CHAPTER XXVI
BRITISH TIMBER AND SOME OF ITS USES
The following are a few of the many uses to which home-grown timber is applied:—
=Alder= is used extensively for clog soles, barrel staves, mill bobbins, and occasionally in furniture making. It makes excellent charcoal for cooking and heating, as well as that used in the manufacture of gunpowder.
The wood of the =Apple=, =Cherry= and =Pear tree=, when of large size, is used for cabinet purposes, and stained in imitation of other woods. For veneers, golf clubs, bowls, etc., these woods are of value, as also for weaving shuttles.
=Ash= timber is largely used by agricultural implement makers on account of its possessing great elasticity and bearing considerable cross-strain. It is the best wood for shafts of all kinds, for tool handles and wooden rakes, and is largely used by furniture makers.
=Beech= wood is the chief constituent of cane-bottomed chairs, and is largely employed for the handles of joiners’, carpenters’ and other wood-workers’ tools. For gunstocks, saddle-trees for heavy harness, wheel-felloes and bobbins it is also largely employed. When of large size and clean growth, it is used for calendar machines, and for engineering purposes in spinning and bleaching districts. It makes excellent charcoal.
=Birch= wood is largely used for turnery work, thread bobbins, clog soles, shoe pegs, furniture, hatters’ blocks; it is also used in the manufacture of brushes and in toy making.
=Chestnut= (Spanish) timber more nearly approaches that of oak than any other species, and when stained is not only substituted for it, but for the walnut as well. For piano sides it is largely used, as also for rafters in open-roof churches, for furniture and cabinet work, ship fittings, sign-boards, and post and rail fencing.
=Elm= wood is extensively used for the boarding and flooring of carts and wagons, in coffin making, for the framework and foundations of bridges, for naves for wheels, and for the keels of boats and ships. It makes strong furniture, and is often substituted for ash in making agricultural implements.
=Holly= is used by mathematical instrument makers, for fancy turnery and inlaid work. It is often sold as ebony when “ebonized.”
=Hornbeam= timber for cogs in mill gearing is well known, also in “bushing” for sawmill rollers, and for skittle pins.
=Horse Chestnut.=—The timber is largely used for packing boxes, moulding patterns for castings, cutting boards, manufacture of brushes, and occasionally for covering temporary buildings.
=Larch.=—The wood of this tree is largely used for fencing, boat building, permanent staging, and pitwood.
=Lime.=—The wood is white and very fine of grain, and used for carved work, sounding boards for musical instruments, wagon brakes, packing boxes, toys, domestic utensils, and for shoemakers’ and saddlers’ cutting boards. Charcoal for gunpowder is made from this wood.
=Maple= is employed in the turning of bowls, for toys, and “bird’s-eye” maple for furniture.
=Oak= has long been associated with our national defence as the chief element in shipbuilding, but although iron and steel have to a great extent taken its place, yet for barges and small boats the timber is still largely used. Wagons for railway mineral traffic are largely made of oak, while the builder finds in it his best material for the strong frames of domes, spires and roofs of public buildings. It is also used for the bottoms of carts and wagons, cartwheel spokes, fencing, furniture making, railway “spraggs,” charcoal, etc.
=Poplar= wood is woolly and tenacious, and for this reason is used for the bottoms of stone carts and barrows. It is well adapted for making packing cases, railway brakes, weather boarding, and for purposes where lightness is of greater importance than durability. The Abele, or white Poplar, produces perhaps the most valuable timber of any of the numerous species.
=Scotch Spruce= and =Silver Fir= may all be classed under the same heading, being of about equal value and applicable to similar purposes, viz., for sleepers and pitwood, boarding under slates, headings for barrels, soap boxes, temporary fencing, also for conversion into planking for lead works, and for all erections of a temporary kind.
=Sycamore= timber is peculiarly white and smooth and free from grain, which makes it very valuable. It is used for curtain rings, churns, butter prints, for the backs of violins, for founders’ patterns and cutting boards, and in the making of wooden vessels and furniture. For calendar machines and in cotton and jute factories it is much employed.
=Walnut= timber is much in demand for gun and rifle stocks, for the best class of furniture, and for veneering purposes.
=Willow= is famous for the production of the best class of cricket bats and for artificial limbs and crutches. It also makes good charcoal.
=Yew= wood is valuable when employed for veneering.