Show TU yo i I OR ap NE day recently a man in a buggy stopped at a 0 ONE farm in eastern jackson county kansas hitched his hors bort to the fence and climbed over into a field where several big stumps protruded from the plowed earth he lie bent over the stumps and examined them close ly then he crossed another fence into another field and examined some walnut trees that grew there A few minutes later be he went to he farmhouse and was talking to the owner he told the farmer t that hat he was buying walnut timber and that there were a half dozen trees in the walnut grove on his place that he would like to buy they agreed upon a price and then the stranger said now give you 10 more tor for those three st imps in the plowed field and will dig them out tor for you and carry them away anay the farmer snapped at the apropo for 40 years he had been plowing around those massive stumps and a thousand tines timer he had cussed when the point of his plow or a cor ner ot of his harrow had caught them he lie had an idea that the man who of to dig them out and give him 10 into the bargain must be a little bit insane but anyway he was glad to get rid of them A te fe v days later three men came to the farm arm and cut down the walnut trees and dug out the three old stumps and hauled them all away one of those old stumps was worth the others were worth not much more than the expense ot of dig ging them up and hauling them to kansas city the stumps came to the mill of a malgut corporation on the bank of the blue river near sheffield there the stumps will be trimmed and steamed tor for hours and then fastened into a veneer machine where they W will re volve against the cutting edge 0 of a great knife that will sl ce oft off a t thin in veneer as the stump turns this veneer will be used for cover ing pianos the finest kinds of furni ture and cabinet work and the inside finish of railroad cars this one stump was particularly val bable because of the wrinkles and burls and warts that ran through it the veneer sliced from it would have a beautiful waving grain with bird birds s eyes and all sorts of curious tion I 1 ahe he more of these a veneer has the more valuable it Is there is not one walnut stump in a hundred that is worth anything to the veneer mills there Is not one in a thousand that Is worth and there Is not one man in a ml mi lion who knows the value of a stump by look ing at it in the ground the men who do know this and who spend their time looking tor for these stumps are called cruisers they drive all over the states of missouri and kansas looking for walnut timber and stumps that are good for veneer the men who buy these stumps and cut them eay say that stumps of young trees are of no value the best on ones es are of trees centuries old the more aged and gnarled the tree the richer the stump will be in burls and bird s eyes some of the most valuable stumps are of trees that were cut 50 years ago by the pioneers of this country the best of them are found along the rivers where the lands were too rough to be cultivated from these tracts the trees were cut tor for lumber or firewood and the stump remained to be dug up a half century later and used to decorate some par lor in a modern houie house the men who cut these stumps into veneer do not always get got them for a small price many farmers know their value and demand it in the yard of the mill near sheffield are stumps for which the owners paid from 50 to and there is one for which the man who dug it it out de mands this stump is 19 nine feet in diameter at the butt of the tree this mill has been sawing walnut lumber for 15 years in that time it has cut 90 feet of walnut him lum her the greater part of which has been sent to europe but shipments have gone from here to australia russia and china now the sawing of walnut into lum her Is to be abandoned and the mill will cut only veneers the reason Is that nearly marly all the large walnut tim her ber has been cut there is plenty of small walnut timber in missouri and kansas but it does not pay to cut it the black heart Is too small and the white sap Is of no value it Is the black heart of the tree that has the fine grain and takes the rich black polish owing to the scarcity of big walnut 4 f A ri V logs and the small lumber that has gone to the european market in recent years the demand for or it has tallen off and it has been supplanted by mahogany there are other reasons why mahogany has taken the place of al nut mahogany Is 30 per cent cheap er in europe than walnut it Is much larger too walnut logs from which segments four inches thick may tt be cut are scarce and walnut logs from which such segments 26 feet long may be cut are almost impossible to get gt now another factor in the disappearance of walnut lumber Is that mahogany Is much muc h softer and easier to cut diio th sheffield eld mill can cut 35 feet ot qt maho mahogany 9 any a day but it will cut only 20 2000 0 leet feet of walnut A mahogany log will cut nearly three times aa ast much lumber as a walnut log of the thep sam same e size and therefore it la is more economical to cut maho mahogany gaur although mahogany is taking tho place of walnut over all the world it is not nearly u bo good as walnut there Is no wood so good as walnut for fine furniture and cabinet work thereat the reason is that it Is hard bard it will never warp and it takes a beautiful polish it has a more varied and beautiful grain and the older it grows the rich er it looks instead of being sawed into boards a aad nd posts the walnut will hereafter be cut into veneers not much thicker than a piece of blotting paper and it Is only the gnarled trunks that will do doi tor for this walnut which Is much used for veneers and costs more than the american black walnut is not nearly co 0 o rich in color and grain it comes from the ural mountains to in russia it Is becoming exhausted too and Is very high in price the wood of the gum tree that grows in the swamps of arkansas and elsewhere 1 la use used d as an imitation 1 ana and substitute for walnut it la Is so nearly like it that only an expert can detect the difference millions of feet ot or gum logs are shipped every year to toi europe and there cut into veneers aam polished and sent back to america Amert cal and sold at a high price for genuine walnut in hundreds of homes in Miss missouri ourt walnut wood Is still used tor for fire wood but when a man burns walnut lumber be he Is truly burning money for while the market price of the logs ts is less now than it was ten years ago agov and the demand is less there Is a time coming when the lumber will be worth 20 times what it Is now when the walnut trees that are now a toot foot in diameter glow to several eeb through they will be worth more tham any timber that grows in north america there will always be a good demand tor for timber of that size and the larger the tree the more value it will have |