Timber
The wood is soft, white when first cut, turning to pale red; the knots are beautifully mottled. Under water the wood is very durable, and it is therefore used for deep foundations of buildings. The supports of the Rialto in Venice, and many buildings in Amsterdam, are of alder wood. Furniture is sometimes made from the wood, as were clogs.
As the wood is soft, flexible, somewhat light, it can be easily worked on as well as split. It is also valued furniture making, wood cuttings, clogs, pencils and bowls. In fact, cabinet makers value this wood very much.
Read more about this topic: Alnus Glutinosa
Famous quotes containing the word timber:
“Here commences what was called, twenty years ago, the best timber land in the State. This very spot was described as “covered with the greatest abundance of pine,” but now this appeared to me, comparatively, an uncommon tree there,—and yet you did not see where any more could have stood, amid the dense growth of cedar, fir, etc.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As for conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that. Let not your right hand know what your left hand does in that line of business. It will prove a failure.... It is a greater strain than any soul can long endure. When you get God to pulling one way, and the devil the other, each having his feet well braced,—to say nothing of the conscience sawing transversely,—almost any timber will give way.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Typography is not only a technology but is in itself a natural resource or staple, like cotton or timber or radio; and, like any staple, it shapes not only private sense ratios but also patterns of communal interdependence.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)