Of the uses of the wood of particular trees.
But we must consider for what purposes[1] each several wood is serviceable. Silver-fir and fir, as has been said, are suitable both for ship-building house-building and also for other kinds of work, but silver-fir is of use for more purposes than fir. Aleppo pine is used for both kinds of building, but especially for ship-building, yet it soon rots. Oak is used for house-building, for ship-building, and also for underground work; lime for the deck-planks of long ships, for boxes, and for the manufacture of measures; its bark is also useful for ropes and writing-cases,[2] for these are sometimes made of it.
Maple and zygia are used for making beds and the yokes of beasts of burden: yew for the ornamental work attached[3] to chests and footstools and the like: kermes-oak[4] for the axles of wheelbarrows[5] and the cross-bars of lyres and psalteries: beech for making waggons and cheap carts: elm for making doors and weasel-traps, and to some extent it is also used for waggon work; pedos[6] for waggon-axles and the stocks of ploughs: andrachne is used for women for parts of the loom: Phoenician cedar for carpenters' work[7] and for work which is either to be exposed to the air or buried underground, because it does not decay. Similarly the sweet chestnut is used, and it is even less likely to decay if it is used for underground work. Box is used for some purposes; however that which grows on Mount Olympus[8] is useless, because only short pieces can be obtained and the wood[9] is full of knots. Terebinth is not used,[10] except the fruit and the resin. [11]Alaternus is only useful for feeding sheep; for it is always leafy. Hybrid arbutus is used for making stakes and for burning: holly and Judas-tree[12] for walking-sticks; some also use bay for these; for of this[13] they make light sticks and sticks for old men. Willow is used for shields hampers baskets and the like. We might in like manner add the several uses of the other woods.
[14]Distinction is also made between woods according as they are serviceable for one or other of the carpenter's tools: thus hammers and gimlets are best made of wild olive, but box elm and manna-ash are also used, while large mallets are made of Aleppo pine. In like manner there is a regular practice about each of the other tools. Such are the differences as to the uses of various woods.
- ↑ i.e. apart from ship-building and house-building, in which several woods are used.
- ↑ κίστας: cf. 3. 13. 1; perhaps 'hampers,' cf. 5. 7. 7.
- ↑ ραπακολλήματα: lit. 'things glued on.'
- ↑ Plin. 16. 229.
- ↑ ταῖς μονοστρόφοις ἁμάξαις: or, perhaps, 'the wheels of carts with solid wheels.' ταῖς conj. Sch.; τε καὶ UMV; τε καὶ μονοστρόφους ἁμάξας Ald.
- ↑ πηδος (with varying accent) MSS.: probably=πάδος, 4. 1. 3; πύοξς Ald., but see sec. 7.
- ↑ τεκτονίας can hardly be right.
- ↑ cf. 3. 15. 5.
- ↑ cf. 1. 8. 2, of box in general; Plin. 16. 71.
- ↑ Inconsistent with 5. 3. 2.
- ↑ Inconsistent with 5. 6. 2. φιλυρέα conj. Sch.
- ↑ καὶ σημύδα conj. Sch.; καὶ μυῖα U; καὶ μύα Ald. cf. 3. 14. 4.
- ↑ ταύτης conj. H.; ταύτας UMV Ald.
- ↑ Plin. 16. 230.