ENCYCLOPEDIA. OF WOOD
was exposed to wood identification at an early age while working at our family sawmill in Union County, Tennessee, during the summers. I felt a great deal of curiosity about the vast differences I could see between the logs of various species as they were “opened up” and the lumber moved from the saw deck.
Oak, poplar and other common hardwood logs made up the majority of logs delivered to the mill, but there was the occasional odd species, such as persimmon or sassafras. My job was to separate the lumber by species. If a poplar board was found in a stack of oak, that was my fault, so I quickly learned my woods.
At that time I only knew the common names of the different species. Not until I encountered wood anatomy courses in forestry school did I realize the importance of scientific names, for common names were variable from region to region.
Wood identification has come a long way since the turn of the century, when Yale was the only school teaching forestry studies. Now there are 25 to 30 places where wood identification is offered as part of the curriculum. When I was in forestry school in North Carolina, just after World War II, an integral part of our work involved identifying wood samples. When we came across an unfamiliar species, say sourwood, which wasn’t a commercial wood, our task became more difficult. I can still remember a classmate of mine, a war veteran who survived Guadalcanal, remarking that he swore he’d never worry about another thing in his life, but there he was worrying, as we all did, because he couldn’t tell the difference between ash and hickory.
At the time, wood identification tools consisted of a hand lens and textbooks featuring small black-and-white photos of species samples. With a view to reducing the anxiety associated with identifying wood, I have worked very closely over the years with a photography lab at the University of Tennessee to get better photos. Wood lovers can now refer to good quality 8-by-10-inch photos of wood types in all sorts of places—from woodworking publications to bookstores in our national parks.
