Pec. I, 1886.] 



tHE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



429 



spirited action in the matte — action which cannot 

 fail to advance the interests of the Colonies and India, 

 as regards one of the most valuable of their natural 

 resources. 



The following is a list of the woods that were 

 dealt with, together with a description of the uses 

 for which they have proved most suitable : — 



yew SoKth Jrales. — Jilne Gum for ship and house 

 building, wheelwrights' work, posts and rails, plough 

 beams, railway sleepers, &c. ; Ironbark for carriage 

 building, spokes of wheels, piles, and railway sleepers ; 

 Momitain Ash for wheelwrights' and coopers' work, 

 palings, and genera! building purposes ; Forest Oak for 

 veneers, cabinet work, &c. 



Victoria. — Blackwood for all kinds of cabinetwork, 

 carriage building, gun stocks, &c. ; is also used for 

 making casks ; White Box for railway sleepers. 

 Blue Gum for beams, joists, railway sleepers, piers, 

 and bridges ; Red Gum for veneers, furniture, rail- 

 way sleepers, &c. 



South Australia. — Red Gum for railway sleepers, 

 fence posts, telegraph poles, jetty and bridge piles, 

 wheelwrights' work, &c. ; Blue Gum for railway 

 sleepers, posts, piles, planking, and general building 

 purposes ; Sugar Gum for railway sleepers, jetty 

 planking, bridge piles, felloes of wheels, naves, posts, &c. 



Western Australia. — Karri wood for joiners' work, 

 railway sleepers, furniture, cabinet work, &c.; Jarrah 

 for joiners' work, railway sleepers, furniture, cabinet 

 work, and piles ; Raspberry Jam wood for ornamental 

 woodwork and furniture ; York Gum for- spokes of 

 wheels, &c.; Tuart for wheelwrights' and railway 

 waggon work ; "Wandoo for wheelwrights' and rail- 

 way waggon work. 



New ZeOjland. — Black Pine for house-building, fur- 

 niture, and cabinet work ; Red Pine for house-build- 

 ing and general purposes ; Totara for veneers, fur- 

 niture, and cabinet work ; Kauri for building, fur- 

 niture, and all general purposes ; also for making slack 

 barrels, and pattern-makers' work. 



Canada. — Douglas Fir for pattern-makers' work, 

 joinery, furniture, building, and all general purposes ; 

 Bitternut, or Swamp Hickory for spokes of wheels, 

 joinery, &c. ; White Fir for joiners' work and gene- 

 ral purposes ; Black, or Swamp Ash for building 

 purposes, joiners' work, and cask-making ; Iron Wood 

 for handles of hammers, and agricultural implements ; 

 also spokes of wheels. 



Cape of Good Hope. — Yellow Wood for furniture, 

 pattern-makers' and joiners' work, and general building 

 purposes ; Umzumbit for bearings, walking-sticks, and 

 tool- handles; Box Wood for engraving purposes; 

 Kamassi for engraving and turnery ; Sneeze Wood 

 for piles, posts, and Telegraph-poles, cabinet and 

 waggon worn ; Stink Wood for building purposes, 

 furniture, waggon work, &e. 



British North Borneo. — Bilian for beams, piles, 

 planks, &c. ; Russock for building and general pur- 

 poses ; Serayah for furniture, veneers, and cabinet 

 m iking. 



India. — Tun, or Indian Mahogany for tea-boxes, 

 and all kinds of furniture panels, and carving ; 

 Black Wood, or Rose Wood for furniture, gun- 

 carriages, cart-wheels, agricultural implements, and 

 fancy articles ; Sissoo for felloes and naves of wheels, 

 and carved work of all descriptions ; Long-leaved 

 Pine for tea-boxes and general building purposes ; 

 Padouk Wood for furniture, joinery, and carriage- 

 building ; Chugalam for furniture ; Sej Wood for 

 house and ship-building, also for making carts and 

 waggons. 



As the samples of woods from West Indies, Oeylon 

 Queensland, Straits Settlements, Western Africa, and 

 Fiji, were found too small for practical experiments, 

 they do not appear in the above list. 



