: Ed Minch wrote:

"Interesting that the imported American Walnut is less expensive than oak - but
I am not sure what ?Wainscot? oak is.  Did they not have a lot of English
Walnut?"

"Wainscot oak" would be riven oak, later the best quartersawn oak, wide boards
with lots of flake figure in it. The English regarded black walnut (jugulans
nigra) as an inferior substitute, coarser and softer than jugulans regia; but I
think that black walnut was being harvested out of old-growth forest so there
was a lot more of it, while English walnut was only available as occasional
ornamental and orchard trees. And there was always a shortage of jugulans regia,
apart from anything else due to its popularity for gunstocks, so if I remember
correctly they also imported a lot of it from France and even from the Middle
East.
Tom Conroy