Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/247

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XXVII.]
CANADA ELM.
227

wood for the converter to deal with, the instances of defects being found in opening it, arising either from pruning or from accidental causes, being extremely rare.

About 2,500 to 3,000 loads of this wood are imported annually into each of the London and Liverpool markets, to meet the wants of private dealers, who employ it for coach-making, turnery, boat-building, &c. The Government also take about 600 to 700 loads annually for the use of the royal dockyards, stipulating in their contracts that it shall be of the first quality, from 11 to 15 inches square, averaging 12½ inches; 20 feet and upwards in length, averaging at least 24 feet in length, and to be well squared, and free from knots.

The Canada Rock Elm is a remarkably slow-growing tree, the slowest in fact with which we have to deal; it makes only one inch of wood diameter in about fourteen years.[1]

Table CXVII.—Rock Elm (Canada).
Transverse Experiments.
Number
of the
1 specimen.
Deflections. Total
weight
required
to break
each
piece.
Specific
gravity.
Weight
reduced
to
specific
gravity
700.
Weight
required
to break
1 square
inch.
With the
apparatus
weighing
390 lbs.
After the
weight
was
removed.
At
the crisis
of
breaking.
  Inches. Inch. Inches. lbs.     lbs.
1 1.60 .25 8.55 935 760 86l 233.75
2 1.85 .30 8.75 946 753 893 236.50
3 1.75 .30 9.00 899 735 856 224.75
4 1.90 .35 8.65 918 740 868 229.50
5 1.85 .25 875 927 738 879 231.75
6 1.55 .30 9.05 895 765 819 223.75
Total 10.50 1.75 52.75 5,520 4491 5176 1380.00
Average 1.75 .29 8.79 920 748 863 230.00

Remarks.—All fractured and crippled, but not completely broken asunder.


  1. See Tabular Statement in Chapter II., on the comparative rate of growth of trees, p. 18.