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THE

ftcrtfj ^mraan §»glta;

OR, A DESCRIPTION OF Till

FOREST TREES

OF TIIS

UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND NOVA SCOTIA.

CONSIDERED PARTICULARLY

WITH RESPECT TO THEIR USE IN THE ARTS AND THEIR
INTRODUCTION INTO COMMERCE.

TO WHICH IS ADDED

A DESCRIPTION OF THE MOST USEFUL OF THE

EUROPEAN FOREST TREES.

ILLUSTRATED BY 106 COLORED ENGRAVINGS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF

F5*ANL>REW MICHAUX, -]-i£-^S~

MEMBER OP THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA, ETC. ETC.

WITH NOTES BY J. JAY SMITH,

EDITOR OF THE HORTICULTURIST, MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. HI.

PHILADELPHIA:
PUBLISHED BY EICE, RUTTER & CO.

No. 525 MINOR STREET.

1865.

*£*

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by

RICE, RTJTTER & CO.,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania.

STEREOTYPED BY I.. JOHNSON AND CO.

COLLINS, PRINTER

^

CONTENTS OF VOLUME THIRD.

Cabbage Tree Chamcerops palmetto 5

Pride of India Melia azedarach 7

Pistacia Tree Pistacia vera 10

American Chestnut Castanea vesca 11

Chincapin Castanea pumila 16

White Beech Fagus sylveslris 18

Red Beech Fagus ferruginea 21

American Hornbeam Carpinus Americana 26

Iron- Wood Carpinus ostrya 27

Black Gum Nyssa sylvatica 29

Tupelo Nyssa aquatica ; 31

Large Tupelo Nyssa grandidentata 34

Sour Tupelo Nyssa eapitata 37

American Nettle Tree Celtis Occidentalis 38

Hack Berry Celtis Crassifolia 38

Red Mulberry Mbrus rubra 42

Sweet Leaf Hopea tinctoria 45

White Ash Fraxinus Americana 49

Red Ash Fraxinus iomentosa 5-3

Green Ash Fraxinus viridis 54

Common European Ash Fraxinus excelsior 56

Black Ash Fraxinus sambucifolia 59

Blue Ash Fraxinus quadrangulata 61

Carolinian Ash Fraxinus platicarpa 63

Black Willow Salix nigra 64

Champlain Willow Salix liguslrina 65

Shining Willow Salix lucida 66

White Elm Ulmus Americana 67

CONTENTS.

r v,i<

Wahoo Ulmus alata 71

Red Elm Ulmus rubra 73

Common European Elm Ulmus campeslris 75

Dutch Elm Ulmus suberosa 79

Planer Tree Planera ulmifolia 80

American Lime or Bass- Wood Tilia Americana 81

White Lime Tilia alba 84

Downy Lime Tree Tilia pubescens 85

Red or Norway Pine Pinus rubra 91

Stone Pine Pinus pinea — 93

Gray Pine Pinus rupestris 95

Yellow Pine Pinus mitis 96

Wild Pine or Scotch Fir Pinus sylvestris 99

New Jersey Pine Pinus inops 103

Table Mountain Pine Pinus pungens 105

Long-Leaved Pine Pinus Australis 106

Pond Pine Pinus serotina 117

Pitch Pine Pinus rigida 118

Loblolly Pine Pinus txda 123

White Pine Pinus strobus 126

Norway Spruce Fir Abies picea 137

Black or Double Spruce Abies nigra 139

White or Single Spruce Abies alba 144

Hemlock Spruce Abies Canadensis 146

American Silver Fir ....Abies balsamifera 150

Cypress Cupressus disticha 155

White Cedar Cupressus thyoidcs 162

American Larch Larix Americana 167

Cedar of Lebanon Larix cedrus 170

Red Cedar Juniperus Virginiana....'. 173

Arbor-Vitee or White Cedar TJiuya Occidentalis 177

C aT)L a o*e Tre e .
Chamarrops "palmetto

THE

NORTH AMERICAN

SYLVA.

CABBAGE TREE.

Cham^rops palmetto. G caule arboreo; frondibus palmatis, pUcaiis,
stupitibus ?io7i acaleatis.

Hesandria trigynia. Linn. Palmge. Juss.

From its lofty height, this vegetable is considered in the
United States as a tree; and upon the shores of the ocean,
where it grows, it is called Cabbage-tree. It belongs to the
genus of the Palms, and is found farther north than any other
species in America, being first seen about Cape Hatteras, in the
34th degree of latitude, which, in the temperature of the
winter, corresponds with the 44th in Europe. From Cape Hat-
teras it spreads to the extremity of East Florida, and probably
encircles the Gulf of Mexico. I have no doubt that it exists
also in Cuba and the Bahama Isles ; I have seen it in Bermuda,
which is more than 600 miles from the coast of North America.

Farther south the Cabbage-tree is not confined, as in the

United States, to the immediate vicinity of the sea; on the

5

6 CABBAGE TREE.

river St. John, in Florida, a few miles above Lake George, I
caused two stocks to be felled at the distance of forty or fifty
miles from the shore.

A trunk from forty to fifty feet in height, of a uniform dia-
meter, and crowned with a regular and tufted summit, gives
to the Cabbage-tree a beautiful and majestic appearance. Its
leaves are of a brilliant green, palmated, and borne by petioles
from eighteen to twenty-four inches long, nearly triangular, and
united at the edges ; they vary in length and breadth from one
foot to five feet, and are so arranged that the smallest occupy
the centre of the summit, and the largest the circumference.
Before their development they are folded like a fan, and, as
they open, the outside sticks break off and fall, leaving the
base surrounded with filaments woven into a coarse, flimsy, and
russet web.

The base of the undisclosed bundles of leaves is white, com-
pact, and tender ; it is eaten with oil and vinegar, and resem-
bles the artichoke and the cabbage in taste, whence is derived
the name of Cabbage-tree. But to destroy a vegetable which
has been a century in growing, to obtain three or four ounces
of a substance neither richly nutritious nor peculiarly agreeable
to the palate, would be pardonable only in a desert which was
destined to remain uninhabited for ages. With similar prodi-
gality of the works of nature, the first settlers of Kentucky
killed the Buffalo, an animal weighing 1200 or 1500 pounds,
for the pleasure of eating its tongue, and abandoned the carcass
to the beasts of the wilderness.

The Cabbage-tree bears long clusters of small, greenish flow-
ers, which are succeeded by a black, inesculent fruit, about the
size of a pea.

In the Southern States the wood of this tree, though ex-
tremely porous, is preferred to every other for wharves : its
superiority consists in being secure from injury by sea-worms,
which, during the summer, commit such ravages in structures

Pi^ide of India

Afe7r<i a \ eda? v/< A .

PRIDE OF INDIA. 7

accessible to their attacks ; but, when exposed to be alternately
wet and dry in the flowing and ebbing of the tide, it decays as
speedily as other wood. This use of the Cabbage-tree is rapidly
diminishing its numbers, and probably the period is not distant
when it will cease to exist within the boundaries of the United
States.

In the war of Independence the Cabbage-tree was found emi-
nently fitted for constructing forts, as it closes on the passage of
the ball, without splitting.

The growth and development of the Palms have occupied
the attention of distinguished botanists, to whose memoirs the
reader is referred for more accurate information. The tard}'
growth of this species will always discourage its propagation.

PLATE CI.

A Cabbage-tree with its Fruit.

PRIDE OF INDIA.

Melia azedarach. M. foliis bipinnatis.

Decandria monogynia. Linn. Meliae. Juss.

