the wood. Often shed roofs are built over piles of lumber to protect them from sun and rain that would warp and rot them. Wood is made stronger and more durable by seasoning. If not well dried, wood splits and warps after it is made up into furniture and house fittings. Slow drying in cool air is the best seasoning of all. After air seasoning, many fine cabinet woods, like mahogany, are sawed into boards a quarter of an inch thick or less for veneering, and then kiln-dried, or baked, in warm-air ovens.
Great pains is taken to kill all insect life in wood. Ship timbers are soaked in brine. Some woods are steamed and dried. Some have the bark charred with a gas jet. Shingles are soaked in creosote to make them damp proof. Exposed wood is painted with lead paints or tars. Fine furniture woods and floors have their pores filled with resins, and are then steamed and varnished to protect the surfaces and to bring out the beauty of the grains.
How many woods do you know after they are made up into useful articles? Nearly all of them are stained, even the finest of the hardwoods. In furniture we like darker colors than are natural in the woods. Oak is yellow, from almost white to an ochre, but we stain it all shades of brown. Mahogany is a light red that darkens with age, so we stain it a dark red. Birch, a yellow wood, stains to a good imitation of mahogany. Pine and ash take any stain, even the art colors of forest green and russet brown. Teak is a brown wood that the Chinese wood-carvers stain an ebony black, then carve and inlay with mother of pearl. The walnuts are stained soft, dark browns. White mahogany and bird-eye maple are two woods that are more beautiful unstained. But, as a rule, stains in acting unevenly, bring out the grains, the rays and curls in wood in greater beauty than if they are left in the natural colors. (See Forestry, Forest-Reserves, Lumbering.)
