Part 36 (2/2)

Red haw is a lathe wood. It is well suited to some other purposes, and has been used for engraving blocks, small wedges, and rulers, but the best results come from the lathe. If it is thoroughly seasoned it is not liable to crack or check, though cut thin in such articles as goblets and napkin rings. The turner sometimes objects to the wood because of its hardness and the rapidity with which it dulls tools. This drawback, however, is compensated for by the smoothness and fine polish which may be given to the finished article. Red haw checker pieces have been compared with ebony for wearing quality. In color the ebony is more handsome, and on that account is generally preferred.

Perhaps the most extensive use of red haw is in the manufacture of canes. Most of the species of thorn are suitable for that purpose on account of their weight, strength, and hardness. Red haw is not specially preferred, but is used with others. As a source of wood supply, the tree will never be important, but as an adornment to the landscape it will always be valuable, and at the same time will fill a minor place in the country's list of commercial woods.

SUMMER HAW (_Crataegus aestivalis_) is a southern species which contributes more or less to the food supply of the people within its range. It is known also as May haw and apple haw. The flowers appear in February and March, are about one inch in diameter, and flushed with red toward the apex. The fruit ripens in May, is bright red, very fragrant, and is from half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter. The flesh is of a pleasant taste, and is gathered in large quant.i.ties by country people for making preserves and jelly. It is sold in town and city markets, particularly in New Orleans. The range of this thorn tree is from South Carolina and Florida, to Texas. It attains a height of twenty or thirty feet, and a diameter sometimes as great as eighteen inches. It reaches its largest size in Louisiana and Texas. It grows well on land which may be submerged several weeks in winter. The wood has not been reported for any use.

c.o.c.kSPUR (_Crataegus crus-galli_) may be taken as the type of more than twenty species of c.o.c.kspur thorns growing in this country. Its other names are red haw, Newcastle thorn, thorn apple, thorn bush, pin thorn, haw, and hawthorn. It grows southwestward from Canada to Texas, and extends into Florida. The largest trees are twenty-five feet high and a foot in diameter. The fruit is dull red, half inch in diameter, ripens in September and October, and hangs on the branches until late winter.

Hogs eat the fruit when they can get it, and boys utilize the small apples as bullets for elder pop guns. The thorns are formidable slender spines from three to eight inches long, strong, and extremely sharp.

They were formerly used as pins to close wool sacks in rural carding mills. The many species of c.o.c.kspur thorns are multiplied by numerous varieties. Fence posts and fuel are cut from the best trunks.

PEAR HAW (_Crataegus tomentosa_) is a representative of at least ten species. It is called pear haw without any very satisfactory reason, since the fruit bears little resemblance to pears. It is half an inch in diameter, dull orange red in color, and sweet to the taste, but it is of little value as food. The tree has been occasionally planted for ornament, but never for fruit. The flowers are showy. Trees at their best are fifteen or twenty feet high and five or six inches in diameter.

They have few thorns and such as they have are small. The tree's range extends from New York to Missouri, and along the Appalachian mountains to northern Georgia, and west to Texas and Arkansas. It is known in different parts of its range as black thorn, red haw, pear thorn, white thorn, common thorn, hawthorn, thorn apple, and thorn plum.

HOG HAW (_Crataegus brachyacantha_) is distinguished by its blue fruit.

The name indicates that the fruit is unfit for human food but is eaten by swine. In some parts of Louisiana the dense thickets produce considerable quant.i.ties of forage for hogs. The range is not extensive, being confined to Louisiana and eastern Texas where the tree occurs in low, wet prairies. The largest specimens are forty or fifty feet high and eighteen inches in diameter. It is one of the largest of the thorns, and the best trunks are of size to make small, very short sawlogs, but it does not appear that the wood has ever been manufactured into commodities of any kind. The tree is occasionally planted for ornament.

BLACK HAW (_Crataegus douglasii_) reaches its best development on the Pacific coast where trees occur thirty or more feet in height and a foot and a half in diameter. The princ.i.p.al range is west of the Rocky Mountains, from British Columbia to northern California, but it extends eastward to Wyoming, and the tree is found also in northern Michigan.

The fruit is black or very dark purple, is edible, and matures in early autumn, falling soon after. The heartwood is brownish-red. No use for the wood has been found on the Pacific coast.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON HAW (_Crataegus cordata_), also known as Was.h.i.+ngton thorn, Virginia thorn, heart-leaved thorn, and red haw, grows on banks of streams from the valley of the upper Potomac river southward through the Appalachian ranges to northern Georgia, and westward to Missouri and Arkansas. Flowers are rose-colored, the fruit ripens in the fall and hangs till late winter. Trees are twenty or thirty feet high, and a foot or less in diameter. Was.h.i.+ngton haw is frequently planted in this country and in Europe.

ENGLISH HAWTHORN (_Crataegus oxyacantha_) was introduced into this country from Europe and has become naturalized in some of the eastern states. Thirty or more varieties are distinguished in cultivation. It is worthy of note that, although the United States has more than 130 species of thorn trees of its own, with varieties so numerous that no one has yet named or counted all of them, a foreign thorn has been introduced and added to the number.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

MAHOGANY

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAHOGANY]

MAHOGANY

(_Swietenia Mahagoni_)

This tree belongs to the family _Meliaceae_ which has about forty genera, all of which are confined to the tropic except _Swietenia_ to which mahogany belongs. This tree has made its way up from southern lat.i.tudes and has secured a foothold in Florida where it is confined to the islands and the most southern part of the mainland.

No attempt is here made to settle or even to take part in the disputes among dendrologists as to what mahogany is. There are said to be more than forty different trees which pa.s.s as mahogany in lumber markets.

Various descriptions and keys have been published for the purpose of separating and identifying different woods which are bought and sold as mahogany. These woods grow on every continent except Europe; but those which pa.s.s as mahogany nearly all come from Africa or America. Some are well known, both as to origin and botany, while others are doubtful.

Logs sometimes appear in markets and no one knows where they come from, or the species which produce them. It has been maintained that annual rings will separate true mahogany from the false--that the true has no annual rings. At the best, this evidence is only negative and is worth little, since many tropical trees show no annual rings, and yet are no kin to mahogany. Neither is it certain that true mahogany shows no yearly rings. Some trees do not, but others may. The ring, as is well known, is produced because the tree grows part of the year and rests part. In the tropics where growth is continuous, the ring may not exist, but it sometimes does exist, and thus upsets the theory. Besides, it proves little in the case of mahogany which has a range extending from south of the equator northward into the temperate zone, where there are seasonal changes. It also grows near sea level and at considerable alt.i.tudes, and elevation alone might make considerable variation in the character of the wood.

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