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ana: "Most of the hardwoods are now t'eing cut South of Mason and Dixon's line. The hardwood lands, generally speaking, are not good for agriculture.They ire good only for regrowing of hardwoods or for grazing. With scientific logging, proper logging, taking bnly the trees which will produce good saw logs and leaving the smaller trees, the forests will reproduce themselves. Most hardwood trees now being utilized are about fifty years old. A hardwood tree grows from one half to one and one half inches in diameter per year. This kind of logging, leaving the smaller trees to grow, will solve the question. Nature will reprodu,ce the forests if leftto herself and if fires are kept out. Much hardwood land is swampy and, therefore, little subject to fire risk and as a general rule, fire risk in hardwood forests is less than in softwood."

Mr. Sonderegger sums up his findings by saying that by proper logging we can have a continuous crop of hardwoods. ,Nature will reproduce the forests if we let her and Mr. Sonderegger is happy to state that a great many of the large timber owning hardwood concerns are now following out proper logging methods and when this becomes general, we can be assured that we will always have hardwoods in this countrv.

The foreign hardwoods are another story. Mahogany is the king of imported woods. The genuine Mahogany is a native of Tropical Ameri.ca. Africa produces a number of woods which are so similar in ,color and texture to the genuine Mahogany that they are marketed as Mahogany, sometimes with the prefix "African" and sometimes not, The Philippines produce what is known as "Philippine Mahogany." Philippine hardwoods are very popular and are destined to occupy a very prominent place, indeed, in the lumber industry of the United States.

The principal wood atr present imported is known as Philippine Mahogany. A number of varieties go under this name, but they are all of one family-the Dipterocarps.The trees are large and the lumt'er produced is remarkably clear. The lumbering operations in the Philippines are in the hands of American and British companies who are strong financially, have fine equipment and produce large quantities of lumber. Great quantities are shipped to the United States and to all parts of the world. Most of the American supply comes through San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. Philippine is also shipped direct from the Islands to New York and other Eastern ports.

The Federal Trade Commission decided a year or so ago that inasmuch as Philippine Mahogany does not belong, botanically, to the family-Milieciae-to which the original wood known as "Mahogany" belongs, that it was unlawful to use theterm "Philippine Mahogany." The case has now been reopened and hearings have been recently held in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and Reno. Testimony has been taken on the Government's side and the Philippine Mahogany Association will present its evidence probably in the fall.

The issue seems fo be a trivial one and it is a scandal for the United States Government to spend hundreds'of thousands of dollars in trying to change a name. If this delving into the appropriateness of nomenclature of woods continues, there will be no end to the litigation.

If woods ate to be named solely by their botanical classi- fications, then the manufacturers and dealers in Douglas Fir, frequently called Oregon Pine, are in for a long series of investigations. This wood is neither a Pine nor a Fir, but according to its botanical name-Pseudodoxia Taxifolia-is a false Hemlock.

The Philippine Mahogany people, however, are very hopeful of winning the rightto continue the use of their name.

There is a romance about the hardwood business. Teakwood, used principally in the shipbuilding industries, comes from Siam and India:

On the road to Mandalay

Where the flying fishes play

And the dawn comes up like thunder

Out of China, tross the bay.

The elephants a-piling Teak fronbark comes from Australia, one of the Eucalyptus family. It is not the blue gum of our California highways, but belong to the same family. All the wooden ships built during the war had enormous Ironbark timbers for rudder posts, stems and sterns.

In the sludgy squdgy creek.

Ebony, black as the skin of the negro who fells it, comes from Madagascar and the African mainland.

An immense variety of woods is.carried by the hardwood dealers of the Pacific Coast and they come from all over the world. The hardwood salesman has to be rather a versbtile man. Some of his woods like Lignum Vitae and Rosewood he sells by the pound. His veneers he sells according to the figure and beauty like ladies' hats and, like the garment trade, styles in hardwoods change. One year Walnut will be all the rage, the next year, Mahogany. He must sell veneered panels, those built up woods which have become such an important part of the hardwood business on account of the demand for wide surfaces. He must know about hardwood flooring which has become a necessity in every home, no matter how unpretentious.

When the Pacific Coast hardwood industry was young, the Atlantic Coast states were still furnishing hardwoods from their own forests. New Jersey was supposed 1o have the finest Oak. Jersey Oak was demanded by the early California wagon makers who made the old thoroughbr4ce stages which brought the miners down from the gold diggings to the city-when the wanted to have a good time.

Probably the first commercial stock of hardwoods in California was brought around the Horn in 1850 by Mrs. Hickinbotham of Stockton who came out as a bride in that year. She brought a stock of Oak, Ash and Hickory with her and her husband started the business which still continues as Hickinbotham Brothers.

The lumber was brought around the Horn in clipper ships and in looking up some old records, I find that the freight rvas ten dollars per thousand. The finest Jersey Oak was worth thirty dollars per thousand. A landed cost of forty dollars a thousand wduld look good to us today.

While costs were low and profits high in those old days, the consumption of hardwoods was small. On this Coast the use of hardwoods in house t-uilding was very limited.

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The oldest of all wooden houses in America

-the Fairbanks house in Dedham, Massachusctts, built in 1674. The passing ycars havc mcllowed lhc cxterior, and the original pine panelling in the rooms, now turncd to a deep'brown, is still well prcserved-an cxtant example of the enduring qualities of pine.

RPine Homer and Pine fnteriorstt

-g11

6uihgniic account of the ure of pine in American homer. Containr many valuable ruggestionr, and erclucive photographs of choice pine rooir:r, entrances, staircases, bool nooks. Send One Dollar for this beautiful book to nearert ofrce.

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