USES OF COMMERCIAL WOODS. 13 



mountain mahogany for the same reason.^ Cherry birch is another of 

 its names, due to its success as a substitute for cherry. It is some- 

 times called red bircli and white birch, the first name bestowed be- 

 cause the heartwood is red. and the second because the sapwood is 

 white. Some designate it as river birch, which is apt to lead to 

 confusion, because that is the proper name of a different species 

 {Betula nigra). 



A^Tiile Boston was staining birch and selling it as mahogany in 

 furniture and musical instrument^. New York carriage makers were 

 building fine panels of it and finding ready sale for their product 

 without hiding it under false names. There was more temptation 

 from a money point of view a hundred or more years ago to substi- 

 tute birch for mahogany than there is now. Mahogany was about 

 as expensive in this country then as it is at present, while birch was 

 not half as costly as now. The artistic front of mau}^ a chest of 

 drawers passed for mahogany a century ago (and may still pass as 

 such in antique collections), though the wood grew in Massachusetts, 

 Xew York, or Pennsylvania. 



Birch is named in old lists of shoe-last material, but it appears to 

 have passed out of service in that capacity. 



FURNITURE. 



Among the earliest recorded attempts to make high-grade furni- 

 ture of sweet birch were those successfully carried out at Boston. 

 Hand-carved arms for chairs were turned out in attractive designs. 

 The early hand processes expanded and developed into manufac- 

 turing as the term is now understood. Sweet birch, being a Avood of 

 high grade, has been prominent in furniture manufacture from the 

 first successful attempts. It is physically equal to nearly any wood ; it 

 is heavy, dense, of good milling qualities, lends itself to stains and 

 fillers, and holds finish well. There is probably no important line of 

 furniture produced in this country which does not make use of some 

 birch. The earliest furniture of this wood seems to have been chairs, 

 and at this day chairs are of sufficient importance to claim first place. 

 The range rises from the cheap camp chair or stool to the finest 

 rocker. The entire article is not necessarily birch ; in fact, it seldom 

 is. This wood may supply only the back, the seat, the arms, the 

 rockers, or some of the slats, rounds, or spindles. A special place for 

 it is found in opera chairs, in which three or five ply veneer, the 

 visible wood being birch, is shaped for seats and backs. School desks 

 in large numbers are manufactured in similar patterns. Morris 

 chairs, of which the arms at least are of this wood, are widely sold. 



^ The mountain mahogany of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada is a diflferent 

 wood (Cercocarpus ledifolius). 



