The Legend of the Music Tree
Not long ago, while browsing a craft fair in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, I spotted a guitar like no other I’d ever seen.
不久前，在浏览缅因州布斯贝港的工艺品博览会时，我发现了一把我从未见过的吉他。
It hung half-hidden behind a display of cutting boards and wooden bowls in the booth of woodworker and luthier David Smith.
它半挂在木工兼制琴师戴维·史密斯 (David Smith) 展位的切菜板和木碗后面。
Noting my hungry stare, Smith gently lifted the instrument from its perch and urged me to give it a try.
史密斯注意到我饥饿的目光，轻轻地将仪器从其位置上抬起，并敦促我尝试一下。
I cradled it under my elbow and plucked a few chords.
我把它放在肘下，弹奏了几首和弦。
The sound was resonant and true.
声音洪亮而真实。
But the most remarkable part was the look of the thing: Its back and sides rippled like a full moon reflecting off a dead calm sea.
但最引人注目的部分是它的外观：它的背面和侧面像一轮满月反射在死寂的大海上一样波纹。
Mesmerizing.
令人着迷。
“What you’re staring at is The Tree,” Smith said, smiling.
“你盯着的是那棵树，”史密斯微笑着说道。
“It’s the rarest and most coveted wood in the world.”
“这是世界上最稀有、最令人垂涎的木材。”
Eager to learn more, I made an appointment to visit Smith at his studio.
由于渴望了解更多信息，我预约了史密斯的工作室拜访他。
He and his wife, Nancy, live on ten wooded acres in Clinton, Maine, in a home they built by hand.
他和他的妻子南希 (Nancy) 住在缅因州克林顿 (Clinton) 占地 10 英亩、树木繁茂的手工建造的房屋中。
Smith started woodworking when he was 15, lying about his age to score an apprenticeship, and returned to it after retiring from a corporate career.
史密斯 15 岁时开始从事木工工作，谎报年龄以获得学徒身份，并在从公司退休后重返木工行业。
In 2009, he bought a kit to build a Martin guitar, and then he taught himself to make guitars from scratch.
2009年，他购买了制作马丁吉他的套件，然后他从头开始自学制作吉他。
In 2019, while perusing an online catalog, he happened upon a photo of guitar “sets” made of wood from The Tree.
2019 年，在仔细阅读在线目录时，他偶然发现了一张由 The Tree 的木材制成的吉他“套装”的照片。
(A set is the back and sides of a guitar.) “It was amazing to look at,” he said.
（一套是吉他的背面和侧面。）“看起来真是太棒了，”他说。
He bought one of the sets, built a guitar and sold it almost immediately.
他购买了其中一套，制作了一把吉他，然后几乎立即将其出售。
With the money he made from that sale, he bought three more sets and sold three more guitars.
他用那次销售赚到的钱又买了三套吉他，又卖了三把吉他。
“One look at that wood,” Smith told me, “and just about every guitar builder wants it.”
“一看那块木头，”史密斯告诉我，“几乎每个吉他制造商都想要它。”
So do guitar players.
吉他手也是如此。
Saul “Slash” Hudson, best known as lead guitarist of Guns N’ Roses, owns more than 230 guitars, including priceless vintage models.
Saul “Slash” Hudson 是 Guns N’ Roses 最著名的主音吉他手，拥有 230 多把吉他，其中包括无价的古董吉他。
Still, when he first tried a guitar made from The Tree, he was floored—the sound surpassed anything he’d heard before.
尽管如此，当他第一次尝试用“The Tree”制作的吉他时，他还是被震撼了——这声音超越了他以前听过的任何东西。
“When I picked it up, I was completely humbled,” Slash told a reporter in 2016 , and confirmed recently through a personal email.
“当我拿起它时，我感到非常谦卑，”Slash 在 2016 年告诉记者，最近通过一封个人电子邮件证实了这一点。
“It was a shock-and-awe moment.
“这是一个令人震惊和敬畏的时刻。
It changed everything I’d ever thought about acoustic guitars.”
它改变了我对原声吉他的一切看法。”
Finger-style virtuoso Andy McKee, whose YouTube videos have racked up more than 59 million views, owns a Tree guitar, as does David Knopfler, co-founder with his brother Mark of the British rock band Dire Straits.
指弹演奏家安迪·麦基 (Andy McKee) 的 YouTube 视频点击量超过 5900 万次，他拥有一把 Tree 吉他，大卫·诺普弗勒 (David Knopfler) 也拥有一把 Tree 吉他，大卫·诺弗勒 (David Knopfler) 与他的兄弟马克 (Mark) 共同创立了英国摇滚乐队 Dire Straits。
But Slash, McKee and Knopfler are among the exceptions; very few musicians own a guitar made from The Tree.
但 Slash、McKee 和 Knopfler 属于例外。很少有音乐家拥有用这棵树制成的吉他。
David Smith put it bluntly: “Not many musicians can afford them.” The guitars range in price, but start around $30,000.
大卫·史密斯直言不讳地说：“没有多少音乐家能买得起。”这些吉他的价格各不相同，但起价约为 30,000 美元。
Most luthiers who make guitars from The Tree custom-craft them for collectors.
大多数用 The Tree 制作吉他的制琴师都会为收藏家定制吉他。
Tom Ribbecke, among the nation’s most highly regarded luthiers, has built guitars for superstars, like Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel, better known as Seal, but most of his clients are not famous rockers.
汤姆·里贝克 (Tom Ribbecke) 是全美最受推崇的制琴师之一，曾为亨利·奥卢塞贡·阿德奥拉·塞缪尔 (Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel)（更广为人知的名字是 Seal）等超级明星制作吉他，但他的大多数客户都不是著名的摇滚乐手。
Nearly two decades ago, at his home in Healdsburg, California, he received a visit from Paul Szmanda, a Wisconsin dentist who has a passion for guitars and owns dozens of them.
大约二十年前，在他位于加利福尼亚州希尔兹堡的家中，威斯康星州牙医保罗·斯曼达 (Paul Szmanda) 来拜访他，他对吉他充满热情，并拥有数十把吉他。
Szmanda had driven 2,178 miles with an 8 feet 4 inches by 3 feet 6 inches board of The Tree in the bed of his Chevy pickup truck.
Szmanda 在他的雪佛兰皮卡车箱中使用了一块 8 英尺 4 英寸 x 3 英尺 6 英寸的 The Tree 木板，行驶了 2,178 英里。
“I looked at it and saw flames,” Ribbecke said.
“我看着它，看到了火焰，”里贝克说。
“At that moment, my lifelong thing for this material was set.
“那一刻，我对这种材料一生的追求就已经确定了。
My first thought was, ‘I’ve got to save this wood for the world, put it to its highest use.’”
我的第一个想法是，‘我必须为世界拯救这种木材，让它得到最大的利用。’”
British guitarist Michael Watts told me that luthiers and musicians alike have been known to cripple themselves with debt just to get a piece of The Tree.
英国吉他手迈克尔·瓦茨告诉我，众所周知，制琴师和音乐家都为了得到这棵树的一块而负债累累。
“I sold all 14 of my guitars to pay for one guitar made with The Tree, and I’d do it again,” he said.
“我卖掉了所有 14 把吉他，换来了一把用 The Tree 制作的吉他，如果再来一次，我还会这样做，”他说。
“Basically, it’s been part of my body for ten years.
“基本上，十年来它一直是我身体的一部分。
This guitar comes from a tree that had to fight all those years to survive, that had to push 100 feet through the forest canopy.
这把吉他来自一棵多年来为了生存而奋斗的树，它必须穿过森林树冠 100 英尺。
That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?”
这几乎说明了一切，不是吗？”
Not quite.
不完全是。
The tale of The Tree is shrouded in equal parts bravado and nostalgia.
《树》的故事充满了虚张声势和怀旧情绪。
Few people know it, and those who do seem to have their own, very particular take.
很少有人知道这一点，而那些知道的人似乎都有自己的、非常特殊的看法。
What is certain is that the story begins in 1965 deep in the Chiquibul jungle, a remote and largely uncharted broadleaf rainforest in what was then British Honduras and is now Belize.
可以肯定的是，故事开始于 1965 年的奇基布尔丛林深处，这是一片偏远且基本上未知的阔叶雨林，位于当时的英属洪都拉斯和现在的伯利兹。
It was there that a clutch of vagabond loggers scouting for timber happened upon an ancient mahogany tree.
正是在那里，一群流浪伐木者在寻找木材时偶然发现了一棵古老的红木树。
Mahogany had for centuries been that nation’s primary export, and was a popular target of poachers and smugglers.
几个世纪以来，桃花心木一直是该国的主要出口产品，也是偷猎者和走私者的热门目标。
Few large mahogany trees remained, and this one was enormous—12 feet in diameter at its base, soaring 100 feet into the canopy.
剩下的大桃花心木树已经所剩无几，而这棵树却非常巨大——底部直径 12 英尺，树冠高 100 英尺。
If not the most massive tree in the forest, it was certainly a contender for the title.
即使它不是森林中最大的树，它也绝对是这一称号的有力竞争者。
This article is a selection from the April/May issue of Smithsonian magazine
本文选自《史密森尼》杂志四月/五月号
Even more compelling was the rhythmic contortion of its bark, a steady spiraling that hinted at the “figures”—or three-dimensional patterns—lurking beneath its craggy surface.
更引人注目的是它的树皮有节奏的扭曲，稳定的螺旋状暗示着潜伏在其崎岖表面下的“人物”或三维图案。
This was special timber, and almost certainly, quite valuable.
这是一种特殊的木材，而且几乎可以肯定，它非常有价值。
The loggers stood back to marvel at their find and size up the job ahead.
伐木工们退后一步，对他们的发现感到惊讶，并评估未来的工作。
Chain saws were scarce and rarely used at the time, as they tended to get stuck in the cold, hard heart of mahogany trees.
当时链锯很稀缺，很少使用，因为它们往往会卡在红木树冰冷坚硬的中心。
So instead, the loggers set to work with handsaws and axes.
因此，伐木工开始使用手锯和斧头进行工作。
Their effort to bring the behemoth to its knees must have taken days, though no one alive seems to know precisely how many.
他们让这个庞然大物屈服的努力肯定花了几天的时间，尽管似乎没有人确切知道到底花了多少天。
What is known is that things did not go as planned.
众所周知，事情并没有按计划进行。
Rather than fall in the anticipated direction, the twisted tree fell backward and crashed down a ravine, ripping through the foliage on its descent.
这棵扭曲的树并没有按照预期的方向倒下，而是向后倒下，坠落到峡谷中，在下降过程中撕碎了树叶。
The loggers gazed aghast at the outsized stump poking through the mounded sawdust like a rotting bicuspid, while their overseers clambered down into the gorge to assess the damage.
伐木工们惊愕地看着这个巨大的树桩像腐烂的二尖瓣一样从堆积起来的木屑中伸出来，而他们的监工则爬进峡谷评估损失。
Incredibly, the tree was intact, and seemingly unfazed by its tumble.
令人难以置信的是，这棵树完好无损，而且似乎没有受到倒塌的影响。
Two Caterpillar D7 tractors were deployed to wrench it out of the muck, but the darn thing would not budge.
两台卡特彼勒 D7 拖拉机被部署来将其从淤泥中拉出来，但这该死的东西却纹丝不动。
Night fell and the howler monkeys screamed like a pack of tormented souls.
夜幕降临，吼猴像一群受折磨的灵魂一样尖叫。
The following morning, the loggers packed up camp and left.
第二天早上，伐木工人收拾好营地就离开了。
With time, memories of the fallen tree faded into myth.
随着时间的推移，关于倒下的树的记忆逐渐消失为神话。
Some years later, Robert Novak, a Miami-based importer of exotic woods, got wind of the story.
几年后，迈阿密的异国木材进口商罗伯特·诺瓦克 (Robert Novak) 听说了这个故事。
Novak was an adventurer, the sort who raced sailboats in the Bahamas and mined for diamonds and sapphires in Madagascar.
诺瓦克是一位冒险家，曾在巴哈马群岛驾驶帆船，在马达加斯加开采钻石和蓝宝石。
He had gone to Belize to buy rosewood, but upon hearing rumors of the fabled mahogany he decided to see for himself whether it was real.
他去伯利兹购买红木，但听到有关传说中的桃花心木的传言后，他决定亲自看看它是否是真的。
Novak, who became a citizen of Belize years ago, is unable to relate his memories due to illness.
诺瓦克多年前成为伯利兹公民，因病无法回忆起自己的记忆。
But John Roberson, retired owner of Belize Timber Ltd. , was one of several close colleagues who kindly shared recollections.
但伯利兹木材有限公司的退休老板约翰·罗伯森 (John Roberson) 是好心分享回忆的几位亲密同事之一。
“Most folks back then thought The Tree was a myth,” Roberson told me.
“当时大多数人都认为这棵树是一个神话，”罗伯森告诉我。
“But not Robert.
“但罗伯特不是。
He was never afraid to dream big.”
他从不害怕有远大的梦想。”
Novak was also a patient man.
诺瓦克也是一个有耐心的人。
Recent tropical storms had left the jungle impassable, so he waited weeks—perhaps months—for the earth to dry before venturing out on his quest.