This tree is a native of Persia. For the beauty of its flowers
and the elegance of its foliage, it has long been in request in
southern climates for embellishing towns and adorning the en-
virons of dwellings. It is propagated for this purpose in India,
in the Isles of France and Bourbon, in Syria, Spain, Portugal,
Italy, and the southern departments of France. In the New
World it is found in several towns of the West Indies and of
South America j and on the Northern Continent it is so abun-

8 PRIDE OF INDIA.

dant and so easily multiplied in the maritime parts of the
Southern States as to be ranked among their natural pro-
ductions. This claim upon our attention is enforced by the
valuable properties of its bark and of its wood.

The Pride of India rises to the height of thirty or forty feet,
with a diameter of fifteen or twenty inches ; but, when standing
alone, its growth is usually arrested at a lower elevation, and it
spreads into a spacious summit. Its leaves are of a dark green
color, large, doubly pinnate, and composed of smooth, acumi-
nate, denticulated leaflets. The lilac flowers, which form axil-
lary clusters at the extremity of the branches, produce a fine
effect, and exhale a delicious odor. The ripe seeds are large,
round, and yellowish; they are sought with avidity by certain
birds, particularly by the red-breasts, in their annual migration
to the South, which, after gorging themselves immoderately, are
sometimes found stupefied by their narcotic power. The venom-
ous principle which resides in this tree is taken notice of by
Avicenna, an Arabian physician who flourished about the year
980. In Persia the itch is cured with an ointment made by
pounding its leaves with lard.

The Pride of India prospers in a dry and sandy soil, and
magnificent stocks are seen in the streets of Charleston and
Savannah. Its foliage, which, as well as the flowers, is deve-
loped early in the spring, affords a delightful refreshment to the
eye, and yields a shelter from the fervor of the sun during the
intense heat of summer. It grows with such rapidity that from
the seed it attains the height of twelve or fifteen feet in four
years. This surprising vegetation is chiefly remarked in stocks
less than ten years of age, in which the concentric circles are
more distinct than in any other tree. Like the Locust, it pos-
sesses the valuable property of converting its sap into perfect
wood in the earliest stages of its growth : a stock six inches in
diameter has only an inch of sap, and consequently may be em-
ployed almost entire. The wood is of a reddish color, and is

PRIDE OF INDIA. 9

similarly organized with that of the Ash : it receives a less bril-
liant polish than the Red Bay, the Wild Cherry, the Maple, and
the Sweet Gum; but this defect is unimportant in a country
which possesses the species just mentioned and can easily pro-
cure Mahogany. The Pride of India is sufficiently durable and
strong to be useful in building, and it will probably be found
adapted to various mechanical uses; it has already been em-
ployed for pulleys, which in Europe are made of Elm, and in
America of Ash. I have been assured that it is excellent fuel.
This succinct description deserves attention in the southern
parts of North America, and in those countries of Europe where
the Pride of India is considered as an ornamental rather than
as a useful tree. Fields exhausted by cultivation and aban-
doned might be profitably covered with it.

PLATE CIL

A leaf of a third 'part of the natural size. Fig. 1. Flowers of the
natural size. Fig. 2. Seeds of the natural size.

[The Pride of India cannot be considered hardy as far north
as Philadelphia, where its limbs are killed regularly every year;
the root survives, and stools are again produced in the spring.]

in.— l*

PISTACIA TREE.

Pistacia vera. P. foliis impari-pinnatis ; foliolis subovatis, recurms,

coraceis.

Dicecia pentandria. Linn. Terebinthacese. Juss.

The Pistacia-tree is indigenous to Asia Minor, and is particu-
larly abundant in Syria. It equals, and sometimes exceeds,
twenty-five or thirty feet in height, and has heavy, crooked
limbs clad in a thick, grayish bark, and large leaves composed
of one or two pair of coriaceous leaflets, with a terminal odd
one. This vegetable belongs to the class of dioecious plants
whose sexes are borne by different stocks. The barren flowers
are minute and hardly apparent, and the fertile ones are like-
wise small and of a greenish color. Its fruit consists of thin-
shelled oval-acuminate nuts, about the size of an olive, which
are collected in bunches, and are commonly yielded in pro-
fusion. They are of a more agreeable flavor than the hazel-nut
or almond, and are annually exported to those parts of Europe
and Asia where the trees do not flourish.

The Pistacia-tree succeeds in dry, calcareous, stony grounds,
but shuns a sandy and a humid soil. In forming plantations,
care must be taken to possess trees of different sexes, without
which the fructification is impossible ; one male should be allot-
ted to five or six females, and, to avoid mistake, young grafted
stocks should be procured, or suckers from the foot of an old
tree.

The wood is hard, resinous, excellent for fuel, and fitted for
economical purposes.

According to Pliny, pistacia-nuts were first brought to Rome

about the reign of Tiberius, by Vitellius, Governor of Syria;

and probably the tree was introduced into Italy at the same
10

PI. io3

Pistacia Tree

Pi<? facia vera

(ra&rrt/ ,?c*dp

V./o-,

American Cliesmit
(htt'titfiea in'sra .

AMERICAN CHESTNUT. 11

period. It has long been cultivated in Spain, Portugal, and the
south of France; and, when protected by a wall and favored
with a southern exposure, it yields fruit even at Paris. It is
less delicate than the Orange-tree, and prospers in the same soil
and climate with the Olive. Though it offers less powerful
inducements than the Olive to attempt its introduction into
West Tennessee and the Southern States, it would afford an
agreeable addition to the luxuries of the table.

PLATE CIII.

A branch with fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A barren flower. Fig. 2.
A fertile flower. Fig. 3. Fruit with the nut exposed. Fig. 4. A nut
with the kernel exposed. Fig. 5. A kernel without the pellicle.

AMERICAN CHESTNUT.

Castanea vesca. C. foliis lanceolatis, acuminatb-serratis, utrinquh gla-
bris; nucibus dimidio superior e villosis.

Monoecia polyandria. Linn. Amentaceae. Juss.

The Chestnut does not venture beyond the 44th degree of
latitude. It is found in New Hampshire between the 43d and
the 44th degrees ; but such is the severity of the winter, that it
is less common than in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsyl-
vania. It is most multiplied in the mountainous districts of
the Carolinas and of Georgia, and abounds on the Cumberland
Mountains and in East Tennessee.

The coolness of the summer and the mildness of the winter
in these regions are favorable to the Chestnut ; the face of the
country, also, is perfectly adapted to a tree which prefers the

12 AMERICAN CHESTNUT.

sides of mountains or their immediate vicinity, where the soil
in general is gravelly, though deep enough to sustain its perfect
development. The Chestnut of the Old World attains its great-
est expansion in similar situations : an example is said to exist
on Mount Etna of a Chestnut 160 feet in circumference, or
about fifty-three feet in diameter, and large enough to shelter
one hundred men on horseback beneath its branches; but its
trunk is hollowed by time almost to the bark : near it stand
several others more than seventy-five feet in circumference. At
Sancerre, in the Department of the Cher, 120 miles from Paris,
there is a Chestnut which, at six feet from the ground, is thirty
feet in circumference ; 600 years ago it was called the Great
Chestnut, and, though it is supposed to be more than one thou-
sand years old, its trunk is still perfectly sound and its branches
are annually laden with fruit. I have never met with instances
of such extraordinary growth in the United States; but the
American species is probably susceptible of an equal develop-
ment, since, in the forests of North Carolina, it is commonly as
tall and as large as the corresponding species in those of Eu-
rope. I have measured several stocks which, at six feet from
the ground, were fifteen or sixteen feet in circumference, and
which equalled the loftiest trees in stature.

The Chestnut is a stranger to the province of Maine, the
State of Vermont, and a great part of Genesee, to the mari-
time parts of Virginia, to the Carolinas, Georgia, the Floridas,
and Louisiana as far as the mouth of the Ohio.

