THE CONIFEROUS TREES OF COMMERCE, ETC. 27 
trees after exhaustion and also the thinnings of the 
forests are largely exported, principally from Bordeaux 
for pit-props. The chief supplies for the coalfields 
of South Wales are drawn from this source. 
From Eastern countries, many of which are practi- 
cally untapped as regards coniferous timbers, there is 
but a small import of soft wood. Doubtless there are 
ample supplies, but while there are the European and 
Asiatic forests of Russia and the present resources of 
Canada, British Columbia and other countries com- 
paratively near at hand to draw upon, the question of 
obtaining material from such distant regions as those 
in the East is hardly considered. 
One failure of supply which is apparently in sight,— 
namely, the diversion of much of the pine wood of 
Canada to the nearer United States,—has been seized 
upon by the shippers as an opportune occasion to export 
the supplies of the forests of Eastern Siberia. Ship- 
ments of excellent pine, of capital specification and well 
converted, have reached the markets from the distant 
port of Vladivostock, and the wood, although perhaps 
not so mellow as the Canadian, is steadily growing in 
favour with consumers. 
Although this is not in the Eastern hemisphere, a 
few New Zealand coniferous woods may, perhaps, be 
included in this chapter, since some of them are in fair 
use in Great Britain. 
Kauri Pine. —Although meeting with a poo: reception 
when introduced into England from New Zealand, 
about 1888, this wood has been steadily growing in 
the estimation of users ever since, and there is, at the 
present time, a regular and constant consumption. 
The tree from which the wood is obtained is, perhaps, 
-the most important in the Islands, as, besides the useful 
timber, a gum which is exuded from the tree, and which 
