92 
TIMBEE 
for sleepers. The State of Washington siippHes 69 per cent, 
of the total cut in the United States with the exception of 
the red or pencil cedar. They are but little known in the 
English timber trade. 
These cedars must not be confounded with the furniture 
cedar of the English market which is the produce of the 
Cedrela odorata and is of the same species as mahogany. 
Red Gum {Liqiiidamhar styracifiua), sometimes called sweet 
gum, is the timber known in the English market as satin 
walnut — one of the many misnomers of the trade. 
It is the most common of the three species of gum which 
grow in the southern States (from Carolina to Kansas 
and south to the Gulf of Mexico) and is the commonest 
tree in parts of the south. In the best situations it attains 
a height of 150 ft., with 5 ft. diameter, but this is excep- 
tional ; the stem is straight and cylindrical, and the timber 
is exported from the southern ports in logs up to 18 ft. 
long and 24 inches a side. Much of it grows along swampy 
land subject to flooding, and great difficulty arises in cut- 
ting and getting it to market, the green timber being so 
heavy that much of it will not float. About 60 per cent, of 
the timber, and in some cases as much as 85 per cent, of 
trees 15 inches in diameter, is sap, whilst in the larger trees 
the percentage is less. The sap is a creamy white colour, 
the heartwood rich reddish brown ; the timber is straight 
in grain and has but few knots, the heartwood is very 
durable, the sap quickly decays ; it is not strong enough for 
structural work. The external appearance of the wood is of 
fine grain and smooth, close texture, but when broken the 
lines of fracture do not run with the apparent direction of 
the growth ; possibly it is this unevenness of grain which 
renders the wood so difficult to dry without twisting. It is 
a fairly tough wood, about as strong and stiff as chestnut, 
