212 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



green in color, and are smooth and shiny above, silvery white and pubes- 

 cent below. The edge of the leaf is notched somewhat like chestnut, but 

 the teeth or notches are not so sharp. 



The twigs are provided with corky wings, or flattened keels of 

 bark, along their sides. Some of the wings are an inch or more wide. 

 They are apt to escape notice when the tree is in leaf, but in the winter 

 the bare twigs look rough and ragged. 



The weight of bur oak is approximately the same as white oak, and 

 the two woods are much the same in strength and elasticity. The 

 bands of summerwood are broad and dense, and the springwood is filled 

 with large pores. The medullary rays are broad, but not numerous in 

 comparison with white oak. They are sufficiently conspicuous to show 

 well in quarter-sawing. 



Bur oak nearly always goes to market as white oak, or simply as 

 oak, and it is difficult to ascertain all the uses found for it. Some 

 factories which make furniture, finish, vehicles, and other articles that 

 figure in the country's trade, attempt to identify the woods they use. 

 That is done as carefully in Michigan as anywhere else, though com- 

 paratively few of the factories carry out the plan even in that state 

 where many of the best wood-using establishments of the country are 

 located. In a report issued in 1912 which gave statistics collected from 

 more than eight hundred Michigan factories, bur oak received separate 

 consideration. The uses there are doubtless representative, and will 

 hold throughout the country wherever bur oak is fairly abundant. It is 

 listed as baseboards, billiard table rims, bookcases, clay working machines, 

 filing cabinets, furniture, hand sleds, hay balers, interior finish, molding, 

 tinplate boxes, wagon sills, work benches. The amount of wood used 

 in the state was nearly 900,000 feet, according to the reports; but it 

 certainly does not include all. What it does show, however, is that bur 

 oak is one of the substantial woods of that region, and that it possesses 

 properties which fit it for many important places in the country's 

 industries. 



Bur oak contributes to the output of cooper shops. Slack coopers 

 class it with many other hardwoods for the manufacture of barrels for 

 vegetables and various other commodities, while the makers of barrels 

 for liquids put bur oak in with white oak. 



The future of bur oak does not promise much after the trees which 

 now remain have been cut. That does not mean that the species will 

 become extinct, for that is improbable ; but when the mature trees which 

 developed during two or three hundred years of forest conditions have 

 passed away, there is not much prospect of others being left to grow to 

 the age and size which will make them valuable as lumber. Woodlot 



