AMERICAN FOREST TREES 573 



kinds. It is a competitor of sugar maple for that purpose. Hubs are 

 made of it for horse-drawn vehicles, and its hardness gives long wear 

 where the spokes are inserted. That is one of the first points of failure 

 when a soft, inferior wood is used for hubs. The spokes work loose. 



Manufacturers of automobiles have tried out yellow birch as 

 material for frames ; it has stood the test, and is much used in competition 

 with other woods. The amount demanded for that purpose is not 

 necessarily large, but it must be the best wood that can be had. 



This material reaches the markets in all grades. Large amounts 

 are used for packing boxes, crates, and shipping containers. Low 

 grades answer for these purposes, leaving the better sorts for the more 

 exacting industries. The logs are cut in rotary veneer for baskets, 

 and for ply work. Some of the veneer in three-ply is worked into 

 commodities of high class, such as seats and backs of theater chairs. 



Birch flooring competes closely with maple for popular favor. It 

 may lack something of maple's whiteness, but it takes no second place 

 in hardness, smoothness, and wearing qualities. It is made into 

 parquet flooring as well as the ordinary tongued and grooved article. 

 As such, the sap matches the light colored woods, and the heart the dark. 



It goes into all kinds of interior house finish, from floor to ceiling, 

 and the finest grades are often devoted to stair work. Door and 

 window frames are made of it in large quantities, but it is not suited to 

 outside work exposed to weather, because of its tendencies to decay. 

 It is much employed as door material. Furniture demands the same 

 class of wood. Medium priced articles may be of solid birch, but the 

 best commodities are made of veneers laid upon other woods. Figured 

 birch is a favorite material for that class of work. 



The more common commodities manufactured of this wood can be 

 listed only by groups, because of their great number. Novelties consti- 

 tute a large class. One of the earliest demands was from the manu- 

 factures of pill boxes, such as apothecaries use. That was before anyone 

 had tried to sell yellow birch in the general market, and the demand 

 came principally from New England and New York. Another early 

 demand came from coopers who found that barrel hoops of yellow birch 

 were highly satisfactory for certain kinds of vessels. Fish kits were 

 among the first to appear in birch hoops. Small saplings were used, 

 not over two inches in diameter. They are large enough to make two 

 hoops by splitting. The bark was left on, and the identity of the wood 

 was never in doubt, because when the sapling is of that size, the bark is 

 a fine yellow. It has not yet commenced to crack open and roll up, as 

 it does later. Millions of birch hoops are still produced yearly in the 

 United States, but all of them are not of this species. The hoop business 



