90 
RECAPITULATION. 
exposed to heat and moisture, and peculiar liability to injury from worms. 
According to these prominent excellencies and defects, the uses of their 
wood are pretty well determined, and to these uses they are indiscriminately 
applied. 
Hickory timber is employed in no part of the United States in the build- 
ing of houses, because, as has been before observed, it is too heavy, and 
soon becomes worm eaten. But if its defects forbid its employment in 
architecture, its good qualities, on the other hand, adapt it to many 
secondary uses, which could not be as well subserved by any other wood. 
Throughout the Middle States, it is selected for the axle-trees of carriages, 
for the handles of axes and other carpenter’s tools, and for large screws, 
particularly those of book-binder’s presses. The cogs of mill-wheels are 
made of Hickory heart thoroughly seasoned ; but it is proper only for such 
wheels as are not exposed to moisture ; and for this reason some other 
wood is, by many mill-wrights preferred. The rods which form the back 
of Windsor chairs, coach- whip-handles, ramrods, rake-teeth, flails for thrash- 
ing grain, and the bows of ox yokes ; all these are objects ordinarily made 
of Hickory. At Baltimore, it is used for the hoops of sieves, and is more 
esteemed than the White Oak, which is equally elastic, but more apt to 
peel off in small shreds into the substance sifted. In the country near 
Augusta in Georgia, I have remarked that the common chairs are of Hickory 
wood. In New Jersey it is employed for shoeing sledges, that is, for 
covering the runners or parts which slide upon the snow ; but to be fit 
for thisu se it must have been cut long enough to have become perfectly 
dry. 
Of the numerous trees of North America east of the Alleghany Moun- 
tains, none except the Hickory is perfectly adapted to the making of hoops 
for casks and boxes. For this purpose vast quantities of it are consumed 
at home, and exported to the West India Islands. The hoops are made 
of young Hickories from 6 to 12 feet high, without choice as to the species. 
The largest hoop-poles sold at Philadelphia and New York in February 
1808, at three dollars a hundred. Each pole is split into two parts, and 
the hoop is crossed and fastened by notches, instead of being bound at the 
end with twigs, like those made of Chesnut. From the solidity of the 
wood, this method is sufficiently secure. 
When it is considered how large a part of the productions of the United 
States is packed for exportation in barrels, an estimate may be formed of 
the necessary consumption of hoops. In consequence of it, young trees 
proper for this object have become scarce in all parts of the country which 
have long been settled. The evil is greater, as they do not sprout a second 
time from the same root, and as their growth is slow. The cooper cannot 
lay up a store of them for future use, for unless employed within a year, 
and often six months after being cut, they are attacked by two species of 
