32 WOOD AND FOREST. 



■J'lIE GRAIN" OF WOOD. 



The term ''grain" is used in a variet)- of meanings wliicli is lil^ely 

 to cause confusion. Tliis confusion ma_y be avoided, at least in part, 

 by distinguishing between grain and texture, using tlie word grain 

 to refer to the arrangement or direction of the wood elements, and the 

 word texture to refer to their size or quality, so far as these affect the 

 structural character of the wood. Hence such qualif3dng adjectives 

 as coarse and fine, even and uneven, straight and cross, including 

 spiral, twisted, wavy, curly, mottled, bird's-eye, gnarly, etc., may all 

 be applied to grain to give it definite meaning, while to texture the 

 proper modifying adjectives are coarse and fine, even and uneven. 



I^sually the -word gi-ain means the pattern or "ligurc" formed by 

 the distinction bet«-('eii tlic spring wood and the siimnier wood. If 

 the annual rings air wide, the wood is, in cummon usage, called 

 "coarse grained," if narrow, "line grained," so that of two trees of 

 the same species, one may Ije coaisc grained and the other fine 

 grained, depending solely on the accident of fast or slow growth. 



The terms coarse grain and fine grain are also frequently used to 

 distinguish such ring-porous woods as have large prominent pores, 

 like chestnut and ash, from those having small or no pores, as cherry 

 and lignum vitae. A better expression in this case would be coarse 

 and fine textured. When such coarse textured woods are stained, the 

 large pores in the spring wood absorb more stain than the smaller 

 elements in the summer wood, and hence the former part appears 

 darker. In the "fine grained" (or better, fine textured.) woods the 

 pores are absent or are small and scattered, and the wood is hard, so 

 that they are capable of taking a high polish. This indicates the 

 meaning of the words coarse and fine in the mind of tlic cabinet- 

 maker, the reference being primarily to texture. 



If the elements of which a wood are composed are of approxi- 

 mately uniform size, it would be said to have a uniform texture, as 

 in white pine, '^^■l^le unifoi'm grain would mean, that the elements, 

 tho of varying sizes, were evenly distributed, as in the diffusc-poroiis 

 woods. 



The term "grain" also refers to the regularity of the wood struc- 

 ture. An ideal tree would be compose.l of a succession of re-ular 

 cones, but few trees are trul.N- circular in cross-section and evm in 

 those that are circular, the pith is rarelv in the center, showino- that 



