BLEMISHES IN CYPRESS AND RED CEDAR. 
65 
open checks. Some of these form a narrow open knot an inch long. 
Distorted grain is very abundant and ranges from ornamental bird's- 
eye to abundant bunches of gnarls (fig. 13), which ruin the appear- 
ance and workability of the wood. 
At Cottonport, La., the writer had an opportunity to learn what 
proportion of the wood of cypresses abundantly punctured by sap- 
suckers is defective. Out of 189 palings split from one cypress, 29, 
or nearly 16 per cent, bore enough black stains to ruin the wood for 
any ornamental purpose. In a lot of 322 palings, 111, or nearly 30 
per cent, showed much gnarled grain accompanied by a few black 
spots. The gnarly wood and open knots are most objectionable in 
cypress, which is much used for purposes requiring easy working 
qualities and 
strength in slender 
pieces — for instance 
in greenhouse con- 
struction. 
XORTHERX RED 
cedar (Juniperus 
v i rg I n ia n a ) . — Some- 
times open fissures 
extend from checks 
toward the bark, 
surrounded by stain 
and gnarly wood. 
Even more objec- 
tionable are cases 
where the grain of 
the wood about the 
healed puncture- is 
very wavy and each 
scar has one or more outwardly projecting tubercles (fig. 14, and PL XI. 
fig. 3), varying up to an inch in length, and requiring at least two 
complete annual rings- of wood to bury them. These tubercles, 
together with the gnarled grain and extensive resin deposit, produce 
a hard, knotty, brittle layer of wood. The wounds have small 
cavities and light but continuous stains. Wood thus disfigured is 
unsightly and unworkable. The greater part of the output of red 
cedar is used for pencil wood, for which the requirements are very exact- 
ing. A soft wood, even and straight grained, free from defects, is 
itial. 1 Trees of this species are very commonly worked on by 
sapsuckers. and often they are covered with rings of pecks. The 
writer found 19 out of 40 trees punctured on a small area on Plum- 
Fig. 13, 
-Effects of sapsueker work on wood of bald cypress ( Taxodium 
dixtkhum). Gnarly grain. 
99068=- 
1 White. L. L.. Circular 102. Forest Service, p. 5. 1907 
Bull 39—11 5 
