. American forestry. Forests and forestry. COMMERCIAL USES OF WHITE OAK 11 United States is white oak. The suhstantial chairs, bed- steads, bureaus, and tables, which were once made by hand by rural workman before the modern factory with its machines was known, are now classed as anticjues, but age has added to their value. Few fillers and finish- ers were then employed, and the natural grain of the wood remained unchanged. Solid oak furniture is not often made now, exce])t the cheapest or the most expen- sive kinds. Common chairs, Ijedsteads, and tables are low priced, and of plain-sawed mate
. American forestry. Forests and forestry. COMMERCIAL USES OF WHITE OAK 11 United States is white oak. The suhstantial chairs, bed- steads, bureaus, and tables, which were once made by hand by rural workman before the modern factory with its machines was known, are now classed as anticjues, but age has added to their value. Few fillers and finish- ers were then employed, and the natural grain of the wood remained unchanged. Solid oak furniture is not often made now, exce])t the cheapest or the most expen- sive kinds. Common chairs, Ijedsteads, and tables are low priced, and of plain-sawed material; and expensive, deeply carved pieces are solid, because only thick, solid wood will display the car\ings. The medium-priced oak furniture is practically all veneered. Chair making is an industry almost separate and dis- tinct from the manufacture of furniture, .-ind while many woods are employed, oak is the most important. Chair factories often make nothing else, and they turn out large numbers of standard patterns, some very cheap, others of better grade. Strength fits oak for certain kinds of musical instru- ments, and beauty for others. While oak figures in the manufacture of guitars, melodeans, orchestrions, and in racks and cabinets which form the furniture and equip- ment of the music room; but the most massive oak is seen in pipe organs for halls and churches. White oak is not a handle wood to the same degree that hickory is, but it is much employed for certain kinds of handles. In some parts of the Atlantic coast it is used as ax handles. It is toughened for that service by boiling it in oil. The sapwood of saplings only is used, as the heartwood is too brash, and even the sapwood of large trees will not do. Oil tanks of white oak are specially preferred, because the oil is liable to seep through most other woods. Enor- mous oak tanks were built in the oil fields of Pennsy'- vania and West Virginia in the early days of the de- velopment of oil fields in that region
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectforestsandforestry
