Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1911-03-08

ern Florida, southern California ans
parts of Mexico, but only as an orna
mental tree, however, because it is o:
such slow growth and requires for full
maturity such natural surroundings
that for commercial purposes it woulc
seem impossible of cultivation. 1t is a
giant among even the giants Of trop-
ical forest 1t towers sometimes to a
height of 100 feet The trunk alone
is often so feet in length and IL feet in
diameter, and it divides into so many
huge arms and throws the shade of its
shining green leaves over so vast an
extent of surface that a more magnifi-
cent or more useful object is not to be
met with in the vegetable world. The
precise period of its growth is not &C
curately known, but as, when large, it
changes little during the life of man,
the time of it's arriving at maturity is
probably not less than 200 years. The
name "Swietenia" was given to mahog-
any in honor of the celebrated Baron
Won Swieten, physician to Maria Their
esa. The early Spanish called the tree
"Cedrela," a species not unlike the
mahogany in many respects, and found
also in about the same natural sur
roundings, but the English mistook
that name for cedar, applying it direct
ly to mahogany, the result being that
Spanish cedar is a term still heard
occasionally or read without true I'M
derstanding in ancient books of travel
and discovery along the Spanish Main.
Only the best and biggest logs are
exported; the smaller ones and the
remnants of the sawed timber are uti-
lized as ordinary lumber on the spot
for the construction of houses or the
decoration of small vessels, so that
in the tropics there can still be seen
the solid mahogany furniture which
originally made the wood so famous.
London is the mahogany center of
the world. Here prices are set and
the character of wood decided. Beauty
of grain is, of course, the chief char
acteristic, and that which at once
ranks it above other woods either for
constructive or decorative purposes;
allied to beauty is figure or pattern,
and when the two are combined ma
hogany then becomes supreme. Sheets
of mahogany of wonderful thinness
can be cut from the parent log, with
very little loss.
Selling mahogany logs by auction IS
still the habit in vogue in the great
center-London-of the trade, Gus
tom inherited from generations of buy
ing and selling. To these principal
markets in England merchants come
from every direction, for the pick of
the forests can always be found there
In fact, the best class of logs from
tropical America are carried first to
England, many Of them sold to manu-
facturers in the United States, to be
finally imported through the Atlantic
seaboard, thus having travelled twice
across the ocean in their journey from
the forest to the factory.
It is gratifying to know that there
is no wholesale destruction of the ma
hogany forests. The young timber has
to be preserved At one time it was
the law that no tree should be cut
WHICH SQudl GU 1893 IAdu 10 lHCuSS-
quite large tree, as one will notice
but that has become rather a dead let
ter. and trees smaller than this are
cut every day. Still there is some eff
fort to preserve the timber, and even
to do an appreciate amount of refor-
estation. The trees are of very slow
growth, many of the large trees, it is
said, bearing evidence of being at least
/ 900 years old, and when there is care
lesness or greed in cutting, it means
much to the future of the mahogany
business.