What I find most interesting is the pure literacy on display. This cabinetmaking instructor, admittedly a senior one, writes with more fluid grace than the average Harvard graduate today.
"At various periods during the history of this country, circumstances, and the skill of the craftsman, have combined to produce furniture and interior woodwork of distinctive styles, surviving examples of which are to be seen in museums and elsewhere. The artistic merit of much of this old work appeals to the taste of many people, who appreciate the use of its features in furniture and interiors, even in these days of novel design and ample choice."
I agree that it's nicely written. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be reading about it 85 years later. So I wouldn't draw any conclusions about the average writing competency from it (survivorship bias).
Not the author you quote, but Christopher Schwartz, who runs Lost Art Press (which printed what you quoted) can also write a heck of a wood-working book:
"The journey to the summit of Mount Vesuvius has all the romance of visiting an unlicensed reptile farms..." - opening line to _Ingenious Mechanicks_, which is a history of early workbenches.
(One thing I found fascinating about this book is that it uses religious art to infer details about workbenches, because Yeshua Bin-Maryam was thought to be a "carpenter", and medieval artists drew contemporary medieval workbenches in pictures of the child Yeshua.)
and found it rife with errors (they mis-spell Henry O. Studley's name on the inside front cover), including a duplicated photo (a pair of flat pliers is shown a second time where instead there should be the iconic pair of jeweler's pliers) --- see the excerpt:
"At various periods during the history of this country, circumstances, and the skill of the craftsman, have combined to produce furniture and interior woodwork of distinctive styles, surviving examples of which are to be seen in museums and elsewhere. The artistic merit of much of this old work appeals to the taste of many people, who appreciate the use of its features in furniture and interiors, even in these days of novel design and ample choice."