HARDWOOD RECORD 



21 



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yellow poplar. In its structural characters it compares very favor- 

 ably with our magnolias and yellow poplar. When green or par- 

 tiallj- dry, it works very easily, but becomes considerably harder 

 when thoroughly dry. It takes an excellent polish and retains its 

 tolor indefinitely. It is moderately strong and tough and is durable 

 in contact with the soil. 



Few woods in Porto Rico have found as many uses as the laurel 

 sabino. Its chief use now is for making furniture and it has also 



been employed in finishing interiors of houses. While it makes 

 good wood for fuel and charcoal, it is too valuable for these pur- 

 poses. The comparative scarcity or restricted habitat of laurel 

 sabino makes the wood eminently a cabinet wood of peculiar value. 

 Its structural and meehauical qualities are nearly similar to those 

 of yellow poplar, and for this reason it is well adapted for at least 

 some of the uses for which its more abundant relatives are 

 employed. 



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'^;')il^^^il^.^^^Ai)tm^li m^t^rosl>a^>v>lli;!ws^^^i>^ 



Briar, a corruption of the French work "bruyere, " is the 

 common name of a small tree botanically called Erica arhorca, 

 which is a member of the heath family (Ericaccce), to which our 

 common trailing arbutus belongs. Briar is a term frequently ap- 

 plied to the diilVrout species of Smilax, but they are entirely 

 unrelated to the true briar bush or white heath as it is known by 

 the English-speaking people. It is particularly abundant in its 

 wild state throughout southern Europe, where it forms an im- 

 portant undergrowth in the mountain forests. It is said to grow 

 most luxuriantly and very abundantly among the trees and shrubs 

 forming what is called in France the "Maquis," which covers 

 the mountain sides. The tree varies in height from nine to twelve 

 feet and produces much of the wood used for making the so-called 

 briar-root pipes. 



In the course of the last thirty or forty j'ears, since the briar- 

 root jiipes have formed such a large article of trade, the briar 

 trees have become the source of a lucrative industry, and Calabria 

 in Italy is today the center of this trade. Originally the chief 

 supply of briar-root came from France and is to this day com- 

 monly referred to in the trade as the "French briar." More than 

 fifty years ago the center of the industry was along the French 

 Riviera and the Ligurian coast in Italy, but the French briar is at 

 present practically exhausted. Formerly the supply came from 

 the department of the Landes and from the Pyrenees mountains 

 on the border line between France and Spain. It has long since 

 reached the Calabria district in southern Italy, and it is norv gen- 

 erally conceded that the material obtained from this region is of 

 admittedly superior quality. For a long time large quantities of 

 the Calabrian briar were shipped to the United States. The briar 

 root exported from Italy to the United States during 1905 and 

 1906 was valued at about .$100,000 and $125,000, respectively. Of 

 late years the Italian product is becoming scarcer and France 

 again supplies a considerable quantity, a large part of which is 

 used in the United States. 



It is the root and not the trunk of this small tree that is em- 

 ployed for making pipes. The work of digging up the root is 

 carried on from October until the end of May. The roots are 

 thoroughly cleaned and trimmed and brought to the mill, where 

 they are cut by means of circular saws. They are from a few to 

 ten inches in diameter, but are never exported in the rough state. 

 After being cut up into small blocks they are placed in boiling 

 water for a period of from ten to fourteen hours, after which they 

 are thoroughly dried, and then put up into sacks and shipped into 

 this country, to be manufactured into briar-root pipes. 



Briar wood is dark brown, very dense, close-grained, but compara- 

 tively light in weight, easily worked, and takes a very good polish, 

 which it retains. It is very strong, tough, and durable, and possesses 

 the quality of turning darker with age. It was thought at one time 

 that no other wood was so well adapted for making the best grades 

 of pipes. The American manufacturers began to look around for 

 native woods to be used in place of the French briar, and it was 

 soon found that the European heath tree is not the only plant 

 available for so special a purpose. The first native woods used 

 for making pipes on a large scale were the rhododendron and 

 kalmia or mountain laurel. Both of these plants have very large 

 roots, considering the size of the stems and crowns. Some of the 



roots are a foot in diameter, and pipe makers have found that they 

 will serve as a splendid substitute for the French briar. Enormous 

 quantities of these roots are dug up every season in the mountains 

 of North and South Carolina, where these shrubs or small trees 

 attain their best development. The roots are shipped to pipe fac- 

 tories in the North and the finished product is usually sold as the 

 genuine French briar. 



Apple wood and to a lesser extent black cherry wood are used, 

 but they are not so durable as the rhododendron and kalmia, or 

 ivy, as it is often called in the Carolinas. A small Australian 

 tree called ury {Halea leucoptera) yields a wood that is used 

 locally for making pipes, but it has not yet been introduced into 

 this country. L. Ij. D. 



Junco, a New Source of American Hardwood 



The junco is the missing link of the tree family. Restricted to a 

 single valley, that of the Rio Grande, in Mexico and Texas, this 

 tree, with its small crooked trunk bristling with thorns, is little known 

 to the outside world. It is popularly supposed to bear no leaves, 

 flowers or fruit, but it really bears aU three. 



The minute leaves are scale-like, the flowers very small, and the 

 fruit is a tiny berry. It is the only known representative of its 

 family in all the world. It is not known that the junco ever grew 

 anywhere outside of the valley of the Rio Grande, or that it ever had 

 relatives close enough to claim kinship. Some trees, now nearly 

 extinct, had a wide range in past ages — the big trees of California, 

 for example, which grew all the way to the Arctic ocean. But the 

 junco so far as is known has always lived in one place and has 

 always been the same dwarfed, crooked tree that it now is. 



Except as fuel, it has not been put to any use. Thousands of 

 cords might be cut in the valley of the Rio Grande, in Mexico and 

 Texas. Of late, however, the growing scarcity of hardwood has 

 called attention to the despised junco tree as a possible substitute 

 for some of the more popular woods, and the result is a surprise to 

 those who thought the wood had no commercial value. Clarence A. 

 Miller, Consul at Matamoras, Mexico, has called the attention of 

 the United States government to the good qualities claimed for it. 

 The wood sinks in water. In color it ranges from brown to black. 

 It receives a high and beautiful polish, fitting it to take the place 

 of such expensive woods as ebony and rosewood for small cabinet 

 work. The trunks are so short and crooked that only small pieces 

 of timber can be obtained from them. Few trunks exceed seven 

 feet in length and eight inches in diameter. The wood is said to 

 be admirably suited for the keys of musical instruments, jewel 

 boxes and other bureau cabinets, chess men, checkers, paper knives, 

 knobs and other small turnery, inlaid work, and indeed for almost 

 all iiurposcs for which costly foreign woods, in small pieces, are now 

 used. 



Many of the trees, whose woods are familiar in the lumber mar- 

 kets, belong to large families. There are 250 members — they are 

 called species — of the pine family, and they are scattered all over 

 the northern hemisphere. The beech and the oak families have even 

 more members, and they, too, are widely scattered. The laurel has 

 over 900, the palm, 1,000, while the apple, counting the many varie- 

 ties, is said to have more than 3,000. But the junco is fighting its life 

 battle alone on the dry slopes of Texas and Mexico. 



