HOUGH, Romeyn Beck (1857-1924). American Woods illustrated by actual specimens: Commercial Species. Lowville, NY: prepared by the author, 1916.

2 parts in 2 volumes, 8vo (227 x 150 mm). Text volumes with illustrations. 150 samples of wood, representing wafer-thin transverse, radial and tangential sections, illustrating 50 species, window-mounted in 50 card mounts. (A few wood samples with tiny chips or cracks, one mount creased.) Text bound in original printed wrappers, samples on card mounts unbound as issued, each text volume and accompanying sample cards loose in original green cloth covers (a few tiny separations along hinges), the covers in matching half morocco over green cloth slipcases, with metal catches. Provenance: bookplates.

FIRST EDITION of the text, presumably reissuing samples used in a contemporary edition of Hough's American Woods (retaining the plate numbering from that edition): "In the issuing of American Woods as originally planned -- to cover all of the woods of the United States and Canada that are of economic or special botanical importance -- it has been found that many people limit their interest in the subject to the comparatively few woods that are recognized as of the greatest commercial value. It is to accommodate that class that we have decided to issue two special volumes...covering the fifty kinds of American woods with the U. S. Census returns report to have been most largely manufactured into lumber during the period of one year -- 1912" (Preface to Commercial Woods Part I, p.i.). Volume I includes examples of hard wood, such as ash, beech, birch, cherry, chestnut, elm, maple, oak and walnut; volume II includes examples of soft woods, such as cedar, cypress, fir, pine, redwood and spruce. Not in Stafleu & Cowan TL2.

Property From the Westland Library of the Frontier

This lot is located in Chicago.

HOUGH, Romeyn Beck (1857-1924). American Woods illustrated by actual specimens: Commercial Species. Lowville, NY: prepared by the author, 1916.