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The Christmas Spirits and the Trees: December: Birches

Beech: Very hard, heavy, strong, and tough, though not durable in contact with the soil. Chairs, handles, woodenware, cooperage, flooring, and shoe-lasts. Birch: The Birches are another family that are being drawn upon for paper material these days, and every Boy Scout knows how a Birch will help make a canoe, roof a cabin, and supply cups and pails and table dishes; and that, in taking off the bark, he should not girdle the tree, as many thoughtless people do, thereby killing it. Of the Birch canoe Burroughs says: "The design of a savage, in it looks like the thought of a poet, and its grace and fitness haunt the imagination. It is, indeed, one of the fairest flowers the thorny plant of necessity ever bore." One of the largest uses of this same Canoe Birch is for the manufacture of spools. Many other things of every-day use are made from it, including toothpicks, shoe-pegs, broom-handles, and various household articles.

Buckeye: Pulp, veneering, candy boxes, dishes, and bowls. Butternut. (See Walnut.) Buttonwood. (See Sycamore.) Cherry: The Wild Black and Wild Red Cherry supply one of our most valuable hardwoods, strong, fine-grained, and taking a beautiful polish. It is now very scarce and brings a high price. Used for cabinetwork, interior finish, and furniture, instrument cases and clocks.

Chestnut: Cheaper grades of furniture, the wood being light, soft, and coarse-grained; but being durable in contact with the soil, it is also useful for ties, poles, posts, and mine props. Bark used in tanning. Cottonwood. (See Poplar.) Elm: Very heavy, hard, and tough. Implements, hubs, wagon parts, cooperage, handles, saddletrees, and mallets. The Rock Elm is what wood-workers call a "cross-grained" wood; that is to say, the fibres are closely interlaced in a way that makes it less liable to split.

Hackberry: Although it belongs to the Elm family, its wood is not nearly so valuable. Used for cheap furniture, boxes, crates, handles, agricultural implements, and fencing.

Hickory: Very heavy, hard, tough, and strong. Used for axe and tool handles, agricultural implements, and hoops.