TIMBER

Good timber should be| without sap—the heartwood of a sound tree that has reached maturity. The annual rings should be regular and uniform, and not too wide apart. It should be free from blemishes of all kinds, should smell sweet, and have a silky appearance when newly planed. Among colored timbers darkne of color is a sign of strength and durability. The strongest part of a tree is that which contains the rings last formed. Pine, fir, ash,| beech, elm, spruce, and oak are gener-| ally considered at their best when aged from seventy to one hundred years, though oak may still be good at two hundred years. For all practical pur-| poses the timber used for building and engineering works may be divided into two cla es—soft wood, which includes pines, firs, spruce, larch, and all cone bearing trees and resinous woods; hard wood, including oak, teak, elm, ash, and mahogany—in other words, non-| resinous or leaf woods. A log is a tree| with its branches only lopped off; balk is roughly squared from the all other varieties are parallel-sided pieces of timber from 2 to 6 in. thick. Lumber is the term for roughly prepared timber, such as beams, joists, etc. Timber includes such trees as are] ordinarily used for building purposes.|and Timber trees are considered to be part| of the freehold, and neither the lease-| holder nor a tenant for life may ordinarily cut them; but on some estates timber is grown for cutting at a certain age. See Lumspr INDUSTRY.