GENEKAL APPEARANCE OF DEFECTS. 61 



The failure of the original wounds to close or the formation of 

 loose, knotty, and gnarled tissue, together with excessive staining, 

 are serious defects which greatly reduce the market value of the 

 lumber, as may readily be seen from the following definition of the 

 grades of maple lumber: 



Firsts. — Firsts must be 8 inches or over wide, 10, 12, 14, and 16 feet long, and free 

 from all defects, except in pieces 10 inches or over wide, which may have one sound 

 standard defect. 



Seconds. — Seconds must be 6 inches or over wide, 8 to 16 feet long; pieces 8 feet 

 long must be clear. . . . 



No. 1 commons. — No. 1 commons must be 3 inches or over wide, 6 to 16 feet long; 

 pieces 3 or 4 inches wide must have 1 face clear. — [Inspection rules, National Hard- 

 wood Lumber Association.] 



It is evident that lumber sawn from a maple abundantly punctured 

 by sapsuckers would not fare well at an inspection. Very few, if 

 any, clear pieces of the sizes above specified, the smallest of which is 

 3 inches wide by 6 feet long, could be obtained from such a tree. 

 Hence most of the lumber would be classed as No. 2 common, the 

 fourth market grade, which means a heavy loss. 



The effects of sapsucker work in other trees are more or less similar 

 to those in hard maple, but vary according to the extent of injury 

 and the habits of growth of the tree. For instance, the defects are 

 usually much more pronounced in trees in whose bark holes remain 

 open long, whether owing to slow growth or other reason. On the 

 other hand, trees of rapid growth quickly heal and the blemishes 

 are small and soon deeply buried. Wood with especially porous 

 grain is extensively stained, while dense wood is less affected. 



Defects due to sapsucker work are sufficiently similar in a general 

 way, however, to be identifiable in any wood. On the end of logs, 

 healed supsucker wounds or bird pecks, as they are commonly called, 

 appear as larger or smaller stains with more or less open fissures or 

 checks extending a short distance toward the bark. The general effect 

 is that of T-shaped or triangular marks or cavities surrounded by 

 more or less stain. Several usually occur along the same wood ring 

 (see figs. 24, 29, 33, 37; PI. VIII, fig. 2; PI. X, fig. 3). The checks 

 may be continuous, in which case they constitute a defect known as 

 rind gall (see figs. 30 and 35). In longitudinal section, as in most 

 boards and in quarter-sawn or sliced material, bird pecks usually 

 appear as small knots (also often T-shaped — figs. 15, 16, and 23) around 

 which is a greater or less amount of stained wood. They are easily 

 distinguished from true knots, however, which are due to adven- 

 titious buds and embedded bases of twigs and limbs. The gnarly 

 or curled growth caused by bird pecks is all on one side of a line of 

 separation between annual rings (see figs. 15, 17, 22, and 23). In 



