BASSWOOD
(Tilia Americana)

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. The same names apply to all, when they occur in the same region. Few trees carry more names, and with less reason. 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. This feature alone should be sufficient to identify the basswood in this country.

Among the many names by which this tree is known, in addition to basswood, are American linden, linn, lynn, limetree, whitewood, beetree, black limetree, wickup, whistle wood, and yellow basswood.

The range is extensive, its northeastern boundary lying in New Brunswick, its southwestern in Texas. It reaches Lake Winnipeg, and is found in Georgia. This delimited area is little short of a million square miles. It reaches a height of from sixty to 120 feet, and a diameter of from eighteen inches to four feet. It has a decided preference for rich soil, and the best lumber is cut in fertile coves and flats, or in low land near streams. The largest trees formerly grew in the forests of the lower Ohio valley, but few of the giants of former times are to be found in that region now. They went to market a generation or two ago. The largest cut of basswood lumber now is in Wisconsin, Michigan, and West Virginia, but most of that from West Virginia is white basswood (Tilia heterophylla).

The wood weighs 28.20 pounds per cubic foot, which is more than the other basswoods in this country weigh. The rings of annual growth are not very clearly marked. They may be distinguished, in most cases, by a narrow, light-colored line. This is the springwood. In some trees it is much more distinct than in others. The wood is very porous, but the pores are small, cannot readily be seen with the naked eye, and are scattered pretty evenly through the yearly ring. The medullary rays are small but numerous. They give quarter-sawed lumber a pleasing luster, but are too minute to develop much figure. The general tone of the wood is white. It is soft, works easily, holds its shape well, and is tough, but is in no sense a competitor of oak and hickory in toughness, though it shows the quality best in thin panels which resist splitting and breaking.

In the days when it was customary to ceil houses with boards, both overhead and the walls of rooms, carpenters were partial to basswood because of its softness. Dressing lumber was then nearly always done by hand, and the carpenter who pushed the jack plane ten or twelve hours a day, looked pretty carefully to the softness of the wood he handled. In tongued and grooved work, as in ceiling and wainscoting, it was not necessary to dress the fitting edges as carefully when basswood was used as in using some others, because it is so soft that fittings can be forced, and cracks may be closed by driving the boards together.

Slack coopers have long employed basswood for barrel headings, and also in the manufacture of various kinds of small stave ware, such as pails, tubs, and kegs. In this use, as in ceiling, the softness of the wood is a prime consideration, because the pressure of the hoops will close any small openings. Its whiteness and its freedom from stains and unpleasant odors are likewise important when vessels are to contain food products. Box makers like the wood on that account, and large quantities are manufactured into containers for articles of food.

Much basswood is cut into veneer, some of which serves in single sheets as in making small baskets and cups for berries and small fruits, but a large part of the output is devoted to ply work. Usually three sheets are glued together, but sometimes there are five. By crossing the sheets, to make the grain of one lie at right angles to the next, plies of great strength and toughness are produced. Trunk makers are large users of such, and many panels of that kind are employed by manufacturers of furniture and musical instruments.

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. It is serviceable for advertising signs because its whiteness contrasts well with printing. Makers of thermometers use it frequently for the wooden body of the instrument, and yard sticks are made of it. Apiarists find no wood more suitable for the small, light frames in which bees build the comb.

The uses of this wood are so many and so various that lists would prove monotonous. The annual cut in this country, exclusive of veneer, is nearly 350,000,000 feet, and the demand for veneer takes many millions more.

Basswood is named for the bark, and the spelling was formerly bastwood. The manufacture of articles from the bark was once a considerable industry, not so much in this country as in Europe. However, some use has been made of the bark here. Louisiana negroes make horse collars of it by braiding many strands together, and chair bottoms are woven of it in lieu of cane and rattan, and it is likewise woven into baskets of coarse kinds. Bark is prepared for this use by soaking it in water, by which the annual layers of the bark are separated, long, thin sheets are produced, and these are reduced to strips of the desired width.

The annual cut of basswood lumber is declining with no probability that it will ever again come up to past figures; but basswood is in no immediate danger of disappearing from American forests. It is not impossible that it may be planted for commercial purposes. In central Europe, forests of basswood, there called linden, are maintained for the honey which bees gather from the bloom. In this country it is often called beetree because of the richness of its flowers in nectar. Possibly bee owners may grow forests for the honey, and when trees are mature, dispose of them for lumber.