Seasoning of Wood, Joseph Bernard Wagner [best beach reads txt] 📗

laid on in well-defined layers for the structure remains irregular throughout. Though alike in the manner of their growth, and therefore similar in their general make-up, conifers and broad-leaved trees differ markedly in the details of their structure and the character of their wood.

The wood of all conifers is very simple in its structure, the fibres composing the main part of the wood all being alike and their arrangement regular. The wood of the broad-leaved trees is complex in structure; it is made up of different kinds of cells and fibres and lacks the regularity of arrangement so noticeable in the conifers. This difference is so great that in a study of wood structure it is best to consider the two kinds separately.

In this country the great variety of woods, and especially of useful woods, often makes the mere distinction of the kind or species of tree most difficult. Thus there are at least eight pines of the thirty-five native ones in the market, some of which so closely resemble each other in their minute structure that one can hardly tell them apart, and yet they differ in quality and are often mixed or confounded in the trade. Of the thirty-six oaks, of which probably not less than six or eight are marketed, we can readily recognize by means of their minute anatomy at least two tribes—the white and black oaks. The same is true of the eleven kinds of hickory, the six kinds of ash, etc., etc.

The list of names of all trees indigenous to the United States, as enumerated by the United States Forest Service, is 495 in number, the designation of "tree" being applied to all woody plants which produce naturally in their native habitat one main, erect stem, bearing a definite crown, no matter what size they attain.

Timber is produced only by the Spermatophyta, or seed-bearing plants, which are subdivided into the Gymnosperms (conifers), and Angiosperms (broad-leaved). The conifer or cone-bearing tree, to which belong the pines, larches, and firs, is one of the three natural orders of Gymnosperms. These are generally classed as "softwoods," and are more extensively scattered and more generally used than any other class of timber, and are simple and regular in structure. The so-called "hardwoods" are "Dicotyledons" or broad-leaved trees, a subdivision of the Angiosperms. They are generally of slower growth, and produce harder timber than the conifers, but not necessarily so. Basswood, poplar, sycamore, and some of the gums, though classed with the hardwoods, are not nearly as hard as some of the pines.

SECTION II CONIFEROUS TREES WOOD OF THE CONIFEROUS TREES

Examining a smooth cross-section or end face of a well-grown log of Georgia pine, we distinguish an envelope of reddish, scaly bark, a small, whitish pith at the center, and between these the wood in a great number of concentric rings.

Bark and Pith

The bark of a pine stem is thickest and roughest near the base, decreases rapidly in thickness from one to one-half inches at the stump to one-tenth inch near the top of the tree, and forms in general about ten to fifteen per cent of the entire trunk. The pith is quite thick, usually one-eighth to one-fifth inch in southern species, though much less so in white pine, and is very thin, one-fifteenth to one twenty-fifth inch in cypress, cedar, and larch.

In woods with a thick pith, the pith is finest at the stump, grows rapidly thicker toward the top, and becomes thinner again in the crown and limbs, the first one to five rings adjoining it behaving similarly.

What is called the pith was once the seedling tree, and in many of the pines and firs, especially after they have been seasoning for a good while, this is distinctly noticeable in the center of the log, and detaches itself from the surrounding wood.

Sap and Heartwood

Wood is composed of duramen or heartwood, and alburnum or sapwood, and when dry consists approximately of 49 per cent by weight of carbon, 6 per cent of hydrogen, 44 per cent of oxygen, and 1 per cent of ash, which is fairly uniform for all species. The sapwood is the external and youngest portion of the tree, and often constitutes a very considerable proportion of it. It lies next the bark, and after a course of years, sometimes many, as in the case of oaks, sometimes few, as in the case of firs, it becomes hardened and ultimately forms the duramen or heartwood. Sapwood is generally of a white or light color, almost invariably lighter in color than the heartwood, and is very conspicuous in the darker-colored woods, as for instance the yellow sapwood of mahogany and similiar colored woods, and the reddish brown heartwood; or the yellow sapwood of Lignum-vitae and the dark green heartwood. Sapwood forms a much larger proportion of some trees than others, but being on the outer circumference it always forms a large proportion of the timber, and even in sound, hard pine will be from 40 per cent to 60 per cent of the tree and in some cases much more. It is really imperfect wood, while the duramen or heartwood is the perfect wood; the heartwood of the mature tree was the sapwood of its earlier years. Young trees when cut down are almost all sapwood, and practically useless as good, sound timber; it is, however, through the sapwood that the life-giving juices which sustain the tree arise from the soil, and if the sapwood be cut through, as is done when "girdling," the tree quickly dies, as it can derive no further nourishment from the soil. Although absolutely necessary to the growing tree, sapwood is often objectionable to the user, as it is the first part to decay. In this sapwood many cells are active, store up starch, and otherwise assist in the life processes of the tree, although only the last or outer layer of cells forms the growing part, and the true life of the tree.