Though the American Chestnut nearly resembles that of
Europe in its general appearance, its foliage, its fruit, and the
properties of its wood, it is treated by botanists as a distinct
species. Its leaves are six or seven inches long, one and a half
inch broad, coarsely toothed, of an elongated oval form, of a fine
brilliant color and of a firm texture, with prominent parallel
nerves beneath. The barren flowers are whitish, unpleasant to
the smell, and grouped on axillary peduncles four or five inches

AMERICAN CHESTNUT. 13

long. The fertile aments are similarly disposed, but less con-
spicuous. The fruit is spherical, covered with fine prickles, and
stored with two dark-brown seeds or nuts about as large as the
end of the finger, convex on one side, flattened on the other,
and coated round the extremity with whitish down. They are
smaller and sweeter than the wild chestnuts of Europe, and are
sold in the markets of New York, Philadelphia,, and Baltimore.

The wood is strong, elastic, and capable of enduring the
succession of dryness and moisture. Its durability renders it
especially valuable for posts, which should be made of trees less
than ten inches in diameter and charred before they are planted
in the earth. In Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and a part of
Virginia, it is also preferred for rails, and is said to last more
than fifty years. For shingles this wood is superior to any
species of Oak, though it has the same defect of warping. It
is not extensively used for staves, and its pores, like those of the
Red Oak, are so open that it is proper only for dry wares ; the
European species, which is more compact, is employed in Italy
to contain wines and brandy.

Throughout France and the south of Europe, young Chest-
nuts are almost exclusively chosen for hoops ; and they are found
to be better adapted to this important use than any other spe-
cies, as they last longer in the humidity of the cellar. I have
been informed by coopers at New York and Philadelphia that
the American Chestnut is too brittle for hoops; if such is the
fact, the European species has the advantage of superior flexi-
bility. A more probable reason is that it is not strong enough to
remain firmly attached, like the Hickory, by crossing the ends,
but requires to be bound with osier, which is an additional labor
and expense.

The Chestnut is little esteemed for fuel, and is not used in
the cities of the United States : like the kindred species in
Europe, it is filled with air and snaps as it burns. The coal is
excellent, and, on some of the mountains of Pennsylvania where

14 AMERICAN CHESTNUT.

the Chestnut abounds, the woods in the neighborhood of the
forges have been transformed into copses, which are cut every
sixteen years for the furnaces. This period is sufficient to
renew them, as the summer is warmer in America than in
Europe, the atmosphere more moist, and consequently vegeta-
tion more rapid. The proprietors of forges in Virginia, in the
upper part of the Carolinas, and on the Holston, should imitate
the example by establishing copses of Chestnut and Oak.
Besides the inducement of private gain, this measure would be
attended with public benefit by the economy of fuel, which is
daily becoming scarcer and more costly. Among the Oaks, the
Rock Chestnut Oak should be selected for this object, for reasons
indicated in describing it.

Chestnut copses are considered in France as the most valuable
species of property : every seven years they are cut for hoops,
and the largest branches serve for vine-props ; at the end of
fourteen years they furnish hoops for large tubs; and at the age
of twenty-five years they are fit for posts and for light timber.
Lands of a middling quality, which would not have produced a
rent of more than four dollars an acre, in this way yield a mean
annual revenue of from sixteen to twenty-four dollars.

Different methods are pursued in forming the copses. In the
New Dictionary of Natural History the following is preferred : —
After the ground has been carefully loosened with the plough
and the harrow, lines are drawn six feet apart, in which holes
about a foot in depth and in diameter are formed at the distance
of five feet. A chestnut is placed in each corner of the holes
and covered with three inches of earth. As the soil has been
thoroughly subdued, the nuts will spring and strike root with
facility. Early in the second year three of the young plants
are removed from each hole, and only the most thriving is left.
The third or fourth year, when the branches begin to interfere
with each other, every second tree is suppressed. To insure its
success, the plantation should be begun in March or April, with

AMERICAN CHESTNUT. 15

liuts that have been kept in the cellar during the winter in
sand or vegetable mould, and that have already begun to ger-
minate.

The European Chestnut would be a valuable acquisition to many
parts of the United States. This tree produces the nuts called
Marrons de Lyon, which are four times as large as the wild
chestnuts of America, and which are sent from the vicinity of
Lyons to every part of France and to the north of Europe ; they
were formerly exported also to the West Indies. Kentucky,
West Tennessee, and the upper part of Virginia and the Caro-
linas, are particularly interested in the introduction of this
species. It already exists in the nurseries of Philadelphia and
New York, and it is only necessary to procure a few stocks to
furnish grafts for young Wild Chestnuts transplanted from the
woods or reared in the nursery.*

The Chestnuts may be grafted by inoculation or the insertion
of a shoot. The common method is by lopping a branch of the
wild tree, removing a girdle of the bark near the end, from one
to three inches wide, and replacing it by another from a limb
of the cultivated stock of corresponding diameter. The lower
edge of the new covering is exactly adjusted to the natural bark,
but a portion of the limb is left exposed above, which is scraped
down so as to form a species of tent or dressing, and the whole
is protected from the weather by a coating of clay.

PLATE CIV.

Leaves and aments of the natural size. Fig. 1. Fall-grown fruit. Fig. 2.
A chestnut.

* The European cultivated Chestnut is now grown in the United States : at
Burlington, New Jersey, there are sixteen trees in the grounds of Mr. Askew
which have produced in one year sixteen bushels of these fine nuts, which sold
readily for six to eight dollars the bushel. — (See also Nuttall's Supplement,
vol. i. p. 35, et seq.)

16 CHINCAPIN.

[Emerson has given the following dimensions of Chestnut-
trees in Massachusetts. — viz. : one on the land of Joseph Hough-
ton, with an erect, undivided trunk of forty or fifty feet and
several large branches above, which measured, in 1840, twenty-
one feet three inches in circumference at the surface : another,
twenty-two feet eight inches : one is mentioned in Hopkinton
which measured, in 1826, twenty-five and a half feet : another,
southeast of Monument Mountain, had attained, in 1844, at the
surface, thirty feet three inches in circumference. Still more
remarkable specimens no doubt exist farther south, of whose
measurements I have no record.]

CHINCAPIN.

Castanea pumila. C. foliis ovalibus serratis, subtus incano-tomentosis ;
fructu parvo, in singulis capsulis echinatis unico.

The Chincapin is bounded northward by the eastern shore of
the river Delaware, on which it is found to the distance of one
hundred miles from Cape May. It is more common in Mary-
land, and still more so in the lower part of Virginia, of the
Carolinas, Georgia, the Floridas, and Louisiana as far as the
river of the Arkansas. In West Tennessee it is multiplied
around the prairies enclosed in the forests, and it abounds
throughout the Southern States wherever the Chestnut is
wanting.

In New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, the Chincapin is a
large shrub rarely exceeding the height of seven or eight feet ;
but in South Carolina, Georgia, and Lower Louisiana, it is

HjoS.

Chine apin .
Ca&hmea punrila/.

CHINCAPIN. 17

sometimes thirty or forty feet high and twelve or fifteen inches
in diameter.

The leaves are three or four inches long, sharply toothed,
and similar in form to those of the American Chestnut, from
which they are distinguished by their inferior size, and by the
whitish complexion of their lower surface. The fructification,
also, resembles that of the Chestnut in form and arrangement ;
but the flowers and fruit are only half as large, and the nut is
convex on both sides and about the size of the wild hazel-nut.
The nuts of the Chincapin are brought into the markets, and
are eaten raw by children. The improvement of the Chestnut
or of the Chincapin seems hardly to deserve attention, since the
cultivated variety of Europe can easily be procured.

In the south of the United States the Chincapin fructifies on
the most arid lands, but it is stinted to six or seven feet in
height : its perfect development requires a cool and fertile soil.
As it springs everywhere with facility, except in places liable
to be covered with water, it is among the most common
shrubs.

