The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-03-19
HUNTING WALNUT.
Where Wood Means a Fortun

Germany manufacturers by a local
lumber firm has in manner revived
the waning interest lin this famous
wood that dozen years ago was being
searched for throughout all the noun
tains of eastern Kentucky and the ad-
joining territory OF Virginia, West Vir-
sinia and Tennessee. The supply in
these states is by no means exhausted,
but the slowing up that has been felt
in the demand for several years has
caused a cessation Of the old-time en-
ergetic activity.
When, thirty years back, the walnut
craze was sweeping over the country,
the supply in the Kentucky mountains
appeared unlimited, but with the reck-
less methods employed by the woods
men and induced by the general pleni-
tude of the trees, there was soon made
apparent the fact that care must be
exercised in this work as we'll as any
other. At the outset only the choicest
trees were cut. That this was mis-
take was shown later, as the prices still
advanced until double the first QUOTA
lions. Then the smallest trees We're
cut, and RATS come out OF the Big
Sandy every season yet that will not
average more than twelve inches in d.
ameter of each log,
Finally in the sections of easiest ac-
cess to the river, the timber was all
cut Off and then for the first time came
the real difficult work of sucuring the
timber. AS the timber became scarcer
the price rose CORRESPONDENCE, and
many men picked up neat fortunes in
t1,n 81, fI,ot
had been cut years before and selling
them to the veneer mill companies of
the east. Some of the finest figured
wood of curly walnut was found in
these stumps, and the high estimate of
this peculiar feature to a large extent
came too late for the pioneer dealers,
as their finest trees of this sort had
been disposed of without respect to the
unusual properties of the grain and had
in many cases been worked up by the
manufacturers in the same blissful ig-
norance,
Before the demand arose for the wood
walnut was especially sought by the
Big Sandy railsplitters as the most sat
| isfactory timber for rail-mal1ing. 1t
was not difficult to work, and in lasting
! qualities it was practically unequalled.
| Hundreds of thousandsof dollars worth
of fine walnut has been wasted in the
Big. Sandy valley alone in rail fence
| making.
| But there is no more of it worked up
in this manner. The top limbs of many
an old tree cut years ago have been
sought out in the accumulated waste
heaps of the mountain hollows and sold
| to dimension millmen, who can work
up the smallest bits of the wood. The
| stumps have all been uprooted, and j.
| N. Valley of Jersey City, N. j., has
| handled thousands of them to eastern
veneer works the last fifteen years and
| found the business a paying one. Doz-
ems of others have given attention to
| the work on a smaller scale, but with
| pleasing results.
| Had such a condition been preached
| at the outset of the fad for walnut fur
niture. the idea would have been hooted
as utterly ridiculous. Then only the
| choicest trees were deemed of sufficient
value to handle toover the-ocean points
mainly in England, France and Ger
| many. The logs were hewn with four
| square faces on the same principle as
at present, the idea being to rid them
of the sap and thus escape the payment
| of dead freight, and cut into lengths
ranging from twenty to thirty feet
Very often forty-foot logs were shipped
| without cutting.
| While the foreign demand is still an
| important feature in the timber bust
ness, especially in walnut, there has
been decided decrease, while the price
| has fallen also. The penchant for cary
ed work in Germany and France has
| kept up the demand more than any 9TH
err feature, as they must have the solid
wood furniture to admit of this, while
| in America the veneer is used largely
| upon a foundation of inferior and in
many instances very ordinary woods
with satisfactory results. American
made desks and sideboards are veneer
| ed wherever possible, while foreign
made furniture is almost universally of
| the solid wood. This accounts for the
| foreign orders for sawed walnut al
| ways calling for thickness ranging
| from one to four inches.
| Prices of logs range according to the
diameter Of the stick, recent quotations
| at New York city placing the price per
| foot, Scribner's measure, at $27 per M,
/ logs averaging eighteen inches, while
| diameters of thirty inches and up
brought $85 per M, board measure.
These prices are not a circumstance to
what was paid twenty years ago There
are still varieties of walnut, however,
that bring handsome returns, the fig
ured wood or curly walnut being valued
according to the beauty of the figure
l IL 7
from which the fine birds-eye Veneers
are cut, bring almost their weight In
coin of the realm, selling altogether by
the pound instead of the foot, as with
the more ordinary material, Specimens
of this sort have been bought in the Big
Sandy valley for a few dollars and sold
for the foundation of fortune to the
eastern veneer companies.
This scouting for valuable trees is a
business that requires no small tact and
a thorough experience in walnut timber.
There are a dozen or more men scat
| tered throughout the Kentucky and
| West Virginia hills who do nothing but
look up black walnut trees of more than
ordinary promise One of these men
has accumulated 81 fortune of $50 900 in
the last nine years at this work alone.
AS an example of the profits may be
cited an instance of three years ago,
when he brought out of the Big Sandy
| ole +Tep of itg11rp5 In n