Fixed it for you 
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Correct, only âhasâ become less plentiful. Far less plentiful.
Again correct and on both counts. Itâs mostly about the maturity of the forest. In a mature forest, virtually no light reaches the ground. This includes coniferous forests. The forest canopy is too dense for light to penetrate. That has at least two consequences. First, no new trees can grow. Second, the trees that are there, and they are mature by definition, completely stop growing limbs low on their trunks. Eventually, the places where there were once limbs get âgrown overâ and subsumed by new wood. Itâs not that old growth lumber doesnât have any knots, itâs just that theyâre buried deep in the log, in the heartwood, and so much of the lumber outside the heartwood doesnât contain knots.
Regarding porosity, trees alternately grow winter and summer wood. If you look at the end of a piece of lumber, youâll see alternating rings, every other one either hard or soft. In younger trees (and the outer, younger rings of older trees), those rings are spaced further apart than the inner rings. Both summer and winter wood are wider and softer in young trees than in old trees (except as I noted before). As trees age and the younger limb knots are subsumed by new wood, it is my understanding that the inner wood shrinks from both dehydration and pressure.
Absolutely! 
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My shelf is better than your shelf.
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Itâs because they donât allow much old-growth harvesting anymore. 
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This is all true but it ainât no mohogany.
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I built this cabin in the late 1970s. Itâs almost exclusively old growth fir. Of course, I had to tear down a house built in the late 1890s to get the lumber, but it was so worth it! I had about $1500 total in that cabin. All the rest was sweat equity. BTW, the posts are Port Orford cedar from an old train tunnel. I paid $100 for, as I recall, six of them. I milled them with a chainsaw mill.
From the front.
And from the rear/kitchen end. The (mostly) white 1x8 shiplap boards you see were the farmhouseâs original exterior. The unfinished (ie, unsanded) and unpainted 1x4 tongue and groove boards on the front-facing side and end were originally the farmhouseâs interior siding. The finish side was painted various colors. For those who may be interested, theyâre a single bead t&g.
One downside to working with fine grained old and dry fir is it gets crazy brittle and wants to split as soon as the pointy (wedge) end of a modern wire nail hits it. The PITA way to resolve that issue is to slightly blunt the working endâs of new nails.
Hereâs a machine cut square nail from the old farmhouse I tore down. I use it to clean grinders.
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No doubt Cuban mahogany!
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Thatâs pretty cool man. Love the repurpose.
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Oh you canât import that.
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I suggest keeping that to yourshelf.
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Iâm not shelfish and like to share my accomplishments.
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Actually, lumber was a helluva lot cheaper when Kimberly-Clark was cutting old-growth. Good wood, not the stuff from Home Depot. Occasionally you might run into a spotted owl hole, but themâs the breaks. 
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âIâd like to return thisâ
âWhy?â
âOwl hole.â
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Thank you, however, you are far too generous. Iâm just seriously fucking cheap.
No you cannot. When I lived in MacKenzie Bridge, OR, in the 1980s, I knew a retired guy whoâd been been a ship captain, at least part of the time in the Caribbean, with many stops in Cuba. He had several thousand board feet of the stuff, all 4 quarter or more dimension lumber in various widths, all perfectly dried and stickered in his basement. Occasionally heâd let someone build him a piece of furniture or some art piece. I never managed, much to my dismay, to convince him to let me. Probably better for him. 
Ainât nobody accusing you of being crabby.
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Crabby no pinchy yes.
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That guy named his son âKieferâ.
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Pinchy parts are to be discussed with Mrs. @Foreigner, I think.
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Donât discuss my pinchy parts with Mrs Foreigner.
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Itâs actually âLuck Be In The Air Tonightâ, but thatâs not what I saw, 
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