Solid wood swells with humidity and shrinks across the grain when dry. This movement of the wood produces cracks if the wide wooden top of a table is secured to the finishing end board (bread board attached to hide end grain) and the batten attached under the top to provide additional strength by multiple fasteners.
Some early furniture builders solved this problem by making the joint that attaches the bread board end and the batten by a long "dovetail" joint. The batten or bread board is kept from sliding off the top by a single peg into the the table top and now the expansion/contraction takes place at will with no constraint. A 30” wide pine top will contract nearly 1/2 inch from my New Jersey summer shop weather to California or Arizona dryness on even in a heated house in the winter.
You can see this dovetail joint in the picture as well as the pin that secures the stretcher between the "X" legs of my Saw Buck table.
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