Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1905-11-20
VARYING NAMES GIVEN WOODS
In This Country and in Eng
land.

somewhat lengthy acquaintance with
student-craftsmen has led the writer
to note point which often proves a
difficulty in this connection, namely,
the varying names given to the com
moner woods of commerce in differ
ent parts of the English-speakfng
world. Of course many good text
books give the Latin or scientific
name in addition to the common one,
and no doubt can exist where this is
done, but the unchanging scientific
name is rot always given, and con-
fusion often results.
The most valuable of our common
coniferous (cone-bearing woods), and
alas, rapidly-disappearing one, the
white pine, occurs first to ones mind
as an example of this. The scien
| tif1c name, pinus strobus, is of course
not used in practice, but when the
term white pine" is used anywhere
in North America, pinus strobus is
| the word meant.
But the commercial name in Euro
pean markets for this same wood is
yellow" pine, and most of the Eng
| lish textbooks thus refer to it,
| though some few still give it the
name of weymouth" pine, after
Lord Weymouth, who is said to have
been largely instrumental in intro
ducing it into Great Britain. To the
North American craftsmen, however,
yellow pine means something quite
different. Generally, the pinus nit
| is is the commonest pine east of the
Rockies to be understood by that
name, but while it's wood is strong
and suitable for many building pur-
poses, it is too resinous to be used
for such work as the white pine is
eminently adapted for. Sometimes,
again, the southern or pitch" pine
| is known in certain localities as yell
low pine this adding to the confus-
ion; while west of the Rockies, in
Oregon and British Columbia the
wood of the Douglas fir or Oregon
pine is oftener called yellow pine.
Another complication arises from
the fact that in the London market
the wood of the European northern
pine, the pinus sylvestris of the
botanist, is known as yellow DEAL"
while in the provincial cities OF
Great Britain the same wood is al
most invariably known as red deal"
The Scotch fir" or more proper y
pine, is the same wood, which is
alike in all respects to the red pine,
pinus resinosa, of North America. In
fact, large quantities of Canadian and
American red pine are now being
used in Great Britain and sold as the
yellow or red deal of the northern
European timbergrowing countries,
that is, Russia, Sweden and Norway,
and parts of North Germany.
The term "fr as used in the Eng
lish markets is also somewhat mis-
leading to students on this side of
to denote the several coniferous tim
bers obtained from the baltic parts
namely, larch, spruce, and northern
or red pine, and not our American
balsam fir, which is unknown there.
1t should also be noted that the
term deal is used in England not
only to denote a certain size of lum-
Der, but also to mean spruce and
white or red pine. Thus 'com-
mon deal table" would mean one
made of spruce or pine, in contradis-
tinction to one made of hardwood
The beautiful, clean, fine-grained
spruce of northern Russia is also
known in the English markets as
white deal, and quite recently the
writer was asked by a student to
explain what wood was meant by this
term, which he had found in a tech
nical journal.
Cedar" is another term which is
a fruitful source of confusion and in
English textbooks should always be
understood to mean the West Indian
or cigar box" cedar, the cedrela
odorata of the botanist. Like al
the so-called cedars Of the western
hemisphere, this is not a true cedar
at al but a broad-leaved tree some
what resembling the mahogany in
habit
The common "red" cedar, juniper
us .virginiana, is used in cabinet
making in Great Britain, but is in
variably referret to as pencil cedar
in the shops and textbooks.
The white cedar Of the northern
states and Canada, SO extensively
used for shingles, ETC., is practically
unknown in Europe, and need not
therefore be looked for in textbooks
from the other side.
In recent years the California red
wood, or sequoia, has been largely
used in Great Britain and is some
times miscalled California cedar"
1t may be noted that the cedar OF
scripture the true cedrus, is confined
to the eastern world. Three species
only are known, namely, cedrus Ii
| hani the cedar of TnhanOn. cadruC