HARDWOOD RECORD 



21 



.Hal. 



"wcio fim-r tliuii 



not, lie amiouiice.l a fac-t \vhi,-li lias m-vrv sin,-,' l.,-,-ii .lispiit,",!. The 

 vibration — or the sounil, if that name is preferre,! — ilues not originate 

 in the wooil or the metal of the organ \n[>e, but in the air within. It 

 is transmitte,! through the material of which the ])ipe is nia,le, an,l is 

 modified in its i>assage. The metal gives the "ring," the woo,l 

 the "resonance." 



It is a fact that the supremo function of vvoo,l when employcl in 

 musical instruments, as sounding boarils in i)ianos, the to|) of the vio 

 lin, the organ pipe, or the phonograj)h horn, is to modify and enrich 

 the tones. It does not originate there usually. They originate else 



vhere — in the piano, harp, or violin strings, the air column in the 

 of the phonograph — but the wood picks them up, 

 iches them in a \von,lerful and mysterious manner, 

 ni to tin- onti'r air from which the hearer receives 



pipe, or the disc 

 beautifies ami enr 

 and transmits the 

 them. 



Therein lies wc 

 apparently, it will 

 to take its place. 



I's superiority in the peculiar field, an,l then 

 ?main until some inventor shall discover somethin] 



No such material has yet been discovered. Ii 

 ^titutrs are giving woo,l a har,l run for its placi 



tfnl 



This ilrawing represents a mahogany tree that stoo,! near lamp 

 Vaca, on the headwaters of the Belize river, about ill miles north- 

 east of Lake I'etin, Guatemala, Central America. It is a typical 

 representative of the mahogany tree, as it grows in that country. 

 Till' i)ii ture shows the extremely wasteful method of the natives in 

 felling tindjer by erecting a platform (or barbecue, as they call it) 

 with poles bounil together with tie-vine. On this the chopper stands, 

 and is so elevated that he can cut a great notch around the tree, 

 clear above the great buttresses, or brace roots, sometimes called 

 spines. Nature strengthens the stumps and crotches of trees by 

 knitting and twi.sting the fiber, and increasing the thickness of the 

 annular layers of the growth of woody substance at points where 

 falls the greatest strain. Thus every tree has been given a stump 

 and crotch figure common to itself. From both of these in walnut 

 we obtain a beautiful and valuable veneer, and from the crotches or 

 fans of the mahogany has been produced a rare style of fancy veneer 

 that has been prized very highly for a long time, ami is still in 

 demanil. Whv not utilize its stump? 



This photograph represents a large walnut tree, after tlc' .•artli 

 had been dug away in grubbing, thus exposing the si,le or spur roots 

 so they can be chopi)ed down on a line with the body of the butt 

 log, thus saving the extreme butt or stump, the most valuable por- 

 tion of all large walnut trees and many small ones, if of a figured 

 nature. This tree stood near the Arkansas river at Blackburn, in 

 the Osage Nation, Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. The average 

 gain in felling walnut by gi-ubbing is about equal to the average loss 

 in felling mahogany by cutting high stumps, and the best specimens 

 are usually found in mountainous districts where the tendency of the 

 ground is to retrograde from the trees and leave the roots exposed, 

 while walnut grows best along the streams anil the roots are deeply- 

 covered by the accumulation of soil deposit from frequent overflows. 

 All walnut stumps can be cut off at a point considerably below the 

 ground line, and not produce an objectionable amount of end grain 

 in the veneer and by cutting them in various ways are very productive 

 of a fine product. This, I claim, is also true of mahogany an,l it 

 should be thoroughly trieil out by experiment. J. "> . U- 



