TIMBER IMPORTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 September 1939, Page 3

TIMBER IMPORTS

— » SOFTWOODS FROM SCANDINAVIA. PRODUCTS FROM MANY PARTS OF WORLD. The timber trade is one of the most important of the various trades centred in London’s docks, and the August issue of “The Port of London Authority Monthly” contains an interesting article dealing with Scandinavian softwood. “The timber industry brings to the Port of London the products of almost every quarter of the globe. Borneo and America, Canada and the West Coast of Africa, Burma and Northern Europe, China and Japan, the Phillippines and the Andamans; these are some of the countries which send thir woods to the London docks. Oak hickory and teak; mahogany, cedar and walnut; pine, fir and spruce are some of the woods they send. “In all, roughly a third of the timber imported annually into the United Kingdom is landed in the Port of London, where the trade is centred at the Surrey Commercial Docks. Of all imported timbers, softwoods are probably the best known and most widely used. Large quantities arrive fjom Empire countries, but Scandinavia is one of the chief sources of supply. Finland and Sweden, in particular, senG thousands of tons of these timbers annually, mostly in the form of deals, or sawn planks. Softwood is derived from Scotch fir or pine, and common (or Norway) spruce. The former gives red or yellow deal, and the latter white deal. Red deal is used extensively in building and joinery, ship and boat building, the manufacture of doors and window frames, and for telegraph poles, sleepers, pit props, box making, flooring, wood block paving, and many outdoor purposes. White deal goes mainly to the carpentry and joinery trades.”