56 THE BOOK OF FORESTRY 
which was used by the early Swedish settlers in New 
Jersey and Pennsylvania, while from the roots of flower- 
ing dogwood the Indian warriors obtained the brilliant 
color known as ‘‘Indian red’’ which they used to stain 
their buckskins and feathers for their head dresses. 
With the present scarcity of foreign dyes it is extremely 
probable that vegetable dyes will play a still more im- 
portant part than at the present time, and the forest 
trees may be called upon again to yield their coloring 
matter, especially since they are more durable than coal- 
tar dyes. 
Grain—One of the first questions that is likely to 
be asked regarding the quality of a wood is, whether 
or not it is straight-grained, for upon the direction of 
the growth rings depends the ease with which a board 
may be broken. Sawed boards are often easily cracked 
because the course of the saw did not follow exactly the 
direction of the fiber. When wood is split, however, 
the ax or knife follows between the fibers which 
accounts for the fact that split wood is much stronger 
than sawed. Certain species are notoriously cross- 
grained and boards from such trees as elm and red 
gum not only season with difficulty, but the extreme 
irregularity of their growth rings makes them hard to 
work after sawing The figured grain in certain species 
like oak and beech is due to the presence of narrow 
bands of pith called medullary rays, but in addition 
to patterns of this sort certain species, like the sugar 
maple, are very likely to have variations in growth 
which make them extremely attractive. The so-called 
“pird’s-eye maple,” resulting from a lifting of the 
growth ring by a tiny knot, is highly prized and such 
a tree is worth considerably more than the normal 
straight-grained maple. A fine-grained wood, of course, 
