TRUE MAHOGANY. 9 



MARKET VALUE. 



The best grades of mahogany sell in New York for from $175 to 

 $200 per thousand board feet, while the average run of firsts and 

 seconds brings about $150. 



Specially well-figured Cuban mahogany, suitable for fancy counter 

 tops, and selling for from $300 to $100 per thousand, is now very 

 scarce. Culls sell for from $60 to $100 per thousand board feet, and 

 commons for from $100 to $150. A poor grade of Cuban short stock 

 often sells for $60, and sometimes as low as $50, per thousand. The 

 best grades are used for fancy furniture and interior finish ; the larger 

 logs with desirable figure, which bring from $100 to $150 per thou- 

 sand board feet scaled, are converted chiefly into veneer. The San 

 Jago mahogany, which comes from San Jago, Cuba, sells for from 

 $140 to $165 per thousand. The supply of Cuban mahogany is gradu- 

 ally diminishing. Two grades of Mexican mahogany, alike in their 

 pale color and straight grain, but differing in their hardness, do not 

 finish well and do not impro vq in color with age. The softer of these, 

 sometimes called " sappy mahogany," sells as low as $20 or $25 per 

 thousand. The other grade has few defects and is used for patterns. 



USES AND SUPPLY. 



The earliest recorded use of mahogany was between 1521 and 1540, 

 when Spanish explorers employed the wood for making canoes and 

 for ship-repair work. Mahogany was again used in 1597 in repairing 

 Sir Walter Raleigh's ships in the West Indies. At this time the 

 wood was called Cedrela, the name applied later to the Spanish, or 

 cigar-box, cedar {Cedrela odorata L.). The first use of true mahog- 

 any for cabinet work was in 1724 in England. It was probably the 

 first wood of the Western Continent to attract the attention of Euro- 

 pean timber dealers. Some idea of the enormous consumption of 

 mahogany in England alone may be had from the fact that as early 

 as 1846, when the wood was still valued chiefly for shipbuilding, ap- 

 proximately 85,000,000 board feet were shipped to English ports. 

 Since then the amount has diminished considerably, partly because of 

 gradual exhaustion of the more accessible timber and partly, also, 

 because of the introduction of substitutes. 



Its first use in England and Spain was for shipbuilding, and dur- 

 ing the eighteenth century it was the chief wood employed in Europe 

 for this purpose. It is particularly suited for planking, waterways, 

 bulwarks, rails, skylights and companions, bitts, gangway ladders, 

 and other deck work. With the later employment of iron, steel, and 

 teak in shipbuilding, mahogany became more important as a furni- 

 ture wood, though it is still preferred to any other wood for the 

 62059°— Bull. 474—17 2 