最近的热带风暴使丛林无法通行，因此他等待了数周甚至数月，直到大地干燥后才冒险出发。
The Chiquibul was renowned both for its wildlife—jaguars, keel-billed motmots and scarlet macaws—and for its vast variety of plant species, some found nowhere else on earth.
奇基布尔以其野生动物——美洲虎、龙骨嘴鸟和猩红金刚鹦鹉——以及种类繁多的植物物种而闻名，其中一些植物物种在地球上其他地方都找不到。
There were few roads or trails or even paths to follow and scant potable water, but plenty of pit vipers and tarantulas.
那里几乎没有道路或小径，甚至没有可走的小路，也缺乏饮用水，但有大量的毒蛇和狼蛛。
Tony Rath, a Belize-based photographer who has spent much time in the Chiquibul, said it once took him and a team three weeks to swath a five-mile path just wide enough for a tractor.
伯利兹摄影师托尼·拉斯 (Tony Rath) 在奇基布尔待了很长时间，他说，他和一个团队曾经花了三周的时间才拍出一条五英里长的道路，宽度仅够拖拉机通过。
“That jungle is incredibly difficult to maneuver,” he said.
“那片丛林非常难以操纵，”他说。
“What Novak was trying to do, locate a specific tree, was just short of impossible.”
“诺瓦克试图做的事情，找到一棵特定的树，几乎是不可能的。”
Facing this, Novak had every reason to turn back.
面对这一点，诺瓦克完全有理由回头。
After all, there were no eyewitness accounts of this once-in-a-lifetime tree, and he had seen no photos.
毕竟，这棵千载难逢的树没有目击者的描述，他也没有看到照片。
Perhaps it was nothing more than a (very) tall tale.
也许这只不过是一个（非常）荒诞的故事。
But then, there it was: a Paul Bunyan–size log, wedged deep in a gully and covered in undergrowth.
但随后，它就在那里：一根保罗·班扬大小的原木，深深地插在沟壑中，上面覆盖着灌木丛。
In an instant, Novak knew this tree was truly extraordinary.
那一刻，诺瓦克知道这棵树确实不凡。
But he had no idea how to get it out of the jungle.
但他不知道如何把它带出丛林。
He returned to the United States to weigh his options.
他回到美国权衡自己的选择。
There were so many things that could go wrong in an operation of such magnitude that it seemed prudent to let sleeping trees lie.
在如此大规模的行动中，可能会出现很多问题，因此让沉睡的树木躺下似乎是明智的做法。
But he had never been one for caution, and as time passed, the fallen mahogany became his holy grail.
但他从来都不是一个谨慎的人，随着时间的推移，掉落的桃花心木成了他的圣杯。
“He simply could not let it go,” Roberson said.
“他就是无法放手，”罗伯森说。
After some years, Novak contacted the landowner to stake his claim.
几年后，诺瓦克联系了土地所有者并提出了他的主张。
But by then, he was a bit too late: Two other timber brokers had set their eyes on the prize, and at least one of them had more money than he did.
但到那时，他有点太晚了：另外两名木材经纪人也盯上了这个奖品，而且其中至少一名比他更有钱。
He was outbid.
他的出价被高估了。
Months passed, maybe a year, yet Novak could not get that mahogany out of his mind.
几个月过去了，也许一年过去了，诺瓦克却无法将桃花心木从他的脑海中抹去。
Then came a stroke of unthinkable luck: The winning bidder begged off the deal, deciding that the tree had spent too many years on the jungle floor to be of much use for his purposes.
然后，不可思议的运气降临了：中标者请求放弃这笔交易，因为他认为这棵树在丛林地面上呆了太多年，对他的目的没有多大用处。
Novak stepped up with another offer, and the magnificent mahogany was his at last.
诺瓦克提出了另一个报价，华丽的桃花心木终于是他的了。
Unearthing the log from its resting place of nearly 18 years proved a challenge, but one that Novak would not face alone.
从放置了近 18 年的地方挖出这根原木是一项挑战，但诺瓦克不会独自面对这一挑战。
He’d enlisted a new partner, Tim Mahoney.
他招募了一位新合伙人蒂姆·马奥尼。
Mahoney had spent years in Cuba, was fluent in Spanish and had a graduate degree in international relations.
马奥尼曾在古巴待过多年，西班牙语流利，并拥有国际关系研究生学位。
All that helped, of course.
当然，所有这些都有帮助。
But more to the point, Mahoney knew wood.
但更重要的是，马奥尼了解木材。
After graduate school he’d worked as a carpenter and spent weekends building a 41-foot cutter rig that he’d sailed around Central America.
研究生毕业后，他做了一名木匠，周末建造了一艘 41 英尺长的切割钻机，并在中美洲航行。
That journey had alerted him to the possibilities of exotic wood, and to its scarcity and potential profitability in the U.S. After sailing home to California (apparently, with a load of Mexican timber on deck), Mahoney put his boat up as collateral on a loan to launch a lumber company, Handloggers Hardwoods Ltd.
那次旅程让他意识到异国木材的可能性，以及其在美国的稀缺性和潜在盈利能力。在航行回加利福尼亚州后（显然，甲板上载着一车墨西哥木材），马奥尼以他的船作为贷款抵押，创办了一家木材公司 Handloggers Hardwoods Ltd。
Mahoney met Novak on a buying trip in Belize and together they cooked up a plan: Mahoney would help honcho the unearthing of the great log and collect half the spoils for his trouble.
马奥尼在伯利兹的一次采购之旅中遇见了诺瓦克，他们一起制定了一个计划：马奥尼将帮助老板挖掘这根大圆木，并为他的麻烦收集一半的战利品。
Mahoney approached the task confident that he would succeed where others had failed.
马奥尼自信地完成了这项任务，他将在其他人失败的地方取得成功。
Rather than try to lift the log as it lay, he and his team boldly chain-sawed it into quarters, sliced the quarters into 15-foot-long lengths, and split the logs lengthwise.
他和他的团队并没有尝试将原木平放在地上，而是大胆地将其锯成四分之一，将四分之一切成 15 英尺长的长度，然后将原木纵向劈开。
They then used a tractor to drag the pieces one by one out of the ravine to the nearest road, and trucked them 120 miles or so to the Belize River, where they floated the final distance to an ancient steam-powered sawmill, property of the Belize Estate and Produce Company —the only mill in the region that could handle a tree of that size.
