Learning to read wood
Have you ever tried to read wood? If you can find a tree which has been cut down, you will see many rings on the base of the trunk. By learning to read these rings, you can find out about the tree’s life. The number of rings tells you how old the tree is. Each year, new wood is formed on the outside of the tree. The new wood is light in colour when the tree is growing in the spring and summer, and dark in winter when the tree is not growing much. Try counting the rings of dark-or-light-coloured wood, and see if you can find out how old the tree is. It is also possible to work out which years have been good years, and which years have been bad years.
When the light-coloured rings are wide, it means that the tree has been growing quickly that year. But if the rings are narrow, the tree has been growing slowly. If the rings on a tree trunk were put under a microscope, you would be able to see why the rings are lightcoloured when the tree is growing quickly, and dark coloured when the tree is growing slowly. The trunk is made up of microscopic tubes that carry water and minerals from the soil, through the trunk, and up to the leaves. When the tree is growing quickly, the tubes are wide, and thin-walled, and they are carrying a lot of water. But when the tree is not growing quickly, they are narrow ana bunched together.
As a tree ages, the tubes in the tree’s centre do not carry water because the tubes are full of bits and pieces that have got stuck in them. This type of wood is darker than the wood on the outside, which is growing. Most of New Zealand’s pine trees do not have this "old” wood because they are cut down at a relatively "young” age. It takes about 60 years before this “old” wood, known as "heartwood,” begins to form. It is also possible to make out where the branches were on a tree.
You should have a look at some of the wooden furniture and boxes in your bouse, and see if you can learn anything about the wood from which they were made.
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Press, 9 March 1982, Page 18
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388Learning to read wood Press, 9 March 1982, Page 18
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