476 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



rived well and gave long service. Such a roof did not 

 decay quickly, and the wind, rain, hail, and snow that 

 beat on it required a long time to wear it out. The oak 

 clapboard was much thicker than the oak shingle, and it 

 did not warp so badly as the thinner shingles after a 

 soaking rain. Chestnut and ash were well liked for 

 split clapboards, while southern cypress, in durability 

 and riving qualities, was near the top of the list of clap- 

 board woods, though it was equalled by California red- 

 wood, and for splitting, it 

 was no better than sugar 

 pine, though the pine is less 

 durable. 



There was a smaller size 

 of split clapboard, but it 

 seldom went by that name. 

 When of cypress and made 

 in the South, it was called 

 a shingle, and in California 

 it was made principally of 

 sugar pine and was known 

 as a shake. These com- 

 modities, the clapboard, the 

 split shingle, and the shake, 

 are going out of use, but 

 thousands of buildings 

 roofed with them are still 

 standing. 



Any wood tliat may be 

 had in bolts of sufficient 

 size may be cut in shingles 

 with saws, but the selection 

 of the wood was different 

 when the work of making 

 was done by hand. A wood 

 which did not rive easily 

 was not suitable for shin- 

 gles. Before the invention 

 of the shingle saw, with its 

 thin edge and gradually 

 thickening blade, the highly 

 satisfactory woods for 

 shingles numbered scarcely 

 a dozen in the whole United 

 States, though some use 

 was made of others. White 

 pine, southern white cedar, 

 and cypress were the fa- 

 vorite species east of the 

 Rocky Mountains, while 

 sugar pine, redwood, and 

 western red cedar held first 

 place in the far western 

 part of the country. Those 



named are all soft woods. Where the best softwoods 

 were not procurable, many oak shingles were split and 

 shaved by hand. White oak was preferred, because it 

 was considered more durable than red oak, but both kinds 

 of oak were used in various regions. Oak warps badly 



A MAMMOTH SHINGLE TREE IN THE FOREST 



llin is seen the process of felling a cedar giant in the forest of the 

 Snouualmie Falls Lumber Company, Washington. The notch or under- 

 cut indicates the direction in which the tree will fall. Six-sevenths 

 of the shingles used in the United States come from cedars of the species 

 shown in the picture. The tree grows near the coast from Alaska to 

 California, and the forests contain billions of feet. 



when exposed to alternate wet and dry conditions, as it 

 is on roofs ; but though changes in the weather produce 

 curling and twisting in the shingles, oak roofs have 

 sometimes served long periods, as much as forty 

 years in some cases. Roofs of black walnut shing- 

 les are never put on now, because too expensive, 

 but formerly they held enviable records for long serv- 

 ice, some of those in Virginia having records of 

 seventy-five years of satisfactory use. 



Rived and shaved south- 

 ern white cedar shingles 

 were popular in New York, 

 New Jersey, and Pennsyl- 

 vania from the earliest set- 

 tlement of the country until 

 the wood became too scarce 

 to meet the demand. Such 

 roofs were light and dur- 

 able. An early traveler 

 criticized the builders of 

 houses in Philadelphia be- 

 cause they made the walls 

 only strong enough to sus- 

 tain the light roof of cedar 

 shingles, making no pro- 

 vision against the time 

 when a new roof would be 

 needed, which would have 

 to be of heavier material 

 after no more of the cedar 

 shingles could be had. 

 William Cobbett, an Eng- 

 lish traveler who visited 

 this country about a hun- 

 dred years ago, said that 

 most of the good houses in 

 America were roofed with 

 shingles of this cedar, but 

 he had in mind particularly 

 New Jersey and eastern 

 Pennsylvania. It is said 

 that a pipe organ builder, 

 Gottleib Mittelburger, who 

 visited Philadelphia more 

 than a hundred and fifty 

 years ago, worked out im- 

 provements in the construc- 

 tion of pipe organs by 

 studying the musical sounds 

 produced by rain falling on 

 white cedar roofs. 



There has long been a 

 controversy, which remains 

 unsettled, whether shingles 

 of white pine, white cedar, or southern cypress will last 

 longest on roofs. They all have phenomenal records 

 for long service. 



Though the days of handmade shingles are not quite 

 over, few are produced now-a-days. Saws cut the 



