Classification.

Timbers are usually arranged into classes, according to their botanical or structural affinities and peculiarities. The most common arrangement at home is to divide them into leafwoods and pinewoods, which keeps the hard and soft kinds separate; but this mode of classification would not have the same result in New Zealand. I shall therefore consider the Otago timbers under two heads, with the conventional names of "Hardwoods" and "Softwoods."