Firewood

“ Firewood is kept in halls where costly treasures might be heaped up, mountains high; waterfalls are dry and choked; fountains, too dull to play, and too lazy to work, have just enough recollection of their identity, in their sleep, to make the neighbourhood damp; and the sirocco wind is often blowing over all these things for days together, like a gigantic oven out for a holiday.
Not long ago, there was a festa-day, in honour of the Virgin’s mother, when the young men of the neighbourhood, having worn green wreaths of the vine in some procession or other, bathed in them, by scores. ”

“ I now resolved that during the time the birds were mating, I would go to the ravine and remain there several days, to collect bundles of firewood. The firewood was chiefly cut from a sort of low bush, like the sallow or willow, fit for making baskets, indeed fit for anything better than firewood; however, there were some bushes which were of a harder texture, and which burnt well. It was Jackson who told me that the former were called willow and used for making baskets, and he also shewed me how to tie the faggots up by twisting the sallows together. ”

“ All of us, except Antonio, hurried off to look for firewood, in search of which we had to go some distance; still the movement did us good, and each brought an armful of wood back, so that we soon had a good fire at which to warm our benumbed hands. ”

“ There are various methods of building up the pile for the bonfire, but when made of bundles of firewood, the number preferred is seven. A lofty tree, standing alone upon an eminence, near a village, is sometimes selected; and, being heaped round with dry branches and brush-wood, the whole is set in flames, while the young people of both sexes dance in a circle around it. ”

“ A great deal of firewood, too, is grown in this neighbourhood, water is plentiful, and so firewood is a staple crop. Getting out beyond the gardens, on a small mountain standing by itself on the plain, was the ruin of an ancient fire-temple. It was merely built of mud bricks, but here at Ispahan these remain for centuries, and it was only on climbing up to it that one perceived that it was not all quite modern, and a small portion built of very large bricks on an ancient wall. ”

“ Firewood, which is scarce, is stored piled up on the top of roofs, whence a little at a time is taken down for fuel, and prominent in front of the village was a coarse and well-fortified pen for sheep. ”

“ The boots were matters of serious consideration.
As to the firewood, there is a great difference as to the comfort to be got out of the same quantity of firewood, depending on the manner in which it is used, but even with the utmost care and economy, it will consume away, and in a country where during seven months of the year fires are needed, a great deal must consume away. ”

“ Inside the door the floor of brick is a step below the level of the ground. Sometimes a peculiar but not altogether unpleasant odour fills the low-pitched sitting-room—it is emitted by the roots burning upon the fire, hissing as the sap exudes and boils in the fierce heat. When the annual fall of timber takes place the butts of the trees are often left in the earth, to be afterwards grubbed and split for firewood, which goes to the great house or is sold. ”

“ Were told that we should find no firewood where we were going, and orders issued that each man was to carry a bundle of kindling wood strapped on top of his pack. We shall look like a mob of walking Christmas Trees when we get all on. ”

“ Nearby is a stretch of burned land covered thinly with second growth saplings, and near the edge of the evergreen forest in which we will build our camp stands plenty of dead timber, tamarack, white spruce, and a few pine stubs, all of which will make excellent firewood. In the forest itself we find straight spruce trees, both large and small, balsam, and a few white birches, the loose bark of which will make the best kindling known. ”

“ Now you are ready for the hand-chunks, or andirons. These are shorter sticks of wood, eight or ten inches thick, laid at right angles to the backlog, four or five feet apart. Across these you are to build up the firewood proper.
Use a dry spruce-tree, not one that has fallen, but one that is dead and still standing, if you want a lively, snapping fire. Use a hard maple or a hickory if you want a fire that will burn steadily and make few sparks. ”

“ I think we will find the remains of their fire just beyond the low hill on the crest of which the bushes grow so thick. Once more it is mind and not eye that tells me so, Dagaeoga. They would build a fire near because they had begun to look for firewood, which is always plentiful in the forest, and they would surely choose the dip which lies beyond the hill, because the circling ridge with its frieze of bushes would hide the flames. ”

