Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-01-20
TRYING OUT WOOD.
The Government Has Established a
 New Laboratory.

NSN tIuUOEatoIys
 Washington, Jan 2O.-It is doubt ful if any of the laboratories main- tained by the government for scien- tific research are more unique in character, and yet bear promise of more important results, than one which has just been established in Washington by the United States forest service for Investigating the structure of commercially important woods.
 Laymen will not understand the significance of the proposed investi- gations carried on in this laboratory so quickly as architects, builders and other wood users, who in these days of growing scarcity of the more valu- able woods, are seriously perplexed in identifying substitutes. Mistakes of this kind in Identification have, in the last few years, in several in stances, meant the loss of thousands of dollars, and many embarrassing law suits.
 Nearly any user of lumber can recognize and name off-hand all the usual threes of the forest when he sees them growing, and not much difficulty is encountered in identi- flying the common kind of lumber in a mill yard because he knows the few trees from which the yard lum- Der comes. But common kinds are growing scarce, and woods not often cut heretofore are appearing in the markets. The most experienced men are sometimes puzzled when thy try to identify them, and persons with less experience have still more trouble. Is a certain wood gum or elm? Is another cucumber, linn or poplar? Is a stick sugar maple or red maple? Doubts may arise whether a piece Is hemlock or spruce, or whether it is lodgepole pine or fir, or whether a shingle is cypress or cedar. A dealer may buy red oak and suspect that he Is get ting something else. There are thirty or more important species of oak. The best lumber dealer might not know which is which in the lum- Der pile, or if he knows, he might not know how to prove it.
 Many of these woods look alike, even to the trained eye of the mill man or the builder, and yet they are widely different in value for certain purposes, and it is of the greatest importance to be able to distinguish them quickly and certainly. Again, a new wood may come to a mans mo- tice for the first time, and it may be necessary for him to decide what it is and what it is worth.
 The government has been helping individual lumber users for some time. but the facilities have not been near so complete as they are now. It is to meet such needs and answer such questions that the for est service has established the lab oratory, and placed it in charge of a trained dendrologist. Architects. lumbermen. manufacturers and mak- CTS of woOdware are already sending in samples of wood for Identification and asking if there are not some structural characters by means of which such woods may be conyen- iently separated for relative species having greater or less value for some specific purpose.
 The laboratory will investigate in a practical way. The structure of the woods, sections lengthwise and crosswise. will be studied so as to separate by structure alone the vari- ous species of a genus. Analytical keys to the trees of each group will be worked out These will be based on the arrangement and character Of the pores disceTnibIe 10 the naked eye. or by a hand lens
 The results vilI be published from time to time with good illustrations and placed at the disposal of lumber users. After all the important groups of wood. such as oaks. pines and frs. have been studied and the results published separately. the several monographs viII be collect ed and published in one volume.
 A work of this character has long been in demand bT architects. build CTS and other users of lumber IL Vfll- in most cases. enable even a non-teehnicaIIy trained man to de- termine quite readily the rood he deals with by means of an ordinary hand lens and hy comparing the wood in question with the photo graphs of cross and long sections given in these n0nographs-