The wood of this species is finer-grained, more compact,
heavier, and, perhaps, more durable, than that of the Chestnut.
It is perfectly fitted for posts, and lasts in the earth more than
forty years. Stocks of sufficient size are so rarely found, that
it is only accidentally employed for this purpose ; and, if the
method of forming enclosures practised in the centre of the
United States should prevail in the south, the Pride of India
would merit a decided preference over the Chincapin. The
saplings of this species are laden with branches while they are
no thicker than the finger, and are thus rendered too knotty
for hoops. In the Southern States, where the White Oak and
the Hickories are comparatively rare, perhaps the Chincapin
might be advantageously reared for this purpose in copses.
But it is a tree of secondary importance, which can be recoin-

Vol. III.— 2

18 WHITE BEECH.

mended only to amateurs desirous of enriching their collections
with a species of Chestnut interesting for the beauty of its
foliage and the diminutive size of its fruit.

PLATE CV.

A branch with leaves and a barren ament of the natural size. Fig. 1. Full-
grown fruit. Fig. 2. A nut.

WHITE BEECH.

Fagus sylvestkis. F. foliis acumi?iatis, obsolete dentatis, margine ciliatis.

In North America and in Europe the Beech is one of the
tallest and most majestic trees of the forest. Two species are
found in Canada and in the United States, which have hitherto
been treated by botanists as varieties ; but my own observations
confirm the opinion of the inhabitants of the Northern States,
who have long since considered them as distinct species and
given them the names of White Beech and Red Beech, from the
color of their wood. In the Middle, Western, and Southern
States, the Red Beech does not exist, or is very rare, and the
other species is known only by the generic name of Beech. I
have retained for the White Beech the Latin specific name of
Fagus sylvestris, which corresponds with the short description in
the Flora Boreali-Americana, and have given to the Red Beech
that of Fagus ferruginea, which accords with the descriptive
phrase in the edition of 1805 of WilHenow's Species Plantarum.

A deep, moist soil and a cool atmosphere are necessary to
the utmost expansion of the White Beech, and it is accordingly
most multiplied in the Middle and Western States. Though

White Beecli.
£\u/n.s- syfa&ftris

WHITE BEECH. 19

it is common in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
throughout the country east of the mountains, it is insulated in
the forests, instead of composing large masses as in Genesee,
Kentucky, and Tennessee. I found the finest beeches on the
banks of the Ohio between Gallipolis and Marietta, and measured
several stocks growing near each other which were eight, nine,
and eleven feet in circumference, and more than one hundred
feet high. In these forests, where the Beeches vegetate in a
deep and fertile soil, their roots sometimes extend to a great
distance even with the surface, and, being entangled so as to
cover the ground, they embarrass the steps of the traveller and
render the land peculiarly difficult to clear.

The White Beech is more slender and less branchy than the
Red Beech ; but its foliage is superb, and its general appearance
magnificent. The leaves are oval-acuminate, smooth, shining,
and bordered in the spring with soft hairy down. The sexes
are borne by different branches of the same tree. The barren
flowers are collected in pendulous, globular heads, and the others
are small and of a greenish hue. The fruit is an erect capsule
covered with loose, flexible spines, which divides itself at matu-
rity into four parts, and gives liberty to two triangular seeds.
The bark upon the trunk of the Beech is thick, gray, and, on
the oldest stocks, smooth and entire. The perfect wood of this
species bears a small proportion to the sap, and frequently
occupies only three inches in a trunk eighteen inches in dia-
meter. The specific name of White Beech is derived from the
color of the alburnum ; and it should be observed that trees of
the same genus are more frequently distinguished in the United
States by the complexion of their wood than by the differences
of their foliage and of their flowers. The properties of this
wood will be more particularly mentioned in the description of
the Red Beech.

On the banks of the Ohio and in some parts of Kentucky,
where the Oak is too rare to afford bark enough for tanning, the

ftlo6

Ked Beech .
Faquf fmitijma

RED BEECH. 21

Our author is in error in undervaluing the wood of the Beech-
wood as fuel ; comparing it with hickory, Bull found it to be as
sixty-five to one hundred: its ashes furnish a great quantity of
potash. The Beech forms a good screen against wind, and its
leaves are strongly recommended by European writers for filling
beds, which last longer than those filled with straw.]

RED BEECH.

Fagus ferruginea. F. foliis ovato-acuminatis, grosse dentatis ; nuces
duce triquetrce, calyce echinato, coriaceo, quadrifido, inclusce.

This species of Beech is almost exclusively confined to the
northeastern parts of the United States, and to the provinces
of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. In the district
of Maine, and in the States of New Hampshire and Vermont, it
is so abundant as often to constitute extensive forests, the finest
of which grow on fertile, level, or gently-sloping lands, which
are proper for the culture of corn. Its name is derived from
the color of its wood and not of its leaves, as might be supposed
in Europe, where a species with dull red and sometimes with
purple foliage is cultivated in the gardens.

The Red Beech bears a greater resemblance to that of Europe
than to the kindred American species: it equals the White
Beech in diameter, but not in height; and, as it ramifies nearer
the earth, and is more numerously divided, it has a more
massive summit and the appearance of more tufted foliage. Its
leaves are equally brilliant, a little larger and thicker, and have
longer teeth. Its fruit is of the same form, but is only half as
large, and is garnished with firmer and less numerous points.
To these differences must be added a more important one in the

22 R E P B E E C II.

wood : a Red Beech fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter con-
sists of three or four inches of sap and thirteen or fourteen
inches of heart, the inverse of which proportion is found in the
White Beech.

The wood of the Red Beech is stronger, tougher, and more
compact. In the district of Maine and in British America,
where the Oaks are rare, it is employed with the Sugar Maple
and Yellow Birch for the lower part of the frame of vessels.
As it is extremely liable to injury from worms, and speedily
decays when exposed to alternate dryness and moisture, it is
rarely used in the construction of houses. In the district of
Maine, the Hickories are rare and the White Oak does not
exist, and, when the Yellow Birch and Black Ash cannot be
procured in sufficient abundance, the Red Beech is selected for
hoops.

This wood is brought to Boston for fuel, but it is less esteemed
and is sold at a lower price than the Sugar Maple. It serves
for shoe-lasts and the handles of tools, and is especially proper
for the tops of cards, because, when perfectly seasoned, it is not
liable to warp. It is brought from the river Hudson to Phila-
delphia for the same uses. I have been informed by mechanics
in that city, employed in making plane-handles of the Red
Beech, that it is sometimes equal, though usually inferior, in
compactness and solidity, to the European Beech.

Red Beech planks about three inches thick are exported to
Great Britain, for purposes which I am unable to particularize ;
but, whatever may be the consumption, the American forests are
extensive enough to supply for a long time the demands of
commerce.

The European Beech bears so strict an analogy to the Red
Beech, that it may be useful to take notice of its properties, its
uses, and the means by which its duration is insured in im-
portant structures.

Experience has demonstrated the advantage of felling the

RED BEECH. 23

Beech in the summer, while the sap is in full circulation : cut at
this season, it is very durable, but felled in the winter, it decays
in a few years. The logs are left several months in the shade
before they are hewn, care being taken that they do not rest
immediately upon the ground; after which they are fashioned
according to the use to which they are destined, and laid in
water for three or four months. They are said to be rendered
in this way inaccessible to worms.

The Beech is very durable when preserved from humidity,
and incorruptible when constantly in the water; but it ra-
pidly decays when exposed to alternations of dryness and
moisture.