然后，他们用拖拉机将这些碎片一一拖出峡谷，拖到最近的道路上，然后用卡车将它们运到大约 120 英里的伯利兹河，最后漂到伯利兹庄园和农产品公司 (Belize Estate and Produce Company) 旗下的一家古老的蒸汽动力锯木厂，这是该地区唯一能够处理这种尺寸树木的锯木厂。
The split logs were shuttled through the mill’s 40-inch band saw, each carefully positioned to ensure the cleanest possible cut.
劈开的原木在工厂的 40 英寸带锯中穿梭，每个带锯都经过精心定位，以确保尽可能干净的切割。
The milling operation took 12 days and yielded nearly 12,000 board feet of prime lumber.
铣削作业历时 12 天，产出了近 12,000 板英尺的优质木材。
(Each board foot is 12 inches long and wide by one inch thick.)
（每个板脚长 12 英寸，宽 1 英寸厚。）
In photos, a youthful Novak beams while posing with freshly milled planks rippling with dark crenulations called “quilt.” What made this tree’s quilt unusual, maybe even unique, was that it showed three distinctive patterns: a blistered outline parallel to the grain that looked like a topographical map; a deeply curled figuring with trailing tendrils called “sausage”; and, rarest of all, a repeating “tortoise-shell” pattern.
照片中，年轻的诺瓦克在新铣削的木板上摆姿势，脸上挂满了被称为“被子”的黑色锯齿纹。这棵树的被子之所以不同寻常，甚至可能是独一无二的，是因为它呈现出三种独特的图案：与纹理平行的起泡轮廓，看起来像地形图；一种深卷曲、带有卷须的形状，称为“香肠”；最罕见的是重复的“龟甲”图案。
Some have theorized that these figures stemmed from a genetic mutation, and that’s possible, but Boston University biologist Les Kaufman, an expert on tropical ecology, says the more likely cause is environmental stress compounded by age.
一些人认为这些数字源于基因突变，这是可能的，但波士顿大学生物学家、热带生态学专家莱斯·考夫曼表示，更可能的原因是年龄加剧的环境压力。
This would make sense: The Chiquibul is regularly battered by foul weather, including hurricanes, and this tree had experienced plenty—experts put its age at 500 years.
这是有道理的：奇基布尔经常受到包括飓风在内的恶劣天气的袭击，而这棵树经历了很多事情——专家认为它的年龄有 500 年。
Mahoney and Novak divvied up the milled lumber and shipped their shares to storerooms in Sausalito, California, and Miami, Florida, respectively.
马奥尼和诺瓦克将铣削的木材分开，并将其份额分别运往加利福尼亚州索萨利托和佛罗里达州迈阿密的储藏室。
Word spread and furniture makers and woodworkers came calling.
消息传开，家具制造商和木工纷纷前来拜访。
Mahoney’s widow, Susan, recalls her husband selling the wood to a select few buyers from all over the world at an outrageous price.
马奥尼的遗孀苏珊回忆说，她的丈夫以惊人的价格将木材卖给来自世界各地的少数买家。
Among these purchasers was the British entrepreneur Peter Lay.
这些买家中就有英国企业家彼得·雷(Peter Lay)。
In 1984, Lay was in the process of building a magisterial estate in California when his interior designer alerted him to the existence of The Tree.
1984 年，雷正在加利福尼亚州建造一座宏伟的庄园，此时他的室内设计师提醒他“树”的存在。
He went to see the wood himself at Mahoney’s studio in Sausalito.
他亲自前往索萨利托的马奥尼工作室参观了木材。
“They had stacks of it, and it was so beautiful,” Lay said.
“他们有成堆的东西，非常漂亮，”雷说。
“It was ridiculously expensive—$29 a board foot at a time when solid oak was selling for less than $3 a board foot.
“它的价格贵得离谱——每板英尺 29 美元，而当时实心橡木的售价还不到每板英尺 3 美元。
It was magnificent.” Lay purchased 1,100 board feet.
真是太棒了。” Lay 购买了 1,100 板英尺。
“We had the front door built from it, and a bar, a couple of cabinets, and an entire English library.
“我们用它建造了前门、一个酒吧、几个柜子和一个完整的英语图书馆。
It’s quite possible that I am the single largest user of The Tree in the world.” (Possible, yes, but not certain: Several people told me that George Lucas had both his office and an elevator at his Skywalker Ranch lavishly paneled in the stuff, though I was unable to confirm that with the Star Wars director himself.)
我很可能是世界上最大的 The Tree 用户。” （有可能，是的，但不确定：有几个人告诉我，乔治·卢卡斯的办公室和天行者牧场的一部电梯都装饰有大量的东西，尽管我无法向《星球大战》导演本人证实这一点。）
On the East Coast, Novak, too, was swamped with seekers of The Tree, not all of them wealthy.
在东海岸，诺瓦克也挤满了“树”的追求者，但他们并不都是富有的。
Among these was Richard Heisey, a master furniture maker in Winchester, Virginia.
其中包括理查德·海西 (Richard Heisey)，他是弗吉尼亚州温彻斯特的一位家具制造大师。
Heisey was Novak’s temperamental opposite, cautious and meticulous; he’d once devoted 900 hours to constructing a Hepplewhite-style breakfront of his own design embellished with bellflowers he’d carved from ivory piano keys.
海西的性格与诺瓦克相反，谨慎而细致。他曾经花费 900 个小时建造了自己设计的赫普尔怀特风格的前厅，并用他用象牙钢琴键雕刻的风铃草装饰。
But like Novak, Heisey was a connoisseur of timber, a man who could look at a tree and immediately envision the elegant pieces he would carve from it.
但和诺瓦克一样，海西也是一位木材鉴赏家，他能够看到一棵树，立即想象出他将用它雕刻出的优雅作品。
After reading of the storied tree from Belize, Heisey hopped on a plane to Florida to see what all the fuss was about.
读完伯利兹的这棵传奇树后，海西跳上飞机飞往佛罗里达州，看看到底有什么大惊小怪的。
He was not an impulsive man, but what he saw in Novak’s showroom bewitched him.
他不是一个冲动的人，但他在诺瓦克陈列室里看到的东西让他着迷。
He borrowed money from his brother to purchase far more of the wood than he’d intended, painstakingly examining each plank and selecting the best.
他向哥哥借了钱，购买了比预期多得多的木材，并煞费苦心地检查每块木板并选择最好的。
He piled his treasure into a rental trailer and trucked it home to rural Virginia.
他把他的财宝堆进一辆租来的拖车里，然后用卡车运回弗吉尼亚乡村的家。
His widow, Nancy, still has the receipt: $7,200, a tiny fraction of what the load would cost today, but an enormous investment (and leap of faith) at the time.
他的遗孀南希 (Nancy) 仍然保留着收据：7,200 美元，这对于今天的负载成本来说只是一小部分，但在当时却是一笔巨大的投资（和信念的飞跃）。
“It cost more than half the amount I made teaching school that year,” she told me.
