456 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



WOOD FOR STOCKING. 



Walnut is universally preferred in America for stocking ; it is 

 abundant, strong, durable, and handsome, and therefore combines 

 many, if not all, the qualities calculated to recommend it to the 

 gunsmith. Its natural beauty is very much improved by staining, 

 and many useful points under this head may be learned from 

 Hawker. The following method, however, we meet with in 

 Greener's work ; and, as we have tested its merits, we feel no hesita- 

 tion in recommending it to our readers: "After having got them 

 (the stocks) dressed and sandpapered as fine as you possibly can 

 for walnut, take a composition of unboiled linseed-oil and alkanet- 

 root, in the proportion of four ounces of the latter to half a pint 

 of oil. These, after being amalgamated for a week, will be of a 

 beautiful crimson color, and will not fail to make walnut a hand- 

 some brown, on being laid on three or four times with a sponge." 



Bird's-eye maple is also used for stocking, and is preferred by 

 some to walnut on account of the greater beauty of its grain ; we, 

 however, and most other sportsmen, consider it far inferior to 

 walnut. Greener remarks that maple possesses less " conducting 

 principle" than any other kind of wood, and therefore is well cal- 

 culated to lessen the recoil, and on this account is best calculated 

 for gun-stocks. Of this argument, however, we think very lightly, 

 for the reason that no partridge-gun properly loaded should recoil 

 with sufficient force to give a disagreeable shock, whether the stock 

 be made of walnut, maple, or any other kind of suitable wood. 



The following method for staining maple, taken from the same 

 source as the above, we have also used, not on a gun-stock, how- 

 ever, as we have no gun stocked with this description of wood ; 

 but we tried it on some articles of furniture, and found it to 

 answer a most excellent purpose, in fact, imparting a beautiful 

 and elegant appearance to the wood : 



" Mix an ounce and a half of nitrous acid with about the same 

 quantity of iron turnings or filings. After the gas which is created 

 by the mixture has evaporated, take a piece of rag and dip it in 



