Hickory hickory and woods that are harder, but the combination of strength, toughness, hardness, and stiffness found in hickory wood is not found in any other commercial wood. It is used for tool handles, bows, wheel spokes, carts, drumsticks, lacrosse stick handles, golf club shafts (sometimes still called "hickory stick", even though made of steel or graphite), the bottom of skis, walking sticks, and for punitive use as a switch (like hazel), and especially as a cane-like hickory stick in schools and use by parents. Paddles are often made from hickory. This property of hickory wood has left a trace in
Biltmore stick science. Gifford Pinchot, the future first chief of the United States Forest Service, and then Carl A. Schenck were hired in the 1890s to restore of land around the Biltmore estate to a healthy forest. Schenck was the developer of the Biltmore stick. Ever since this time, the Biltmore stick has been used by foresters to quickly cruise timber. Biltmore stick The Biltmore stick is a tool used by foresters to estimate tree trunk diameter at breast height. The tool very often includes a hypsometer scale to estimate height as well. It looks much like an everyday yardstick. A Biltmore