“ At night these waters froze, bringing fields of ice almost to our door. We forgot all our other interests in the joy of the games which we played thereon at every respite from school, or from the wood-pile, for splitting firewood was our first spring task.
From time to time as the weather permitted, father had been cutting and hauling maple and hickory logs from the forests of the Cedar River, and these logs must now be made into stove-wood and piled for summer use. ”

“ It also is excellent firewood, surpassing every other kind, and setting at naught our old adage, "The man is yet to come, who can find better wood to burn than oak." This wood is far better as well for heat as duration. It possesses a peculiar sap, which causes it to burn freely, whether green or dry. If we draw it up out of the fresh water where it has lain a long time, still, on account of its hardness, it is even then uncommonly durable on the fire. ”

“ Very rapid in growth, so much so that in the dense forest stands, when a portion of the woods has been cut down, the young saplings cannot always withstand the wind pressure and are blown down. Reaches a height in the forest of a hundred and twenty feet, but in the open is broader and more symmetrical. Too much cannot be said in praise of this tree. Its shade is dense and its autumn colouring superb. The sap yields maple syrup and sugar, and, finally, after it has done its work and is cut down, its wood yields lumber of the highest value, while the limbs make excellent firewood. ”

“ Foliage of the Ironwood is dense and evergreen, and the wood is very heavy and so hard that it cannot be worked with ordinary tools. When thoroughly dry, it makes high-quality firewood, and as a result it has been cut and removed over much of the desert, hence mature trees are becoming relatively scarce. Indians used the wood for arrow points and as tool handles. ”

“ They certainly would want firewood, Uncle John said, and they must always depend on having to make many journeys to the forest to get wood. But the ground must be cleared and kept open round about the village, so that there might be pasture for the cattle and ground for growing corn and other crops. ”

“ We come upon many old stumps of Scotch fir, the remains of the original wood; they make capital firewood, though some burn rather too fiercely, being full of turpentine. Many are still quite sound, though it must be six-and-twenty years since they were felled. They are very hard to grub, with their thick taproots and far-reaching laterals, and still tougher to split up, their fibres are so much twisted, and the dark-red heart-wood has become hardened till it rings to a blow almost like metal. ”

“ The army takes a lot of it, and those who, in ordinary winters, have wood to sell, have to keep it for themselves this year. Père has cut down all the old trees he could find—old prune trees, old apple trees, old chestnut trees—and it is not the best of firewood. ”

“ Not many uses have been found for the wood of these primeval forests. In many 44 sections the people have nothing but sagebrush for firewood. The whole tree is used, special stoves, or heaters, being made to accommodate the whole plant. ”

“ But green, resinless Sequoia wood burns very slowly, and many successive fires are required to burn down a large tree. Fires can run only at intervals of several years, and when the ordinary amount of firewood that has rolled against the gigantic trunk is consumed, only a shallow scar is made, which is slowly deepened by recurring fires until far beyond the centre of gravity, and when at last the tree falls, it of course falls uphill. ”

“ It was eight miles back; nevertheless he set out, of his own free will; tramped the eight miles, that wet, blustery day, and returned in five and one-half hours, bearing on his back a heavy load, over 100 pounds of most acceptable firewood. Sixteen miles afoot for a load of wood! But it seemed well worth it as we revelled in the blessed blaze.
Next day two interesting observations were made; down by the shore I found the midden-heap of a Lemming family. It contained about four hundred pellets: their colour and dryness, with the absence of grass, showed that they dated from winter. ”

“ Good wood is stout, straight, well-coloured, and with no appearance or trace of water having been used to heighten it, which may be easily detected on a careful inspection, although the unwary have on several occasions been known to have purchased, and shipped home to Britain, quantities of the common firewood in place of it, as after being wetted, it acquires the colour of Sapan-wood, sufficiently to deceive an ignorant or careless purchaser. ”

