310 



The World's Commercial Products 



By permission of the New Zealand Government 



SAWING KAURI TREE 



a strip, from ten to thirty miles broad, along the coast region of California. Redwood is 

 the softest timber of commerce. Although a very large tree, it is entirely overshadowed by 

 its close relation, the " Big Tree " of California (Seguoia Washingtoniana), the largest, 

 although not the tallest, tree in the world. Some idea of the great girth of these trees 

 may be gained by noting that the " Mother of the Forest," felled in 1853, was eighty-four feet 

 in circumference and accommodated a dancing party of forty-nine people on the cut stump. 



Canadian Red Cedar, Giant Arbor Vitae, Canoe Cedar (U.S.A.), (Thuya gigantea). 

 A close relative of the ordinary Arbor Vitae, commonly grown in shrubberies in Great Britain, 

 it attains a height of some 150 feet and a girth of about thirty feet. 



Amongst other cedars are the Pencil Cedar of New South Wales and Queensland (Dysoxylum 

 Fraseranum), ' New Zealand Cedar (Libocedrus Bidwilli), and the allied species Libocedrus 

 doniana, of which the native name is Kahata, and Clanwilliam Cedar (Callitris arborea). 



Mahogany was introduced into England about 1724. One account states that some logs 

 were brought as ballast in a ship from British Honduras, and that owing to the hardness of 

 the wood the carpenters refused to use it; but a box made by Wollaston, a cabinet-maker, 

 attracted so much attention that mahogany soon became established in favour. The true 

 mahoganies come from tropical America and the West Indies, but other woods of similar 

 character are conveniently classed as mahogany, and we find African, Australian, East 

 Indian, and other " mahoganies." 



The Central American and West Indian varieties are usually stated to be the timber of a large 

 forest tree, Swietenia Mahagoni (see p. 297), related to the tree yielding West Indian cedar. 

 Spanish mahogany obtained from Cuba is generally better figured, harder, and of a darker 



