The daily gazette., 1875-06-14
The Forests of Cuba.
THEIR PRODUCTS, AND THE USES TO
WHICH THEYARE PUT.

WHICH THEyARE PUT.
a recent report to the English Fol
eign Office, by Mr.. A. Graham Dun
lop. on the forests of Cuba and the con
sumption of its timber, states that NJ
I calculation of any value can be mad
at present, so much of the best forest!
in the central and eastern department!
being in the hands of the insurgents
but little has been cut since 1868, ,wher
the insurrection began, the trade hav
ing been paralyzed; and the timber
must have increased, and large mss
ses must be maturing and improving,
Mr. Dunlop gives a long list of use.
full Cuban trees. There is the hard
and compact mahogany, the soft cedar
"one OF the most precious trees, and
everlasting in dry places" the light
viola acana, a very hard wood; the
sabina, everlasting and good for all
uses;" the ramon, a great resource in
draught for feeding cattle with its
leaves; the blush green flexible maja-
qua, the best wood known for gun
stocks, carriage poles, and ship knees;
the quick growing lauero, bearing an
abundant fruit, which encloses an
enormous quantity of silky flbres, from
which great advantages might be de-
rived in industry" the yaba, hard
wood, fit for shipbuilding, it being
"indestructible under water and under
ground" but it is poisonous, and "the
smoke produces blindness, and the
bark is used to destroy worms"
Cuba produces an immense variety
of colored woods for cabinet work Mr..
Chapman, member and representative
In Cuba, of large English engineer
ing house, makes mention of floor
in II room he has seen, inlaid with
fifteen or sixteen differen: kinds
of beautiful hard woods. OF the fus-
tic wood of this part of the world a
Vicc.Consul in Honduras says:-'It
resists the action of water better than
any other wood known here, and house
posts made oft have been found sound
and fresh after being ia the ground for
q century,"
Almost all the forest land in Cuba
belongs to private persons. The Gov
ernment forests have been neglected
and left to chance and plunder, and
there has been no attempt to control
the misuse and waste and wanton de-
struction of forests. Immense guam
titles of trees were felled by the bree-
defs of cattle and swine to make en-
closures, what was not required being
burned and no regard being paid to
leaving valuable hard timber.
The planters find sugar can be made
cheaply in wooded districts, and the
remains of the forest are burned and
destroyed. But still there is a vast
amount of valuable timber, and Mr..
Dunlop states that if the feelings were
regulated, the export of tim
Der from Cuba might be very large,
even though Government should not
insist on ''replantings." Three million
square feet of mahogany, 100000
square feet of cedar, and 2 900 tons of
fustic wood would be ready for the
axe every year. Mr.. Chapman observes
that in the last century forty two ships |
of war were built in the Royal Arsenal |
Of Havana, chiefly of Cuban wood and |
some of them still exist as hulks; and |
ships of excellent quality were built in |
Cuba not long ago. But complaint is |
made of the forests not even attracting |
rain enough for the crops in the plains |
although with proper management |
here would have been produced sutli- |
;ient timber for the navies OF several
)OWerS