Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/130

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110
TIMBER AND TIMBER TREES.
[CHAP.

the manufacture of furniture, and in the domestic arts; but, as a building wood, it can never be in favour, and is quite unfit for architectural or engineering works requiring strength or durability.

The Canadian or Quebec Oak is generally quoted in the market at about 20 per cent, higher than the Baltimore Oak, but probably this is chiefly owing to its superior dimensions rather than to any difference in the quality.

America produces, besides the foregoing, the Swamp White Oak, Quercus bicolor; the Rough or Post Oak, Q. stellata; the Rock Chestnut Oak, Q. Montana; the Black Oak, Q. tinctora; and the Scarlet Oak, Q. coccinea; all these are largely used in architectural works, and for agricultural implements, both in the United States and in Canada.

THE WALNUT TREE (uglans)

is found widely spread over Southern Europe, in many parts of Asia, and also in North America.

That which is brought from Italy is a light-brown wood, close and fine in the grain, with occasionally dark veins, and some waviness of figure; it is hard, heavy, solid, and with scarcely any disposition to split in seasoning. Planks 4 to 9 inches thick, square edged, 10 to 16 inches broad, and 5 to 12 feet in length, are imported and sold, sometimes by weight, at other times by the superficial foot of 1 inch thick.

The Black Sea Walnut wood is imported in logs of 6 to 9 feet in length by 10 to 18 inches square, imperfectly hewn, a considerable quantity of wane being usually left upon the angles. The wood is similar in colour and texture, but slightly inferior in quality, to the