96 
TIMBER 
of 8 ft. in the first year. It has a fairly cylindrical stem 
and grows to a height of 100 ft. 
The wood is light yellow or yellowish brown in colour, 
the heartwood being readily distinguishable from the 
lighter coloured sap which very early turns into heart- 
wood, and it hardly ever amounts to 20 per cent, of the 
volume of the tree ; works easily, but splits and shrinks a 
good deal in drying ; the annual rings are very distinct, 
medullary rays very minute and not visible to the naked 
"0" 
7^ 
[After Roth. 
Fig. 19. — Cross section of Chestnut. 
eye (Fig. 19). Coppice chestnut, that is, chestnut grown 
on old stumps, furnishes better timber for working than 
chestnut from the nut ; it is heavier, less spongy and 
straighter in grain, easier to split, and stands exposure 
longer, but the ends are inclined to split after sawing. 
Chestnut wood is flexible and elastic, not strong, but very 
durable when in contact with the soil, which is due to the 
amount of tannic acid it contains. Owing to the very thin 
sapwood, chestnut is of use when ten or twelve years old, 
an age when most hardwoods are useless. Many railways 
