much of it is exported. Boards are often 

 sixty feet or more in length, and thirty 

 inches wide. The wood is light, soft, 

 even and fine-grained, very durable and 

 easy to work. 



THE LIVE OAK. 



The Live Oak is the hardest wood of 

 the South. It is often called the Iron 

 Tree, because of its hardness and dura- 

 bility. It is often used as a substitute for 

 iron in making rollers for cane-mills, and 

 in many other ways. So heavy is the 

 wood that even after years the dry logs 

 still sink in the water. The trees grow 

 to an enormous size, and are cherished 

 as shade trees because of their dense 

 shade. The Live Oak is an evergreen, 

 blooms profusely in the spring, and later 

 bears abundance of acorns. 



THE RED BAY. 



The Red Bay is valuable mainly be- 

 cause of its being so durable when used 

 for outside purposes, the weather seem- 

 ingly having little effect on it. It, also, 

 is a hard, heavy wood. Growing in the 

 lowlands, it is full of water, and must 

 be well dried before being used as lum- 

 ber. It is fine grained and takes a good 

 polish. 



The tree grows to a good size. Both 



its wood and its leaves are very fragrant 

 with an odor similar to the sassafras. 

 The tree blooms and produces berries 

 which are so waxy that the settlers of old- 

 en times boiled them and extracted the 

 wax, from which they then made candles. 



OTHER WOODS. 



There are other woods of both com- 

 mercial and ornamental value, such as 

 the beautiful Magnolia, which sheds so 

 sweet a fragrance among the wild woods, 

 and offers to the artistic eye a feast in its 

 great creamy blossoms ; the Sweet-Bay, 

 aromatic, and yielding blooms which are 

 as those of the Magnolia in miniature. 

 Then there are the hard and the soft Ma- 

 ples, the White Oak, the Hickory, the 

 Ash, the Elms, and many more ; but as 

 they are plentiful at the north as well as 

 in the Southland, we need not particular- 

 ize in a description of them. 



It strikes one, at times, as almost in- 

 congruous, to see such contrasts as Or- 

 ange and Hickory, Magnolia and White 

 Oak, Palm and Maples, growing side 

 by side in the wildwoods, as they do in 

 the South ; but this adds beauty, tone and 

 a happy variation to the enjoyment of 

 a ramble among the wildwoods of the 

 Southland. 



Mary M. Stratner. 



in AUGUST. 



W r e follow, follow through the lanes, 



And up the pasture-way, 

 The August voice, whose^clear refrains 



Fill all a summer's day. 



We rally, rally with our kin 



In dale and dingle, where 

 The August heart beats high, as in 



The days of little care. 



O, tarry in the garden-close, 



And comrade with the glen, 

 To learn the way that August knows 



Unto the hearts of men. 



— Frank Walcott Hutt. 



56 



■MMH 