“这比我当年教书的收入一半还多，”她告诉我。
Nancy wasn’t disturbed by the purchase or, for that matter, really surprised.
南希并没有因为这次购买而感到不安，或者说，真的很惊讶。
“Richard had an eye for beautiful wood, and he wanted the best,” she said.
“理查德对美丽的木材有独到的鉴赏力，他想要最好的，”她说。
Heisey found the quilted mahogany surprisingly challenging to work with.
海西发现绗缝桃花心木的加工起来非常具有挑战性。
The figuring steered the blade, making it difficult to cut straight, and the wood was so dense—denser even than other mahogany—that it dulled his planer in minutes.
图形控制着刀片，使其难以笔直切割，而且木材非常致密——甚至比其他桃花心木还要致密——以至于几分钟之内他的刨床就变钝了。
He crafted a few short boards of the wood into mirror frames for his wife and night tables for his brother but squirreled away the bulk with plans to one day shape it into works informed not by customer demand but by his own sensibility and inclinations.
他用几块短木板为妻子制作了镜框，为兄弟制作了床头柜，但他把大部分的木板都藏了起来，计划有一天将其塑造成作品，而不是根据客户的需求，而是根据自己的感受和喜好。
“He was an artist who expressed himself through wood,” Nancy said.
“他是一位通过木材表达自己的艺术家，”南希说。
“He was saving it to build something special, something entirely his own.”
“他把它存下来是为了建造一些特别的、完全属于他自己的东西。”
Heisey fell ill before he was able to fulfill that wish.
海西在实现这个愿望之前就病倒了。
After his death in 2018, his son Jared discovered the mahogany motherlode stacked neatly on shelves in a corner of the family barn.
2018 年他去世后，他的儿子贾里德 (Jared) 发现了自家谷仓一角的架子上整齐地堆放的桃花心木母矿。
Upon learning its value, Jared decided to honor his father by transforming a small amount of what by then was known as The Tree into a tribute.
在得知这棵树的价值后，贾里德决定将少量当时被称为“这棵树”的树变成贡品，以纪念他的父亲。
But what sort of tribute?
但什么样的致敬呢？
Jared is a guitar player, his dad played bass, and they both relished fine musical instruments.
贾里德是一名吉他手，他的父亲弹贝斯，他们都喜欢精美的乐器。
What better tribute, Jared thought, than to commission an instrument built from the very wood his father had so lovingly kept safe all those years?
贾里德想，还有什么比委托他父亲多年来精心保管的木头制作一件乐器更好的致敬呢？
And who better to build it than Reuben Forsland, the Canadian luthier who had crafted Slash’s guitar?
还有谁比制作过 Slash 吉他的加拿大制琴师 Reuben Forsland 更适合制作这把吉他呢？
One early morning last October, I joined Forsland via Skype outside his home in the East Sooke hills on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
去年 10 月的一个清晨，我在福斯兰位于不列颠哥伦比亚省温哥华岛南端东苏克山的家外通过 Skype 与他联系。
The air was saline with mist rising from the Sooke Basin, and the birds were chirping up a racket.
苏克盆地升起薄雾，空气中弥漫着咸味，鸟儿叽叽喳喳地叫着。
A few deer peered out from behind a cluster of trees, looking less alarmed than curious.
几只鹿从树丛后面向外张望，看上去与其说是惊慌，倒不如说是好奇。
Through Forsland’s laptop camera, I accompanied him for a short virtual stroll through groves of cedar and Douglas fir up a slope to the one-room tin-roofed studio he’d built a few years back.
通过福斯兰的笔记本电脑摄像头，我陪他虚拟漫步了一小段，穿过雪松和道格拉斯冷杉树林，爬上斜坡，来到了他几年前建造的单间铁皮屋顶工作室。
It was spotless, he told me, and fragrant with rosewood and spruce.
他告诉我，它一尘不染，散发着红木和云杉的香气。
Various machines of mysterious purpose sat poised awaiting Forsland’s direction, and a vast array of chisels, planers, clamps and other tools were lined up neatly beneath floor-to-ceiling windows framing a stunning view.
各种具有神秘用途的机器正等待着福斯兰的指示，大量的凿子、刨子、夹子和其他工具整齐地排列在落地窗下，构成了令人惊叹的景色。
All this, he told me, was the culmination of a dream from which he had yet to awaken.
他告诉我，这一切都是他尚未醒来的一场梦的高潮。
Forsland bought his first guitar at a garage sale at age 9, with money he made returning bottles he’d picked up along the road.
福斯兰 (Forsland) 9 岁时在车库拍卖会上买了他的第一把吉他，他用返还沿路捡到的瓶子赚的钱。
He was never an accomplished player, and after working as a carpenter for over 15 years (and dating a cellist), he redirected his passion for playing instruments into making them.
他从来都不是一位出色的演奏家，在做了超过 15 年的木匠（并与一位大提琴手约会）后，他将自己对演奏乐器的热情转向了制作乐器。
“A luthier in Alberta got me started, and then I kept at it, reading, asking a lot of questions,” he said.
“阿尔伯塔省的一位制琴师让我开始，然后我坚持下去，阅读，提出很多问题，”他说。
Now he builds about eight guitars a year and has developed his own signature style.
现在他每年制作大约八把吉他，并形成了自己的标志性风格。
One of those signatures is his uncanny ability to engineer stories into the very bones of the instruments he builds.
其中一个标志就是他具有将故事融入他所制造的乐器的骨子里的不可思议的能力。
A few years ago, Forsland got permission to build a series of guitars with wood extracted from the childhood home of Jimi Hendrix.
几年前，Forsland 获准使用从吉米·亨德里克斯 (Jimi Hendrix) 童年家中提取的木材制作一系列吉他。
While this might have seemed to some like a mere publicity stunt, it was pure poetry to Forsland—a way for ordinary mortals (albeit mortals who can afford a $25,000 custom-built guitar) to channel their inner rocker through a material touched by a genius of the genre.
虽然这在某些人看来可能只是一种宣传噱头，但对 Forsland 来说，这纯粹是一首诗——一种普通人（尽管是买得起 25,000 美元定制吉他的凡人）通过受该流派天才触动的材料来表达内心摇滚的方式。
The plank of wood Jared shipped to Forsland—eight feet long, two feet wide and one inch thick—arrived in disguise.
贾里德运往福斯兰的木板——八英尺长、两英尺宽、一英寸厚——经过伪装抵达。
The 2003 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna had made it illegal to transport big-leaf mahogany as raw timber across national borders without a special permit.
