Fine Wood Research Articles

Nutrients and mass in litter and top soil of ten tropical tree plantations

The importance of litter to nutrient and organic matter storage and the possible influence of species selection on soil fertility in ten stands each consisting of a separate tree species were examined in this study. The plantations had been grown under similar conditions in an arboretum in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. The species involved were: Anthocephalus chinensis, Eucalyptus × patentinervis, E. saligna, Hernandia sonora, Hibiscus elatus, Khaya nyasica, Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis, P. elliottii var. densa, Swietenia macrophylla, and Terminalia ivorensis. After 26 yr, litter mass ranged from 5 mg ha-1 in the H. sonora stand to 27.2 Mg ha-1 in the P. caribaea stand. Nutrients in the litter (N, P, K, Ca, and Mg) also varied widely, but stands were ranked in different order when ranked by nutrients in the litter than then ranked according to accumulation of mass. Only E. saligna and A. chinensis stands were ranked similarly in accumulation of both nutrients and mass, and the stand of H. elatus was ranked higher with respect to nutrient accumulation than to accumulation of mass. The nutrient concentration in standing leaf litter generally increased in the order of recently fallen <old intact< fragmented. Nutrient concentration of standing leaf litter appears to increase with age and depth in the litter layer. The amount of nutrients stored in the litter compartment of these plantations was in the same order of magnitude as the quantity of available nutrients in the top 10-cm of mineral soil. Total litter mass was negatively correlated with the mass-weighted concentration of N, K, and Mg. The same relationship was found for Ca in the leaf litter and N in the fine wood litter compartments. In some stands (notably P. caribaea, P. elliottii, and E. saligna), leaf litter derived from species other than the species planted in that particular stand had higher nutrient concentration than leaf litter from the planted species. Soils of the 10 stands were classified in the same soil series and had similar texture (clay soils). However, significantly different chemical characteristics were found. Results obtained by analysis of covariance and by limiting comparisons to adjacent stands with similar soil texture, indicate that different species have had different influences on the concentration of available nutrients in soil.

Measurements of softwoods' permeability to air: Importance upon the drying model

Convective drying of softwoods is formulated according to Whitaker's theory. The gaseous permeability, a very sensitive factor of the model, is measured for longitudinal and transverse flow. The obtained values which are compared to previous works have to be explained by fine wood structure. The model used is proving too limiting. The equations are completed by taking into account bound water migration. At this time, calculated results agree with the experiment, the orginality of which is in the non-destructive measurement of moisture profiles by conductivity.

Effects of wood dust exposure and diethylnitrosamine. A pilot study in Syrian golden hamsters.

Fine wood dust is epidemiologically associated with human nasal cancer. The aim of the present study was to elaborate an animal model for inhalation studies of the effects of fine wood dust on the upper and lower airways. Syrian golden hamsters were used. After 10 months one animal in the group which was exposed only to wood dust, had developed a malignant nasal tumour and another animal in the same group had nasal dysplasia. Spontaneous nasal tumours in this laboratory animal is not known. Many tumours of the nose, larynx and trachea arose in animals treated with a carcinogen (diethylnitrosamine). There was no increase in tumours in animals with combined exposure to diethylnitrosamine and wood dust.

Nitrogen Budget for a Small Coniferous Forest Stream

An Annual nitrogen budget is presented for a small steam draining Watershed 10, H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon. The role of allochthonous debris in the input, flux, and export of nitrogen is emphasized in the material balance budget. All material entering the stream channel was presumed to enter the water sometime during the year. Material estimates are based on total channel area. The major annual nitrogen input (1974—1975) was subsurface flow (11.06 g/m2) as dissolved organic nitrogen (10.56 g/m2) and nitrate (0.50 g/m2).Biological inputs of nitrogen amounted to 4.19 g/m2 as direct terrestrial inputs of: litterfall (1.35 g/m2), lateral movement (1.78 g/m2), and throughfall (0.30 g/m2). Nitrogen fixation on fine wood debris contributed an additional 0.76 g/m2 based on rates from a nearby watershed. Total nitrogen input was 15.25 g/m2. The nitrogen pool was dominated by large amounts of particulate organic matter. Coarse wood constituted 32% of the nitrogen pool (3.80 g/m2) and fine wood fractions 18% (2.18 g/m2). The coarse wood fraction greatly influenced stream morphology. Fine organic particulates constituted an additional 40% of the nitrogen pool (4.77 g/m2). DON (dissolved organic nitrogen) export (8.38 g/m2) was less than input, presumably due to biological uptake associated with litter mineralization, sorption, and chemical flocculation. Due to effective retention of particulate inputs by debris dams, biological processing in the particulate nitrogen pool, and uptake and sorption of DON, most particulate organic inputs increased in nitrogen concentration prior to export. Particulate organic nitrogen input (3.13 g/m2) was greater than export (2.53 g/m2). Total annual nitrogen output was 11.36 g/m2, resulting in a gain of 3.89 g°m—2°yr—1 to the stream. Thus, the stream was not operating on an annual steady state, but on an input—output regime related to the processing of refractory wood debris and resetting by major storms. Although particulate and dissolved nitrogen loss per hectare was small for the 10—ha watershed, these losses passed through or were accumulated in a pool encompassing &lt;1% of the watershed area. This concentration of N in the stream allowed establishment of a separate ecosystem whose processing efficiency and capabilities for nutrient cycling were related to the retention capacity of the channel and nutrient quality of inputs within the reach.

