19 



The cultivation of hornbeam for such purposes might also be extended 

 more especially on poor gravelly land. 



There are undoubtedly many trades not thought of by the timber merchants 

 in which considerable quantities of small woods are consumed ; thus it is alleged 

 by United States statisticians that besides 300,000 new telegraph poles, and 

 .3,000,000 cords of wood used in brick-burning, the making of shoe-pegs alone 

 uses 100,000 cords of soft maple annually, that of lucifer matches 390,000 cubic 

 feet of pine, and that of boot-lasts and tool-handles 1,000,000 cords of birch. 



Such facts suggest the possibility of a remunerative production of larger 

 quantities of coppice woods. 



It being man's highest intellectual function to utilize to the full all the latent 

 powers of nature, we may well direct our attention to such bye-products as bark, 

 charcoal, wood-spirit, turpentine, tar, sawdust, leaf-manure, and wood-ashes. 



BARK. 

 Bark is used for tanning, i.e., for the conversion of hides or skins into a 



o 



strong, supple, impenetrable, and durable material known as leather, by the union 

 of albumen, gelatine, or collagen of their connective tissue, with a substance in 

 the bark known as tannin, so as to form insoluble tannates. Tannin is widely 

 distributed throughout the vegetable kingdom, especially in barks, fruits, and 

 galls. It is characterised by a slightly acid reaction, and astringent taste, a 

 blueish or greenish black coloration (ink), with ferric salts, the precipitation of 

 gelatine and albumen from their solution, and its union with them as above men- 

 tioned. Sumach leaves form a valuable material for white morocco leathers ; 

 clivi-divi, the seed-pods of coesalpinia ; " hemlock extract," a decoction of the 

 bark of the hemlock-spruce (Abies canadensis) ; and " mimosa bark " from the 

 Australian "wattles" (Acacia) are largely used, but the chief British tanning 

 material is oak bark. In France the young bark of the cork oak (Quercus 

 suber) is largely used, and for fine leather that of the evergreen oak (Q. ilex) ; 

 in the eastern United States the white oak (Q. alba), the quercitron (Q.tinctoria), 

 and the red oak bark are employed, while California and the western territories 

 depend 011 the chestnut oak for tanning purpjses. 



When coppice was largely grown for bark a rotation of twenty-four years 

 -was common, the stools being eight feet apart, the trees are more productive in 

 proportion at twelve than at double that number years' growth. Branches down 

 to an inch in diameter should be carefully peeled, since their bark contains a 

 higher proportion of tannin than that of the trunk. 



Since the low prices for bark have made many foresters doubt the expediency 

 of felling their oak in May when the timber is almost at its worst, it may be well 

 to bear in mind that French and Prussian experiments have shown that bark of 

 good quality may be obtained at any season by steaming the wood for from one- 

 and-a-ha'f to two-and-a half hours according to the season, after which the bark 

 peels easily. 



Willow bark is largely and successfully used in Russia for the best leather, 

 and the bark of young alder shoots, not a third of an inch in diameter, yields 

 sixteen per cent- of tannin. The bark of pine and larch is only used for roughly 

 tanning sheepskins. 



There is a possibility of chrome-tanning superseding the use of bark of any 

 kind. 



