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RECAPITULATION 
OF 
THE PROPEHTIES AND USES 
OF 
HICKORY WOOD. 
In the summary introduction to the History of the Walnuts of North 
America, it was remarked, that those of the second section, or the Hickories, 
exhibit great variations in the size and shape of their fruit, in the number 
of leaflets which compose their leaves, and in their ^general appearance, 
from the effect of soils of different degrees of moisture. Hence result, in 
many cases, mutual resemblances so striking, that a person not familiar with 
this class of trees might easily confound distinct species, or describe as 
different species what are mere varieties. On taking off the epidermis, or 
dead part, the same organization is observed in the bark of all the Hicko- 
ries. In other trees, the fibrous and the cellular tissue are confounded; 
here, on the contrary, they are separate, and the fibrous is regularly disposed 
in the form of lozenges, which are smaller in young trees than in such as 
are more fully grown. An arrangement so peculiar and remarkable has a 
beautiful effect, and great advantage might be taken of it in cabinet-mak- 
ing. if this bark was not, like other species, liable to warp. It affords, 
nevertheless, an interesting object in vegetable physiology. So close an 
analogy exists in the wood of these trees, that when stript of the bark, no 
difference is discernible in the grain, which is coarse and open in all, nor 
in the color of the heart, which is uniformly reddish. To these conspicuous 
properties are added others worthy of remark, which, as has been observed, 
though modified in the several species, are possessed by them all in a higher 
degree than by any other tree of the same latitude in Europe or America. 
These are, great weight, strength, and tenacity, a speedy decay when 
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