In Europe, where there are not as many trees as in North
America with durable and elegant wood, such as the Birches
and the Maples, we are dependent upon the Beech for a greater
variety of uses. It is employed for tables and bedsteads, for
screws, rollers, pestles, dishes, wooden shoes, corn-shovels, &c. ;
in the north of France it is taken for the felloes of wheels, and
it was formerly used, instead of pasteboard, in bookbinding.
In the valley of Saint-Jean-pied-de-port, in the Pyrenees, oars
are made of it to supply the neighboring ports of the ocean.
While the wood retains a portion of its sap, they are pliant and
elastic ; but for this use no tree can stand in competition with
the Black Ash of the United States. Though the Beech is
rapidly consumed, it is highly esteemed as a combustible, and
its ashes are rich in alkali.

In certain cantons of Belgium, particularly near the village
of St. Nicholas, between Ghent and Antwerp, very solid and
elegant hedges are made with young Beeches, placed seven or
eight inches apart and bent in opposite directions so as to cross
each other and form a trellis with apertures five or six inches in
diameter. During the first year they should be bound with
osier at the points of intersection, where they finally become
grafted and grow together. As the Beech does not suffer in

AMERICAN HOENBEAM.

Carpinus Americana. C. foliis oblongo-ovalibus, serratis, involucrorum
lanciniis acute dentatis.

The American Hornbeam is found as far north as the pro-
vinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Lower Canada; but
it is repressed by the severity of the climate, and is less multi-
plied than in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Southern
States. By the Americans it is called Hornbeam, and by the
French of Upper Louisiana, Charme.

The Hornbeam prospers in almost every soil and exposure,
except in places that are too long inundated, or that are abso-
lutely sterile, like the pine-barrens of the Southern States and
of the Floridas. Its ordinary stature is from twelve to fifteen
feet, and it is sometimes twenty-five or thirty feet high and six
inches in diameter; but, as not more than one stock in a hundred
attains these dimensions, it must be considered rather as a large
shrub than as a tree. I have admitted it among the trees be-
cause it is met with at every step in the forests.

The leaves of the Hornbeam are oval-acuminate and finely
denticulated. The sexes are united on the same stock, and the
fertile flowers are collected in long, loose, pendulous, leafy
aments at the extremity of the branches. The scales or leaves
which surround them are furnished at the base with a hard,
oval seed. The fructification is always abundant, and the
aments remain attached to the tree long after the foliage is shed.

The trunk of the American Hornbeam, like that of the
analogous species in Europe, is obliquely and irregularly fluted,
frequently through all its length. By its form and the appear-
ance of the bark, which is smooth and spotted with white, it is

easily distinguished when the leaves are fallen.
26

n.joS.

vW^'.

[ioriibeam

Carpinuj vivqmiana

J>l.mg.

Iron W ood .
Carpinus ojfrya

IRON WOOD. 27

The wood, like that of the European Hornbeam, is white, and
exceedingly compact and fine-grained. The dimensions of the
tree are so small as to render it useless even for fuel; but it is
employed for hoops in the district of Maine when better species
cannot be procured.

From these particulars it will readily be concluded that we
have no interest in propagating the American Hornbeam in
Europe, as our own species possesses equal strength and solidity,
attains the height of thirty-five or forty feet, with a diameter of
fifteen or eighteen inches, and is consequently applicable in the
mechanical arts and useful for fuel. The only superiority of
the American species is for trellises; as it is naturally dwarfish,
its growth is more easily repressed, and, as its branches are
numerous, it has a closer and more tufted foliage. The Horn-
beam of Europe, on the other hand, would be a valuable acqui-
sition to the forests of America.

PLATE CVIII.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A seed.

IRON WOOD.

Carpintts ostrya. C. foliis cordato-ovalibus ; amentis femineis oblongio-
ribus ; involucris fructiferis, eompresso-vesicariis.

East of the Mississippi the Iron "Wood is diffused throughout
the United States and the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova
Scotia, and Lower Canada. In New York, New Jersey, Penn-
sylvania, and the Southern States, where it is most abundant, it
bears the name which I have adopted; in Vermont, New Hamp-

/'/.no

UlirA.rM

Blade Gum .
Nusja si/lvahm

BLACK GUM. 29

The Iron Wood flourishes in France : several stocks, fifteen
or twenty feet in height, fructify annually on the ancient estate
of Duhamel-Dumonceau, and young plants, the produce of self-
sown seeds, are found in the vicinity.

This species is among the exotic trees which might be propa-
gated with advantage in Europe.

PLATE CIX.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A seed.

BLACK GUM.

Nyssa sylvatica. N. foliis ovalibus, iniegerrimis, petiolo, nervo medio,
margineque villosis ; pedunculis femineis longis plerumque 2-Jloris, ?iuce
brevi, obovatd, obtuse' striata.

Polygamia dioecia. Linn. Elasagnoides. Juss.

In the park of Mr. W. Hamilton, at the Woodlands, near
Philadelphia, I first observed the Black Gum. The river
Schuylkill in this vicinity may be assumed as its northern boun-
dary, though it is common in the woods on the road from Phila-
delphia to Baltimore. In all the more Southern States, both
east and west of the Alleghany Mountains, it is more or less
multiplied as the soil is more or less favorable to its growth. It
is designated by the names of Black Gum, Yellow Gum, and
Sour Gum, neither of which is founded upon any of its charac-
teristic properties; but as they have become sanctioned by use,
however ill-chosen, I have adopted the first, which is the most
common.

30 BLACK GUM.

The vegetation of this tree exhibits a remarkable singularity :
in Maryland, Virginia, and the Western States, where it grows
on high and level grounds with the Oaks and the Walnuts, it is
distinguished by no jDeculiarity of form; in the lower part of
the Carolinas and of Georgia, where it is found only in wet
places with the Small Magnolia or White Bay, the Red Bay, the
Loblolly Bay, and the Water Oak, it has a pyramidal base re-
sembling a sugar-loaf. A trunk eighteen or twenty feet high
and seven or eight inches in diameter at the surface is only two
or three inches thick a foot from the ground ; these proportions,
however, vary in different individuals.

The Black Gum is much superior in size to the Tupelo, being
frequently sixty or seventy feet high and eighteen or twenty
inches in diameter. I have observed that on elevated and
fertile lands in the upper part of Virginia, in Kentucky and
Tennessee, it is larger than in marshy grounds in the maritime
parts of the Southern States.

The leaves of this species are five or six inches long, alter-
nate, entire, of an elongated oval form, and borne by short and
downy petioles. The flowers are small, not conspicuous, and
collected in bunches. The fruit is of a deep blue color and of
a lengthened oval shape, and contains a slightly convex stone,
longitudinally striated on both sides.

The bark of the trunk is whitish and similar to that of the
young White Oak. The wood is fine-grained but tender, and
its fibres are interwoven and collected in bundles; an arrange-
ment characteristic of the genus. The alburnum of stocks
growing upon dry and elevated lands is yellow; this complexion
is considered by wheelwrights as a proof of the superior quality
of the wood, and has, probably, given rise, to the name of Yellow
Gum, which is sometimes given to, this species. Throughout
the greater part of Virginia, the Black Gum is employed for the
naves of coach and wagon-wheels; at Richmond, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, &c, it is preferred for hatters' blocks, as being less

Tupelo
Nys#a aquahca

TUPELO. 31

liable to split ; and in the Southern States it is used in the rice-
mills for the cylinder which receives the cogs by whose revolu-
tion the pestles are lifted and dropped upon the rice to separate
it from the husk. The teeth are driven into mortices formed in
the wood, and are strongly compressed by the reaction of its
interwoven fibres. For its difficulty in splitting, the Black Gum
is chosen by shipwrights for the cap, or the piece which receives
the topmast.

Such are the most important uses of this wood, which are
equally well subserved by that of the Tupelo. Both species
support the temperature of Paris, but they succeed better a few
degrees farther south.

PLATE CX.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A stone sepa-
rated from the pulp.

TUPELO.

Nyssa aquatica. N. foliis ovalibus, integerrimis ; pedunculis femineis
bifloris ; drupa brevi, obovata ; nuce striata.

