16 BULLETIN 12, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGEICULTUEE. 



ARTICLES FOR AMUSEMENTS. 



A long list of articles for games and amusements are partly or 

 altogether of wood, and sweet birch supplies a liberal share of the 

 material for their construction. Billiard tables are the largest and 

 most costly. N'ot only does birch enter into the making of the tables, 

 usually as the outside in the form of veneer, but racks for cues and 

 balls, and the cues themselves are often of this wood. The stock of 

 the cue is made attractive by building it up of different colored 

 woods, turned to proper form and highly polished. The makers of 

 bagatelle tables report birch as one of the high-grade woods em- 

 ployed. It is demanded by the manufacturers of a long line of goods 

 found in gymnasiums, including dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and pitch- 

 and-ring. Croquet mallets and balls are on the list also, as are 

 checkerboards, tennis rackets, and numerous toys, particularly build- 

 ing blocks, puzzle blocks, children's games, and wooden guns. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Manufacturers of artists' material use much of the dark heartwood 

 of sweet birch, either in its natural finish or in imitation of mahogany 

 and cherry. The articles in which the wood is found acceptable are 

 easels, maulsticks, rules, palettes, paint boxes, and panels for painting. 



Boat builders, who were among the earliest artisans in the countr\^ 

 to employ birch, are still rather large users of the wood. It is one of 

 the best for canoe decking and for decking, railing, and finish of 

 motor boats. It frequently passes for mahogany, but some boat 

 makers advertise the fact that they trim with birch. Steering wheels 

 of this wood are very handsome and are to be seen on automobiles, 

 motor boats, and on vessels of larger size. 



Much good birch is manufactured into broom handles, though beech 

 exceeds it in quantity. Its dark color is by some regarded as objec- 

 tionable, and the cost of the wood is also against its employment for 

 handle making. In the manufacture of carpet sweepers, however, 

 birch makes up what it loses in the broom-handle shop. The backs 

 and handles of hair brushes and clothes brushes call for some of the 

 most select sweet birch. It is there in the same class with mahogany, 

 ebony, rosewood, and callitris. 



The makers of electrical apparatus need a comparatively small 

 amount of wood, but the quality must be good. Sweet birch is well 

 up in the list and finds place in switchboards, bases for telegraph 

 instruments, telephone boxes, and tables. 



It is too costly a wood to be profitably used for ordinary crating 

 .and packing boxes, but there are both high and low grades of birch, 

 the latter consisting chiefly of sapwood and pieces too knotty for 

 first-class commodities. This cheap material swells the supply of 

 box lumber, and a little of it is found wherever birch joasses through 



