The Hickory. 



yellow -J having, as to its autimiiial foliage, nothing to ex- 

 ceed it, except the Sassafras, which is still more thickly 

 covered with leaves, those leaves still more beautifully 

 formed, and their yellow of the autumn of a brighter dye. 



294. The wood of the Hickory is not good for buildings, 

 but it is excellent for a great many uses : for the making 

 of tool- handles of all sorts ; for the making of fishing-rods, 

 of whip-handles, of handspikes^ and of every thing which 

 requires great hardness and toughness. Michaux gives 

 instances of it having lasted under water for a great num- 

 ber of years ; and I have a piece of wood now in my posses- 

 sion, recently sent me from New York, a certificate attend- 

 ing which shows that it had been under water for more 

 than FIFTY YEARS. For toughness and suppleness, this 

 wood surpasses all others. The back-bows of wooden 

 chairs are made of this wood, not of a young tree, but of 

 a piece cut out of a plank. The great broad hoops that go 

 round the masts of ships are made of Hickory wood, first 

 sawed out of a plank, then planed ; and the best wooden 

 hoops in the world, for barrels and tubs, are made of 

 HicK'oRY. So tough is this wood, that, in New England, 

 they take thin strips of it, and work them together into 

 well-ropes and clothes lines, one of which last I bought when 

 I was last in America. It is used for axletrees for carts and 

 waggons. It may bend, but it takes a weight or a force of 

 an extraordinary nature to break a piece of Hickory as big 

 as one's wrist. This tree has been so hunted after for its 

 various uses, and especially as fuel, of which it is the best 

 that ever was known, that Michaux seems to think that 

 Xhe whole race will be destroyed in America in a very few 

 years; and indeed, where there is navigable water leading 

 to a considerable town, the slaughter of this tree has been 

 without mercy. 



