Hardwoods

By D.J. CAHILL Pres. Western Hardwood Lumber Co.

Hardwood, properly stained and finished, is beautiful, ancl "a thing of beauty is a joy forever."

The home owner glows with satisfaction rvhile exhibiting to admiring friends the beautiful hardwood finish and polished hardwood floors of his home; the housewife points rvith pride to her Quartered Oak Table, her Mahogany Chair, or her Walnut dresser; the landlord swells with confidence while explaining to the prospective tenant the beauties of the hardrvood finished residence or apartrnent offered for rent, and the realty salesman finds a hardwood finished interior an unfailing stimulus to a quick and profitable sale.

In the older communities very few homes are built rvithout the use of hardwood in at least the main rooms, but in the newer rapidly grorving localities beauty is too often sacniiiced to speed and elegance to economy.

Unfortunately our own community was for many years guilty of the sin of omission in the rnatter of hardwood interiors and rnany a home buil' in the past rvith an im,-rosing exteri.ror and beautiful surr.rundings, presents a cotnmonplace appearance when one crosses the threshold, because from a mistaken notion of their excessive cost, or an absence of appreciation of their beauties the owner failed to use hardwoods for the interior finish. Happily, this condition is now being remedied to a considerable degree, ancl a constantly increasing number of homes are being finished in hardwoods.

There are several reasons for this. In the past many of the planing mills, owing to the pressure of business occasioned by our unprecedented building activities, and the greater facility rvith which pine finish can. be qrepared, iather discouraged the use of hardrvoods by quoting relatively high prices on jobs rvhere alternate bids on hardrvoods and pine were asked. Then, too, stocks carried by

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( Continued from Page l3) the hardrvood yards here rvere not so varied and ample as they now are, kiln drying facilities u'ere limited rvhere norv they are extensive, and the builder and architect were not always alive to the fact that even if the price of hardwoods' per thousand feet was cornparatively high, because of the small quantitv required to finish an averag'e room, the total added cost over softr,vood' was lty no means prohibitive.

Again, in recent years, a great stimulus to the use of hardwoods was given by the importation of large quantities of Oak and Birch from Japan. For a number of years these woods reached here in the log and were manufactured into lumber, veneers, and flooring; later manufactured lumber was also received, and in both instances the prices were lower than on corresponding American rvoods. War conditions, which carlsed extreme advances in ocean freights, forced the discontinuance of importations from Japan, but in the meantime, the Philippine forests lr'ere being exploited by American manufacturers and Philippine lumber was being introduced into the American markets. Los Angeles being the American front door on the Pacific naturally became one of the early markets for this Philippine lumber, and the comparatively lor,v prices of these excellent woods has been another reason for the increased use of hard'w'oods here,

There are over 2500 varieties of trees in the Philippines, over 400 of which are commerciallv valuable, while in the rvhole of the United States and Canada there are fen'er than 7ffi varieties, only 120 of rvhicll are suitable for lumber.

There are 40,000 square miles of virgin forests in tl're Philippines, with an average stand. using only trees measuring over sixteen inches in diame.ter, of from ten to fift_r' thouiand feet board measure per acre.