2003年《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》规定，未经特别许可，将大叶桃花心木作为原材跨境运输属于非法行为。
To avoid breaking the law, Jared instead sent Forsland a table—its legs were made of ordinary wood and its top was made from the Tree slab, and shipped the package marked as a table.
为了避免违法，贾里德转而给福斯兰寄了一张桌子——它的腿是用普通木材制成的，顶部是用树板制成的，并在包装上标记为桌子。
(A number of actual tables made of The Tree have been disassembled and converted into tonewood for musical instruments.) As part of the agreement, Jared sent enough wood for Forsland to make a second guitar to do with what he pleased.
（许多用“树”制成的实际桌子已被拆卸并转换成乐器用的音木。）作为协议的一部分，贾里德向福斯兰发送了足够的木材来制作第二把吉他，以随心所欲地制作第二把吉他。
Now, Forsland had meticulously sawed, scraped, sanded and finished part of the precious plank into a guitar set for Jared.
现在，福斯兰小心翼翼地将珍贵木板的一部分锯切、刮擦、打磨，最后制成了一套为贾里德准备的吉他。
“How you cut the wood creates different kinds of figuring,” Forsland explained.
“你如何切割木材会产生不同的形状，”福斯兰解释道。
“This sort of looks like the ocean floor, right?
“这看起来有点像海底，对吧？
And after I finished it with polyethylene, this popped out.
当我用聚乙烯完成它后，这个就弹出了。
Do you see it, a man’s face?”
你看到了吗，一张男人的脸？”
I did see it, but the face looked more like that of a wood sprite than a man, with a thick neck, a beak for a nose and flaring, Yoda-like ears.
我确实看到了，但那张脸看起来更像是木精灵，而不是人，脖子很粗，鼻子是喙，耳朵张开，像尤达一样。
I asked Forsland what, if anything, that face forebode.
我问福斯兰，那张脸预示着什么（如果有的话）。
He smiled cryptically and then showed me a small glass vial that held a pinch of Richard’s ashes.
他神秘地笑了笑，然后给我看了一个小玻璃瓶，里面装着理查德的一小撮骨灰。
Weeks later, he would spend hours working those ashes into the rosette, the decorative inlay circling the guitar’s sound hole.
几周后，他会花几个小时将这些骨灰加工成玫瑰花结，即环绕吉他音孔的装饰镶嵌物。
He would also incorporate a bit of Richard’s favorite woodworking chisel and a short length of antenna from Richard’s radio.
他还结合了理查德最喜欢的木工凿子和理查德收音机的短天线。
“The chisel and radio antenna are things Richard might want represented in a woodworking piece in his memory,” Forsland said.
“凿子和无线电天线是理查德可能希望在他记忆中的木工作品中表现出来的东西，”福斯兰说。
“Knowing that the chisel was in his hand carving and shaping his works, and the antenna that connected him to the music he loved and also to the outside world.
“知道凿子是他手中雕刻和塑造他的作品的触角，也是将他与他所喜爱的音乐以及外部世界联系起来的天线。
It’s such an honor to reintroduce all these facets of Richard’s woodworking life to each other.”
能够向彼此重新介绍理查德木工生活的所有这些方面，我感到非常荣幸。”
Forsland is inspired by the story of The Tree and aspires to work with the material for the rest of his life.
福斯兰受到《树》故事的启发，并渴望在余生继续使用这种材料。
Other luthiers I spoke with had similar feelings: Pennsylvania luthier Stuart Day described working with the mahogany as nothing short of a “magical experience, one of the biggest honors of my career.”
与我交谈过的其他制琴师也有类似的感受：宾夕法尼亚州制琴师斯图尔特·戴 (Stuart Day) 将与桃花心木的合作描述为“神奇的经历，是我职业生涯中最大的荣誉之一”。
Such enthusiasm raises an essential question: Does The Tree have any unique acoustical properties?
这种热情提出了一个基本问题：这棵树是否有任何独特的声学特性？
Slash, McKee, Watts and other virtuoso musicians believe that it does, but even their expert views are highly subjective.
斯莱什、麦基、瓦茨和其他音乐大师相信确实如此，但即使是他们的专家观点也非常主观。
Each had their guitars built by master luthiers, so is it the wood—or its treatment—that matters?
每个人的吉他都是由制琴师制作的，那么木材或其处理方法重要吗？
Like fine wine, tonewood comes from a living thing, and evaluating it is highly subjective.
就像美酒一样，音木也来自于生物，对其进行评价是非常主观的。
There’s a good deal of variation within any species, and few if any rigid rules.
任何物种之间都存在很大的差异，而且几乎没有严格的规则。
But it’s the top, or face, of the guitar that most determines its sound quality, and most luthiers use wood from The Tree only for the backs and sides.
但吉他的面板或面板最决定其音质，大多数制琴师仅使用 The Tree 的木材来制作背板和侧面。
(Forsland is an exception—he’s experimented with using the sought-after mahogany for the face as well.)
（福斯兰是个例外，他也尝试过使用广受欢迎的桃花心木来制作脸部。）
Generally speaking, mahogany tops produce an earthy sound that some musicians like, especially for playing the blues.
一般来说，桃花心木面板会产生一些音乐家喜欢的朴实声音，特别是在演奏蓝调音乐时。
But most prefer the sound of top woods like spruce, which produces a full, clear tone, or cedar, which generates a tone that’s warmer and less crisp.
但大多数人更喜欢云杉等顶级木材的声音，它能产生饱满、清晰的音色，或者雪松，它能产生温暖且不那么清脆的音色。
Hawaiian koa is another favorite for guitar tops: It starts out bright and gets mellower and richer over time.
夏威夷相思木是吉他面板的另一种最爱：它一开始明亮，随着时间的推移变得更加柔和和丰富。
Basically, it’s a matter of trade-offs—no guitar is built to do it all.
基本上，这是一个权衡的问题——没有一把吉他可以做到这一切。
Still, I wondered whether guitars built from The Tree can do more than most.
尽管如此，我还是想知道用这棵树制作的吉他是否能比大多数吉他做得更多。
Or is it really the stunning appearance of the wood that so many musicians and collectors find so alluring, whether they realize it or not?
或者，无论他们是否意识到，这真的是木材令人惊叹的外观让许多音乐家和收藏家如此着迷吗？
Chris Plack is in an excellent position to address that question.
克里斯·普拉克（Chris Plack）非常适合回答这个问题。
A professor of auditory neuroscience at Lancaster University in England, Plack is both an expert on the intricacies of human hearing and an avid guitarist himself.
普拉克是英国兰开斯特大学听觉神经科学教授，他既是人类听觉复杂性方面的专家，也是一位狂热的吉他手。
He owns guitars whose backs and sides are made of Brazilian rosewood and other prized materials.
