Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense it is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of trees. In a living tree it conducts water and nutrients to the leaves and other growing tissues, and has a support function, enabling woody plants to reach large sizes or to stand up for themselves. Wood forms around a central core in a series of concentric layers called growth rings.
 * What is Wood?**

**Classification and properties** Wood is one of the most abundant and a versatile natural material on earth, and unlike coal, ores and petroleum, is renewable with proper care. The most widely used woods come from two groups of trees: the conifers, or softwoods, and the hardwoods. Trees classified as hardwoods are not necessarily harder than softwoods (e.g., balsa, a hardwood, is one of the softest woods). Density and moisture content affect the strength of wood; in addition to load strength, other variable factors often tested include elasticity and toughness. Wood is insulating to heat and electricity and has desirable acoustical properties. Some identifying physical characteristics of wood include colour, odour, texture, and grain. **Commercial uses**

Wood has been used for thousands of years as a building material for homes, bridges, fences, barns, and furniture. Building with wood is cost effective, aesthetically pleasing, and environmentally responsible.
 * **Construction**

The burning of wood is currently the largest use of energy derived from a solid fuel biomass. Wood fuel can be used for cooking and heating.
 * **Fuel**

Wood has always been used extensively for furniture, including chairs and beds. Also for tool handles, cutlery, toothpicks, and other utensils, like the wooden spoon.
 * **Furniture and utensils**

Wood has long been used as an artistic medium. It has been used to make sculptures and cervings for thousands of years. Certain types of musical instruments, such as those of the violin family, the guitar, the clarinet and recorder, the xylophone, and the marimba, are made mostly or entirely of wood. The choice of wood may make a significant difference to the tone and resonant qualities of the instrument and tonewoods have widely differing properties.
 * **In the arts**

Many types of sports equipment are made of wood, for example, cricket bats are typically made of white willow. The baseball bats which are legal for use in Major League Baseball are frequently made of ash wood or hickory, and in recent years have been constructed from maple even though that wood is somewhat more fragile.
 * **Sports and recreational equipment**

**Different Kinds Of Wood**
 * **Ash** is rather lighter colored than oak, but is sometimes used in connection with it. It is less likely to split.
 * **Beech,** a very close and tough wood, is mainly used for the framework of chairs, tables, and beds. It is nearly of the color of birch, but rather paler and it may be known by the presence of those peculiar little specks of darker brown, which are easily seen in a carpenter's plane.
 * **Birch** is very close-grained, strong, and easily worked. It is of a pale yellowish brown. If polished or varnished, it somewhat resembles satinwood, but is darker.It is used in the better kinds of low-priced furniture.
 * **Cedar** somewhat resembles mahogany, though more purplish. The best varieties have a peculiarly pleasant aroma, which is offensive to moths; hence it is highly valued for making drawers and chests for clothing.
 * **Chestnut** is coarse-grained, strong, elastic, light, and very durable. Some of the best of the cheaper furniture is made of it. It looks so much like white oak as to be frequently used in combination with it.
 * **Ebony** is of a deep black color, and highly prized for several purposes, particularly inlaying. It is exceedingly hard, heavy, and durable, but expensive. Pear and other woods dyed black are often substituted for it; but are not so susceptible of good polish and luster, or so permanent in color. The best comes from Africa; a kind variegated with brown is brought from Mauritius and Ceylon.
 * **Mahogany** is imported of two kinds — Honduras and Spanish. The former has a coarse, loose, and straight grain, without much curl or wave. The latter is darker, with curl, by which in great measure its price is regulated, and with a very fine, close texture. Spanish mahogany is free from ally tendency to warp. When, how-ever, it is very much curled, it is not nearly so strong or so free from twist; but this is of little consequence, as its value is so great that it is generally veneered on to some less valuable wood, as Honduras or cedar. The heaviest mahogany is generally the best.
 * **Maple** is of several qualities, the bird's-eye maple being most highly valued. It somewhat resembles satinwood, but is more buff than yellow, has more curl, and more “bird’s-eye.” Maple is light and not very durable, and is used only in the cheaper kinds of furniture.
 * **Oak.** There are several varieties, of which the white oak, the red oak, and the live oak are the most important. The first is most used. Oak takes long to season, and is worse than most woods if used green. It is very hard to work. Its appearance improves with age.
 * **Pearwood** is of a light yellow color, and, on account of its even grain, a favorite wood for carving. It is often stained to imitate ebony.
 * **Pine** is used in two varieties, the white and the yellow. When thoroughly dry, these woods are very free from all tendencies to warp or shrink; but in a half-seasoned state articles made of them fall to pieces. They are readily distinguished from one another by the difference of color. When oiled and varnished, both kinds of pine look very well. It seems a sin to stain it.
 * **Rattan**, form strips of which the seats of cane chairs are made, is brought from China, Japan, and Sumatra. A very pretty and durable style of summer-chairs, lounges, tables, baskets, etc., is now made wholly of rattan.
 * **Rosewood** is hard and dark, with some little curl, intermediate in this respect between Spanish and Honduras mahogany, and of a very open grain. Most articles of rosewood furniture are veneered, but the best are of solid wood. The color, which consists of large elongated dark zones on a reddish-brown ground, is permanent, unless it be much exposed to the direct rays of the sun ; and it takes a fine polish, which is improved by slight waxing, or, better, by the French polish, which brings out the color of the wood admirably.
 * **Satinwood** is now used mainly for inlaying, lining, and veneers. It is of a full yellowish color, with a fine grain, little curl, and a silky luster. Its toughness fits it well for furniture.
 * **Walnut** is a native wood, but is used in such prodigious quantity that it is also exported from the USA. Well seasoned it is exceedingly tough and little inclined to warp.

__Notes of the Video__


 * British columbia --> Production and wood works lider
 * Wood structures had proved to be efficient, strong, safe and durable over hundred of years
 * British Columbia has the most international quality control. Their high quality wood products are recognized for strength, accuracy and long lasting performance.
 * Wood structures demand is growing rapidly all over the world
 * Wood performance in earthquaques are better than steel and concrete, and produce less human injury making this kind of structures safer than other ones.
 * Wood structures are stronger and light weighted
 * Wood is flexible and this is why the wood has the capability to absorb sismic forces, and also it protects of winds and cyclones.
 * Wood contains fire as well as other construction materials.
 * Wood stays warmer on winter and cooler on summer because of its thermal properties.