8 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



PLANING MILL PRODUCTS 



In house and other lines of building construction considerable attention is given to floors, those of hardwood generally being preferred. 

 Both red and white oak are used indiscriminately for this purpose, together with maple and beech. Hardwood flooring is usually H inch 

 thick, 1 inch to 2J4 inches wide and both end and side matched. It is most often laid the same as standard flooring, except that a sub- 

 floor of some soft wood is laid diagonally below it with deadening material between. For certain classes of floors, such as those of offices, 

 show windows and stores, the parquetry designs are preferred. In such instances numerous other hardwoods which contrast in color are 

 employed for borders. 



England, New York, and farther south were frequently 

 of that wood. Some of the venerable structures are 

 standing yet, and their stability wins the admiration of 

 all who see them. 



Numerous instances of the enduring properties of 

 white oak might be cited, but a few will suffice. The 

 Westfall blockhouse, which was built in Tygart's Valley, 

 Virginia, now West Virginia, as a defense against In- 

 dians in 1774, stood one hundred thirty-two years, and 

 when torn down, its white oak logs showed few points 

 of decay. In 1776, John Minear, a German from Penn- 

 sylvania, built a milldam in the same region, and a cen- 

 tury afterwards the oak logs had decayed so little that 

 the hewer's ax marks were clearly seen. The oak logs in 

 which portholes were cut, in the blockhouse now standing 

 in the center of Pittsburgh, on the site of Fort Duquesne, 

 were remarkably well preserved though exposed to 

 weather during nearly one hundred fifty years. White 

 oak logs from Fort Henry, on the Ohio River, at Wheel- 

 ing, under whose walls was fought "the last battle of 

 the Revolution," September 11, 1782, were manufactured 

 into picture frames one hundred six years after the fort 

 was built. Most of the old warehouses in lower New 



York, which were destroyed in the great fire of 1855, 

 were of white oak cut in New Jersey at an early day. 

 The manufacture of white oak into salable commodities 

 began very early in the history of America. Europe has 

 but one commercial oak, and the first colonists in this 

 country were surprised to find so many here, yet they 

 knew but a small part of the total number. They were 

 not slow in determining the best, and they picked white 

 oak. For all practical purposes it was equal to the Eng- 

 lish oak, and being so much more abundant, and con- 

 sequently cheaper, it soon formed portions of cargoes 

 bound for the trans-Atlantic ports. A record exists of 

 a shipment of oak panels from New York to Holland, 

 in 1626. Sawmills were at work near the Hudson river 

 one hundred sixty years before the first one on record 

 appeared in England. Some of the American mills of 

 a very early date operated from four to twelve saws, 

 and at least one of the mills was built for wind power. 

 One of the earliest commodities to go to Europe from 

 the New World in considerable amounts was lumber. 

 Most of it was white pine, some was red cedar, a little 

 was sassafras, but part of it was oak felled in the valleys 

 of the Hudson and the Delaware. The oversea lumber 



