HARDWOOD RECORD 



25 



with modern logging apparatus, bigger 

 and better equipped mills, and a more 

 liberal policy on the part of the govern- 

 ment in the matter of concessions. 



Some of the Philippine woods rank high 

 for furniture, finish and other fine work. 

 Japan has been drawing upon the supply 

 for some time. The Filipinos often burn 

 wood in household fires or use it for the 

 roughest sort of construction that foreign 

 manufacturers would be delighted to have 

 at fancy figures to put into expensive 

 bric-a-brac of all kinds. Most of the bet- 

 ter class native homes are built entirely 

 of hardwoods, outside and inside. The 

 doors and paneling are generally artistic- 

 ally carved by hand by native workmen; 

 and Lhe floors, usually of boards from 

 eighteen to twenty inches in width, are 

 brilliantly polished, and no varnish or 

 other pressing material is required as_ a 

 finish. 



In the absence of favorable laws at the 

 beginning of American occupation, Amer- 

 icans were either compelled to forego 

 timber cutting entirely or to engage iu it 

 on a small scale. Two .'Vmerican furni- 

 ture factories were established in Manila 

 to compete with the product turned out 

 by Chinese factories. The American es- 

 tablishments have now been 

 consolidated and the concern 

 has gone into lumbering on a 

 large scale under more liberal 

 terms offered by the govern- 

 ment. The first large mills put 

 in operation by Americans were 

 located on the island of Negros, 

 where timber is plentiful, and 

 Mindoro island is not far dis- 

 tant where large supplies await 

 the operator. 



In the early days of occupa- 

 tion a number of pioneers will- 

 ing to take what the govern- 

 ment at the time was willing 

 to give and with the hope that 

 opportunity would be given 

 them to branch out and in- 

 crease their holdings as con- 

 ditions industrially and polit- 

 ically might biter warrant, 

 went into logging and milling 

 in a modest way in the south- 

 ern islands of the group. The 

 mills, of course, were naturally 

 small, but they were of the 

 best equipment for profitably 

 marketing the material taken 

 out. Now these operations have 

 grown into giant industries and 

 others are coming to help them 

 harvest the wealth of the for- 

 ests. The plants have in- 

 creased two and three fold in 

 capacity, logging roads have been built for miles into the dense 

 woods radiating out from the mills as spokes do from the hub 

 of a wheel. Some of the concerns are operating their own ves- 

 sels between Philippine ports and the United States, and busy 

 little villages, comfortably housing the Filipino laborers and mill 



'PHILIPPINE M.iHOGANV SHOWING 

 CLEARNESS .\ND LENGTH OF STOCK. 



n.\I!I)WOOD 



officials, have sjirung up about each mill- 

 ing property. 



The natives are amazed to see a ponder- 

 ous crane and steel hawser pick up half a 

 dozen heavy logs and lift them onto log- 

 ging trucks to be hauled by the trainload 

 to the mills. This feat is a contrast to 

 the old method, where it sometimes re- 

 quired half a hundred husky men and a 

 ilozen carabaos a week to do what steam 

 and automatic machinery now does in a 

 very few minutes. 



The colorings of all Philippine hard- 

 woods are rich and beautiful. They range 

 from black and white to almost all the 

 shades known elsewhere. Tindalo is 

 ilaret-red and takes on a brilliant polish 

 without the aid of chemicals; it is well 

 adapted to carving. Other varieties- are 

 so hard that they will quickly dull the best 

 of axes and comparatively little damage 

 lan be done to them by chopping. Rollers 

 for sugar mills are made from certain 

 logs, and in other instances cog wheels 

 made of hardwood are better than wheels 

 cif steel or cast iron. 



The Bureau of Forestry estimates that 

 there are something like forty millions 

 of acres of merchantable hardwoods in 

 the' islands, and the total wooded land 

 greatly exceeds the hardwood 

 lumber area. Of this vast acre- 

 age less than one per cent is 

 in the hands of private owners; 

 thus the insular government is 

 the chief landlord. The esti- 

 mated value of this enormous 

 acreage, figured from present 

 standpoint, is not less than 

 *.500,000,0()0. That sum is some- 

 what in excess of the amount 

 we paid for the islands, even 

 witli the cost of conflict figured 

 in. For centuries, at least 

 ninety per cent of the timber 

 has been going to waste through 

 decay. The older trees have 

 |irevented the younger ones 

 from growing as they should, 

 .■ind man has failed to market 

 the matured product before rot- 

 ting set in. It is the other way 

 now in Philippine forestry man- 

 agement. 



Philippine hardwood logs are 

 so 'lense and heavy that they 

 cannot be floated in booms to 

 the mills. Therefore logging 

 roads are of much advantage in 

 working the forests. Logs can- 

 not be towed as in this country 

 unless each log is buoyed up by 

 bamboo rafts. This condition 

 applies to nearly all the several 

 hundred tree species classified by 

 the forestry experts at work in the Philippines. 



Forestry areas are known that will average 40,000 board meas- 

 ure feet to the acre, and instances have been known where the 

 measurement to the acre went over 200,000. Of all the fine woods 

 Miola-ve and limau are the most plentiful, with narra not far be- 



FORKST IN THE PHILIPPINES. MANY TREES 

 ARE OVER MATURE. 



