Philippine Woods Identification 331 



a sample of the wood in question. Such inquiries come from 

 every Bureau of the Government that makes use of wood in any 

 way, from railway and naval construction companies, public and 

 private contractors and a host of others. Very frequently they 

 merely want the specimen identified, the inquirer being already 

 satisfied that if the wood is such and such a species, known to 

 him by name, it is fitted for his purposes. 



Frequently, also, samples are submitted without any name, the 

 inquirer desiring all possible information about them. In such 

 cases (if the specimens can be identified) the Bureau of Forestry 

 gives the inquirer the name, qualities, uses, distribution and sup- 

 ply, in short, all information of which data are on record. 



Finally, numerous inquiries come from other countries, often 

 accompanied also by samples. These are of two kinds, inquiries 

 regarding Philippine woods that have been exported and are not 

 well or not at all known at their point of arrival, and others 

 accompanying samples of foreign woods and wishing to know if 

 similar ones can be obtained from the Philippines. 



Hardly any two such inquiries involve all the same points, but 

 it is plain that the answer to all of them depends primarily 

 on the identification of the sample in question. 



The most important work in the dissemination of the know- 

 ledge of wood structure, at least as regards the future, is that 

 being done at the Forest School. Each class is given instruc- 

 tion extending over the entire senior year in wood-technology, the 

 material used being, besides literature, hand specimens of about 

 one hundred kinds of wood. Details of the methods of instruc- 

 tion would require too much space here, but an example of the 

 results obtained may be of interest. The present school year 

 (1913) began June 9. On July 3 Dr. Foxworthy gave the senior 

 class a test on one hundred small wood specimens, comprising 

 twenty-four species. The thirty-six students in the class identi- 

 fied on the average, 76 per cent of the specimens. Two weeks 

 later, the second test was given, again on one hundred specimens, 

 but consisting of thirty-one species. The class identified 86 per 

 cent. One week later, July 24, the test was on thirty-eight species 

 and the class made an average of 87 per cent. 



Formerly, forest officers acquired their knowledge of timber in 

 a haphazard, empirical fashion, much as did lumbermen and 

 others. In the future, every native ranger (for no permanent 



