HARDWOOD RECORD 



combined chant of fifty or a liundrvd vigorous nutivcR niukos ii re- 

 inarkiible sound; but the ovrrscers do not objort, for the roniinon 

 saying is, "the more noise, the more pull." 

 The Class or L.viion 



The oviTsoers nro white hkmi, but the liiburors are negroes. 

 Wnges nro low, but the men arc well fed and nre satisfied. Some 

 of the best men are Mohiimniednns from the desert country. They 

 take a few minute.s off, five times n day, for prnycr, and in some 

 of the camps the eontrni-tors have built oheiip mosques for the 

 convenience of the followers of the prophet. 



Scouting for mahogany is much the same as in the tropical for- 

 ests of .\nieric.n. Trees grow singly and at considcrablo intervals. 

 Each tree is located and a path blazed to it. This work is almost 

 always done by natives who arc trained to it by long experience. 

 Native chiefs sometimes claim the mahogany timber, but thoy have 

 no real authority, and the white man pays them a little as a sort 

 of quitclaim, and takes the trees. 



Feluno of the Trees 



The mahogany attains large size in the West African rain belt. 

 In extreme cases it is two hundred feet high and twelve in diam- 

 oter, measured above the buttressed base. Measured within four 

 I'oet of the ground, as is customarj' in the United States, some of 

 the African trees are twenty and even thirty feet through. Enor- 

 mous buttresses flank the base of the trunk. The men build scaf- 

 folds and cut the trees above the buttresses, ten or more feet from 

 the ground. From 2,000 to 10,000 feet of good mahogany is thus 

 loft in the stump. 



Saws nre seldom used in felling the trees, and in many instances 

 the trunks arc cut into logs with axes. The natives do not take 

 kindly to the saw, but they like to hack with edged tools. Logs 

 six or seven feet in diameter are severed with axes without wasting 

 more than a foot in length of trunk for kerf. 



They lut down trees with tools of the poorest sort, when they 

 have no better. Trunks six or eight feet in diameter, about native 

 camps, are sometimes felled with large knives, by slowly hacking 

 the wood. It takes a great deal of time and patience to do it, but 

 the native African has plenty of both. 



Waste in the Jcnole 



A thousand feet of waste mahogany is left in the African jungle 

 for every thousand feet that comes out. The stump, top, and 

 large limbs are usually left; and in squaring the logs nearly half 

 of them may be hewed away. Some of the best operators are 

 abandoning the practice of squaring the logs. Tlie sapwood of 

 the large trees is quite thin, and it pays to leave it on the log to 

 protect the heartwood against abrasion and scars which the logs 

 are likely to receive in floating many miles down rocky rivers to 

 the coast where they are to be loaded on ships. 



The teredo, a worm that infests brackish water near the mouths 

 of rivers, is a dangerous enemy of mahogany logs that are floated 

 down to the sea. If they remain long before being taken aboard 

 ship the teredo is apt to find lodgment in them, and it continues 

 to bore while the logs remain in the water or until the wood is 

 destroyed. 



Mahogany is not sawed into lumber in Africa, but the logs are 

 transported on ships to Europe or America, where the sawing is 

 done. It has been reported that the teredo has been known to 

 continue boring until logs have reached England, and has been 

 taken out alive during the process of converting the logs into lum- 

 ber. However, that statement is subject to grave doubt. The 

 teredo is a marine animal and takes its sustenance from the water, 

 in the form of animalcula; brought to it by the currents, and the 

 creature would get pretty hungry and thirsty during a voyage of 

 5,000 miles aboard ship from -Africa to England. 



Mahogany is sometimes badly perforated by teredocs and other 

 borers, but the worst injury is done while the logs are in the water 

 waiting to be taken aboard ship. Operators who drive timber down 

 African rivers usually construct booms to hold the logs just above 

 the reach of the tide, where the water is fresh and the teredo 

 cannot come. When the ship arrives in the ofBng, the boom is 

 opened, the logs are pushed out to sea. and are quickly loaded. 



