CLASSIFICATION OF WOODS BY 

 STRUCTURAL CHARACTERS 



By C. D. MELL, Assistant Dendrologist, Forest Service 



INTRODUCTION 



THE study of wood for the purpose 

 of finding structural characters, 

 on which to base a classification 

 is still in its infancy. No one has pub- 

 lished anything comprehensive on the 

 subject, although it is pretty generally 

 recognized that an intimate knowledge 

 of woods is one of the utmost practical 

 importance. The principal contribu- 

 tions to this branch of dendrology have 

 been made by students of botany in the 

 German universities where all technical 

 investigations are greatly encouraged. 

 Since the introduction of forestry into 

 this country a good part of this infor- 

 mation has been translated into English 

 directly by those familiar with German. 

 Much has been contributed in this way 

 to the English literature of the subject. 

 Books on the botanical characters of 

 American trees are being constantly 

 written, but up to the present time no 

 one has written a work on the structu- 

 ral characters of the wood, with which 

 the forester should be quite as familiar 

 as with the characters of the leaf, flower, 

 and fruit. Ever since timber has been 

 bought and sold dealers have been rely- 

 ing on the "rule of thumb" method for 

 discriminating between woods. This 

 method is sufficiently reliable for the 

 carpenter or the timber merchant, for 

 he deals with only a few kinds of woods 

 and a knowledge of their general prop- 

 erties is easily gained through the 

 senses of sight, touch, smell, and taste. 

 Anyone who constantly works with cer- 

 tain woods can easily distinguish them 

 by their most obvious characters. A 

 new wood, however, will leave him en- 

 tirely at sea, nor will his method suffice 

 for the forester who deals with a good 

 many different species. It is necessary, 



therefore, to have much wider informa- 

 tion, methodically arranged, to help out 

 the rule of thumb method. 



LITERATURE DEALING WITH WOOD STRUC- 

 TURE 



Unfortunately there are no English 

 publications that contain a scheme of 

 classification for even a single group of 

 woods. J. S. Gamble's "Indian Tim- 

 bers" is a most excellent work, but it 

 does not give very definite information 

 helpful in identifying the timbers of 

 India from their structural characters. 

 Gamble does not attempt to point out 

 the chief features even of the most im- 

 portant woods. Sir Dietrich Brandis' 

 book on "Indian Timbers" is the best 

 descriptive English work. Although 

 this work is the most authoritative of its 

 kind, the author has taken more pains 

 to give the botanical characters than to 

 point out the chief distinctive features 

 of the woods themselves. Thomas 

 Laslett's "Timber and Timber Trees, 

 Native and Foreign," does not con- 

 tain anything that approaches a key 

 even to the most important kinds. Dr. 

 Marshall Ward's book dealing with 

 timber and some of its diseases con- 

 tains some very helpful suggestions rel- 

 ative to the importance of a scheme of 

 classification. Herbert Stone's works, 

 chief of which is "The Timbers 

 of Commerce," are among the latest 

 books dealing with the structural char- 

 acters of commercial woods. His 

 "Timbers of Commerce" is also very 

 helpful both to the forester and the 

 timber merchant, but it lacks a discus- 

 sion of the structural characters. Dr. 

 G. S. Boulger's book entitled "Wood" 

 (last edition) is an excellent work and 



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