Frustrations before the Wedding

I am a rural educated youth. Last year at the river dredging work site I became acquainted with Little Liu, a girl from the neighboring village. We gradually developed some feeling for each other as we worked, and we are preparing to get married next spring. My family's economic conditions are not too good. Therefore we have decided to have a simple wedding and to buy only several pieces of furniture and some necessary clothing and equipment. Recently, without any warning, Little Liu's parents proposed to my family "conditions for marriage." I was dumfounded when I heard them: renovation of two rooms for the new couple, the purchase of a set of furniture of fine wood and a carved double bed; a sewing machine, a bicycle, a Shanghai-brand watch, and a radio should be purchased and ready; and high-grade 100 percent wool yarns, woolen fabrics, and woolen clothes must be added. In addition, there should be good-luck candy money of 100 yuan, money for a banquet of ten tables, and so forth. They said to my parents: "The marriage of our children is an important thing. It happens only once in their lives. Can we make it a bit more presentable? Otherwise we'll be embarrassed in front of our relatives far and near." My parents feel trapped. All day long, with sad faces, they go all over the place to borrow money to fulfill the demands of the girl's family in order to prevent the cancellation of my wedding. When I see this, how can I feel at ease?

The Early Haarlem School of Painting

At the present time there are about fourteen paintings that can be attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans.1 None of these paintings bears a signature or a date, but the authorship of two panels in Vienna is attested by reliable documents of the early seventeenth century. These two paintings, the Lamentation and the Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist (Figs. 1 and 2)—the front and back sides of the right wing of Geertgen's altarpiece for the Knights of St. John in Haarlem—are, therefore, the key works in a study of the artist's style or a recovery of his oeuvre. The Lamentation was a very famous composition in Haarlem. It was copied several times. The sixteenth century painter Jan Mostaert was commissioned to paint portraits of the Haarlem burgher Speyart van Woerden and his wife on the wings of a triptych with a copy of Geertgen's Lamentation as a central panel. A fine wooden sculpture group from the late fifteenth century, now in the Rijksmuseum, repeats the figures of Christ, Mary, and Mary Salome. Sometime between 1621 and 1630 Theodore Matham made an engraved copy of Geertgen's painting and dedicated it to Jacob van Campen: “omnium bonarum Artium Summo Admiratori, Amatori ac Cultori, hanc celeberrimi Pictoris Gerardi Leydani.”2 It is the only work that van Mander discusses at length, remarking that “most artists of this time are astonished by it and highly praise it.”3

The Early Haarlem School of Painting

At the present time there are about fourteen paintings that can be attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans.1 None of these paintings bears a signature or a date, but the authorship of two panels in Vienna is attested by reliable documents of the early seventeenth century. These two paintings, the Lamentation and the Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist (Figs. 1 and 2)—the front and back sides of the right wing of Geertgen's altarpiece for the Knights of St. John in Haarlem—are, therefore, the key works in a study of the artist's style or a recovery of his oeuvre. The Lamentation was a very famous composition in Haarlem. It was copied several times. The sixteenth century painter Jan Mostaert was commissioned to paint portraits of the Haarlem burgher Speyart van Woerden and his wife on the wings of a triptych with a copy of Geertgen's Lamentation as a central panel. A fine wooden sculpture group from the late fifteenth century, now in the Rijksmuseum, repeats the figures of Christ, Mary, and Mary Salom...

