What Is Wood?
Its chief ingredients, charcoal and water, are uncostly and abundant; but in themselves they are useless to the carpenter, and he cannot change them into timber. So he calls to remembrance that his great grandfather planted an acorn, which has turned its first small capital to so excellent account that now it is a timber-merchant on a large scale, and will contract with you to build a ship of war out of oak of its own making. It is with other trees as with this ancestral oak. Each, with its republic of industrious roots and leaves, is a joint-stock company with limited liability, engaging to furnish you with pine-stems for masts, fir-wood for planking, logwood for dyeing, cork-bark for bottling, oak-bark for tanning, walnut for tables, rosewood for picture-frames, satinwood for looking-glasses, willow for cradles, mahogany for wardrobes, ebony for will-chests, elm-tree for coffins.—Those trees form the Worshipful Company of Woodmakers, an ancient guild.—Ibid.