LOSS ACROSS THE SEA

Evening Star, Issue 20089, 1 February 1929, Page 2

LOSS ACROSS THE SEA

. JAPAN’S TIMBER REQUIREMENTS _/ Japan depends on foreign countries for nearly one-third of its lumber requirements (according to figures lor 1926), ".’hen 88 per cent, of its imports “came from the West Goast cf the United States, amounting to a value of 21,000,000d0l in that year. This information is given in a bulletin, ‘ American Lumber in Japan,’ issued by the U.S. Bureau oi Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Julius Klein, director, dealing comprehensive!/ with the subject (says ‘Pacific Data,’ published by the Institute of Pacific Relations). Of the sawn lumber hicli goes into Japan from abroad, “ practically all American Douglas fir and hemlock me remamifactured ... to produce smaller sizes with as much up-giading

as possible. . . . The universal practice in Japanese saw-mills lo cut for finality rather than quantity of product.” Ifeanty of grain, smoothness and accuracy of cut are wellknown features of Japanese woodwork. A few of the uses made of American lumber in Japan are as follows:—Paving blocks of Douglas fir for thousands of square yards of roads in Tokio alono; telegraph poles of red cedar; aeroplane stock from spruce; railway cars from Douglas fir; the hibachi, or container for the charcoal fire-pot, sometimes of white cedar, though native chestnut or walnut is preferred; beautifully grained, unstained, ' unvarnished interior panelling for house construction, from red cedar, etc. American woods are not popular for furniture and chests because of supposed “ unpleasant odour.”