The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-07-26
MUCH WOOD USED IN CONSTRUCTION
 OF PIPE ORGAN
Quality of This Material Mu6 Better Than That
 of Any Other.


 into picture show of the modern Hnttern and listen to the soft notes of me organ coming from you know not where, ponder what makes these tunes, says the American Forestry Association of Washington. for these tones in most cases come flynn wood. To a Philade1phian. goes the credit ford iscoverins the possibilities of get ting tones from wood in this fashion for the first time many years ago. Strange as it may seem, the discovery Is due to the soft batter of the rain drops on cedar shingled roof
 When Philadelphia's roofs were mostly covered with shingles, Gott- lieb Hittelberger listened to the rain fall and noted the different sounds, and from that he worked out the pipe organ.
 Wood has long been the material for sound making instruments, the American Forestry Association points out. from the savage methods for making music down to the present. day butlt-in pipe organs costing thou sands Of dollars. The value of violin is in the sound producing qualities Of the wood used in making it.
 A tremendous industry Is founded upon the use of more than 200, 900 900 feet of wood every year in the manufacture of musical instruments. On this subject the American For estry Magazine" says:
 ''Most softwood listed in this in dustry do not owe their place to their resonance. For instance, much white pine and sugar pine are manufac. tured into keys for organs and pianos, but they are preferred for those places on account of their lightness and small tendency to warp, and not for any quality of resonance which they may possess.
 Such soft woods as hemlock, Douglas fir, yellow pine and cypress are demanded for the frames of large instruments to give the necessary strength without too much weight or at too great cost; but these woods hold places in this industry other than as frame stock.
 ''Five feet of hardwood go to these manufacturers to one foot of soft wood.
 Maple leads all others. It is not because this wood has some special use which accounts for the large de- mand, but 1t Is due to the general fitness of maple for many parts of musical instruments. Most of its qualities are good ones, and 1t has many the magazine continues. "It fills numerous places and does ii we'll. It is an outside wood for show and an inside wood for strength. It Is hard. strong, stiff. heavy. elastic and handsome.
 ''Its chief place is for frames and braces, and its hardness opens the way for its employment as piano ac- tions. A single piano does not require much wood for actions, but in the aggregate a large amount Is SO used in the course of a year in the whole United States. It cannot be stated how much of the forty-five million feet of maple reported in the indus try converted into action, but the amount is large. Where beauty is th' chief consideration, maple meets tht call
 "Both softwoods and hardwoods ar' employed in this industry. Ter of the former are on the list, all O which are native of the United States. Not a foot of imported soft wood is used, unless possibly a littl' spruce from Canada for soundinl boards, but none such is shown b. the records. The total annual demand for softwoods exceeds 4a,o0o,ooo feet
 "In quality spruce exceeds tn other soft woods in the above list Though it Is named as though were a single species, several spruce are included in this group. the prin cipal being the eastern red spruc that grows from the mountains o West Virginia to North Maine. tn largest supply coming from the tw states named; and Sitka spruce c the northern Pacific coast.
 Some spruce of the black and tn white species. from New England an the lake states, and from the adja cent regions of Canada, contribute t the musical instrument industr! Wood consists of fibers which ma be compared to strings, either para Tel or interlaced. The most of thos of spruce are parallel. hence thei final musical qualities.
 Most other woods have shorte e, fibers, and they may not be arrange so that they can vibrate freely. on interfering with another. Oak Is wood of that kind, and it is very poe material for sounding boards for D amos.
 sThe quality of wood in a violi has much to do in determining th value of the instrument. The ol master makers of violins, like Strad 'vari, Amati and Guarneri. selecte their wood and prepared it with z much care as they bestowed on th actual shaping and joining Map has always been one of the fine violin woods. and 1t is nearly alwa! complneo "leh soiie eoi' "ooo TIT pine or spruce.
 "Some of the finest working wood is done in producing high-cla horns for talking machines ar music boxes The horn Is a sort sounding board, corresponding
 that of the piano, There are vel fine instruments which are mat without wooden horns. but mar persons claim that the wooden hol gives a softness and richness of u tone which is extremely rare.
 "Formsr1y some very large be- were not pfovid11 with csappers
 strike in the usual way, but as su stit.Its, beams of wood were s1ui on the outside, so seared as to stri the bells, end on, and produce u sound,
 '-L4 i- net quite certain how Hu