The Young of Neofiber alleni

The round-tailed muskrat, Neofiber alleni , is a common microtine of Florida. While reasonably well known to mammalogists and some local residents of the area in which it occurs, the biology of this small counterpart of the muskrat is not well known. On May 15, 1951 three Neofiber (an adult female and two young males) were received from William Hegener of Sarasota, Florida. The animals were taken near Ocala, Florida and may be referred to Neofiber alleni nigrescens . The animals were housed in 25 x 36 inch cages in shaded outdoor inclosures. A nest box 8 x 11 inches, with fine wood chips for bedding, was provided the animals. They were given a …

Photo Stencils of Fine Wood Used on Low Cost Furniture

Photo Stencils of Fine Wood Used on Low Cost Furniture

Very fine wood fibres as colloid electrolytes

Very fine wood fibres as colloid electrolytes

The British Isles

The world geography series planned by Vidal de la Blache, and already in preparation before the war, is now making its appearance under the editorship of Professor Lucien Gallois. The first volume, "Les Iles Britanniques," is by Professor Demangeon and is a pure delight. Paper, typography, photographs, line drawings are a joy to the eye: it is hardly necessary to say in the preface that the editor has given "every care to the illustration of the volume"-it speaks for itself. To pick out one or two examples only is not easy; one might mention the graphic series of little maps showing the seasonal distribution of the herring fisheries (p. 49); such regional maps as that of the Lake District (p. 147) or of the Northumberland and Durham coal field (p. 155). The fine conception of line is well exemplified in the map showing the distribution of dolmens in western Europe (p. 70). The text has the exquisite clarity of the line drawings. M. Demangeon's dealing with fundamentals secures simplicity and breadth. "This frequency of contact, this repeated opposition of highlands and lowlands may be considered as the distinguishing feature of the country: the origin of local contrasts, it multiplies the small natural settings, the regional individualities" (p. 20). This with the accompanying map is the keynote of the section on relief. "The relations between the Irish and the English are in fact a page in the colonial history of England" (p. 83) is the thread running through the discussion of these relations. Added to this, careful choice of words and selection of detail create an intimate and penetrating picture. Take, for instance, the author's sketch of Edinburgh," . . . the irregular ground of the site, the gardens and trees, the majesty of the monuments, the distant and picturesque perspectives give the city a charm unique in Great Britain." And "among the great British cities Edinburgh is as unique in its functions as its appearance . . In this Great Britain which knows not a centralization such as that of France the national temperaments have not been fused in an amalgam . . .Edinburgh is essentially a Scottish capital: . . it is not a maritime town nor an industrial metropolis: . . . but a town of spiritual values, of science, of law, whose most specialized occupations are printing and publishing with the trades and materials dependent on them. " Or take this picture of the industrial towns of the West Riding of Yorkshire: " they resemble one another superficially as children of the same family. They cover a great area, for the workers live in one-family houses: and these houses, all lined up in interminable rows, are built on identical plan in identical mold: under the clouds of smoke from factories and mills they exude an air of melancholy monotony." And by way of contrast in the rural Vale of York, the old town a capital since Roman days, "whose brilliant medieval past survives in its cathedral and walls: the narrow winding streets, the overhanging timbered houses, the massive tower of the old castle, the ruins, and charming corners breathe of another age and diffuse calm and peace." Or the Forest of Dean," . . .a little forested plateau whose rocky walls are washed by the Wye above its junction with the Severn . . the fine oak wood that has escaped the secular deforestation, the clumps of old beeches and fine hollies

Book Review A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences, Embracing the entire Range of Scientific and Practical Medicine and allied Science . By various writers. First and second editions, edited by Albert H. Buck, M.D. Third edition, completely revised and rewritten, edited by Thomas Lathrop Stedman, A.M., M.D. Complete in eight volumes. Vol. I illustrated by numerous chromolithographs and 611

Book Review A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences, Embracing the entire Range of Scientific and Practical Medicine and allied Science . By various writers. First and second editions, edited by Albert H. Buck, M.D. Third edition, completely revised and rewritten, edited by Thomas Lathrop Stedman, A.M., M.D. Complete in eight volumes. Vol. I illustrated by numerous chromolithographs and 611

The British Association at Swansea

PREPARATIONS of the most unstinted kind are now being made at Swansea to insure to the members of the British Association a hearty, hospitable welcome, a good opportunity for the interchange of scientific results, and an instructive and healthful summer holiday during their visit in the week commencing on Wednesday, August 25 next. The Excursion Committee have already made arrangements for visiting the more interesting places in the district. The presidential address will be delivered on Wednesday, and a portion of Thursday, August 26, will be devoted to an excursion, limited to 200 members; to the celebrated iron-works and collieries at Dowlais, by special invitation of G. T. Clark, Esq., of Dowlais House. As this excursion will take place so early, members who intend joining in it should send in their names to the Local Committee as soon as possible before their arrival in Swansea. The return will be made in time for the reception soirée, which the Mayor of Swansea (Alderman John Jones Jenkins) will give in a fine wooden pavilion capable of accommodating 6,000 people.