^:l\■ IXDrSTKIAL USES OF WOOD. 



diameter at the larger end. Fascines are used tranversely to 

 the bank of the stream, and long thin fascines, made of the 

 finest available material, only 5 or 6 inches thick, but 24 to 50 

 feet long, ^vhich are bound with withes at intervals of ten inches 

 are pegged down over them. Another kind of fascine is 12 — 20 

 feet long and 24 — 3G inches across, filled with heavy stones, and 

 sunk alongside the bank in deeper water where the stream is 

 strong. Quick-growing trees and shrubs with five to six years' 

 rotation, especially willows,* are used for fascines; also buckthorn, 

 viburnum, alder, hazel, poplars, ash, black- and white-thorn. 



The best time for felling coppice for fascines is in MurcU, 

 just before the spring-shoots come out. This is satisfactory 

 alike to the engineer and the forester, as the former gets the 

 material when it is richest in sap and therefore heaviest, whilst 

 the latter cuts the coppice just before sprouting, which secures 

 ti good reproduction from the stools. 



For wattle-fences, duck-decoys, itc, osier-willows yield the 

 best material. 



Section V. — Wood used in Machinery. 



Iron and steel are fast replacing wood in machinery, and it is 

 only in purely agricultural districts that any machines are still 

 wholly made of wood. It is therefore only parts of machinery, 

 chiefly the frame-work, bearings and fixings of heavy machinery, 

 that are made of wood. Wood is chiefiy used in sawmills, flour- 

 mills, &c., and in machinery for driving wooden stamping- 

 hammers. Even in large factories, however, wood is still 

 required ; and then generally wood of dense structure is used, 

 which resists shocks and friction. 



In all works driven by water-power, the water-wheel is the 

 most important implement, and has been already referred to. 

 In extensive plains, sails of wiml mills replace the water- 

 wheel ; they are always made of coniferous wood, and chiefiy of 

 Scotch pinewood of best quality, such as is required for masts 

 of ships, and are sometimes very large. Pieces should tail-ofi" at 

 the small end. Steam-power is however replacing wind-power 

 to a great extent. 



* Salix fraijilis, alba, rubra, amyrjdaUiia, viminalis, acuminata, &c. 



