Bradley Malcolm, age 13, of El Paso, Texas, for his question:
WHERE DO WE GET BIRD'S EYE MAPLE?
Maple is a handsome and valuable tree of North America. More than 100 species of the maple family are known, and some are valuable because they supply maple sugar while others are valuable because they supply us with fine wood.
The wood in a small percentage of hard maple trees shows a beautiful spotted design. Each spot is about an eighth of an inch across and looks a little like a bird's eye. It is this wood that has received the name of bird's eye maple.
The spots are caused by numerous indented places, more or less close together, in the annual rings of growth. Special methods of sawing are necessary to bring out the design.
The method called plain sawing, or tangent sawing, gives us bird's eye lumber. Veneer is cut by slicing round and round the tree, cutting in the same direction as the growth rings. The saw pares off a thin layer from the surface as the log turns.
Then smoothing the surface by planning and polishing brings out the full richness of the design.
The bird's eye design is seldom found in any other kind of wood. It is not known exactly what causes the indented places in the rings. They are not due to buds growing underneath the bark, as many people think.
Most bird's eye maple veneer comes from the northern peninsula of Michigan.
Curly and wavy grained maple are other woods with special patterns. The fibers take either an irregular, curly course, or are arranged in regular waves. These growths produce beautiful effects of light and shade.
The cause of curly and wavy grain also is unknown. Unlike bird's eye grain, they appear in many other kinds of wood besides maple. They are found in both hardwoods and softwoods.
Figured maple with twisted wood fibers is highly prized both as lumber and veneer.
Figured maple is used for bedroom furniture, desks, wall paneling, fancy gunstocks and violin backs. The design preferred for violins is a fine wavy grain that has been given the name "fiddleback" figure. The figure has the same name when it appears in other woods that are not used for violins, such as mahogany.
Other American maples include the silver maple, which is grown in many places. This is a hardy tree that grows quickly. It has beautiful shimmering silver and green leaves, but light, brittle wood.
The big leaf, or Oregon maple, is one of the few valuable hardwoods of the Pacific coast. The red, scarlet or swamp maple is a valuable ornamental and lumber tree. Its red or scarlet flowers appear in the late spring before the leaves.
The sugar, rock or hard maple is the most important of maples. It grows from Newfoundland to the Great Lakes, south to Georgia and west to Manitoba and Texas. Delicious golden brown maple syrup comes from the sugary sap of the hard maple. The hard maple also outranks all other maples as a lumber tree.