Deal

See Pine and Spruce.

Ebony

The excessive hardness of ebony renders it unsuited for amateur work. It is also expensive. It is very hard and solid, with black heartwood and white sapwood, and is used for furniture, turning, and small articles.

Elm

This useful wood, strong, tough, and durable, usually flexible, heavy and hard, is extensively used in some of its varieties for boat-building, the frames of agricultural implements, yokes, wheel-hubs, chairs, cooperage, and many other purposes. Some species are very good for continued exposure to wet. The rock elm is a valuable variety, esteemed for flexibility and toughness as well as durability and strength.

Fir

See Pine and Spruce.

Hemlock

This wood, valuable for its bark, is cheap, coarsegrained and subject to shakes, brittle and easily split, and somewhat soft, but not easy to work. It is unfit for nice work, but can be used for rough framing and rough boarding, for which its holding nails well renders it suitable.

Hickory

This wood, found in the eastern parts of North America, is highly esteemed for its strength and great elasticity. It is hard, tough, heavy, and close-grained. It is largely used for carriage-work, agricultural implements, hoops, axe-helves, and the like. It is hard to work. The shagbark is especially valued for timber.

Holly

This wood is quite hard, close-grained, and very white, though it does not retain the purity of its colour. It is used for small articles of cabinet-work and for turning.

Lancewood

The use of this wood for bows, fishing-rods, and such purposes has been extensive. It is distinguished for its elasticity.

Lignum Vitae

The extreme hardness, solidity, and durability of lignum vitae make it of great value for pulley-sheaves, balls for bowling, mallets, small handles, and turned objects. It is too excessively hard for the beginner to use.

Locust

The wood of the locust of North America is hard, strong, heavy, exceedingly durable, and of yellowish or brownish colour. It is a valuable wood, and is used extensively for posts for fences and for the support of buildings, for shipbuilding, and for other work to be subjected to exposure or to contact with the ground. It is used in turning, but not extensively for interior work.

Maple

The maple grows freely in the United States, and is much used for a great variety of purposes, the sugar or rock maple being especially esteemed. It is close-grained, hard, strong, heavy, and of a light yellowish-, reddish-, or brownish-white colour (sometimes almost white, though found in varying shades), and can be smoothed to a satin-like surface and be given a good finish. It can be stained satisfactorily. The curly or wavy varieties furnish wood of much beauty, the peculiar contortion of the grain known as " bird's-eye " being much admired. Maple is extensively used for cabinet-work and interior finishing, floors, machine-frames, work-benches, turning, and a great variety of miscellaneous articles.

There are a number of varieties of the maple. The beginner should confine himself at first to the softer and straight-grained specimens, as the other kinds are hard to work and to smooth.