他拥有的吉他的背板和侧板均由巴西红木和其他珍贵材料制成。
“They are great guitars and beautiful objects, and silly expensive,” he told me.
“它们是很棒的吉他和漂亮的物品，而且价格昂贵得离谱，”他告诉我。
Still, it was not known whether instruments such as his were acoustically superior to those made of more mundane woods.
尽管如此，尚不清楚像他这样的乐器在声学上是否优于那些由更普通的木材制成的乐器。
Plack took it upon himself to find out.
普拉克亲自去寻找答案。
He and a colleague had six guitars built, varied only in the wood used for the backs and side panels.
他和一位同事制作了六把吉他，只是背板和侧板所用的木材有所不同。
(The top faces did not vary.) One had backs and sides made of Brazilian rosewood, another was made of Indian rosewood, and the others were made of mahogany, maple, sapele and walnut.
（顶面没有变化。）一种的背板和侧板由巴西红木制成，另一种由印度红木制成，其他则由桃花心木、枫木、沙比利和胡桃木制成。
The guitars were tested by 52 guitarists who sat in a dimly lit room wearing welder’s goggles.
这些吉他由 52 名戴着焊工护目镜坐在光线昏暗的房间里的吉他手进行了测试。
Plack was not surprised by the results.
普拉克对结果并不感到惊讶。
“Our conclusion was that the difference between the guitars was insignificant,” he said.
“我们的结论是吉他之间的差异微不足道，”他说。
Not only did the guitars all have very similar ratings—in many cases, the expert musicians could not even distinguish one guitar from the other.
这些吉他不仅具有非常相似的评级，在许多情况下，专业音乐家甚至无法区分一把吉他和另一把吉他。
Given these findings, I asked Plack to explain why Slash and other top-notch musicians are convinced that exotic woods like that from The Tree produce an extraordinary sound.
鉴于这些发现，我请普拉克解释为什么斯莱什和其他顶尖音乐家相信像来自树的异国木材会产生非凡的声音。
“Hearing depends on more than what enters the ear canal,” Plack said.
“听力不仅仅取决于进入耳道的物质，”普拉克说。
He invoked the concept of “predictive coding,” which posits that perception, motor control, memory and other brain functions all depend on comparisons between ongoing actual experiences and the brain’s modeled expectations of reality.
他引用了“预测编码”的概念，该概念认为感知、运动控制、记忆和其他大脑功能都依赖于持续的实际经历与大脑对现实的建模期望之间的比较。
Tests of other types of instruments have produced similar results.
其他类型仪器的测试也产生了类似的结果。
Antonio Stradivari, the 17th-century master violin maker, handpicked spruce trees from the Fiemme Valley in the Italian Alps, a forest so sought after by instrument makers that it is still known as Il Bosco che Suona , or the Musical Woods.
17 世纪小提琴制作大师安东尼奥·斯特拉迪瓦里 (Antonio Stradivari) 从意大利阿尔卑斯山的 Fiemme 山谷亲手采摘了云杉树，这片森林深受乐器制造商的追捧，至今仍被称为 Il Bosco che Suona，即音乐森林。
Today, Stradivarius violins sell for tens of millions of dollars and are coveted the world over.
如今，斯特拉迪瓦里小提琴的售价高达数千万美元，受到全世界的追捧。
Yet, when ten renowned musicians tested Stradivarius violins against newly built models in 2014, most claimed that the new violins had a superior sound.
然而，当 2014 年十位著名音乐家将斯特拉迪瓦里小提琴与新建型号进行测试时，大多数人声称新小提琴具有卓越的声音。
What this implies for guitars is that the very appearance and cost of guitars made from The Tree and other exotic and rare woods influence the way musicians and luthiers actually experience them.
对于吉他来说，这意味着由 The Tree 和其他异国情调和稀有木材制成的吉他的外观和成本会影响音乐家和制琴师实际体验它们的方式。
“Humans are not perfect instruments of analysis,” Plack said.
“人类并不是完美的分析工具，”普拉克说。
“Perception is multidimensional.
“感知是多维的。
What we hear is greatly influenced by expectations and by other senses, especially sight.”
我们听到的内容很大程度上受到期望和其他感官的影响，尤其是视觉。”
The beauty of The Tree’s wood is undoubtedly a factor in its popularity, says Steve McMinn, the owner of Pacific Rim Tonewoods (PRT).
Pacific Rim Tonewoods (PRT) 的老板 Steve McMinn 表示，The Tree 木材的美丽无疑是其受欢迎的一个因素。
His company is the nation’s largest supplier of wood to the makers of musical instruments, a sprawling operation based near the North Cascades mountains in Concrete, Washington.
他的公司是美国最大的乐器制造商木材供应商，该公司规模庞大，总部位于华盛顿州康克里特市北喀斯喀特山脉附近。
The son of a forester who once worked as a logger, McMinn agrees that expensive, exotic hardwoods are no more likely to produce outstanding sounds than are more humble varieties.
麦克明是一位曾经做过伐木工的林务员的儿子，他同意昂贵的异国硬木并不比更不起眼的品种更可能产生出色的声音。
“When you get an extraordinary tree—say one with exceptional figuring—the sound matters less,” he told me.
“当你得到一棵非凡的树时——比如一棵具有非凡形状的树——声音就不那么重要了，”他告诉我。
“It’s the appearance that interests us.”
“我们感兴趣的是外观。”
The problem is that coveted woods like old-growth mahogany are finite, and demand greatly exceeds supply.
问题在于，像老桃花心木这样令人垂涎的木材数量有限，而且需求大大超过供应。
Jay Howlett, an amateur guitarist who is the self-avowed “chief evangelist” of The Tree, devotes most of his waking hours to tracking down hidden stashes of the wood—in garages, barns and woodworking shops, of course, but also repurposed from tables and cabinets.
Jay Howlett 是一位业余吉他手，自称是 The Tree 的“首席传播者”，他将大部分醒着的时间都用来寻找隐藏的木材——当然，在车库、谷仓和木工店里，但也有从桌子和橱柜中改造而来的。
The proud owner of two guitars made from The Tree, he has sourced it for guitar builders and buyers around the globe.
他自豪地拥有两把由 The Tree 制成的吉他，并为全球的吉他制造商和买家采购它。
“I’ve found it for customers in China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Greece, Australia, France, England, Italy, and many other countries,” he told me.
“我已经为中国、韩国、日本、新加坡、希腊、澳大利亚、法国、英国、意大利和许多其他国家的客户找到了它，”他告诉我。
“I found Reuben the wood he used in the guitar for Slash.
