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Prhna Vera and Its Uses 



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Prima vera {Tahebuia donnell-smithii — Eose)is an important tim- 

 ber tree growing throughout the southern states of Mexico and is 

 quite common as far south as Peru. The wood is imported into the 

 United States as Mexican, Peruvian, or white mahogany. It is also 

 called jenicero or genesero, but its principal trade name is prima 

 vera. The tree attains a height of from sixty to ninety feet and 

 upward to four feet in diameter. It often has a clear trunk of from 

 thirty to forty feet. The trunks are usually cut into logs twelve 

 feet in length, which are rarely four feet in diameter. Unlike most 

 of its associates in the forest, this tree sheds its leaves regularly 

 every year, and the flowers are produced in great abundance, appear- 

 ing before the leaves in early spring. Its profuse delicate yellow 

 flowers stand out against the sky like golden clouds and render 

 it one of the most beautiful trees in the American tropics. 



The wood of a number of the other species of this genus, and cer- 

 tain closely related genera like Tecoma, Godmannia and Tabehuice- 

 montana, is sometimes called roble, which is the Spanish name for 

 oak in Latin America. It is so named because prima vera is as 

 durable as oak and is, therefore, often used in place of it. The 

 wood is moderately heavy, having a specific gravity of .454, or about 

 twenty-eight pounds per cubic foot. The heart-wood is light yellow 

 or often almost white, turning somewhat darker upon exposure, 

 rather soft, and not very strong, but is tough and more or less fine 

 grained, dries without checking, and is very durable in contact with 

 the soil. 



The sap-wood is very thin, white, and is comparatively durable in 

 contact with the soil. The durability of this wood renders it one 

 of the most favorite woods in Mexico for construction purposes. It 

 is also used to some extent for railway ties. Its most important use, 

 however, at the present time is for furniture and interior finish. It 

 is particularly adapted for furniture, not only on account of its 

 fine and pleasing grain, but because it takes and retains a beautiful 

 polish wlien properly filled and finished. It takes mahogany stain, 

 as well as any wood now used as a substitute for mahogany. 



WTiile prima vera has no well-defined annual rings of growth like 

 those found in the oaks and chestnut, there are obvious zones or 

 bands of pores in transverse section which separate the growth layers. 

 These pores are somewhat more numerous than in true mahogany, 

 but they are on an average smaller in diameter and invariably filled 

 with a grayish coloring matter called tyloses by botanists. The pith 

 rays are very numerous, but so narrow that it requires a pocket lens 

 maguifying from four to six diameters to see them. These rays add 

 no attractive figure to wood when quarter-sawed. The wood possesses 

 a figure, however, that when properly stained makes it difiicult some- 

 times to distinguish it from true mahogan>^. The figure arises from 

 the fact that it presents the fibers obliquely on the surface in alter- 

 nate longitudinal streaks about one-half inch wide, which gives it a 

 mottled or clouded effect. These streaks give rise to a variety of 

 lights and shades as the observer shifts his place, but is seen to best 

 advantage in quarter-sawed boards. It is on this account that 

 furniture manufacturers can so successfully imitate mahogany by 

 the use of this wood when stained and polished. 



The wood has been used extensively in making furniture for a 

 good many years. In fact, prima vera was shipped into this country 

 a long time before the tree was described botanically in 1S92 by 

 Dr. J. N. Rose of the National Museum. However, more than 

 ordinary interest had attached itself to this tree long before he 

 described it, because of the commercial importance of the wood it 

 yields. It is held of more value in the United States than in the 

 lumber markets in England. Even in this country it is not appre- 

 ciated as much as it deserves, for it is seen too often in the cheaper 

 styles of furniture. Prima vera presents a better appearance under 

 poor finish than do a good many higher priced woods under the same 

 treatment. 



Prima vera is imported chiefly from Manzanillo in the State of 

 Colima on the west coast of Mexico. The majority of the logs 

 shipped into this country, are cut into veneer iu San Francisco and 

 Cincinnati. C. D. M. 



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Save Your Sawdust 



In a business office in Baltimore, ranged along on shelves like 

 similar containers used for displaying color samples by chemical or 

 paint manufacturers, were rows of glass jars, stoppered and standing 

 mouth downward aud rounded ends up. All were filled with some 

 sort of powdered or fine, soft, fluffy material in a variety of colors 

 or tints ; there were reds of diif erent shades, and browns, and yellows ; 

 there was one lemon colered, and there were white and black; bur 

 these were not chemicals— they were all sawdust samples, shown in 

 the office of a wholesale dealer in and manufacturer of sawdust. 



In these finer forms sawdust is made of perhaps fifty different 

 woods, and in varying degrees of fineness, to be used for a wide 

 variety of purposes. Sawdust in all its forms, coarse and fine, has 

 many uses, and common sawdust is sold in enormous quantities. 



The sawdust familiar to everybody is that which is gathered from 

 lumber mills and mills in which lumber is re-sawed in manufacturing. 

 This common sawdust is used extensively on fioors to take up damp- 

 ness in sweeping. It is used also for packing bottled goods and for 

 bedding horses, and in ice houses. Some sawdusts are screened at 

 the mills to remove chips and sticks. 



Sawdust combined with oil is put in packages for use in sweeping 

 carpets, in place of the old time scattered tea leaves. Sawdust from 

 various non-rcsinous woods is used in great quantities in the smoking 

 of meats, and sawdust in the form of pulp is used in the manufac- 

 ture of dynamite. Sawdust of various kinds and colors is now used, 

 combined with cement, in making floors, especially in hospitals. 

 Such floors, made with the material in a plastic condition, can be 



laid in a single piece, without cracks or joints, aud so made germ 

 proof, and they are more silent and easier to the tread than tile. 



Among the better kinds of sawdust some are used for curious com- 

 mon purposes as, for instance, one of the uses for Spanish cedar 

 sawdust, which is very light, is for packing even cheap chemicals 

 contained in glass shipped over long distances, and where weight 

 would count in the freight cost. 



Freight rates must be taken into consideration in bringing the 

 common sorts of sawdust into the city for sale; yellow pine sawdust, 

 for example, cannot be brought profitably from a distance of more 

 than a hundred miles. There are fine sawdusts that are brought from 

 various more or less distant points, but most of these may be gath- 

 ered here. From the city's many mills and factories, sawdust is 

 gathered in great quantities of the commoner or more familiar kinds 

 of lumber, as hemlock, pine, and spruce, cedar, hickory, maple, yellow 

 pine, and so on; and there are few woods that have been brought 

 into use in the world anywhere but what also are sawed here in 

 cabinet work and in various other forms of production. 



Manufactured sawdust is made, not by sawing up lumber expressly 

 for that purpose, but by the treatment of sawdust gathered from 

 the various factories in which the woods were sawed. Some of these 

 sawdusts may be originally very fine, as those cut by fine toothed 

 saws in cutting veneers from fine woods, but all are subjected to 

 treatment. 



jn a factory of his own the sawdust manufacturer grinds these 

 sawdusts into fine powders, or powders of coarser grain or into a 



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