HARDWOOD RECORD 



29 



mens in tlie more accessible regions have been cut out, leaving the 

 more crooked aud inferior trees standing in the forest. It is seldom, 

 however, that the trees clear themselves of their limbs and form 

 straight, tall cylindrical boles, such as we find in our better class of 

 hardwood stands of Kentucky or the southern Appalachians. It seems 

 to be more natural for most of these trees to grow crooked and knarly 

 rather than to grow straight and it is very seldom that more than 

 twenty feet of straight clear timber can be cut in one log. More 

 often the logs have to be cut in lengths of from six to twelve feet. 

 Owing to the fact that comparatively little general exploitation has 

 taken place in these tropical forests in the past, the chief market 

 for them at present consists of local industries engaged in manufac- 

 turing higli-grade cabinet work and furniture from the more desirable 

 and accessible varieties. 



If it were riot for the common prevalence of forest fires, the extent 

 of the tropical forests in southern Florida would be considerably 

 greater. The mangrove swamp forests have not been molested by 

 forest fires oh account of their naturally moist location, but ' the 

 ' ' hammock ' ' type where our most valuable tropical hardwoods occur 



has been repeatedly damaged and a great deal of it destroyed by the 

 annual occurrence of ground fires which sweep over this region. But 

 with forest fires eliminated these hardwood forests should be of great 

 value to the timber interests in the future on account of their exceed- 

 ingly rapid growth and high demand on the markets. 



The following is a list of the most important tropical hardwoods 

 known to southern Ilorida: 



COMMON NAMES. SCIENTIFIC NAMES. 



Mahogany _ Sivicteiiia mohaiioni — Jacq. 



Ligmim-vitiB or ironwood (luaiacum sanctum — Linn. 



Red mangrove Ithizophora mangle — Linn. 



Buttonwood Conocarpus crecta — Linn. 



White mangrove Lcqunculayia racemosa — Linn. 



Black mangrove Avicennia nitida — .lacq. 



Seagrape Coccolobis uvifera — .Tacq. 



Jamaica dogwood Ichthyoinethia Piscipula — Linn. 



Mastic Sideroxylitm mastichodendron — Jacq. 



Satinwood Xanthoxylum fa{iara — Linn. 



Gumbo limbo lluiscra simaruba — Sarg. 



Mancbineol HiiJiiomaiie manc-inella — Linn. 



N. C. B. 



' 'i :j^m!^am^:TO6w;ro«i)4»i':stj^u^'w^)im!w^^ 



Poorly Matched Woodwork 



Joseph 's coat of many colors may have been artistic as a woven 

 fabric ; aud the patchwork of crazy quilts was fashionable some years 

 ago; but furniture makers are not, as a general thing, catering to 

 good taste when they imitate those examples. The finest furniture, 

 that which is really high grade, is made of parts which harmonize 

 in color, grain, and figure. Numerous pieces of wood may be joined 

 together to form a table top, bureau front, panels of sideboards, 

 dressers or bedsteads; but there must be harmony, or the work as a 

 whole will be more or less "a failure. 



Good taste is often- offended by incongruous com'binations of 

 woods that do not match. A stand top is formed by joining two, 

 three, or four pieces which are out of harmony. Colors may differ, 

 figures may not match, grains are at variance. The sharp lines sep- 

 arating the component parts stand out as the most prominent feature 

 in the whole make up. The man who puts such combinations together 

 is evidently thinking of something besides how his work is going to 

 look when' it goes to market to be sold. A walk through many a 

 furniture factory or store will reveal such offenses against taste" 

 but they are more apparent in some places than in others, because 

 some makers aud dealers are more careful than others to keep such 

 misfits in the background. 



Poor combinations of woods occur in various ways. Sometimes in 

 cheap furniture no effort is made to produce harmony. Everything 

 or anything goes, and colors, grains, figures, different kinds of woods, 

 and all are thrown toge'ther. That, however, is not the class of furni- 

 ture now under consideration, but a better grade where appearance 

 is supposed to count for something. Some of the mistakes and errors 

 in combinations and matching may be pointed out without going 

 too much into particulars. 



A factory may be making red gum furniture. A workman might 

 suppose that as long as he uses red gxan he is fulfilling all necessary 

 conditions; but every man who is familiar with that wood knows 

 that there is sap gum' and heart gum, and both may come from the 

 same tree. The sap is whiter than the heart. Each in its place is 

 unobjectionable, and one is as good as the other; but a strip of 

 white sap beside a strip of darker heart in a table top is not an 

 artistic combination, unless some kind of doctoring is done to conceal 

 the true color of both woods. Gum is taken as an example, but 

 carelessness or poor judgment may produce similar results with 

 many woods which differ in color, depending on whether heart or sap 

 is used. 



Bad combinations may result in other ways than in color. Take 

 sycamore as an example. Quarter-sawed sycamore and plain syca- 

 more are so different in appearance that the eye distinguishes them 

 at a glance. Yet the maker who is producing sycamore furniture 



sometimes perpetrates com'binations which resemble the old-fashioned 

 ' ' strip-about ' ' meat counters in butcher shops. The mere fact that 

 a certain species of wood is being faithfully adhered to is no pallia- 

 tion of the offense committed against good taste by joining pieces of 

 wood together which should not be used in the same article, in a way 

 to contrast one with the other. 



?Iany a sin is committed against oak in the same way. Oak is 

 a pretty broad term, and it includes colors, grains and figures almost 

 without limit. Many a broad table top is made of pieces so taste- 

 fully com'bined that colors and patterns blend in a perfect whole, and 

 it is a perpetual delight to the eye; but often the reverse is the 

 case. Every piece stands out to itself. The lines of separation 

 are so plain that the eye cannot possibly pass over them without 

 stopjiing to note the esthetic hiatus. Beauty is spoiled; good taste 

 is offended; and yet the workman who contrived the combination 

 may have supposed that he was fulfilling every requirement. For, 

 did he not make genuine oak furniture? 



It was genuine oak, without any < imitation or counterfeit, but 

 something more than that is required of oak furniture, or furniture 

 of an}' other wood. The combinations must be harmonious. Quarter- 

 sawed and plain wood should not touch edge to edge; and chestnut 

 oak should not join with white oak, much less white oak with red 

 oak. If that mistake is made, the contrast will be mildly or severely 

 offensive, depending upon its degree of violence. 



Bad contrasts are not infrequently produced by the process of 

 "filling" the wood. Ash and chestnut may serve as examples. 

 What figure these woods have is due chiefly to the rings of yearly 

 growth. These rings are very porous, and they stand out prominently 

 in dressed lumber, but not with equal prominence in all dressed lum- 

 ber. Much depends on the way the sawing is done. If the rings are 

 cut in a certain manner their edges are exposed to view much more 

 than if the cutting is done in another way. The run of lumber 

 contains pieces with the porous rings exposed in various angles. The 

 application of fillers to such woods plugs tlie pores aud changes the 

 color of that part of the ring. 



The result is that pieces of wood combined in broad panels, table 

 tops, or in similar places, may match very well while the woods 

 remain in their natural colors, but when fillers are applied, the 

 different pieces take on different tones, due to their porosity aud the 

 varying quantities of coloring matter they absorb during the appli- 

 cation of the filler. Inharmonious combinations in the finished ar- 

 ticle may be the consequence. The remedy in such cases consists of 

 prevention. The porosity of the woods ought to be considered be- 

 fore they are placed side by side. A piece sawed radially should 

 not be combined with one sawed tangentially. Many undesirable 