The Tupelo begins to appear in the lower part of New
Hampshire, where the climate is tempered by the vicinity of
the sea; but it is most abundant in the southern parts of New
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. It is called indiscrimi-
nately Tupelo, Gum Tree, Sour Gum, and Peperidge ; names
of whose origin and meaning I am ignorant. The first of these
denominations is the most common ; the second is wholly mis-
applied, as no self-condensing fluid distils from the tree; and the

32 TUPELO.

third is used only by the descendants of the Dutch settlers in
the neighborhood of New York.

The Tupelo grows only in wet grounds ; in New Jersey it is
constantly seen on the borders of the Swamps with the Sweet
Gum, the Swamp White Oak, the Chestnut White Oak, and the
White Elm. It rarely exceeds forty or forty-five feet in height,
and its limbs, which spring at five or six feet from the ground,
affect a horizontal direction. I have remarked that the shoots
of the two preceding years are commonly simple, and widely
divergent from the branches. The trunk is of a uniform size
from its base : while it is less than ten inches in diameter the
bark is not remarkable, but on full-grown and vigorous stocks it
is thick, deeply furrowed, and, unlike the bark of any other
tree, divided into hexagons, which are sometimes nearly re-
gular.

The leaves are three inches long, oboval, smooth, slightly
glaucous beneath, alternate, and often united in bunches at the
extremity of the young lateral shoots. The flowers are small,
scarcely apparent, collected in bunches, and supported by petioles
one or two inches in length. The fruit, which is always abun-
dant, is of a deep blue color, about the size of a pea, and
attached in pairs. It is ripe toward the beginning of November,
and, persisting after the falling of the leaf, forms a part of the
nourishment of the red-breasts in their autumnal migration to
the South. The stone is compressed on one side, a little convex
on the other, and longitudinally striated. Bruised in water, this
fruit yields an unctuous, greenish juice, of a slightly bitter
taste, which is not easily mingled with the fluid. I do not
know that any attempt has been made to convert it into econo-
mical uses; and I believe it would be difficult to obtain from it
a spirituous liquor, or even to convert it into vinegar.

The Tupelo holds a middle place between trees with soft and
those with hard wood. When perfectly seasoned, the sap is of a
light reddish tint, and the heart of a deep brown. Of stocks

TUPELO. 33

exceeding fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, more than half
the trunk is hollow; a fact which I have repeatedly witnessed.

The ligneous fibres which compose the body of trees in
general are closely united, and usually ascend in a perpen-
dicular direction. By a caprice of nature which it is impossible
to explain, they sometimes pursue an undulating course, as in
the Red and Sugar Maples, or, as in the last-mentioned species,
form ripplings so fine that the curves are only one, two, or three
lines in diameter; or, lastly, they ascend spirally, as in the
Orme tortillard, Twisted Elm, following the same bent for four
or five feet. In these species, however, the deviation is only
accidental, and to be sure of obtaining this form it must be per-
petuated by grafting or by transplanting young stocks from the
shade of the parent tree. The genus which we are considering
exhibits, on the contrary, a constant peculiarity of organization :
the fibres are united in bundles, and are interwoven like a
braided cord; hence the wood is extremely difficult to split
unless cut into short billets. This property gives it a decided
superiority for certain uses; in New York, New Jersey, and
particularly at Philadelphia, it is exclusively employed for the
naves of wheels destined for heavy burdens. It must be
acknowledged that, in some parts of New Jersey and Pennsyl-
vania, the White Oak is preferred, which, as I have already
remarked, appears, from its liability to split, to be little calcu-
lated for this object. From the difference of opinion on this
subject, we may conclude that the Tupelo is esteemed solely for
its difficulty in splitting, and not for its solidity and strength.
The absence of these properties would be a still more essential
defect in France, where the wheels of heavy vehicles have naves
twenty inches in diameter at the insertion of the spokes, with
an axle-tree of 350 pounds' weight, and are laden for distant
transportation with 9000 pounds, which is twice the burden
ever laid upon them in America. The Tupelo, therefore, from
its inferiority in size and strength, can never be substituted for

Vol. III.— 3

?A LARGE TUPELO.

the Twisted Elm. But if to its own organization it joined the
solidity of the Elm, a more rapid vegetation, and the faculty of
growing on dry and elevated lands, and of expanding to three
or four times its present dimensions, it would be the most pre-
cious to the mechanical arts of all the forest-trees of Europe
and North America. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, many
farmers prefer the Tupelo for the side-boards and bottom of
carts, as experience has evinced its durability. Wooden bowls
are made of it, which are heavier than those of Poplar, but less
liable to split. As a combustible, it is esteemed for consuming
slowly and diffusing a great heat: at Philadelphia, many persons,
in making their provision of wood for the winter, select a certain
proportion of the Tupelo, which is sold separately for logs.

The preceding remarks will enable the Europeans to appre-
ciate the value of the Tupelo, while they suggest to the Ame-
ricans the importance of introducing the Twisted Elm.

PLATE CXI.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A stone sepa-
rated from the pulp.

LARGE TUPELO.

Nyssa grandidentata. N.foliis longe petiolatis, ovalibus, acuminatis;
pedunculis femineis 1-floris ; fructibus cceruleis.

This is the most remarkable species of its genus for height
and diameter. According to my own observations, it is un-
known to the Northern and Middle States, and is found only
in the lower part of the Carolinas, of Georgia, and of East

Large Tupelo.
/\Wjyz arandidmtcUa

,/„/„,»„.}.

LARGE TUPELO. 35

Florida, where it is designated by the name of Large Tupelo.
I have been assured that it abounds, also, in Lower Louisiana
on the banks of the Mississippi, where it is called Wild Olive.
In fine, it exists in all parts of the United States which produce
the Long-leaved Pine. I am induced also to believe, though
with less conclusive evidence of the fact, that it grows wherever
we find the Cypress; and, consequently, that it extends north
beyond the limits of Virginia, as the Cypress abounds in the
swamps of Maryland, at a little distance from the sea. In
South Carolina and Georgia, I have seen them constantly
united, and, with the Over-cup Oak, Water Locust, Cotton
Wood, Carolinian Poplar, and Water Bitternut Hickory, they
compose the dark and impenetrable forests which cover the
miry swamps on the border of the rivers, to the distance of one
or two hundred miles from the ocean. The extensive swamps
still enclosed in the forests produce the same trees, whose pre-
sence is an infallible proof of the depth and fertility of the
soil, and, consequently, of its fitness for the culture of rice.

The rivers, at their annual overflowing, sometimes cover
these marshes to the height of five or six feet, as is shown by
the marks left upon the trees by the retiring waters. Vegeta-
tion seems only to acquire new energy from these inundations ;
and the Large Tupelo sometimes attains the height of seventy
or eighty feet, with a diameter of fifteen or twenty inches im-
mediately above its conical base, and six or seven feet from the
ground. This size continues uniform to the height of twenty-
five or thirty feet : at the surface the trunk is eight or nine feet
thick, which is a greater disproportion than we observed in the
preceding species.

I cannot attribute this extraordinary swelling of the trunk
entirely to the humidity of the soil ; if such was the cause we
would probably witness the phenomenon in other trees which
accompany the Tupelo.

The leaves of the Large Tupelo are commonly five or six

36 LAKGE TUPELO.

inches long and two or three inches broad ; on young and thriv-
ing stocks they are of twice these dimensions. They are of an
oval shape, and are garnished with two or three large teeth,
irregularly placed, and not opposite, like those of other leaves.
At their unfolding in the spring they are downy, but they be-
come smooth on both sides as they expand. The flowers are
disposed in bunches, and are succeeded by a fruit of consider-
able size and of a deep blue complexion, of which the stone is
depressed and very distinctly striated. Bruised in water, this
fruit yields a fine purple juice, of which the color is tenacious ;
but the quantity is too minute to afford resources in dyeing.