The duramen or heartwood is the inner, darker part of the log. In the heartwood all the cells are lifeless cases, and serve only the mechanical function of keeping the tree from breaking under its own great weight or from being laid low by the winds. The darker color of the heartwood is due to infiltration of chemical substances into the cell walls, but the cavities of the cells in pine are not filled up, as is sometimes believed, nor do their walls grow thicker, nor are the walls any more liquified than in the sapwood.

Sapwood varies in width and in the number of rings which it contains even in different parts of the same tree. The same year's growth which is sapwood in one part of a disk may be heartwood in another. Sapwood is widest in the main part of the stem and often varies within considerable limits and without apparent regularity. Generally, it becomes narrower toward the top and in the limbs, its width varying with the diameter, and being the least in a given disk on the side which has the shortest radius. Sapwood of old and stunted pines is composed of more rings than that of young and thrifty specimens. Thus in a pine two hundred and fifty years old a layer of wood or an annual ring does not change from sapwood to heartwood until seventy or eighty years after it is formed, while in a tree one hundred years old or less it remains sapwood only from thirty to sixty years.

The width of the sapwood varies considerably for different kinds of pine. It is small for long-leaf and white pine and great for loblolly and Norway pines. Occupying the peripheral part of the trunk, the proportion which it forms of the entire mass of the stem is always great. Thus even in old long-leaf pines, the sapwood forms 40 per cent of the merchantable log, while in the loblolly and in all young trees the sapwood forms the bulk of the wood.

The Annual or Yearly Rings

The concentric annual or yearly rings which appear on the end face of a log are cross-sections of so many thin layers of wood. Each such layer forms an envelope around its inner neighbor, and is in turn covered by the adjoining layer without, so that the whole stem is built up of a series of thin, hollow cylinders, or rather cones.

A new layer of wood is formed each season, covering the entire stem, as well as all the living branches. The thickness of this layer or the width of the yearly ring varies greatly in different trees, and also in different parts of the same tree.

In a normally-grown, thrifty pine log the rings are widest near the pith, growing more and more narrow toward the bark. Thus the central twenty rings in a disk of an old long-leaf pine may each be one-eighth to one-sixth inch wide, while the twenty rings next to the bark may average only one-thirtieth inch.

In our forest trees, rings of one-half inch in width occur only near the center in disks of very thrifty trees, of both conifers and hardwoods. One-twelfth inch represents good, thrifty growth, and the minimum width of one two hundred inch is often seen in stunted spruce and pine. The average width of rings in well-grown, old white pine will vary from one-twelfth to one-eighteenth inch, while in the slower growing long-leaf pine it may be one twenty-fifth to one-thirtieth of an inch. The same layer of wood is widest near the stump in very thrifty young trees, especially if grown in the open park; but in old forest trees the same year's growth is wider at the upper part of the tree, being narrowest near the stump, and often also near the very tip of the stem. Generally the rings are widest near the center, growing narrower toward the bark.

In logs from stunted trees the order is often reversed, the interior rings being thin and the outer rings widest. Frequently, too, zones or bands of very narrow rings, representing unfavorable periods of growth, disturb the general regularity.

Few trees, even among pines, furnish a log with truly circular cross-section. Usually it is an oval, and at the stump commonly quite an irregular figure. Moreover, even in very regular or circular disks the pith is rarely in the center, and frequently one radius is conspicuously longer than its opposite, the width of some rings, if not all, being greater on one side than on the other. This is nearly always so in the limbs, the lower radius exceeding the upper. In extreme cases, especially in the limbs, a ring is frequently conspicuous on one side, and almost or entirely lost to view on the other. Where the rings are extremely narrow, the dark portion of the ring is often wanting, the color being quite uniform and light. The greater regularity or irregularity of the annual rings has much to do with the technical qualities of the timber.

Spring- and Summer-Wood

Examining the rings more closely, it is noticed that each ring is made up of an inner, softer, light-colored and an outer, or peripheral, firmer and darker-colored portion. Being formed in the forepart of the season, the inner, light-colored part is termed spring-wood, the outer, darker-portioned being the summer-wood of the ring. Since the latter is very heavy and firm it determines to a very large extent the weight and strength of the wood, and as its darker color influences the shade of color of the entire piece of wood, this color effect becomes a valuable aid in distinguishing heavy and strong from light and soft pine wood.

In most hard pines, like the long-leaf, the dark summer-wood appears as a distinct band, so that the yearly ring is composed of two sharply defined bands—an