MEN OF THE TREES 



in charge of seventy-five timber concessions there, rang- 

 ing in size from four square miles to two hundred square 

 miles each and has issued permits for one hundred and 

 twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of mahogany a 

 month, belonging chiefly to the botanical family known 

 to foresters as the Meliaceae. This family provides the 

 main bulk of timber at present commercially utilized. 

 Of this family, the genera of Khaya, Entandrophragma 

 and Guarea provide the huge trees which yield the ma- 

 hogany and scented mahoganies, as well as the African 

 walnuts of trade. One giant tree, which the writer 

 photographed, an Entandrophragma or scented ma- 

 hogany, known locally in Nigeria as a Sapele wood, 

 named after the place from which quantities of its logs 

 are exported, actually measured 34 ft. 7 in. in girth. 



The mahogany forests belong to the type of forest 

 known as the Tropical Evergreen Forests. They owe 

 their existence to the high tropical rainfall. These forests 

 form most of the forest belt of Nigeria. Owing to de- 

 structive methods of farming employed by the natives, 

 vast inroads have been made and the diminishing sup- 

 plies of timber on the one hand, and the increasing de- 

 mand on the other, is now beginning to cause serious 

 concern. Every year the forests have to be penetrated 

 more deeply to obtain the best trees, and it will not be 

 long before these same forest veterans will become al- 

 most indispensable, and their continued destruction will 

 begin to affect some of the most important key indus- 

 tries of western civilization. In the past, these trees were 



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