In Illinois and Michigan tupelo is listed among woods manufactured into pianos, organs, mandolins, and guitars. In Maryland they make scows and barges of it. In Arkansas and Louisiana it is worked into excelsior and slack cooperage stock. It is a favorite wood in Mississippi for pumplogs and broom handles. Its leading reported use in Texas is for porch columns. In Missouri it is manufactured into laundry appliances, such as washboards, clothes racks, and ironing boards. In nearly all manufacturing centers of the country it is made into furniture and interior finish. It is frequently substituted for yellow poplar in panels, not only in furniture and cabinet work, but in carriage bodies.
The supply of tupelo in southern forests is fairly large, and will meet demand for some years, but it is a tree of slow growth, and when present stands are cut, a new supply will probably never come.
SOUR TUPELO (_Nyssa ogeche_) appears to be the only member of the gum group whose fruit is of any value to man, and it is not very important. The large, dull red drupes ripen in July and August, and sometimes hang on the trees until late fall, allowing ample time for gathering them. They are very sour, for which reason the tree is called sour gum. The fruit is put through a pickling process which renders it palatable and it is not an infrequent article on southern pantry shelves. The range of the tree is confined to the region near the coast from the southern border of South Carolina, through the Ogeechee river valley in Georgia, to northern and western Florida. The botanical name refers to the river along whose course the trees are most abundant. Local names are gopher plum, Ogeechee lime, and wild lime. The tree is sixty or seventy feet high, one or two in diameter, and is often divided in several stems. Its wood is lightest of the gums, weighing only 28.75 pounds per cubic foot. It is diffuse-porous, and the springwood is scarcely distinguishable from the summerwood. The annual rings of growth are indistinct, and the medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous. The wood is weak, soft, tough, and white, and little difference is apparent between heart and sapwood. The flowers are rich in honey and are valuable to bee keepers. It appears that no reports exist of the use of this wood for any purpose. It is not abundant anywhere.