The St. Mary banner., 1910-04-23

lhoee laEte stE.at5 n the pigW q tia.t
ana viii dis them Gut for you anl
carry them away"
The farmer snapped at the PROPOSE
t1on. For forty years he had been
ploWlng around those massive stumps
and a thousand times he had "cussed
when the point Of his ploy or corner
OF his harrow had caught in them. He
had an idea that the man who offered
20 hlg them out and give him $40 into
the bargain must be a little bit in
sane, bit. anyway, he was glad TO get
| rid of them.
One OF those old stumps was worth
$500. The others were worth not
much more than the expense of dig
g7ng them up and hauling them to
Kansas City
Made Into Fine Veneer.
The stumps came to the mill of the
Penrod Walnut Corporation, on the
! bank OF the Blue river, near Sheffield
There the stumps will be trimmed
and steamed for hours and then fast
ened into veneer machine, where they
| will revolve against the cutting edges
of great knife that will slice off a
thin veneer as the stump turns. This
veneer will be used for covering pianos,
the finest kinds Of furniture and cab
met work and the inside finish Of Pull
man cars.
This one stump was particularly val
liable because of the wrinkles and
burls and warts that ran through it.
The veneer sliced from it would have
a beautiful waving grain with birds
eyes and all sorts of curious convolu-
tons. The more Of these veneer has
the more valuable it is
There is not one walnut stump in
hundred that is worth anything to
the veneer mills. There is not one in
thousand that is worth $500. And
there is not one man in million who
knows the value of stump by looking
at 1t In the ground. The men who do
know this and who spend their time
looking for these stumps are called
cruisers" They drive all over the
states Of Missouri and Kansas looking
for walnut timber and stumps that are
good for veneer.
Only Old Trees Are Used.
The men who buy these stumps and
cut them say that stumps Of young
trees are of no value. The best ones
of trees centuries old. The more aged
and gnarled the tree the richer the
stump will be in burls and birds eyes. |
Some Of the most valuable stumps are
Of trees that were cut fifty years ago
by the pioneers of this country. The |
best of them are found along the riv-
ers, where the lands were too rough |
to be cultivated From these tracts
the trees were cut for lumber or fire.
wood and the stumps remain to be |
dug up a half century later and used |
to decorate some parlor in a modern
house.
The men who cut these stumps into
veneer do not always get them for a
small price. Many farmers know their
value and demand it. In the yard Of
the mill near Sheffield are stumps for
which the owners paid from $50 to
5000 and there is one for which the
nan who dug it out demands $500
This stump is nine feet in diameter at
he butt of the tree
This mill has been saving walnut
umber for fifteen years. In that time
t has cut 90,000,000 feet of walnut
umber the greater part of which has
,een sent to Europe, but shipments
lave gone from here to Australia. Rus
ia and China.
Now the saving Of walnut into lum-
will cut only veneers. The reason is
hat nearly all the large walnut tim
,er is in Missouri and Kansas, but it
loeS not pay to cut it-theblack heart
$ too small and the white sap is of no
'alue. 1t is the black heart of the
rec that has the fine grain and makes
he rich black polish.
The Penrod mill has 1000, 900 feet Of
me seasoned walnut in its yards now
or which there is no sale.
Mahogany is Much Cheaper.
Owing to the scarcity of big walnut {
ogs and the small lumber that has |
one to the European market in recent
ears, the demand for it has fallen off /,
nd it has been supplanted by ma
ogany.
There are other reasons why mahog- :
ny has taken the place of walnut.
Ianogany is 80 percent cheaper in $
'urore than walnut. It is much larg- :