Basswood

“ The woods are dense with full-grown leafage. Of all the trees, only the basswood has delayed its blossoming, to crown the height of summer and fill the sun-steeped air with a perfume that calls all the wild bees from hollow tree and scant woodside gleaning to a wealth of honey gathering, and all the hive-dwellers from their board-built homes to a finer and sweeter pillage than is offered by the odorous white sea of buckwheat. Half the flowers of wood and fields are out of bloom. ”

“ There are about twenty species of basswood in the world, and from three to six of them are in the United States. Authors do not agree on the number of species in this country. There are at least three, and they occupy, in part, the same range, with consequent confusion. They are much alike in general appearance, and not one person in twenty knows one from the other. ”

“ It is the prevailing basswood of West Virginia, and reaches its largest size on the high mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. It averages about two pounds lighter per cubic foot than the common basswood, but ordinarily neither the lumber nor the standing trees of the two species are distinguished. Only persons somewhat skilled in botany are able to tell one species of basswood from another as they occur in the forests of this country. ”

“ The blossom is five-leaved, and contains many stamens and one pistil. The fruit is a little nut. The American Linden or Basswood is a large tree seventy to one hundred and twenty-five feet high, growing from New Brunswick to Georgia, west to Nebraska and Texas. The wood is extensively used for making cheap furniture and paper pulp. The Southern Basswood or Whitewood is a small tree forty to fifty feet high growing from Long Island to Florida, west to Texas. The White Basswood or Bee Tree is a forest tree forty-five to seventy feet high, Pennsylvania to Florida, west to Illinois and Tennessee. ”

“ The flight of basswood seeds on their wing-like blades goes on throughout the winter. This alone would account for the fact that basswoods greatly outnumbered all other trees in the virgin forests of the Ohio Valley. The seeds are not the tree's sole dependence. Suckers grow up about the stump of a tree the lumberman has taken, or the lightning has stricken. ”

“ In building construction, basswood is used for ceilings, and for other work where strength is not needed, though for use in such places it should be thoroughly seasoned, or the joints will open.
If steamed, basswood may be bent to almost any form. Steaming also cures to a great extent the tendency of this wood to shrink and swell.
(F.) Beech (dec.) is adapted for use in places where the ability to resist a heavy strain or hard wear is necessary, as in plane stocks, tool handles, and parts of machinery. In building work, it is used to some extent for flooring and for inside finishing. ”

“ Basswood is generally not difficult to identify in summer, but in winter a person only slightly acquainted with different trees might take it for cucumber, and if of small size, it might possibly be mistaken for ash or mountain maple. When the tree is bearing leaves, flowers, and fruit, there is no excuse for mistaking it for any other. The fruit, a cluster of four or five berry-like globes, hangs under a leaf, fixed by a short stem to the midrib. ”

“ Basswood (Tilia americana) is common in Canada and in the northern United States. It is soft and easy to work, and of even texture and straight grain. It may be obtained in wide boards, and thus is fitted for use in large panels. ”

“ Woodenware factories find basswood one of their most serviceable materials, and it is made into ironing boards, wash boards, bread boards, and cutting boards for cobblers, saddlers, and glass cutters. Its lightness and toughness make it serviceable as valves and other parts of bellows for blacksmiths, organs, and piano players. Makers of gilt picture frames prefer it for molding which is to be overlaid with the gilt or gold. ”

“ But, should the teacher be able to obtain the proper materials, basswood a quarter or three-eighths of an inch thick, and whittling knives are the requisites.
The reader will notice that the wood mentioned for each model is bass. Why? Because bass is the wood generally used for carving. The tree is the same as the linden and the lime. It is found in northern Asia, Europe, and North America, and grows to an immense height. The wood is soft, light, close-veined, pliable, tough, durable, and free from knots, and does not split easily; all of which qualities favor its suitability for carving. ”

