THE ASHES : THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND MANAGEMENT. 5 



cent into vehicles, including automobiles; 7 per cent into planing-mill 

 products; 6 per cent each into furniture, refrigerators and kitchen 

 cabinets, and car construction; 3 per cent each into boxes and crates, 

 agricultural implements, and ships and boats (chiefly oars), and 1 

 per cent each into fixtures, sporting and athletic goods, musical 

 instruments, machine construction, and hames. It is also used in 

 small quantities for pump sucker rods, tanks, pulleys and conveyers, 

 trunks, printing materials, rollers, elevators, picker sticks, professional 

 and scientific instruments, brushes, patterns and flasks (for foundry 

 work), litters, and airship frames and propellers. 



Long handles for shovels, forks, hoes, and rakes of all kinds, 

 short "D' ; handles for shovels and spades, and boat-hook handles 

 are made almost entirely from ash, as it alone seems to have the 

 proper combination of qualities — straightness of grain, a high degree 

 of stiffness and strength perpendicular to the grain, suitable weight 

 and hardness, and capacity to wear smooth in use. The same 

 qualities make it desirable for agricultural implements, sporting 

 and athletic goods, and boat oars. For making handles, rapid- 

 growing second-growth white and green ash, which yield the strong- 

 est and stiffest wood, are the best and the most often used. Old- 

 growth ash is usually considered too fine grained and brittle for 

 handles. All standard baseball bats are made from ash of the 

 strongest second growth. Practically all long oars and sculls (14 

 feet and over in length) and a large percentage of short oars and 

 paddles are made from ash. For large-sized oars select old growth 

 is much used in order to get the proper size. Black ash as a rule 

 is not suitable for oars, as it will water-soak and become soft and 

 spongy. 



About 90 per cent of creamery butter tubs are made from ash, 

 for which it is the most desirable wood because it imparts no dis- 

 agreeable flavor. For the same reason it is extensively used in 

 refrigerators, kitchen cabinets, and churns. Its wood is very easily 

 worked up into staves and heading for tubs and churns, the supply 

 coming mostly from bottomland green ash of the lower Mississippi 

 Valley. Ash hoops are made mostly from black ash in the Lake 

 States. 



In the vehicle and automobile industries strong second-growth 

 white and green ash is used extensively as bentwood for bows, as a 

 substitute for hickory and white oak for tongues, and for single and 

 double trees. Ash is also used for vehicle bodies and panels, for which 

 old growth of all species is preferred, as it can be obtained in greater 

 widths, is not so» liable to warp as second growth, and holds glue 

 better. 



