURE, FORESTRY, FLORICULTURE 



suitable, preferably standard, sizes, for any cutting involves extra 

 labor and waste, any splicing adds to the cost and deducts from the 

 value of the product. The wood for covered work should be 

 straight, soft, or easily worked; it should be light, stiff, and insect 

 proof, and should season rapidly without much warping. On the 

 other hand it does not require to be tough or very strong, for if 

 properly designed and used, the full strength of the frame of a house 

 is never put to test ; it need not be flexible, cleavable, nor handsome, 

 and, so long as it is kept dry, but little provision is requisite for its 

 durability. It is readily seen that the combination of properties 

 here desired is possessed to a considerable degree by all our com- 

 mon coniferous woods; and as a matter of fact entire houses are 

 built of pine, or spruce, or fir, and everything from a sill to a shin- 

 gle is made of every one of the many conifers in the market, not 

 even excluding the hemlock. Where choice exists, the heaviest 

 forms furnish the stiffest lumber, and may therefore be used in the 

 smallest dimensions. Nearly all this wood is nailed or spiked in 

 place, very little is framed by mortise and tenon, and none is glued 

 together. 



In selecting the lumber for the exposed portions of carpentry 

 work great latitude exists. Aside from the floors, stairways, etc., 

 where the hardness or resistance to wear establishes preference for 

 hard woods, such as oak, maple, and birch, nearly the same qualities 

 are demanded as for the covered work, with, however, the important 

 addition of beauty, or satisfactory appearance, and a greater de- 

 gree of hardness to protect against injury by denting and scratch- 

 ing. Though formerly a large part of this class of work was made 

 of soft pine, the introduction of modern machinery, besides better 

 taste and other causes, have greatly stimulated the use of hard pine 

 and such hard woods as oak, ash, maple, birch, sycamore, gum, and 

 elm, with a possibility of using almost every kind of wood grown 

 in our forest. Generally, this finishing lumber, as it is commonly 

 termed, is nailed to its place, the floors, ceiling, wainscot, etc., being 

 tongued and grooved and thus in part framed together, while regu- 

 lar frame and panel work is used only for furniture, doors, and 

 sash, and occasionally for ceilings and sides. (Y. B.) 



Paving Wood. Round blocks, mostly of cedar, were exten- 

 sively laid in the Middle West. They made neither a durable pave- 

 ment nor in any way a satisfactory one. But they were cheap and 

 served a good purpose in tiding fast-growing cities over a critical 

 period. There have also been laid in various cities pavements of 

 oak, cypress^ white pine, hemlock, Washington red cedar, cotton- 

 wood, mesquite, Osage orange, redwood, Douglas fir, and tamarack. 

 The longleaf pine is the species most used in the United States. 

 (F. S. Cir. 141.) 



Veneer Timber. Not all of the wood classed as veneer is 

 actually used for veneering in the true sense, for with the develop- 

 ment of veneering machinery a number of new uses have been 

 found for wood in the form of veneer. Such of the softer woods 

 as gum, cottonwood, and poplar are largely veneered for boxes, 



