COMMERCIAL USES OF CHESTNUT 



961 



ful if any of the other States in the Southern Appa- 

 lachian have stands exceeding 4,000,000,000 feet, and no 

 State outside that region with the possible exception of 

 Pennsylvania w^ould come anywhere near that amount. 

 It is difficult to say how the amount of chestnut com- 

 pares with that of other hardwoods. It is certainly less 

 abundant than all the oaks grouped together, but may 

 surpass any of them alone. There is without doubt much 

 more of it than of yellow poplar, or any of the higher 

 priced hardwoods such as cherry and walnut. Beyond 

 that it would be unwise to venture, since the other im- 

 portant hardwoods do not generally occur in the same 

 region as chestnut and we have therefore no standard 

 of comparison. 



CHARACTER AND USES OF THE WOOD 



The heartwood of chestnut is light brown in color, 

 while its sapwood is yellowish or whitish. Chestnut be- 

 longs in the same plant family as the oaks, yet its wood 



Courtesy Penna. Chestnut Blight Commission. 



CHESTNUT FOR RAILROAD CROSS-TIES 



Chestnut stands fifth in the list of woods used for railroad ties. These 

 ties are usually gotten out of woodlots by farmers and stnall dealers 

 and sold to the nearest railroad. 



can be easily distinguished from them by the apparent 

 absence of medullary rays, which are those markings that 

 give such a pleasing appearance to quartered oak. These 

 rays are of course present in chestnut but are very in- 

 conspicuous. Chestnut is neither a very strong nor a 

 very hard wood, not nearly so strong or hard as oak, 

 but it is very even grained and durable. It will outlast 

 almost all the oaks and most other hardwoods, its dur- 

 ability being due to the high percentage of tannin which 

 it contains. It is light in weight and easily worked and 

 does not warp readily. A cubic foot of absolutely dry 

 chestnut wood weighs 28.07 pounds. The same amount 

 of white oak weighs 46.35 pounds, of red oak 40.76 

 pounds, of white pine 24.02 pounds, of longleaf pine 

 43.60 pounds, of yellow poplar 26.36 pounds, of bass- 

 wood 28.20 pounds, red spruce 28.57 pounds. This places 

 chestnut in the class of light weight woods, and since 

 railroad freight rates on lumber are based on weight 

 rather than board measure, this gives it an advantage in 

 marketing over many of its heavier competitors. A table 



of shipping weights gives dry chestnut as weighing 2800 

 pounds per 1,000 board feet. Tulip poplar and the tulepo 

 are given the same; basswood and butternut, the latter 

 an unimportant wood, are given as 2,500. All other 

 hardwoods are higher. 



This lightness, freedom from warping, durability and 

 reasonable strength, and the high percentage of valu- 

 able chemical substances which it contains, together with 

 its great abundance have given chestnut a greater variety 

 of uses than almost any other American hardwood. It 



CHESTNUT BOARDS 



Both of these are tangential or bastard cut and show the attractive grain 

 often found in the wood. 



touches almost every phase of our existence. It serves as 

 a shade and ornamental tree on our parks and estates. 

 Its wood is used in the building and decoration of our 

 houses and the manufacture of our furniture. We sit 

 down in chairs made of chestnut and transact our busi- 

 ness at desks, ostensibly of oak, but generally of chest- 

 nut veneered with oak, we receive messages from the 

 distance over wires strung on chestnut poles. We sit in 

 a railroad train and read newspaj^ers into whose compo- 

 sition chestnut pulp has gone, while our train travels 

 over rails supported on chestnut ties and over trestles 

 built of chestnut piles, along a track whose right-of-way 

 is fenced by wire supported on chestnut posts. On the 



