10 BULLETIN" 474, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 



framework of small sailing vessels. Large sailing vessels with ma- 

 hogany framework were sold for enormous prices and manufactured 

 into fine furniture. The outer planking of American yachts is prefer- 

 ably of mahogany, although teak is still used for this purpose. The 

 principal use of mahogany is for high-class furniture ; it is also much 

 used for the interior finish of parlor cars, public buildings, hotels, 

 and dwellings, and for office fixtures. It is used very extensively for 

 pianofortes, for astronomical and surveying instruments, and for the 

 cases of all sorts of delicate apparatus, such as scales, microscopes, 

 and microtomes. The present extensive use of mahogany for the in- 

 terior finish of fine office buildings, particularly in this country, has 

 created a demand for specially large-dimension boards, obtained 

 from logs which come from Mexico and British Honduras. 



As early as 1850 English timber merchants feared an exhaustion 

 of the world's supply of West Indian mahogany, then the best-known 

 and most highly prized of the different grades of woods. As a result, 

 timber prospectors began to search for other woods that could be sub- 

 stituted, and after the British conquest of India a number of differ- 

 ent woods resembling mahogany were shipped from that country to 

 England. So far as is now known the introduction of these woods 

 marked the beginning of the substitution of mahogany-like woods 

 for true mahogany. African " mahogany " was first imported into 

 England in 1833, when 58 logs were sold in Liverpool, but it was not 

 until about 1878 that it became commercially important. African 

 "mahoganies" are now among the leading fancy cabinet woods in 

 England and also have an important place in the principal American 

 markets. 



Immediately after the acquisition of the Philippine Islands by the 

 United States several other woods entirely unrelated to true mahog- 

 any began to be exploited and sold under the name of " Philippine 

 mahogany." A good deal of this material has been shipped into the 

 United States during the last decade, and the importations have been 

 rapidly increasing. 



Millions of feet of true mahogany are still available, however, in 

 remote places difficult of access. No one knows just how much stand- 

 ing mahogany is left, though vast areas are believed to exist in 

 Mexico and Central America. 



The early impression that the supply of mahogany was nearing ex- 

 haustion came from the practice of cutting only the easily accessible 

 trees along and near waterways. Wood drawn from the tropical 

 forests for nearly 200 years has been obtained mainly from territory 

 bordering water courses, while that farther inland remains untouched. 

 The mountain forests of Cuba still contain a large supply of the finest 

 mahogany, but it would cost more to transport the logs to shipping 

 points than they would bring in the market. The supply of Santo 



