150 INDUSTRIAL USES OF WOOD. 



making plaited wooden baskets which are exported iu hirge 

 numbers from the Erzf^a'birge. Aspen- and lime-wood is also 

 similarly used. In order to prepare the wood for this purpose, 

 it is first thoroughly soaked in water and cut into bars, which 

 are split into thin pieces along each of the annual rings. These 

 pieces are extremely flexible. 



Sprucewood is also used for sieve-frames and cheese-moulds, 

 the wood for which is separated from ordinary split billets with 

 the cooper's divider, and afterwards planed with the same instru- 

 ment. These pieces are made in different dimensions, their 

 length being measured in hands (4 inches) : thus there are 

 pieces of 4, G, 8, &c., up to 24 hands, the breadth varying with 

 the length between 2h and 8 inches. AVood must be used green 

 for this purpose, the preparation of the pieces and subsequent 

 bending being thus facilitated. 



The pieces are then bent on simple frames, and fastened in 

 bundles of 10 to 15 pieces for sale. Wooden rings are also 

 made wider than the frames, but only j^rd of their height. The 

 bottoms of the sieves are fixed between the frame and the ring. 



The sides of measures for fruit or dry goods, and of drums, 

 and other round articles, are split radially from billets of beech- 

 or oak-wood, from which all defective heartwood and the younger 

 zones of sapwood have been excluded. They are split with the 

 divider, worked smooth on the cooper's bench, steamed and bent 

 around frames. They are then sorted, and sold in assortments 

 like sieve-frames. 



The band-box maker chiefly uses spruce and silver-fir wood, 

 less frequently larch, sycamore, and sallow wood, liutts of 

 straight-grained wood are cut into the proper lengths, and split 

 into from 4 to G billets, and after these are thoroughly dried they 

 are gradually split by successive bisection into pieces of the 

 required dimensions. 



The pieces are then carefully planed, softened in boiling 

 water, fastened over frames, and wlien thoroughly dried are 

 fastened together by wooden bands. The bottoms and lids for 

 each box are made in a similar manner. 



Oblong lucifer match-boxes are chiefly made at Jonkoping of 

 aspen-wood by means of machines, which cut out a piece large 

 enough for a box, and press dents into the wood wherever a side 