“ The curving of the edges of the bract toward the fruit enables the wind to catch it all the better, and to lift it more or less from the snow. With changes in the direction of the wind, there is an opportunity for the fruit of a single tree, if not too much crowded by others, to spread in all directions. After watching these maneuvers, no one could doubt the object of the bent bracts of the basswood, and as these vary much in length and width and shape on different trees, it would seem that perhaps nature is still experimenting with a view to finding the most perfect structure for the purpose. ”

“ Basswood probably will be found the easiest wood to work with, as it is soft, straight-grained, and free from knots. Packing-cases may be used to advantage when they are of the right size, but they are generally made of a cheap grade of pine, full of knots and other defects that make it difficult to do a good job. ”

“ Scattered through the wooded part, we placed signs for the principal trees, which signs we had invented ourselves from our observation of the character of the trees. The basswood, for example, we found most numerous in the lower parts, the butternut on the ridges. The ironwoods we noticed to be small but thrifty, shade not being so detrimental to these weeds of the forest as to many other species. ”

“ Apple (dec.) is not used for construction, as the proper dimensions cannot be secured, and as it is very stubborn to work. It is one of the best woods known to resist splitting, and is much used for chisel and saw handles.
(E.) Basswood, or linden (dec.) , is a soft, porous wood, which shrinks considerably in drying. It is used for the backing of veneer work, for drawer bottoms of the common grades of furniture, for case backs, and similar purposes, and is also much used in the manufacture of spools [Pg 30] and other small articles which are made in large quantities. ”

“ The union of stem and branch is weak above, as is shown by the clean break made above a twig when it is torn off, and the stubborn tearing of the fibres below down into the older stem. A half hour spent at the woodpile or among the trees with a jack-knife will demonstrate the laws by which the straight grain of wood is diverted by the insertion of limbs. The careful picking up and tearing back of the fibres of bark and wood will answer all our questions. Basswood whose fibres are tough is excellent for illustration. ”

“ Range.—New York to Florida, west to Alabama and Illinois.
Distribution in West Virginia.—A common tree in Upshur, Randolph, Tucker, Hampshire, Hardy, Grant, Braxton, Lewis, Webster, Nicholas, Roane, Fayette, Kanawha, Gilmer, Monongalia, Marshall, and in several other counties. It is more abundant than the foregoing species of Tilia.
Habitat.—With other hardwoods in rich soil of mountains and high hills.
Notes.—The White Basswood is a valuable forest tree in West Virginia, though the commercial size is now becoming rare in most sections. It is a rapid grower and is easily propagated. ”

“ Most of the section-boxes in use now are made of a single piece, which is dovetailed at the ends and has three transverse V-shaped grooves cut in one side so that it can be bent into shape, as shown in Plate II. These flat basswood sections afford very pretty material with which to work. The novice, in putting them together, almost always bends them with grooves outside at the corners, instead of inside, and then wonders why they are askew, and break. ”

“ For the same reason, summerwood gives weight, and a relationship between hardness and weight holds generally. It may be added that strength goes with weight and hardness, but it is not a rule without apparent exceptions.
Some woods possess twice or three times the hardness of others. Among some of the hardest in the United States are hickory, sugar maple, mesquite, the Florida ironwoods, Osage orange, locust, persimmon, [13] and the best oak and elm. Among the softest species are buckeye, basswood, cedar, redwood, some of the pines, spruce, hemlock, and chestnut. ”

“ The FRUIT, a dry, 1 to 2-seeded nut-like drupe, 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 inch in diameter, is covered with short, thick, gray-brown wool. It remains attached in clusters to the leafy bract, which later acts as a wing to bear the fruit away in the wind.
The WOOD is light, soft, tough, not durable, and light brown in color. It is used in states where the growth is better for the manufacture of pulp, woodenware, furniture, trunks, excelsior, and many other articles. The principal use of basswoods in Texas is for shade and ornament. ”

