<rj AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



brittle. Tests show it to be eighty per cent as strong as white oak. 

 The grain is very fine, even, and homogeneous, except as interfered with 

 by knots. The annual rings are narrow, the summerwood narrow and 

 indistinct; medullary rays numerous but very obscure. The color is 

 red, the thin sapwood nearly white. The heart and sap are sometimes 

 intermingled, and this characteristic is prominent in the closely-related 

 western species of red cedar. The wood is easily worked, gives little 

 trouble because of warping and shrinking, and the heart is considered as 

 durable as any other American wood. It has a delicate, agreeable frag- 

 rance, which is especially marked. This odor is disagreeable to insects, 

 and for that reason chests and closets of cedar are highly appreciated as 

 storage places for garments subject to the ravages of the moth and 

 buffalo bug. An extract from the fruit and leaves is used in medicine, 

 while oil of red cedar, distilled from the wood, is used in making perfume. 

 Cedar has a sweet taste. It burns badly, scarcely being able to support 

 a flame; it is exceedingly aromatic and noisy when burning and the 

 embers glow long in still air. Some of the bungalow owners in Florida 

 buy cedar fuel in preference to all others for burning in open fireplaces. 

 Its representative uses are for posts, railway ties, pails, sills, 

 cigar boxes, interior finish and cabinet making, but its most general 

 use is in the manufacture of lead pencils, for which its fine, straight grain 

 and soft texture are peculiarly adapted. The farther south cedar is 

 found, the softer and clearer it is. In the North, in ornamental trees, it 

 is very hard, slow-growing, and knotty. It shows but a small percentage 

 of clear lumber. In eastern Tennessee there were considerable quantities 

 of red cedar brake that were for years considered of little value. About 

 the only way the wood was employed a few years ago was in fence rails 

 and posts, fuel, and charcoal. Of late people in localities where cedar 

 grows in any abundance have awakened to its value, and cedar fences 

 are rapidly disappearing, owing to the high prices now paid for the wood, 

 and the excellent demand. On no other southern wood has such 

 depredation been practiced. Because of its lightness and the ease with 

 which it can be worked, it has been used for purposes for which other 

 and less valuable woods were well adapted. On account of its slow 

 growth, its complete exhaustion has often been predicted, but a second 

 growth has appeared which, though much inferior to the virgin timber, 

 can be used in many ways to excellent advantage. Instead of the huge 

 piles of cedar flooring, chest boards, and smooth railings of the old days, 

 one now sees at points of distribution great piles of knotty, rough poles, 

 ten to forty feet long, which years ago would have been discarded. 

 Today they represent bridge piling, the better and smoother among them 

 being used for telephone and telegraph poles. 