The experiments, which were conducted with more 

 than forty different varieties of timber from India 

 and the Colonies, comprised tree felling, cross-cutting, 

 sawing, planing, moulding, morticing, tenoning, and 

 boring ; while the manufacture of such things as 

 casks, doors, pick handles, carriage spokes, and railway 

 sleepers was carried to its completion and the articles 

 exhibited to the assembled guests. The woods espri- 



mented upon were of every variety, from the hardest 

 iron-bark to the soft mild working Douglas fir, but 

 the samples left the various machines with the same 

 smooth finish, the only difference being that the 

 harder qualities of wood were passed through the 

 machines at a somewhat slower speed than the 

 softer ones. 



Among the more noticeable experiments were the 

 felling of a rough log of hard Kauri (Western 

 Australia) timber, 3 feet in diameter, wnich had been 

 planted in an upright position in the yard, and which 

 was sawn through close to the ground by Ransomes' 

 patent tree-feller in four minutes, and the subsequent 

 cross-cuttnig of a similar log in a still shorter time ; 

 the preparation of railway sleepers by a machine 

 which in less than a minute planed the two rail 

 seatings and bored the four spike holes ; and the 

 planing, grooving, tonguing, and beading at one 

 operation of boards from each sample of timber 

 submitted for experiment, the boards being passed 

 through the machine at the rate of from 12 feet 

 a minute for the harder woods to nearly 24 feet 

 per minute for the softer woods. But perhaps the 

 most interesting experiment of all was that of manu- 

 facturing light casks for spirits, &c., from such of 

 the colonial woods as were suitable for that purpose. 

 In this, the cooperage department, nine machines, 

 worked alternately by one lad, were employed, of 

 which four sufficed for the manufacture of the body 

 of the cask, three for the preparation of the heads, 

 and two for making the hoops. Although, in con- 

 sequence of being made of different descriptions of 

 wood, the casks presented a varied appearance, they 

 were, in form and contents, all precisely alike, while 

 in point of finish and solidity, they left nothing to 

 be desired. 



At the close of the experiments, and after some 

 refreshments had been partaken of, a conference, at 

 which Mr. Edward Woods presided, was held in the 

 Pattern Room of the works for the purpose of elicit- 

 ing information respecting the several varieties of 

 timber experimented upon from the gentlemen repre- 

 senting the colonies in which they were obtained. 



The proceedings were opened by Mr. Alan Ransome, 

 who observed that those who had witnessed the ex- 

 periments must have seen enough to convince them 

 of the excellent quality and great serviceability of 

 most colonial woods. The question, therefore, that 

 now demanded solution was whether they could be 

 imported into this country at a rate which would 

 lender them commercially useful. Summarising the 

 conclusions arrived at from the experiments which 

 his firm had that day and during the past fortnight 

 been engaged in, he might state, in the first place, 

 that among the 40 odd different species of timber 

 dealt with, some stood out as pre-eminently suitable 

 for the English market. There were iron bark and 

 mountain ash from New South Wales, both suitable 

 for wheelwrights' work, and the former, owing to its 

 peculiar hardness, for piles and railway sleepers as 

 well ; black wood from Victoria, suitable for carriage 

 building, cabinet work, and case making ; Karri wood 

 and Jarrah, from Western Australia, both useful f jr 

 joiners' work, sleepers, furniture, and piles, of which 

 he could say that there was no fault to bo found ; 

 black pine, red pine, totara, and kauri, from New 

 Zealand, which could be employed for furuitwre, cabinet 

 work, house building, and general purposes, kauri 

 being specially useful ; Douglas fir and the swamp 

 ash, from Canada, both suitable for building, joiners' 

 work, &c., the latter being particularly sound, strong, 

 tough, and cheap ; yellow wood, stink wood, and 

 sneeze wood, from the Cape of Good Hope, the two 

 former species suitable for furniture, building, and 

 joiners' work, and the latter, from its unusual dur- 

 abilitj', for piles, posts, telegraph poles, &c. ; Billian 

 and Sorayah, from British North Borneo, the former 

 suitable for beams, piles, and every purpo.se where 

 durability was necessary, and the bitter for furniture 

 veneers, &c. ; and, lastly, Padouk wood from Imiia, 

 which was suitable for joinery, carriage building, and 

 furniture, was exceedingly plentiful, and was grown 

 n ear the co»st. Many samples of wood seot had uu- 



