The uses of yellow poplar are so many that an enumeration is
impracticable, except by general classes. These are boxes and
woodenware, vehicles, furniture, interior finish, and car building.
There is another class consisting of low-grade work, such as common
lumber, pulpwood, and the like.
There is a class of commodities which are usually packed in boxes and
require a wood that will impart neither taste nor stain. That
requirement is met by yellow poplar. It has been an important wood for
boxes in which food products are shipped. It is so used less frequently
now than formerly because of increased cost, but veneer is employed to a
large extent, and while the total quantity of wood going into box
factories is smaller than formerly, the actual number and contents of
poplar boxes are perhaps about the same. It is a white wood and shows
printing and stenciling clearly. That is an important point with many
manufacturers who wish to print their advertisements on the boxes which
they send out. Woodenware, particularly ironing boards, bread boards,
and pantry and kitchen utensils, are largely made of poplar because it
is light, attractive, and easily kept clean. It is popular as pumplogs
for the same reason.
As a vehicle wood, yellow poplar is not a competitor of oak and hickory.
They are for running gear and frames; poplar for tops and bodies. No
wood excels it for wide panels. It receives finish and paint so well
that it is not surpassed by the smoothest metals. Many of the finest
carriage and automobile tops are largely of this wood. In case of slight
accidents it resists dints much better than sheet metal.
Cheap furniture was once made of yellow poplar. It now enters into the
best kinds, and is finished in imitation of costly woods, notably
mahogany, birch, and cherry. No American wood will take a higher polish.
It is also much employed as an interior wood by furniture manufacturers.
It fills an important place as cores or backing over which veneers are
glued.
When used as an interior house finish and in car building, it is nearly
always stained or painted. Many of the broad handsome panels in
passenger cars, which pass for cherry, birch, mahogany, or rosewood, are
yellow poplar, to which the finisher and decorator have given their best
touches.
All poplar lumber is not wide, clear stock, though much of it is. The
lower grades go as common lumber and small trees are cut for pulpwood. A
large part of the demand for high-grade yellow poplar is in foreign
countries, and a regular oversea trade is carried on by exporters.
Foreign manufacturers put the wood to practically the same uses as the
best grades in this country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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