Dogwood's Many Uses

1896

Dogwood wands make excellent whipstocks, and are used in some of the best whips. They are cut sometimes by coachmen in the suburbs and sent to town to be dressed and made up into whips. The stocks made of this wood are notable for their ornamental knobs at regular intervals, being the truncated and rounded branches. These are imitated in some other whipstocks, but the imitation is a cause of weakness. The dogwood stocks are extremely tough and elastic, being comparable in elasticity with whalebone.

The wood is used also for butchers' skewers, and some philologists conjecture that the first syllable of the name is a corruption of "dag," meaning a spine or dagger. Dogwood, as being peculiarly free from silex, is used by watchmakers and opticians in cleaning watches and lenses. The bitter bark of the dogwood is used also as a substitute for the Peruvian quinine tree.

Dogwood is notably of slow growth, and in all thickly populated regions the tree is recklessly despoiled for the sake of its blossoms, so that the supply of the wood for commercial purposes is not large. — New York Sun.