“ The Webster farm stood high on a plateau, and beneath it lay a broad sweep of valley, now half-shrouded in the silver mists of early morning. The near-at-hand field and pasture that sloped toward it were gemmed with dew. Every blade of tall grass of the mowing sparkled. Even the long rows of green shoots striping the chocolate earth of the garden flashed emerald in the morning sunlight; beyond the plowed land, through an orchard whose apple boughs were studded with ruby buds, Lucy caught a glimpse of a square brick chimney. ”

“ The wood, as you approach down the road from Mr. Motley’s gate, presents the aspect of a hill of pines, dark and massive; but, crossing the fence that keeps it from the highway, you are almost at once in the midst of a mingled growth of birch and beech and willows; beneath these passes the brook, near to whose bank was found, farther up, the body of the boy. Old Mr. Bussey, it would seem, was a man of droll, yet picturesque fancies, mingled with a sturdy sense of the useful; for no sooner are you free of the pasture land, and in among the trees, than you discover traces of his handiwork. ”

“ Do you see the little hole in this maple?" He pointed up at the gray trunk above his head. "We make a little hole like that in every tree as soon as the sap begins to run in the early spring. Then we drive into the hole this small piece of hollow wood—it is like a trough, you see; and the sap runs through it into the buckets we hang beneath. All day and all night it drips in and each morning we go round and empty every pail into the cask we carry on the sledge. ”

“ A bass! Only a little fellow, half to three-quarters of a pound, but who ever heard of a bass taking bait thus placidly? Up in a Massachusetts lake that I know the large-mouthed bass take a bait with a rush that carries everything before it. They whirl beneath the water and leap above it, shaking their heads to throw from the mouth the thing that hurts them. Surely Southern languor has gotten into the bones of the bass. Another comes to the hook in the same peaceful way and I land him. Then there is a lull. A wind out of the south blows up river and brings me the odor of palmetto blooms. ”

“ Through the shimmering atmosphere the valley, with its river yellow as a band of molten gold, lay listless in drowsy haze; but the birds, butterflies, and bees flitted among the flowers that bordered the roadside with an alertness which proved that they, at least, felt no lessening of zest for their honey gathering.
“It’s goin’ to be an almighty hot day,” observed Tony who, after slapping Dolly’s broad back several times with the reins, had decided that further attempts to accelerate the mare’s pace was useless. ”

“ Through the kitchen window pale shafts of light [92] shot across the floor, brightening the colored rugs and making brass and copper glisten. Starting the fire, she threw open the door to let in the salt breeze.
The dampness and chill of the night had disappeared and the air was mild with the breath of coming spring. Mingling with the gulls' cries she could hear the twitter of sparrows and the occasional chirp of a robin. The village, still hazy in mist, was taking on sharper outlines and from the bay the voices of fishermen and the chug of a motor-boat drifted distinctly across the water. ”

“ The voices of the men were deep, and of the women wonderfully musical, with a slow rhythm like that of the sea, or of the wind through the pine-trees outside. But the unsatisfactory nature of what they said only helped to increase my sense of confusion and dismay.
“Yes,” said one; “Tom Bassett was here for a while with the sheep, but his home was not here.”
“He asks the way to a house when he does not even know the way to his own mind!” ”

“ It slanted a mile or so to the summit, wandered vaguely another two miles among gorse-bushes along the crest, passed Tom Bassett’s cottage by the pines, and then dropped sharply down on the other side through rather thin woods to the ancient house where the old folk-lorist lived and dreamed himself into his impossible world of theory and fantasy. ”

“ He had always admired spirit in a woman.
The car rolled on, flashing past swamps of swaying iris bedded deep in the salt marsh-grass, past tangles of fragrant honeysuckle and garlands of clinging clematis, and presently shot out into the sunny stretch of road that like a white ribbon bound the blue waters of the bay. When it reached the bluff where the sand mounted into green-capped dunes, patched in their hollows with shadows of violet, it slowed down and came to a stop before Willie Spence's weathered cottage.
The old inventor and Bob were seated idly on the workshop steps. ”