PERSIMMON
(Diospyros Virginiana)

Persimmon belongs to the ebony family, and the family has contributed to the civilization of the human race since very early times. Some of the oldest furniture in existence, that which was found hidden in the ruins of ancient Egypt, is ebony, and there is evidence among the old records in the land of the Nile that the Egyptians made voyages southward through the Red sea and brought back cargoes of ebony from Punt, a region in eastern Africa. The name ebony is believed to be derived from a Hebrew word, probably brought to Palestine by some of Solomon’s captains who traded along the south coast of Asia or the east coast of Africa about the time of the building of the first temple. The botanical name for the genus (diospyros) is made up of two words meaning “Jupiter’s wheat”—supposed to be a reference to the value of persimmons as food. The name, however, is not as old as the Hebrew word, nor is the Hebrew as old as the references to ebony in the records of Egypt. A piece of the old furniture—not less than 4,000 years old—is still in existence. It probably matches in age the cedar of Lebanon coffins in the oldest Egyptian tombs.

The ebony family consists of five genera, one of which is persimmon (diospyros). This genus consists of 160 species, only two of them in the United States. Thus the persimmon trees of this country are a very small part of the family to which they belong, but they are a highly respectable part of it. The word persimmon is of Indian origin, and was used by the tribes near the Atlantic coast. The original spelling was “pessimin,” and that was probably about the pronunciation given it by the aborigines.

It has never been called by many names. It is known as date plum in New Jersey and Tennessee, and as possumwood in Florida. The avidity with which opossums feed on the fruit is responsible for the name.

The range of persimmon extends from Connecticut to Florida, and westward to Iowa, Missouri, and Texas. It reaches its largest size in the South. It is of vigorous growth, spreading by means of seeds, and also by roots. The latter is the most common method where the ground is open. Such situations as old, abandoned fields invite the spread of persimmons. Roots ramify under the ground, and sprouts spring up, often producing thickets of an acre or more. Trees do not generally reach large size if they grow in that way, but their crowded condition does not make them fruitless as can be attested to by many a boy who penetrates the persimmon thickets by means of devious paths that wind with many a labyrinthic turn which takes in all that is worth finding.

The variation in the quality of persimmons is greater than that of most wild fruits. Nature usually sets a standard and sticks closely to it, but the rule is not adhered to in the case of persimmons. Some are twice as large as others; some are never fit to eat, no matter how severely or how often they are frosted; others require at least one fierce frost to soften their austerity; but some may be eaten with relish without the ameliorating influence of frost.

The austerity of a green persimmon is due to tannin. It is supposed that cultivation might remove some of this objectionable quality, but no great success has thus far attended efforts in that direction. Japanese persimmons, which are of a different species, are cultivated with success in California.

The sizes of persimmon trees vary according to soil, climate, and situation. They average rather small, but occasionally reach a height of 100 feet and a diameter of nearly two. Mature trunks are usually little over twelve inches in diameter, and many never reach that size.

The dry wood weighs 49.28 pounds per cubic foot, which is about the weight of hickory. It is hard, strong, compact, and is susceptible of a high polish. The yearly rings are marked by one or more bands of open ducts, and scattered ducts occur in the rest of the wood. The medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous; color of heartwood dark brown, often nearly black; the sapwood is light brown, and frequently contains darker spots.

The value of persimmon depends largely upon the proportion of sapwood to heartwood. That was the case formerly more than it is now; for until recent years the heartwood of persimmon was generally thrown away, and the sapwood only was wanted; but demand for the heart has recently increased. There is much difference in the proportion of heartwood to sapwood in different trees. It does not seem to be a matter of size, nor wholly of age. Small trunks sometimes have more heart than large ones. A tree a hundred years old may have heartwood scarcely larger than a lead pencil, and occasionally there is none. In other instances the heart is comparatively large.

Persimmon has never been a wood of many uses, as hickory and oak have been. In early times it was considered valuable almost wholly on account of its fruit, and that had no commercial value, as it was seldom offered for sale in the market. In the language of the southern negroes who fully appreciated the fruit, it was “something good to run at”—meaning that the ripe persimmons were gathered and eaten from the trees while they lasted, but that few were preserved.