THUNODt-SBAKIUi 



AtrK.'iM iiiiiliugany from certain districts is subject to n defect 

 which often greatly lessens the worth of otherwise valuable logs. 

 There are transverse frncturen, called thunderslinkes, cruss breaks, 

 wind shakes, heartbreaks, or other similar names. These breaks 

 do not reach the outside of the tree, but are cunflued to the wood 

 of the trunk's center. They may occur six inches apart, or several 

 feet apart, measuring lengthwixe of the trunk. They can seldom 

 be discovered in an unopened log. If they exist, and the log is con- 

 verted into lumber or veneer, the pieces will fall apart nt the 

 fractures. 



The origin of tho breaks is unknown. Vari<ius agencies have 

 been suggested as their cause — lightning, wiml, shrinkage. 



English mahogany dealers sell their best figured woo<l in the 

 United States. 



July Exports Were Satisfactory 



While tho sliowinj; of Balliinon- exports for .luly does not look 

 favorable, it must be considered in connection with what has gone 

 before, and regarded in that light, the exhibit is by no means dis- 

 couraging. On the face of it, a comparison with the same month of 

 1913 proves that the value of the shipments declined by almost fifty 

 per cent. But when contrasted with the two previous months, it ia 

 seen that a gradual gain had been made, and that one wood, namely, 

 j)oplar, manifested a pronounced recovery. The forwardings of 

 j)Oplar for last month were not less than 361,000 feet against only 

 180,000 feet for .July of 1913, a gain so decided as to eliminate the 

 idea that it was merely accidental. As for the rest of the list, it 

 underwent an almost uniform liecline when contrasted with July of 

 1913, but tho fact should not be lost sight of that the total value of 

 exports for May was only a little more than $104,000, and for June 

 it did not go far above $107,000. July being by no means an active 

 month, even under ordinary circumstances, it follows that any increase 

 was to be regarded as gratifying. Of course, the war did not really 

 commence until August, so that July is not to be charged with any of 

 the efifects of the embargo upon exports that has since then been 

 imposed. But it does not appear as though the suspension of ship- 

 ments to at least some of the foreign countries would last long. The 

 Atlantic ocean even at this time has been made fairly safe for the 

 passage of vessels of certain nations, and the needs in the way of 

 lumber on the other side ought to tell. Tho chief factor in holding 

 down the shipments will bs the unsettled finjinces, which cannot be 

 readily readjusted, and which must wait for a re-establishment upon a 

 satisfactory basis until the fortunes of war are far more clearly 

 indicated than they are at present. The comparative showing for 

 last month as compared with the same month in 1913 is as follows: 



.lul.v 



Logs, lilekory 



Logs, walnut 



Logs, all otlicrs 



Lumber, oak 



Lumber, pitch pine 



Lumber, sbortlcaf pine. 



Lumber, poplar 361,000 ft. 



Lumber, spruce 40,000 ft. 



Lumber, all others 205,000 ft. 



■Shooks, box 448 



Shocks, all others 



•Staves ti-J.HV^ 



All other lumber 



All other lumber 



Furniture 



Thlmmlngs • 



.\11 other manufactures of 



11I14 1013 



Quautlty Price Quantity Price 



10,001) ft. $ 420 22,000 ft. t 600 



ID.OOOft. UOO 119.000 ft. 9,1S4 



18,000 ft. 915 



.1,272,000 ft. 46,738 1,844,000 ft. 06,440 



15,000 ft. 741 



91,000 ft. 2,809 172,000 ft. 5,595 



Total $116,132 



The things that whining will get j-ou will be grudgingly given, and 

 no respect will gc with them. Therefore buck up and face what is 

 before you like a man and you will be better oflf. 



Just as necessity is often the mother of invention, so do hard times 

 develop resourcefulness and thus depressions are what lead to real 

 progress. 



Many a man wastes time looking into and wondering about other 

 people 's business when his own business needs his attention. 



