Again, the same wood is known in different localities by different names, so in order to have a sound knowledge of lumber, it is really necessary to know something about the trees. White wood, just mentioned, is called, in many localities, yellow poplar. As a matter of fact, it is not a poplar, nor is it related to the poplars, being a member of the magnolia family.
The following pages, devoted to this subject, are the cream of many talks between our boys, boiled down to the important facts and arranged in some order. It was a hobby of Ralph's, and Harry became so enthusiastic over it that they frequently laid aside their work and took long walks through the country studying trees.
Harry started a small nursery in the garden and is raising young trees from seeds and cuttings. As he remarked to Ralph one day: "It's astonishing how little people know about trees! Why they are the most interesting things that grow. Just think how many things we get from them besides wood; maple sugar, rubber, turpentine, wood alcohol, tannin for making leather, shellac, Canada balsam, spruce gum, and nuts! All of our nuts except peanuts come from trees—hickory, walnuts, butternuts, beechnuts, chestnuts, pecans, almonds, etc."
Ralph noticed that as Harry's interest in the trees grew he became less wasteful of his wood in the shop. The fact that a tree had to be cut, and in most cases killed, in order to furnish him with lumber, seemed to worry him. One day when he was thoughtfully at work in the shop, he blurted out, "It's a shame that so many trees have to be cut down for lumber!"
"Yes," said Ralph, "it seems so; yet if no lumber was wasted, it would not be so bad. It is estimated that 75 per cent. of the wood cut down is wasted."
"How?" asked the boy.
"Well, in the first place, many lumbermen after cutting the tree down, take just the log or lower part and leave the top to decay. It often happens that they leave the tops and branches as a great mass of litter, which soon becomes as dry as tinder, an invitation to the smallest spark to start a fire, and more woodland is destroyed by fire each year than I care to tell you."
"How much?" asked Harry.
"Every year, between twelve and fifteen million acres, and some years three times as much."
"How much is a million acres?"