It is recorded that the “small wheel” of the pioneer cabins was occasionally made of persimmon wood. The wheel so designated was the machine on which wool and flax were spun by the people in their homes. Spinning wheels were of two kinds, one large, with the operator walking to and fro, the other small, with the operator sitting. It was the small wheel which was sometimes made of persimmon. There is no apparent reason why it should have been made of that wood in preference to any one of a dozen others.

The demand for persimmon in a serious way began with its use as shuttles in textile factories. Weavers had made shuttles of it for home use on hand looms for many years before the demand came from power looms where the shuttles were thrown to and fro by machinery. Up to some thirty years ago, shuttles for factories were generally made of Turkish boxwood, but the supply fell short and the advance in price caused a search for substitutes. Two satisfactory shuttlewoods were found in this country, persimmon and dogwood. The demand came not only from textile mills in America but from those of Europe. The manufacture of shuttle blocks became an industry of considerable importance.

Persimmon wood is suitable for shuttles because it wears smooth, is hard, strong, tough, and of proper weight. Most woods that have been tried for this article fail on account of splintering, splitting, quickly wearing out, or wearing rough. The shuttle is not regarded as satisfactory unless it stands 1,000 hours of actual work. Some woods which are satisfactory for many other purposes will not last an hour as a shuttle.

The manufacture of shuttles, after the square has been roughed out, requires twenty-two operations. Probably more shuttlewood comes from Arkansas than from any other section, though a dozen or more states contribute persimmon. The total sawmill cut of this wood in the United States is about 2,500,000 feet, but this does not include that which never passes through a sawmill.

The wood has other uses. It has lately met demand from manufacturers of golf heads. Skewers are made of it in North Carolina, and billiard cues and mallets in Massachusetts.

The heartwood is dark and shuttle makers and golfhead manufacturers will not have it. Until recently it was customary to throw it away, because no sale for it could be found. It is now known to be suitable for parquet flooring and for brush backs, and the demand for the heartwood is as reliable as for the sapwood. A little of the dark wood is cut in veneer and is employed in panel work, and other is used in turnery.

The seeds of persimmon furnished one of the early substitutes for coffee in backwoods settlements when the genuine article could not be obtained. They were parched and pounded until sufficiently pulverized. During the Civil war many a confederate camp in the South was fragrant with the aroma of persimmon seed coffee, after the soldiers had added the fruit to their rations of cornbread.

Mexican Persimmon (Diospyros texana) grows in Texas and Mexico. It is most abundant in southern and western Texas, where it suits itself to different soils, is found on rich moist ground near the borders of prairies, and also in rocky canyons and dry mesas. The largest trees are fifty feet high and twenty inches in diameter, but trunks that large are not abundant. The tree differs from the eastern persimmon in that the sapwood is thinner, and the heartwood makes up a much greater proportion of the trunk; the uses are consequently different, since it is taken for its dark wood, the eastern tree for its light-colored sap. The fruit of the Mexican persimmon is little esteemed. It is small, black, and the thin layer of pulp between the skin and the seed is insipid. Until fully ripe it is exceedingly austere. The Mexicans in the Rio Grande valley make a dye of the persimmons and use it to color sheep skins. The fruit’s supply of tannin probably contributes to the tanning as well as the dyeing of the sheep pelts. The wood is heavier than eastern persimmon, and has more than three fold more ashes in a cord of wood, amounting to about 160 pounds. The bark is thin and the trunk gnarled. The dark color of the wood gives it the name black persimmon in Texas. Mexicans call it chapote. Sargent pronounces it the best American substitute for boxwood for engraving purposes, but it does not appear to be used outside of Texas. The wood is irregular in color, even in the same piece, being variegated with lighter and darker streaks, and cloudy effects. It ought to be fine brush-back material. It is worked into tool handles, lodge furniture, canes, rules, pen holders, picture frames, curtain rings, door knobs, parasol handles, and maul sticks for artists.