The myth of the violin maker who knocks on trees to test the resonance is enduring. Yet many qualitative characteristics of the wood can only be recognised after the tree has been felled. Today, tonewood dealers specialise in parsing the felled wood that is transported from the forest into quality grades and pre-cutting it for the violin maker. This was not always the case: logs were drifted at considerable expense in torrential mountain streams that floated for weeks before they reached their destination.