USES OF COMMEKCIAL WOODS. 3 



to make room for crops. It was one of the woods least used by 

 pioneers, and until comparatively recent years little attempt was 

 made to save or utilize it. Though much less abundant than for- 

 raerly, the tree is almost as widely distributed as it ever was. It 

 has not. like shortleaf pine, for example, contracted its limits under 

 the pressure of land clearins: and lumber operations. It is a prolific 

 seed bearer, and sprouts vigorously from roots and stumps, character- 

 istics which greatly assist it in holding its ground. The nuts were 

 formerh^ devoured by countless millions of wild pigeons, and since 

 the annual visits of these migratory birds have ceased the quantity 

 of seed left to germinate is much greater, though it is not possible to 

 determine whether this has resulted in any marked increase in the' 

 number of young beech trees. 



EARLY USES. 



Early records in this country do not make frequent mention of 

 the use of beech, though it was abundant nearly everywhere.^ 



The pioneer settlers who fenced their farms with rails had a 

 well-grounded jorejudice against beech because it was hard to split 

 and decayed very quickly when exposed to the weather. It Avas, 

 therefore, generally classed as worthless for fences. The discovery 

 was made, however, that when under water and subjected to friction, 

 as in mills, it lasted longer than almost any other wood. Axles and 

 shafts for water wheels were made of it. It did not decay if sub- 

 merged and the water did not soften the wood where the gudgeons 

 and bearings rubbed on each other. No large quantity was demanded 

 by millwrights, for the mills of those days were small, but the wood 

 filled an important place. 



Aside from its place in mill wheels the wood had other early uses. 

 In the early glass factories the soldering of handles on carboys, jugs, 

 pitchers, and dishes was performed by aid of a wooden tool, for 

 Avhich beech was the best material because of its freedom from in- 

 jurious acids which would spoil the work. 



The charcoal burners near old-time iron furnaces were the first 

 to send a beech commodity to market on a somewhat extensive scale. 

 Writing in 1749, Peter Kalm said that, next to black pine {Phius 

 rigida), the best charcoal for smithing purposes in the vicinity of 

 Albany, X. Y., was made from beech. The wood filled other impor- 



1 In Europe and Asia an earlier record is claimed for beecli ILian for any other wood, 

 even antedating the sycamore and cypress of Egypt. The words •' book " and " beech " 

 were sj-ncnymous in some of the earliest written languages coming into Europe, due to 

 the practice of writing on thin beech strips. The existence of the root of the word in 

 Sanscrit has been taken as strong evidence that the wood was used for writing material 

 in central Asia before the migration of the ancestors of the Germanic and Slavonic races 

 westward into Europe. It has been taken as proof also that the alphabets of northern 

 Europe came across the Caucasus Mountains and not by way of the Mediterranean Sea. 

 In beech, therefore, we probably have the oldest existing name of a wood in the world. 