“ About firewood-gathering by the poor in woods and forests, my old friend of Fonthill Bishop says that the people of the villages adjacent to the Fonthill and Great Ridge Woods were allowed to take as much dead wood as they wanted from those places. ”

“ But as the slow growth of the tree and the imports of foreign woods are prohibitive of any prospect of profit to the British planter, the only service to which the hornbeam can be usefully put in this country is the production of firewood and the formation of hedges. ”

“ On the way home we religiously snowballed every fowl we passed, and the roads are full of them. The days are dreadfully dreary, and it is only these events that seem to lighten the monotonous gloom. Firewood is very scarce and expensive, and only on rare occasions do we have a fire worth anything. If we do by chance have wood it is often wet, and the wretched tin stoves choke the place with smoke. I half decided to have a stove in my bedroom, but, besides that being fearfully small, the trouble is to get wood, which comes in tiny donkey loads at fictitious prices. ”

“ By and by pheasants as well as rabbits were strictly preserved, and the firewood-gatherers were excluded altogether. At present you find dead wood lying about all over the place, abundantly as in any primitive forest, where trees die of old age or disease, or are blown down or broken off by the winds and are left to rot on the ground, overgrown with ivy and brambles. But of all this dead wood not a stick to boil a kettle may be taken by the neighbouring poor lest the pheasants should be disturbed or a rabbit be picked up. ”

“ The wood of the white oak is very heavy and hard, and durable in contact with the soil. It is used in the construction and interior finish of buildings and in ship-building, for making carriages, cabinets, agricultural implements, baskets, and for fences and railroad ties. It also makes excellent firewood.
The specific name refers to the light color of the wood and bark in contrast with that of the black oaks. It is found from Southern Maine to Northern Florida and westward. ”

“ I have instituted an album for poetry on the subject, and have been obliged already to buy a third volume from the bookbinder. I can discover nothing particular in a wood; fundamentally it is always the same. Some trunks are darker, others lighter; the leaves larger or smaller, dented or downy, and if one looks through between the stems it always bears the same aspect, and a forester, moreover, certainly only thinks of building or firewood. ”

“ Almost any kind of wood will burn when it is dry, but it takes experience to know the kinds of trees that will burn when they are green. If there is no dry wood in the neighbourhood, and we are obliged to cut a tree down to get our supply, it is very important to pitch our camp somewhere near the right kind of a tree and not be obliged to carry our firewood a long distance. The best “green wood” for the campers’ fire is hickory, although birch is excellent. Hickory is also the best dry wood. Other trees that will burn well when green are cedar, white ash, locust or white oak. ”

“ The hard woods are best for cooking and heating, since they burn more slowly, and give out considerable heat [118] and burn down to a body of glowing coals. Soft woods are quick to catch fire, burn rapidly, and make a hot fire, but burn down to dead ashes. Hickory is by far the best firewood of the North, in that it makes a hot fire, is long-burning, and forms a large body of coals that gives an even and intense heat for a considerable length of time. Next to hickory comes chestnut; the basket oaks, ironwood, dogwood, and ash are the woodsman’s favorites. ”

“ In the wood you may hear no sound but your own muffled footsteps, the crackle of dry twigs, and the soft swish of boughs swinging back from your passage, and now and then a tree punctuating the silence with a clear resonant crack of frozen fibres and its faint echo. You hear no bird nor squirrel nor sound of woodman's axe, nor do you catch the pungent fragrance of his fire nor the subtler one of fresh-cut wood. Indeed, all odors of the forest seem frozen out of the air or locked up in their sources. No perfume drops from the odor-laden evergreens, only scentless air reaches your nostrils. ”

“ The wood and foliage of coniferous trees like spruce, fir, and pine are so full of turpentine and resin that they burn like tinder. The heat is almost beyond the power of words to express. The fire does not seem to burn in a steady manner, the flames just breathe upon an immense tree and it becomes a blackened skeleton which will burn for hours. ”