Rosewood

It haspuzzled many to decide why thedark wood so highly valued for pianos, and in these times so cleverly imitated, should be called rosewood. lts color certainly does not look like that of a rose, biit when the tree is first cut, the wood possesses a strong, roselike fragrance; henee the name. Tliere are half a dozen or more kinds of rosewood trees found in South America and in the East Indies and neighboring islands. Sometimes the trees growso large that planks four feet broad and ten feet in length can be cut f rom them. The broad planks are principal!; used to make tops for piano-fortes. When growing, the rosewood tree is remarkable fori ts heauty; but sueh is its value in manufactories as an ornamental wood that some of the forests were it once grew abundantly now have scarcely a single specimen. In Madras the government has prudently had great plantations of this tree set out in order to keep up the supply. "Do you mean to say yon have ever seen a smaller man?" said the friend; and he soon had his answer. "My dear fellow, I know a man so small that if i he has a pain he can't teil whether he I has a sore throat or a stomachache."