982 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



SCOWS AND BARGES 



Boats may be useful without being pleasing in appearance. Scows, dredges, 

 barges and others that are designed to work in unromantic situations, are 

 as necessary as are any others. They arc generally built of heavy and 

 durable planks and timbers to provide the strength which they must have 

 to assure long service. 



supply the navy for ages." Small prophetic vision had 

 he of the mighty demands that would he made upon our 

 forests to provide ships for our war with Germany in 

 1917 and 1918. All the timber needed for our first navy 

 would scarcely supply one of our shipyards one month 

 at this time. 



The policy of buying and protecting forest lands fell 

 into disuse when iron ships seemed to be about to do 

 away with wooden vessels. The promise was not ful- 

 filled, as the present war has emphasized. The oak land 

 acquired as a ship timber reserve nearly all passed out of 

 the government's ownership in the years following the 

 advent of the iron ship ; but a little of it remains in 

 Florida and is included in the National Forest there. 



The "knee" is an essential in 

 building the wooden ship. It is 

 shaped like a crude capital L, 

 and the bend suggest the name 

 knee. It is a brace inserted in 

 the angle where two timbers join 

 in ,the framing near the bottom 

 of the vessel. The braces are 

 hewed or sawed from trees, a 

 section of the trunk and the at- 

 tached limb or root constituting 

 the knee. Sizes vary. Large 

 ships require huge and strong 

 knees ; other vessels take those 

 of smaller size, while very small 

 knees are sometimes used in 

 boats which are little larger than 

 big skiffs. 



Many kinds of trees produce 

 growths suitable for knees, but 

 all do not. The wood must be 

 strong and durable. The largest 

 and strongest knees are those 



hewed from southern live oak. Douglas fir is a valuable 

 knee wood, and for small and medium-sized vessels much 

 use is made of tamarack roots. This is the same tree that 

 furnished roots as threads with which Indians sewed 

 patches on their bark canoes. When the tamarack tree 

 grows in the soil which it seems to like best, that is, a 

 filled swamp with a soft soil a couple of feet deep above 

 and a stratum of hard clay below, its roots take on a 

 peculiar form. The root strikes straight down through 

 the soft soil to the clay, and not being able to penetrate 

 that, the root turns at right angles and follows the surface 

 of the clay, thus forming the crook which becomes 

 the knee. 



All wood used by shipbuilders does not consist 

 of heavy timbers. Doors, window frames, and inside 

 finish of many kinds must be provided, much as is done 

 in land buildings : and the kinds of wood used are not 

 much different from those on shore. The iron ship needs 

 wood finish in amounts depending upon the kind and 

 size of the ship. 



Our forests provide few woods suitable for the large 

 pins with which ship timbers are fastened together. The 

 pins are known as treenails and they vary in length from 

 one to four feet and in diameter from a little less to a 

 little more than an inch. Very hard and strong wood is 

 demanded and it must possess small tendency to shrink 

 and swell. Oak does fairly well if carefully selected and 

 prepared, and a little red eucalyptus from California has 

 been used on the Pacific coast, but the best is black locust. 

 This tree's native range lies along the middle Appalachian 

 Mountains and in the adjoining region east and west, 

 though locust has been planted and it grows in nearly all 

 parts of the United States. The manufacture of locust 

 treenails by farmers and lumbermen was a paying busi- 

 ness, on a small scale, until iron ships largely displaced 

 wocd. When we began building wooden ships to fight 



COMMODORE PERRY'S FLAGSHIP NIAGARA 



This relic of the war of 1812 was sunk in the Battle of Lake Erie in which the Americans won a signal 

 victory over the British. The vessel was recently raised and is now one of the show objects at Erie. 

 Pennsylvania. It was built of green timber cut on the lake shore and is in a good state of preservation. 



