AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



Sawmills make no distinction between the different species. All 

 that comes is buckeye, but nearly all of it is the yellow species, though 

 doubtless a little of all the others is cut into lumber and veneer, or goes 

 to the slack cooperage shop, or to the pulp mill. The woods of all are 

 quite similar, and they are used for the same purposes. If one is em- 

 ployed in larger quantities than another, it is because it is more con- 

 venient, or of better form or larger size. 



Early uses of buckeye were as important as those of the present 

 day, though amounts were smaller. Many an Ohio statesman of former 

 times boasted that, as a baby, he was rocked in a buckeye sugar trough 

 for a cradle. They claimed with pride that the prevalance of the custom 

 caused Ohio to be known as the buckeye state, a name which clings to it 

 still. Next to yellow poplar, buckeye was considered the best wood from 

 which to hew the small troughs which collected the sugar water from the 

 tapped maples in early spring; but the range of buckeye did not extend 

 northward into the real maple area, and the troughs like those which 

 rocked the inchoate Ohio statesmen were unknown in the North, but 

 were familiar along the mountain ranges southward. Dough trays, 

 bread boards, chopping bowls, and troughs in which to salt bacon and 

 pork, were hewed from buckeye by farmers and village woodworkers. 



It weighs 27.24 pounds per cubic foot; is diffuse-porous, and the 

 slight difference between the wood grown in spring and that of late 

 summer renders the annual rings indistinct. It has little figure, no 

 matter how it is sawed ; medullary rays are thin and obscure. Softness 

 is one of the principal qualities, and it is also weak, and is wanting in 

 rigidity. These are its faults, but it has virtues. It is tasteless and 

 odorless, and these properties make it valuable in the manufacture of 

 boxes in which food products are shipped. The reported cut of buckeye 

 in the United States is from 11,000,000 to 13,000,000 feet a year. The 

 reports of factories which use the wood in making commodities throw 

 light on the question of actual use. North Carolina works 10,000 feet 

 a year into cabinets and office fixtures; Michigan 100,000 into candy 

 and chocolate boxes, dishes, and bowls ; . Maryland uses 200,000 feet 

 yearly for practically the same purposes, but with the added commodities 

 of spice drawers and tea chests. Makers of artificial limbs consider 

 buckeye one of their best materials, but it is second to willow. The 

 "cork legs" are usually either buckeye or willow. Pulp mills grind the 

 wood for paper, but it is not separately listed in pulp statistics, and the 

 total cut cannot be stated. It is converted into veneer and finds many 

 places of usefulness, but here, also, no separate figures are to be had. 



The nuts are large and abundant, but almost wholly useless for 

 man or beast. Bookbinders make paste of them, as a substitute for 



