Mahogany And Walnut: With the advent of the Modern period, over 20 woods new to furniture making were added. These come from various foreign lands, including Africa and Australia and are used for the decorative quality of grain or distinctive colors when finished.
Woods most favored during the various furniture style periods are: Puritan Span, white oak with tops or lids of wide, knot-free white pine; William and Mary and Queen Anne, Walnut or maple, either plain or fancy grain; Chippendale, Mahogany and walnut, Walnut and, after 1770, native cherry as a Mahogany and Walnut substitute; Hepplewhite, mahogany, frequently with panels of satinwood veneer; Sheraton, Mahogany and walnut, or cherry with satinwood or curly or bird's-eye maple veneer for decorative panels; American Empire, Mahogany and Walnut with liberal use of crotch-grain Mahogany and Walnut veneer for tops, panels and sometimes entire pieces; Early Victorian, rosewood followed by black walnut, sometimes combined with crotch-grain Walnut veneer, also, for some custom-made furniture, satinwood trimmed with rosewood or black walnut.
Later Victorian, black walnut, ash, trimmed with black walnut, and pine for cottage furniture; Eastlake, black walnut, cherry and some use of ash, butternut, or chestnut; Art Nouveau, mahogany, cherry, walnut, some novelty woods, such as Mexican white Mahogany and Walnut and use of bird's-eye maple veneer for entire pieces; Mission, oak, frequently quarter sawed to show fancy graining, and as veneer with golden oak finish; Adapted Colonial, Mahogany and walnut, often as veneer for entire piece, birch, stained to simulate Mahogany and Walnut and called "mahoganized birch," and golden oak; Modern, American walnut, also the French, Spanish, and Circassian walnuts, maple, birch, beech, o'ak, chestnut, ash, elm, holly, gumwood, basswood, butternut, knotty pine, given a whitish patina and known as "pickled pine," mahogany, including Mexican white and the so-called African and Philippine varieties, Italian olive wood and a considerable assortment of fancy woods, some of which have not before been used for furniture. Among the better known of these are Hawaiian koa, African bubingo, pique, and laurel wood, Australian lacewood, Brazilian tulip wood, Indian teak, Japanese oak which is called tamo and the purple heart wood of East Indian rosewood, known as amaranth or violet wood.
To the average man to-day the term ''veneer" means to cover up cheap and shoddy work, or to make a whitewood cabinet or other piece of furniture look like a Mahogany and Walnut one. From this false conception has arisen the idea that all veneering is bad work. It must be admitted that bad work is done, and it is in consequence all the more difficult to convince the public that veneered work, when properly done, and shows that it is veneer, is the best and most effective work for the following reasons: (1) It is the only way to use the rare woods such as "curls1 in satinwood and Mahogany and walnut, "burrs" in amboyna or walnut, and cross-grained but pretty work which would only twist if used in the solid; (2) the layer of veneer tends to strengthen and preserve the wood on which it is laid; (3) veneering gives the only opportunity for flat Decoration in furniture, by using the grain of the wood for designs in panels and on wide surfaces; (4) the process needs more care
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