The wood of the Large Tupelo is extremely light, and softer
than that of any tree of the United States with which I am
acquainted. In the arrangement of its fibres it resembles the
other species of the genus. Its only use is for bowls and trays,
for which it is well adapted, as it is wrought with facility. Its
roots, also, are tender and light, and are sometimes employed
by fishermen to buoy up their nets : but no part of the tree
affords a substitute for cork.

The only merit of this species consists in its agreeable form
and beautiful foliage. It endures the temperature of Paris, and
does not exact in Europe as moist a soil as it constantly requires
in the United States.

PLATE OXII.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A stone
separated from the pulp.

Sd uv Tupelo.

SOUE TUPELO.

Nyssa capitata. N. foliis brevissime petiolatis, subcuneato-oblongis, subtus
subcandicantibus ; peduncidis femineis 1-floris ; fructibus rubris.

The Sour Tupelo first makes its appearance on the river
Ogeechee, near the road from Savannah to Sunbury, and in
going southward it is seen in every favorable situation. I have
been told that it exists in Lower Louisiana, which is probable,
from the analogy in soil and climate between the early Southern
States and the country watered by the lower part of the Mis-
sissippi.

In Georgia, this tree is known by the names of Sour Tupelo
and Wild Lime, the first of which I have preferred, though the
last is more common, because this vegetable bears no resem-
blance to the Lime-tree in the form of its leaves or of its
flowers.

The leaves are five or six inches long, oval, rarely denticu-
lated, of a light green above and glaucous beneath. The flowers
are similar to those of the Large Tupelo, but the sexes are
borne by separate stocks ; and I have remarked, as a peculiarity
witnessed in no other tree of North America, that the male and
female trees are easily distinguished by their general appearance
when the leaves are fallen. The branches of the male are more
compressed about the trunk, and rise in a direction more nearly
perpendicular: those of the female diffuse themselves horizon-
tally and form a larger and rounder summit.

The fruit is supported by long petioles, and is from fifteen to

eighteen lines in length, of a light red color and of an oval

shape. It is thick-skinned, intensely acid, and contains, like

that of the Large Tupelo, a large oblong stone deeply channelled

on both sides. An agreeable acidulous beverage might be made

37

38 AMERICAN NETTLE TREE.

of it; but the Lime-tree, which is found in the same country,
is superior in the size and abundance of its fruit, and has,
besides, the advantage of nourishing on barren, sun-beaten
lands.

This species is the smallest of the Tupelos, being rarely more
than thirty feet high and seven or eight inches in diameter. It
accompanies the Large Tupelo in the swamps which are found
upon the borders of the rivers or in the midst of the forests.
As its wood is soft and its dimensions too small to be applicable
in the arts, it falls exclusively within the province of the
amateurs of exotic plants.

PLATE CXIII.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A stone sepa-
rated from the pulp.

AMERICAN NETTLE TREE.

Celtis occidentalis. C. foliis ovatis, acicmmatis, serratis, basi incequa-
libus, supra scabris, subtus hirtis; fructibus rubris.

Polygamia dioecia. Linn. Amentaceas. Juss.

The American Nettle-tree, if not rare, is little multiplied in
comparison with the Oaks, the Walnuts, and the Maples. As it
is scattered singly through the forests, it is difficult to fix the
point at which it ceases toward the north ; but I believe it is not
found beyond the river Connecticut. In the Middle, Western,
and Southern States, it bears the name which I have adopted,
and, among the French of Illinois, that of Bois inconnu, "un-
known wood."

PI. 11+ ■

tl.x'.nedndrdrt.

American Nettle Tree

CcllU oeciililhil™ ■

AMERICAN NETTLE TREE. 39

The Nettle-tree prefers a cool and shady situation, with a
deep and fertile soil : I have observed the largest stocks on the
banks of the Savannah, some of which were sixty or seventy
feet high and eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. This
species is similar in its foliage and general appearance to the
European Nettle-tree ; the branches of both are numerous and
slender, and the limbs take their rise at a small distance from
the ground and seek a horizontal or an inclined direction. The
leaves are alternate, about three inches long, of a dark green
color, oval-oblique at the base, very acuminate at the summit,
denticulated, and somewhat rough. The flowers open early in
the spring, and are small, white, single, and axillary : the fruit,
also, is small and single, of a round form, and of a dull red
color.

The bark is rough and entire upon the trunk, and smooth
and even on the secondary branches. I have never seen the
wood employed in any part of the United States, and cannot
speak of its uses : as the American and European species are
analogous in other respects, they are probably alike in the pro-
perties of their wood.

The European Nettle-tree is a robust vegetable, which en-
dures the most inclement weather, bears transplanting without
injury, and grows with rapidity in almost every soil. When
perfectly seasoned, the wood is of a dark brown color, hard,
compact, supple, and tenacious : it makes excellent hoops, whip-
stocks, and ramrods, is used by wheelwrights for shafts and
for other purposes, and is proper for sculpture. The ancients
assert that it is durable and secure from worms.

PLATE CXIV.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A sprig with

flowers.

[See Nuttall's Supplement, vol. i. p. 149.]

40 HACK BERRY.

[Douglas found the Nettle-tree on the banks of the Columbia
River, in places of extreme dryness ; and Emerson asserts that
he has discovered it in almost every county of Massachusetts,
although everywhere so rare, that its name is unknown to the
inhabitants. It bears so striking a resemblance to the Elm as
sometimes to be called False Elm. Torrey, who gives it the
name of Beaver Wood and Hoop Ash, says it is to be found
particularly in rocky situations, on the banks of rivers. Loudon
says the root of the European Nettle-tree furnishes a yellow
dye, and that an oil is expressed from the stones of the fruit.]

HACK BERRY.

Celtis crassifolia. C.foliis subcordatis, serratis, acuminatis ; fruetibus

nigris.

The banks of the Delaware, above Philadelphia, may be con-
sidered as the northeastern limits of the Hack Berry. East of
the mountains, it is restricted within narrow boundaries, and is
a stranger to the lower part of Virginia and to the more South-
ern States : I have found it abundant only on the banks of the
Susquehanna and of the Potomac, particularly on the Susque-
hanna near Columbia and Harrisburg. It is profusely multi-
plied, on the contrary, in the Western country in all the valleys
that stretch along the rivers, and wherever the soil is fertile
throughout Kentucky and Tennessee. On the Ohio, from Pitts-
burg to Marietta, it is called Hoop Ash, and in Kentucky, Hack
Berry ; a name whose origin I am unable to trace.

This is one of the finest trees that compose the dusky forests
on this part of the Ohio. It associates with the Buttonwood,
Black Walnut, Butternut, Bass Wood, Black Sugar Maple, Elm,

<&l.

Hack Berry.

HACK BERRY. 41

and Sweet Locust, which it equals in stature but not in bulk,
being sometimes more than eighty feet high, with a dispropor-
tionate diameter of eighteen or twenty inches.

The Hack Berry is easily distinguished by the form of its
trunk, which is straight and undivided to a great height, and
by its bark, which is grayish, unbroken, and covered with as-
perities unequally distributed over its surface. Its leaves are
larger than those of any other species of Nettle-tree, being six
inches long and three or four inches broad. They are oval-
acuminate, denticulated, cordiform at the base, of a thick, sub-
stantial texture, and of a rude surface. The flowers are small,
white, and often united in pairs on a common peduncle. The
fruit is round, about as large as a pea, and black at its maturity.
The wood is fine-grained and compact, but not heavy, and when
freshly exposed it is perfectly white : sawn in a direction parallel
or oblique to its concentric circles, it exhibits the fine undula-
tions that are observed in the Elm and the Locust. On laying
open the sap of this tree in the spring, I have remarked, with-
out being able to account for the phenomenon, that it changes
in a few minutes from pure white to green. On the Ohio and
in Kentucky, where the best opportunity is afforded of appre-
ciating this wood, it is little esteemed, on account of its weak-
ness and its speedy decay when exposed to the weather. It is
rejected by wheelwrights, but is sometimes employed in build-
ing for the covering which supports the shingles. As it is
elastic and easily divided, it is used for the bottom of common
chairs, and by the Indians for baskets. On the banks of the
Ohio, it is frequently taken for the rails of rural fences, and is
wrought with the greatest ease, as it is straight-grained and free
from knots ; it is said also to afford excellent charcoal.

