554 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



Yellow-wood is a little below white oak in strength and seven 

 pounds per cubic foot under it in weight; is hard, compact, and suscep- 

 tible of a beautiful polish. Rings of yearly growth are clearly marked 

 by rows of open ducts, and contain many evenly-distributed smaller 

 ducts. The wood is bright, clear yellow, changing to brown on ex- 

 posure; sapwood nearly white. Trunks of largest size are generally 

 hollow or otherwise defective. 



The uses of yellow-wood have been few. In the days when 

 families in remote regions were under the necessity of manufacturing, 

 growing, or otherwise producing nearly every commodity that entered 

 into daily life, the settlers among the mountains of Kentucky and 

 Tennessee discovered that the wood of this tree, particularly the roots, 

 yielded a clear, yellow dye. The process of manufacture was simple. 

 The wood was reduced to chips with an ordinary ax, and the chips were 

 boiled until the yellow coloring matter was extracted. The resulting 

 liquor was the dye, and it gave the yellow stripe to many a piece of home- 

 made cloth in the cabins of mountaineers. 



The women usually attended to the dye making and the manu- 

 facture of yarn and cloth ; but the men found a way to utilize yellow- 

 wood in producing an article once so common in Tennessee and Ken- 

 tucky that no cabin was without it the trusty rifle. The gunsmith, 

 assisted by the blacksmith, made the barrel and the other metal parts, 

 but the hunter generally was able to whittle out the wooden stock. 

 Yellow-wood's lightness, strength, and color suited the gun stock maker's 

 purpose, and he slowly hewed and whittled the article, fitted it to the 

 barrel, adjusted it to his shoulder, and completed a weapon which never 

 failed the owner in time of need. 



FRIJOLITO (Sophora secundiflora) is found in Texas, New Mexico, 

 and southward in Mexico. The name is Spanish and means "little 

 bean." A common name for it in English is coral bean. Sophora is 

 said to be an Arabic word of uncertain meaning, except that it refers to 

 some kind of a tree that bears pods. It is a species, therefore, which 

 draws its names from four languages, while the name applied to it by 

 Comanche Indians is translated "sleep-bush." The bright scarlet 

 seeds, as large as beans, but in shape like door-knobs, grow from one to 

 eight in a pod, and contain a narcotic poison, "sophorin." It is probable 

 that Indians discovered that the beans, if eaten, produced sleep, hence 

 the name. The tree is from twenty-five to thirty-five feet high, and 

 from six to ten inches in diameter. The leaves are compound, and 

 consist of seven or nine leaflets. The small, violet-blue flowers appear 

 in early spring. They are not conspicuous, but their presence cannot 

 escape the notice of a traveler in the dry, semi-barren canyons and on the 



