AMERICAN V. NEW ZEALAND TIMBERS.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2033, 30 August 1880, Page 3

AMERICAN V. NEW ZEALAND TIMBERS.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS. Sib, —In my letter of the 7th instant I prefaced the remarks I made about manuka with a hope that “ Mr Howland would excuse me, &o„” and I am sorry to see that instead of attempting to disprove anything I said he goes in for a tirade against everybody. That looks very much like “No case, abuse the other side.” My chief object in writing was to induce a proper representation of facts in connection with the specimens of timber that are to be sent to the editor of the “ Hub.” If it is to be represented that the trees do not exceed Sin. in diameter, they can scarcely he called timber-trees. 1 am willing to grant that does not' make any difference as to its strength, but it makes a very great one as to its feneral usefulness. I, in my letter, omitted to notice that Mr H. said that manuka broke short off. I say it is less likely to do so than hickory. With regard to its weight being against it, I am not certain that it would be so, but am inclined to think that a piece of manuka that would sustain the same breaking weight as a piece of hickory would not be perceptibly heavier. I mean to say that if a piece of the former |in. square would sustain as great a weight as a piece of the latter 1 inch square, which I think it would, there would not be much difference in the weight. Hickory is unquestionably a magnificent timber, and is superior or otherwise in its quality as it increases in denseness. Manuka is, from the smallest to the largest tree, uniformly of one quality, more so, in fact, than any timber I ever handled. Mr H. says my experience in wheel making must have commenced with my experiments on Native timber, and the fact of my having sawn the spokes would have condemned them. I might quite as truthfully have written that I had had them split into spokes, for I did split a considerable quantity. But as I mentioned the logs were as straight as ma 1 chwood, and in quartering up the round logs with an axe there was a considerable waste, which was avoided by sawing them. He claims his right to be an exclusive authority on the subject of wheel making on account of his lengthened experience. I have seen as many summers as he has, I think, and have been in the business all my life, and had he have confined his remarks simply to myself as the author of the letter, I should not have taken any notice of them, but to start the narration of his experiences by telling us that the spoke lathe was not in use in 1847. At or about that date there was in the obscure village called London, were I hail from, at least ono steam wheel factory where the spoke lathe was in use. Possibly our friends in Yankee Land had not then adopted it. There are other little matters in connection with carriage building claimed as Yankee notions that were in use in the above village some time before our friends adopted them, notably bent rims and the so-called eccentric back, drawings of both of which I shall be happy to show any person interested in a book published one hundred years ago. In conclusion, Sir, I will not trouble you with a narration of my claims to be considered an authority. I am quite content to leave my reputation as a carriage builder in the hands of the public. Yours, Ac., H. Wagstaff. Montreal street, Christchurch, August 2Cth,