Indiana wood, and Philadelphia cabinet-makers of course have the advantage of the best stock to select from. Throughout Northern Ohio, and in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, there is in the forests a large proportion of walnut, many of the trees being three to four feet diameter, with a trunk rising eighty feet, without a limb or a defect. All over this territory there are numerous saw-mills, that cut the wood to sizes for the owners of the land, who are mostly farmers. Agents from the Eastern cities establish themselves in a convenient locality, and are prepared to purchase all the timber that is brought to them. During the dull season, when the farmers have but little employment, they cut down their trees, and have them sawed to all sizes and every thickness, from 12 inch to 8 inches, every intermediate quarter of an inch being a marketable dimension. This wood they haul, entirely green, to the agents of the Eastern dealers, and they get the money for each wagon-load, as it is delivered. This lumber is piled up on the ground, and left to remain for from six months to a year, before it is considered marketable. In fact, walnut one inch thick is not fit to work into furniture, until two years have elapsed after the cutting; but the greater part of the cheap furniture, sold in the Eastern cities, was growing in the tree six months previous.
It must not be understood that there are whole forests of walnut alone, as ten to fifteen good walnut trees to the acre is considered a very liberal supply. At the present rate of consumption, it can be but a few years, before we will be in the same condition for walnut that St. Domingo is in for mahogany, that is, possessing plenty of it in many parts of the country, but not within reach
The grain of walnut is more diversified than that of any other wood. We have plain-grained, striped, blister, curl, mottled, and burl, or wart. Sometimes, from a defect in, or injury to, the sapling, the tree grows crooked, and the grain interlocks; this results in striped, mottled, and blister wood. The curl is in the forks of the boughs, or the principal branches from the trunk. The burl or wart is produced from disease in the tree; the sap oozes out, and forms a wart, which increases in size with the growth of the tree, till it sometimes reaches the enormous weight of a ton. All of these varieties are reserved for veneering, and are brought, mostly in bulk, to the Eastern cities, where there are a number of appliances for reducing them to veneers.
Until within the last few years, all veneers in this country were cut with circular saws. The Veneer Saw was a specialty, used for no other purpose. It was a cast-iron disc, about five feet in diameter, and from two to three inches thick at the axle, running off tapering on one side to a feather-edge. The saw-plates, containing the teeth, were made of thin steel, in sections of ten to twelve inches wide, conforming to the radius of the disc, on the flat side of which they were nicely fitted into a rebate, and secured by screws, with their heads countersunk, so as to present a perfectly level surface to the log to be sawn. The log was secured to a sliding carriage, and fed to the saw as fast as it would cut. From fifteen to thirty veneers were cut to the inch, varying according to the wood, whether tough or brash. The waste from the saw-kerf[1] was about one-half, so that American ingenuity was exercised to produce a cutter, that would not waste; and soon produced it. This is a huge knife-blade, secured firmly in its place. The log to be cut is first steamed, to make the wood soft; and then is suspended, by heavy gearing, above the knife, so that in descending it must have a drawing, or slicing, as well as a downward movement. This machine is capable of cutting 200 veneers to the inch; but, for cabinet-
- ↑ Kerf is from the same root as carve. It is sometimes improperly spelled curf.
