464 



THE TROPICAL AllRICULTURIST. [January i, 1886. 



Queensland. — The timbers of this colouy are as 

 valuable for their variety and use for commercial 

 purposes as those of the adjoining colony of New 

 Houth Wales. 



The cyprtiss pine {Fresnelia rhoinhoidca) is another 

 Queensland tree, attaining a height of fifty to seventy 

 feet, with a diameter of twenty to forty inches. 

 The linjber is an article of great importance, being 

 durable, fine-grained, fragrant, and capable of a high j 

 polish. It is used for piles for wharves and sheathing 

 boats, resisting the attacks of the Teredo iiav<iliz and 

 Tirmitef. The root is valued by cubinet raikers for ; 

 veneering purposes. The market value of this wood 

 in the cohniy is 10s. per hundred sui)erftcial feet. 

 Tlie brush or bastard box {T,-ift'nii,i eunfcrta) grows j 

 to a height of eighty to one hundred feet, with a 

 iliameter of four to five feet. It furnishes a valuable 

 timber on accomit of its great durability and immunity ! 

 from wliite auts. As ribs of vessels, it has been | 

 found perfectly sound at the end of tlurty years. 

 Beef wood and swamp oak (Casiinrhni ti'riilom, and 

 C. eiiuisilifolia) give woods close grained and beautifully 

 marked, and furnish handsome veneers. Kosewood 

 (Vi/o,ci//ou ]''ri(.icrnnum) is a beautiful wood, dark, 

 hard, close-grained, fragrant, and, when properly 

 seasoned, capable of being worked into the best kind 

 of furniture, and is useful in turning. 



Myall (.4c-i(i.-/ii homalopJa/U a) is a dark, close-grained 

 wooil, well adapted for cabinet-making purposes, but 

 it is not of large size. There are sever.al kinds of 

 sandal-wood in this colony. The timber of Exocarpus 

 latifolia is very hard and fragrant, and e.Koellent for 

 cabinet work. That of /iantali'M laiiceolatum is close- 

 grained and takes a good polish. Both these trees 

 are from fifteen to twenty-five feet high, with a 

 diameter of six inches. The timber of the bastard 

 sandal. wood {Ewmophila Mitchelli) is hard, beauti- 

 fully grained, very fragrant, and makes handsome 

 veneers for cabinet work. The tree grows to twenty 

 to thirty feet high, with a diameter of six to twelve 

 inches. 



Western Australia is very rich in good timber, 

 which is now being largely developed. The forests 

 of Western Australia cover an area as large as Great 

 liritain. There are more than 30,000 square miles 

 covered with eucalyptus, 24,000 miles of which consist 

 of the white gum (E. rim'nudls) and jarrah (E. mrirg- 

 iiiiita). The latter is a most important shipbuilding 

 wood from its imperishable nature and immunity of 

 attack from insects. The tooart (B. yompkocephnln) 

 and red gum (E. calophi/lla) are also excellent woods. 

 The scenled sandal-wood (S'anttdiim ci/iiiwrian) has 

 for sonic years contributed largely to the productive 

 industry and profit of Western Australia, but unless 

 now plantations are formed, it cannot very long continue 

 to do so, as the distance which even now it has to 

 be carrieil to the ports of shipment raises its ])rioe 

 BO much as to leave no great margin of profit. A 

 scentless .sandal-wood {S. pevsicm-um), called locally 

 manibon, is very plentiful in the colony, and from 

 the fineness of the grain of the wood, might be made 

 use of for wood engraving. 



The average consumption of mahogany in the 

 tUiited Kingdom would seem to be about ."iO.OOO tons, 

 and the supply appears to be very even, seldom ranging 

 more than about 5,000 tons above or below this 

 quantitv. 



Veneers are also imported from abroad, but there 

 are no recent returns of the quantity D:imed obtainable. 

 The imports were iu 



C'wts. Owts. 



ISGO :V'01 ISCl 4.S86 



l.siu 3,186 18(5.5 4,'Ml 



18.i2 3,772 1S70 4,0G3 



After 1870, veneers were, by the Hoard of Trade, 

 .summarised with the furniture woods. The timber 

 used for veneering in the Uniti'd States is principally 

 ciirled and bird's-eye niaphs beech, birch, cherry, ash 

 and oak. These all grow in tlie States, and the 

 beautifully-marked and grained timber of the American 

 for>.'sts finds fitting places in the ornamental uses these 

 veneer are put to. 



