THE CUBA REVIEW 



13 



The logs, which are reduced to about three-foot lengths, are never brought oUt of the for- 

 est with the sap on, which has no vdue. The heartwood is a dark red, very hard, heavy, 

 strong, tough, cross and fine grained, and takes a very beautiful polish which it retains 

 indefinitely. It works and splits with difficulty and is almost indestructible in contact 

 with the soil and air. After a fresh surface has been exposed to the air and light for sev- 

 eral days, it turns very dark or often nearly black, and if it lies in water it dyes it like ink. 

 Its value is in proportion to the size of the logs, the largest being the choicest kind. 



The imports of logwood into the United States during 1915 amounted to 55,059 tons, 

 valued at $742,234. The largest quantity, more than one half, or 29,247 tons, came from 

 Jamaica, 18,495 tons from Haiti, 4,534 tons from Mexico, 2,006 tons from Dominican 

 Republic, and 763 tons from Cuba. Small shipments are derived also from other British West 

 Indian Islands and from the northern part of South America. The amounts and values of the 

 imports of crude logwood for the three years previous to 1915 were as follows: 



Year. Tons. Value. 



1912 39,571 $476,983 



1913 37,027 476,916 



1914 30,062 378,064 



Logwood is imported either in the form of logs or in a chipped condition. Small quan- 

 tities of logA\'ood extract are shipped here, but the amounts and values are not kept separate 

 from those of other dyewood extracts. Ordinarily the wood is brought into this country in 

 the form of logs about three feet in length, which are reduced to fragments before they are 

 fitted for the purpose of the dyer. This reduction is effected in one of three ways. One 

 method is by using a machine consisting of knives fixed to a large wheel, the knives chip the 

 wood across the grain into small fragments which are afterwards reduced to a fine powder by 

 grinding them between a pair of rolHng stones. The second method is by a machine provided 

 with steel bars with a great number of notches or teeth at the edges; these rasp and cut the ends 

 of the sticks into powder. The other method is by means of a circular saw which at every cut 

 produces as much logwood sawdust as is equal to its own thickness, and is at the same time 

 so contrived as to shatter into fragments the thin laminae produced by the saw. 



The raspings or shavings of logwood obtained by any of the above methods will easily 

 yield their coloring principle by boiling. This color is employed either to dye of a reddish tinge 



A Pile of Logwood Sticks on the Docl^ in New York. 



