CLASSIFICATION AND CHARACTER OF WOOD 81 



of the fibres the woodworker and lumberman take into con- 

 sideration the size and number of cells or veins and their 

 arrangement, and to some extent the difference in density 

 and compactness between spring and summer growth. 



Pine-grained Close-grained. These are practically 

 synonymous terms and are applied by the lumberman and 

 woodworker to wood with small, inconspicuous, and evenly 

 distributed pores or veins. In some woods these are so 

 small as to be barely visible, if at all, to the unaided eye, 

 and the fibres are compact and close. Such wood is not 

 necessarily hard. Cedar is fine-grained but soft ; boxwood 

 is fine-grained but hard. Schlich, in his Manual (volume v, 

 page 83), defines fine-grained wood as " wood that can be 

 easily worked, whether or not it appears so to the eye. It 

 is not equivalent to narrow-zoned annual rings nor to 

 anatomical simple structures." This takes into considera- 

 tion the fineness and even distribution of fibres and veins. 

 Such wood may be hai'd yet easily worked because of its 

 uniform density. 



Coarse-grained. With the woodworker this term is 

 practically the opposite of fine-grained. It applies where 

 the ducts or veins are numerous, coarse, and unevenly dis- 

 tributed. In some woods the spring growth shows numer- 

 ous large veins, while the summer wood has only small and 

 inconspicuous ones notably the Oaks, Ashes, Chestnut, 

 Elms, and some others. Such woods may be either hard or 

 soft, but they may be, and generally are, hard to work be- 

 cause of their unevenness in density. 



Cross-grained. Strictly speaking, this terra applies to 

 wood where the fibres are not parallel to the axis of the 

 tree from which it is cut, as explained on page 77. It is 

 also given to wood where the fibres are not parallel to each 

 other but are tortuous and interlaced. 



Straight-grained. This applies to wood where the fibres 

 are parallel to the axis of the stem of the tree. Such wood 

 is stronger than if cross-grained and is hence more valu- 

 able. As a rule it can be easily split and more readily 