The finest and most costly of the veneering woods 

 is what is known as French walnut, but which does 

 not come from France at all, but from Asia Minor 

 and Persia. The tree is crooked and dwarfed, and 

 is solely valuable for the burr that can be obtained 

 from it. In these large tough excrescences the grain 

 is twisted into the most singular and complicated 

 figures, and the symmetry and intricacy of these is 

 one of the elements determining the value of a burr. 

 Formerly walnut burrs were in good demand, and 

 fetched high prices, some rare ones, as much as £10U 

 to £200; indeeil, one shown at the Paris International 

 Exhibition in 187S, sold for £1,000, or about Ss. a 

 l)Ound weight. But now there is very much less demand 

 for burr veneers in the cabinet trade, the consumption 

 being limited to pianoforte makers. There are oc- 

 casionally met with burrs in rosewood and maghogany, 

 but these are of little or no value. 



Oi Satinwood the imports into Liverpool chiefly 

 from St. Domingo, were in 



1877 469 



1882 n,320 



1883 2,G(i7 



The following figures show our supplies of ll'txhint' 

 wood for a short series of years : — 



Imports in the United Kinodom. 



Years. Tons. 



1860 4,'580 



1865 S.GKa 



181)9 6.53G 



1870 0,;!I5 



Ebonij. — Next to walnut, ebony is probably the 

 most valuable of the cabinet woods. Occasionally a 

 fine piece is found, that brings even a better price 

 than French walnut. For a particularly fine piece ,£l 

 the pound has heen paid, the main thing being size, 

 for it is difficult to get large jiieces that can be used 

 without cutting. Prime large logs from Ceylon fetch 

 readily £14 per ton and upwards. Our annual supplies 

 of this wood are never large, 1,000 to 2,000 tons 

 being the greatest imports. The ebony wood of 

 commerce, so much used for inlaying, is the duramen 

 of several species of I)ii>:ipt/rox, a very large genus of 

 trees, natives chiefly of Africa and Asia. From its 

 hardness, durabiIit)^ susceptibility of elegant polish, 

 and colour (which has almost become another name 

 for blackness), ebony has always been held in higli 

 estimation. Ebony was for a long time supposed 

 be obtained from Diosplnjroa Ef'i'nastcr alone, but, in 

 fact, several other species, scarcely differing from 

 one another, yield this wood, in lutlia, Siam, Ceylon, 

 the Philipi>ines, Mad.agascar and Mam-itius. The 

 commercial descriptions of ebony are generally ranged 

 under three kinds, according to the (;ountries from 

 whence they are drawn — Jlamitius, East Indian and 

 African. The Mauiitius ebony is the fiju'st grained 

 and the blackest, as well as the hardiest and most 

 beautiful, but it is the most costly and unst)und. 

 The East Indian is of inferior colour and coarser 

 grained ; the African is the least wasteful but the 

 most porous. 



DvEwooDs. — Although the various dycwoods can 

 scarcely be classed as timber, yet a brief glance at 

 .some of these will not be out of place before I 

 close my paper, forming as they do inii>ortant foreign 

 forest products, and our imports reaching iu value 

 over half-a-million sterling. Loifn'ood forms the prin- 

 cipal item and has increased rapidly in iiuiintity, for 

 whilst in 1837. we retained but l.'),000 tinis for home 

 use ; iu 1850 the quantity exceeded 30.000 tons ; now 

 the average annual imports ai-e double that amount 

 as the statistics given below will show. Our sup}ilies 

 come from Campeachy. Honduras. St. Domingo and 

 tlamaica. The other dyewoods we import are red San- 

 ders wood [Pteruearpits saNtn Irons), sappan wood 

 {Carsnlpinia w/yj/Jd/i) both from India; fustic. {Jfiic'irra 

 tiiietrrria), from the Spanish JIain and (.'uba; Brazil 

 wood iC<esafpinia hrasilitiisis), and camwood and 

 b.arwood (A''i;j///(i nllida) from \\'est .'Vfrica. Nicaragua, 

 or peach wood, is Cnr.'Mlpinia eclunutin. — P.L. 8lJIJioN'l>S 

 in Journal of the Socioti/ of Arts. 