“我找到了鲁本（Reuben）在《Slash》吉他中使用的木材。
But I know of only 400, 600 board feet of the stuff left in the wild, enough to build at most 600 guitars.
但据我所知，野外留下的材料只有 400、600 板英尺，最多足以制造 600 把吉他。
And when that’s gone, well, that’s the end of it.”
当它消失时，好吧，一切就结束了。”
Mahogany was once so plentiful in Belize that the tree is featured on the nation’s flag, a flag that also portrays two shirtless loggers, each holding the tools of his trade.
伯利兹的桃花心木曾经非常丰富，以至于该树出现在该国的国旗上，国旗上还描绘了两个赤裸上身的伐木工人，每个人都拿着自己的贸易工具。
This emblem offers some idea of how important mahogany once was to the people of Belize, and also hints at how the tree came under threat.
这个标志让人们了解到桃花心木曾经对伯利兹人民有多么重要，也暗示了这种树是如何受到威胁的。
The great mahogany trees of Belize are severely depleted, as are old-growth trees the world over, especially rosewood, ebony and Sitka spruce.
伯利兹的大红木树和世界各地的老树都严重枯竭，特别是红木、乌木和西特卡云杉。
In most countries, these species are now illegal to harvest, let alone export.
在大多数国家，这些物种的采伐现在都是非法的，更不用说出口了。
Most timber used for mass-produced furniture and building construction is grown quickly and relatively cheaply on plantations.
大多数用于批量生产的家具和建筑的木材都是在种植园中快速生长且相对便宜的。
But guitar wood is quartersawn—that is, sliced perpendicular to the tree’s growth rings to maximize sound wave projection.
但吉他木材是四切的，即垂直于树木的年轮进行切片，以最大限度地提高声波投射。
Because these slices must be wide enough to comprise the front, back or side of the instrument, they must be cut from large-diameter logs—generally from old-growth trees.
由于这些切片必须足够宽以构成乐器的正面、背面或侧面，因此它们必须从大直径原木（通常是老树）上切割而成。
These are the very trees from which the most highly prized guitars are built, and this is no trivial matter: The guitar is the world’s most popular musical instrument.
这些正是制造最珍贵吉他的树，这不是一件小事：吉他是世界上最受欢迎的乐器。
Most luthiers are wise to this and many strive to be mindful of the provenance of their raw materials.
大多数制琴师对此都很明智，并且许多人努力注意其原材料的来源。
In 2011, Taylor Guitars , one of the world’s largest guitar makers, became the co-owners of a sustainable ebony company in Cameroon.
2011 年，世界上最大的吉他制造商之一泰勒吉他 (Taylor Guitars) 成为喀麦隆一家可持续乌木公司的共同所有者。
Taylor’s website now promises that all “fretboards, bridges and other ebony parts used on a guitar have been acquired legally and ethically, with a commitment to long-term sustainability.” Several other companies are working to develop tonewood from trees that are easier to grow and harvest sustainably, species like sapele, ovangkol, bamboo, Canadian red wild cherry.
泰勒的网站现在承诺，“吉他上使用的所有指板、琴桥和其他乌木部件都是合法且合乎道德的购买的，并致力于长期可持续发展。”其他几家公司正在致力于从更容易种植和可持续采伐的树木中开发音木，例如沙比利、奥旺科尔、竹子、加拿大红野樱桃等树种。
Ever the innovator, Forsland has taken this one step further, using hemp wood bolstered with carbon fiber and Kevlar to build some of his bespoke guitars.
作为一名创新者，Forsland 更进一步，使用碳纤维和 Kevlar 支撑的大麻木来制造他的一些定制吉他。
Steve McMinn has his own ideas about sourcing sustainable tonewood.
史蒂夫·麦克明 (Steve McMinn) 对于采购可持续音木有自己的想法。
Some years ago, he happened upon a downed bigleaf maple he described as “extraordinary,” its figuring nearly as elaborate as that found in the finest Honduras mahogany.
几年前，他偶然发现了一棵倒下的大叶枫木，他形容为“非凡”，其形状几乎与最好的洪都拉斯桃花心木一样精致。
He cut sprouts from the tree’s stump and attempted to grow those sprouts in tissue culture.
他从树桩上切下芽苗，并尝试在组织培养中培育这些芽苗。
“Maple is a weed.
“枫树是一种杂草。
It has a great desire to grow,” McMinn said.
它有很大的成长愿望，”麦克明说。
But not this maple.
但不是这棵枫树。
The experiment failed.
实验失败了。
So McMinn and his team sought out the best fiddleback maples they could find, took cuttings and sprouted them in baby-food jars.
因此，麦克明和他的团队寻找他们能找到的最好的枫树，剪下插条，然后在婴儿食品罐中让它们发芽。
He then transferred the saplings to a 100-acre plot, which McMinn hopes will one day grow into the world’s first tonewood forest.
然后，他将这些树苗转移到了一块 100 英亩的土地上，麦克明希望有一天能够长成世界上第一片音木森林。
“If you want wood for something specific—like building guitars—you have to grow it,” he said.
“如果你想要木材用于特定的用途——比如制造吉他——你就必须种植它，”他说。
Still, as far as anyone knows, there is only one Tree, and those lucky enough to handle its timber take that privilege seriously.
尽管如此，据任何人所知，世界上只有一棵树，而那些有幸能够处理其木材的人会认真对待这一特权。
Forsland, who lives and works in the forest, sees himself not as the destroyer of an ancient living thing—others did that long ago—but as the steward of the storied mahogany.
福斯兰在森林里生活和工作，他并不认为自己是一种古老生物的毁灭者——其他人很久以前就是这么做的——而是传说中的桃花心木的管家。
The Tree will live on through the beauty of the instruments he and others create, and the music made from them.
这棵树将通过他和其他人创造的乐器以及用它们创作的音乐而继续存在。
“The Tree was on this earth for so many years, and it accumulated so much wisdom,” Forsland murmured like a prayer, as we admired Jared’s magnificent new guitar.
“这棵树在地球上存在了这么多年，积累了如此多的智慧，”当我们欣赏贾里德华丽的新吉他时，福斯兰像祈祷一样低声说道。
“Our job is to keep that wisdom alive.”
“我们的工作就是让这种智慧永存。”
Veteran journalist and author Ellen Ruppel Shell is currently writing a book about the eels of Maine.
资深记者兼作家埃伦·鲁佩尔·谢尔目前正在写一本关于缅因州鳗鱼的书。
Tony Rath is a professional photographer based along the shore of the Caribbean Sea in the picturesque town of Dangriga, Belize.
托尼·拉斯 (Tony Rath) 是一位专业摄影师，居住在加勒比海沿岸风景如画的伯利兹丹格里加小镇。