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AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



shortening of acacia. The wood so much resembles mesquite that locally they are 

 considered the same. Huisache warps and checks in seasoning, but it is employed in 

 a small way for furniture, usually as small table legs, spindles, knobs, and ornaments. 

 It takes high polish, and resembles the best grades of black walnut, but is much 

 heavier, harder, and stronger. It is next to impossible to drive a nail into it without 

 first boring a hole. When used as crossties, holes must be bored for the spikes. 

 The heartwood resists decay a long time, but the thin sapwood is liable to be riddled 

 by smairboring insects, which seldom dr never enter the heartwood. 



TEXAS CAT'S CLAW (Acacia wrightif) is a hardluck tree of western Texas where 

 it is usually found on dry, gravelly hills and in stony ravines. Its twice-compound 

 leaves are among the smallest of the acacias, seldom exceeding two inches in length. 

 The fragrant, light yellow flowers appear from March to May, and the short pods ripen 

 in midsummer, but like so many trees of the pea family, they are in no hurry to fall. 

 The largest trees are thirty feet high and one in diameter, but most people associate 

 cat's claw with low, tangled brush, tough as wire, and armed with curved thorns so 

 strong that their hold on clothing can hardly be broken. When a cat's claw bush 

 strikes out to become a tree which is infrequent it grows rapidly. It has been 

 known to attain a diameter of nine inches in twenty-three years. The heart is dark 

 in color and exceedingly hard. The color varies from nearly red to nearly black, and 

 takes a polish almost like ivory. The thin yellow sapwood is preyed on by boring in- 

 sects. Heartwood is made into canes, umbrella sticks, tool handles, rulers, and turned 

 novelties. 



DEVIL'S CLAW (Acacia greggif) has such paradoxical names as paradise flower, 

 ramshorn, and cat's claw. It deserves them all where it grows wild on the semi- 

 deserts of the Southwest from Texas to California. The double-compound leaves 

 are one or two inches long, its bright, creamy -yellow and exquisitely fragrant flowers 

 are the glory of desert places, while its masses of thorns readily suggest the common 

 name by which it is known. The wood is scarce, but extraordinarily fine. It is 

 dark rich red, but clowded with streaks and patches of other shades, becoming at 

 times gray, at others green. No nail can be driven into it, and an ordinary gimlet will 

 hardly bore it. It is so saturated with oil that it is greasy to the touch. It is manu- 

 factured into small articles, but apparently is not used outside of the locality where it 

 grows. The wood is often contorted, due to pits and cavities which slowly close as 

 the tree advances in age. They add to rather than detract from the wood's beauty. 



