17 MARCH 1928, Page 15

HARD WOODS AND SOFT.

Hard woods are fairly plentiful and are not being eaten up extravagantly. Indeed, there is not always so eager a market as there should be for such gorgeous woods as grow, for example, in Western Australia, whose karri and jarrah forests are almost the finest natural spectacle that ever I saw. And how rich and rare are the colour and pattern of the grain ! The problem is confined chiefly to soft woods—at any rate for the moment. This type of wood—most of it fir or pine—is as necessary for silk stockings as for rotary newsprint. The world must have great forests of spruce and Douglas, or the type for which these two may be taken to stand.

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