32 
SWEET GUM. 
the Oak, it suffices for many purposes which require great toughness and 
solidity. At Philadelp hia, when perfectly seasoned and stript of 'the sap, 
it is used in building the interior of houses, and especially for the joists of 
the upper stories : when employed with these precautions, it lasts longer 
than any species of Red Oak. As it furnishes boards of 2 or 3 feet in 
width, it is sometimes sawn very thin, and employed by cabinet-makers to 
line the inside of certain articles- of mahogany furniture : its lightness, the 
fineness of its grain, and its reddish complexion, render it peculiarly pro- 
per for this purpose. 
In the country, furniture was formerly made of the Sweet Gum, which, 
when preserved with care, was not destitute , of beauty, though inferior to 
the Black Walnut and the Wild Cherry wood, which are harder and less 
easily defaced. At Philadelphia, the Sweet Gum is preferredfor small, 
oval or round picture frames, which are dyed black ; it serves also, though 
less frequently than . the Wild Cherry Tree and the Curled Maple, for 
bedsteads and for the balusters of staircases. At New York, it is com- 
monly taken for coffins. In a word, the Sweet Gum, however inferior 
in quality to the Black Walnut, may be usefully employed in all work 
that is sheltered from the air, without which precaution it speedily decays. 
It is little esteemed for fuel, and, mixed with other species of no greater 
value, it forms the lowest quality of w r ood in the market. 
In summer, upon cutting the live bark and at the same time slightly 
wounding the sap of the Sweet Gum, a resinous’ substance of an agreeable 
odor distils in Small quantities : in repeated experiments made in Carolina, 
I was never able to collect from a tree of a foot in diameter more than 
half an ounce in a fortnight. 
All that has been said of the properties and uses of the Sweet Gum 
proves its inferiority to that of many othertrees. Probably when the atten- 
tion of the American proprietors becomes engaged in the composition of 
artificial forests, they will give the preference to other more useful species, 
reserving of the Sw r eet Gum only a small number of the most vigorous 
stocks. 
In Europe, this tree has for many years grown in the open field ; but, 
though it exceeds the height at which it fructifies in the United States, it 
has not yet yielded seed, and for this reason it is not extensively multi- 
plied. It deserves to be more generally diffused in parks and gardens, on 
account of the agreeable tint and singular form of its leaves. 
PLATE LXII. 
A branch with a leaf of the natural size. Fig. 1 , Fruit of the natural size. 
