AMERICAN FOREST TREES 417 



facturers reported the annual quantity in that state at 9,110,432 feet, 

 and in Illinois the total was 9,936,000 feet. The uses for the wood in 

 Michigan may be regarded as typical of the whole country. The re- 

 ported uses were, auto seats, baskets, boat finish, butter tubs, candy 

 pails, carriage seats, crating, church pews, fish nets, office fixtures, 

 flooring, furniture, ice chests, interior finish, jelly buckets, kitchen cabi- 

 nets, lard tubs, piano frames, putty kegs, racked hoops, spice kegs, tin 

 plate boxes, veneer, washboards, and woven splint boxes. 



Black ash burls are characteristic excrescences on the trunk. They 

 begin as small lumps or knobs under the bark, and never cease growing 

 while the tree lives. They may reach the dimensions of wash tubs, 

 but most do not exceed the size of a gallon measure. The grain of the 

 wood is exceedingly distorted and involved. The burls are sliced or 

 sawed in veneers which are much prized by cabinet makers. Early 

 New Englanders made bowls of them, which seldom checked or split 

 during generations of service. The burls are believed to be due to ad- 

 ventitious buds; that is, buds which originate deep in the wood, but are 

 never able to force their way through the bark. The internal structure 

 of the ash burl indicates that the buried bud grows, branches, and sends 

 shoots in various directions, but all of them are hopelessly enmeshed in 

 the wood substance, and never are able to free themselves and burst 

 through the bark. A constantly enlarging excrescence is the result. 



BLUE ASH (Fraxinus quadrangulata) is named from a blue dye 

 procured from the inner bark. The botanical name relates to the square 

 shape of the young twigs, particularly the twigs of young trees, and was 

 given by A. F. Michaux who found the species growing in the South. It 

 reaches its best development on the lower Wabash river in Indiana and 

 Illinois and on the Big Smoky mountains in Tennessee. Its northern 

 limit reaches southern Michigan, its western is in Missouri. It is not 

 abundant, if found at all, east of the Appalachian mountains. Trees may 

 reach a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three, but about seventy is 

 the average height, with a diameter of two feet or less. The leaves 

 resemble those of black ash in form, but the foliage when seen in mass is 

 yellow-green instead of dark green like that of black ash. The seeds 

 look like those of black ash. The tree bears perfect flowers, and in that 

 respect differs from most other species of ash. 



The wood is heavier than that of any other member of the ash 

 group, except Texas ash. It weighs about the same as white oak, which 

 is six pounds per cubic foot more than white ash weighs. In general 

 appearance the wood resembles white ash, but it is usually considered 

 stronger and more springy. The trunks of young trees are largely or 

 entirely sapwood. Sometimes no heartwood is formed until an age of 



