Loeb's Burls

A boil, in the peculiar dialect of Brooklyn, The Bronx and parts of Manhattan, is a "burl." It is only a coincidence, however, that the rare and curious burls from which the gaudiest veneers for furniture are made result from a tree disease somewhat similar to boils. Nobody knows what causes burls, as nobody knows what causes cancer. They form most often underground where the roots join the tree. Burl diggers notice a slight swelling of the trunk at the ground level, dig down, chop off the roots and lift out the burl. The surgery required for burls above ground is more simple; they are just sawed off.

Most U. S. burls come from Oregon, principally from the Willamette valley. Biggest U. S. burlman is Alfred Adam Loeb of Portland. Mr. Loeb was the first to ship burls directly to the veneer mills of Europe ten years ago. He now ships about 5,000 a year. Possibly 3,000 more are shipped by other people. Last week, as hundreds of Mr. Loeb's arboreal monstrosities lay on the docks of Portland's Oceanic Terminal, the Pacific Northwest forest experiment station announced that as many burls were exported in 1937 as in 1936, despite the fact that northwest lumber exports as a whole were off by half. Total burl production, including those going to domestic veneer manufacturers and those sent to New York by rail before being shipped to Europe, was 1,500 tons.

About three-quarters of all burls go to Europe. There, in the veneer Tnills of France, Italy, England, Germany, revolving lathes like apple peelers cut them up into great strips about 1/50 of an inch thick. The grain pattern of burl veneer is an incredibly complicated tangle of knots and loops and swirls, often beautiful, always very elaborate. A good proportion of the U. S. burl veneer is then shipped back to the furniture factories of the U. S., where it is carefully glued on decorative pieces like radio cabinets.

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