HOW TO USE THE KEY.
Nobody need expect to be able to use successfully any key for the distinction of woods or of any other class of natural objects without some practice. This is especially true with regard to woods, which are apt to vary much, and when the key is based on such meager general data as the present. The best course to adopt is to supply one's self with a small sample collection of woods, accurately named. Small, polished tablets are of little use for this purpose. The pieces should be large enough, if possible, to include pith and bark, and of sufficient width to permit ready inspection of the cross-section. By examining these with the aid of the key, beginning with the better-known woods, one will soon learn to see the features described and to form an idea of the relative standards which the maker of the key had in mind. To aid in this, the accompanying illustrations will be of advantage. When the reader becomes familiar with the key, the work of identifying any given piece will be comparatively easy. The material to be examined must, of course, be suitably prepared. It should be moistened; all cuts should be made with a very sharp knife or razor and be clean and smooth, for a bruised surface reveals but little structure. The most useful cut may be made along one of the edges. Instructive, thin, small sections may be made with a sharp penknife or razor, and when placed on a piece of thin glass, moistened and covered with another piece of glass, they may be examined by holding them toward the light.
Finding, on examination with the magnifier, that it contains pores, we know it is not coniferous or non-porous. Finding no pores collected in the spring-wood portion of the annual ring, but all scattered (diffused) thru the ring, we turn at once to the class of "Diffuse-porous woods." We now note the size and manner in which the pores are distributed thru the ring. Finding them very small and neither conspicuously grouped, nor larger nor more abundant in the spring-wood, we turn to the third group of this class. We now note the pith rays, and finding them neither broad nor conspicuous, but difficult to distinguish, even with the magnifier, we at once exclude the wood from the first two sections of this group and place it in the third, which is represented by only one kind, cottonwood. Finding the wood very soft, white, and on the longitudinal section with a silky luster, we are further assured that our determination is correct. We may now turn to the list of woods and obtain further information regarding the occurrence, qualities, and uses of the wood.
Sometimes our progress is not so easy; we may waver in what group or section to place the wood before us. In such cases we may try each of the doubtful roads until we reach a point where we find ourselves entirely wrong and then return and take up another line; or we may anticipate some of the later mentioned features and finding them apply to our specimen, gain additional assurance of the direction we ought to travel. Color will often help us to arrive at a speedy decision. In many cases, especially with conifers, which are rather difficult to distinguish, a knowledge of the locality from which the specimen comes is at once decisive. Thus, northern white cedar, and bald cypress, and the cedar of the Pacific will be identified, even without the somewhat indefinite criteria given in the key.