The woods of the United States are classified roughly as hard and soft;
and trees as broad-leaved or deciduous, and evergreen or coniferous.
In a general way, the trees which drop their leaves in the fall--the
broad-leaved--produce hard woods and the evergreens soft woods. There
are so many exceptions, however, that the rule is a very rough guide.
Several of the coniferous trees drop their leaves or needles in the
fall, like the larch or tamarack, and some woods from evergreens are
harder than some woods from broad-leaved trees. Yellow pine is harder
than basswood, which, according to the rule, should be a hard wood.
As a matter of fact, it is softer than the majority of woods cut from
evergreens. The only way to gain a comprehensive knowledge of this
interesting subject is by experience and study. Making a collection
of woods, leaves, and seeds is one of the most fascinating studies a
boy can take up. He will soon discover that not only is every wood
different from every other wood in grain, colour, odour, and hardness,
but some woods are strong and elastic, others strong and brittle, weak,
etc., and that every tree has a different leaf, bark, flower, and seed
from its neighbour. He will find groups or families, such as the oaks,
the maples, the pines, spruces, cedars, etc., with several members
of each group, all different, yet having family characteristics. He
will be surprised at the endless extent of the subject; the willow for
instance has a hundred and fifty known varieties. He will find himself,
like our boys, dipping into botany and geology to discover perhaps, as
Harry did, that the oak was once an evergreen, and that it still holds
a good proportion of its leaves all winter.
He will learn that there are broad-leaved evergreens like the laurel
and rhododendron; that some trees are evergreen in the South, and lose
their leaves in the North; that some shrubs of the Northern states
become trees farther south. He may even wrestle with the problem "What
is a tree?" or, "Where does the shrub leave off and the tree begin?"
The study of the many methods nature has devised for distributing seeds
has evolved whole volumes; so has the question of how the buds on the
trees are protected in winter. There are definite ways in which the
tiny leaves are folded up in these winter buds, all ready to unfold
in a certain way in the spring. Perhaps the reader wonders what all
this has to do with woodwork, but to a boy who once begins to collect
specimens, it will follow as a matter of course. Knowing something
about woods he naturally begins to study trees, and gradually observes
the wonderful phenomena of growth, flower, and seed. Planting seeds
to see how they grow is the next step, and before long he has a young
nursery in the yard; while the reading of the work of such men as
Luther Burbank will induce him to try his hand at grafting and budding.
The man who makes two apples grow where one grew before is as valuable
a citizen as the man who makes two blades of grass grow in the place
of one. When Mr. Burbank converts the prickly cactus into a thornless
cactus, valuable as a forage plant, he is conferring a great benefit on
the whole race by making millions of acres of desert land available for
stock raising.
Incidentally, these wonders performed by the Wizard of California will
not die with Mr. Burbank, but will constitute the beginning of a new
profession which, combined with forestry, will offer a tempting field
for the rising generation.