The Hack Berry is certainly one of the most beautiful trees
of its genus, and one of the most remarkable for height and for
majesty of form. In rich soils the luxuriance of its vegetation
is shown by sprouts six, eight, and ten feet in length, garnished

III.— 3*

42 RED MULBERRY.

on each side with large, substantial leaves. In France, it is
principally esteemed for the rapidity of its growth; and it is to
be wished that its wood may be found valuable enough to entitle
it to a place in our forests.

PLATE CXV.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size.

[Emerson has found the Hack Berry in Massachusetts, on the
banks of the Connecticut River, but it is rare.]

RED MULBERRY.

Morus rubra. M . foliis corclatis, orbiculatis trilobisve, cequaliter serratis,
scabris ; spicis femineis cylindricis.

Monoecia tetrandria. Linn. Urticese. Juss.

The northern extremity of Lake Champlain and the banks
of the river Connecticut, which I have assigned as the limits of
the Tulip-tree, may also be assumed as those of the Red Mul-
berry. As a temperate climate is favorable to its increase, it is
more multiplied farther south ; but in the Atlantic States it is
proportionally less common than many other trees which still do
not constitute the mass of the forests: the Sweet Gum, the
Tulip-tree, the Sassafras, the Red Beech, and the Maples, are far
more abundant.

In the lower part of the Southern States, this tree is much
less frequently seen than at a distance from the sea, where the
soil and vegetable productions wear a different character. I
have found it most abundant in the States of Ohio, Kentucky,

Red Mulberry

RED MULBERRY. 43

and Tennessee, and on the banks of the Wabash, the Illinois,
and the Missouri; which is attributable to the superior fertility
of the soil. In these regions, and in the upper part of Penn-
sylvania and Virginia, the Red Mulberry often exceeds sixty or
seventy feet in height and two feet in diameter. Its leaves are
large, sometimes entire and sometimes divided into two or three
lobes, rounded, cordiform, and denticulated, of a dark green color,
a thick texture, and a rough, uneven surface.

The sexes are usually separate, though sometimes they are
found upon the same tree. The male flowers form pendulous,
cylindrical aments, about an inch in length; the female blossoms
are small and scarcely apparent. The fruit is of a deep red color,
an oblong form, and an agreeable, acidulous, sugary taste; it is
composed by the union of a great number of small berries, each
of which contains a minute seed.

The trunk of the Red Mulberry is covered with a grayish
bark, more furrowed than that of the Oaks and Hickories. The
perfect wood is of a yellowish hue, approaching to lemon-color.
The concentric circles are distant and distinct; the wood is,
nevertheless, fine-grained and compact, though lighter than that
of the White Oak. It possesses strength and solidity; and, when
perfectly seasoned, it is almost as durable as the Locust, to
which, by many persons, it is esteemed perfectly equal. At
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and in the more southern ports, as
much of it as can be procured is employed for the upper and
lower parts of the frame of vessels, for the knees, the floor-tim-
bers, and, in preference to every other wood except the Locust,
for tree-nails. But it grows more slowly, requires a richer soil,
and is less multiplied, than the Locust, and it is found in the
ship-yards in a smaller proportion than any other timber. In
South Carolina, it is selected for the ribs of the large boats in
which the productions of the upper districts of both Carolinas
are brought down the Catawba. For posts it is almost as
durable and as much esteemed as the Locust. Such are its

44 RED MULBERRY.

most important uses, which should engage the American pro-
prietors to preserve with care the stocks growing naturally on
their estates.

It is a common opinion among shipwrights and carpenters,
that the wood of the male Mulberry is more durable and of a
better quality than that of the female : I must be pardoned for
considering this opinion as a prejudice, till experiments have
demonstrated its truth. In America, as well as in Europe, un-
learned people fall into the same error concerning the Mulberry-
tree as concerning Hemp, — of giving the name of male to the
productive and of female to the barren plant, so that, if a differ-
ence is shown to exist, it is the female tree which affords the
best timber.

The Black Mulberry of Europe, which bears a great resem-
blance to the Red Mulberry, and whose fruit is three or four
times as large, would be a valuable acquisition to the Middle
and still more to the Western States, where it would flourish in
perfection. The fruit of the American species, too, might easily
be augmented in size and quantity by careful cultivation : a very
sensible improvement is witnessed in trees left standing in cul-
tivated fields.

As the leaves of both these species are thick, rough, and hairy
while young, they are improper for the nourishment of silk-
worms, which feed only on the smooth, thin, tender foliage of
the White Mulberry. On several deserted plantations, fifteen or
twenty miles from Savannah, are seen large White Mulberries,
which were set out a century ago, when attempts were made to
introduce the raising of silk-worms. Experience quickly de-
tected the error of the calculation : this branch of industry is
adapted only to a populous country, where there are hands not
required for the cultivation of the earth that may be employed
in manufactures so as to afford their products at moderate prices.
In the United States this period is still remote ; the extensive
and scarcely-inhabited regions of Upper Louisiana, favored with

H ,/. foJoute J?/.

SwrH \a*i\{'.

SWEET LEAF. 45

a fertile soil and a genial climate, will offer resources to the
redundant population of the Atlantic and Western States.
These regions will probably produce the finest silk, as their soil
and climate are peculiarly adapted to the White Mulberry.

The Red Mulberry has been cultivated for many years in
France and England, where it succeeds perfectly, and is esteemed
for its thick and shady foliage. The excellent properties of its
wood should induce the Europeans to propagate it in their
forests.

PLATE CXVI.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A young shoot
with a barren anient. Fig. 2. A barren flower detached from the anient.

SWEET LEAF.

Hopea tinctoria. H. foliis lanceolato-ovaiis, subserratis, nitidis ; floribus
luteis ; fructibus cceruleis.

Polyadelphia polyandria. Linn. Uuaiacaneaa. Juss.

I first observed the Sweet Leaf near Petersburg in Virginia.
It is common in West Tennessee and in the upper part of the
Carolinas and of Georgia ; but it is still more abundant within
the limits which I have assigned to the pine-barrens, where the
soil is light and the winter less rigorous than at a greater distance
from the sea.

This tree is known only by the name of Sweet Leaf. It varies
in size according to the situation in which it grows : on the
banks of the Savannah and on the borders of the large swamps,
where the soil is deep, loose, and fertile, I have seen it twenty-
five or thirty feet high, and seven or eight inches in diameter
at the height of five feet. Commonly it does not exceed half

46 SWEET LEAF.

these dimensions, and in the pine-barrens, where it is profusely
multiplied, it is sometimes only three or four feet in height.
The sprouts from the trunks consumed in the annual conflagra-
tion of the forests never surpass this height, and, as they do not
fructify, the tree is multiplied by its running roots, which shoot
at the distance of a few feet.

The trunk of the Sweet Leaf is clad in a smooth bark, and,
if wounded in the spring, distils a milky fluid of an unpleasant
odor. The wood is not hard, and is totally useless. The leaves
are three or four inches long, smooth, thick, alternate, of an
elongated oval shape, slightly denticulated, and of a sugary
taste. In sheltered situations they persist during two or three
years, but in the pine-barrens they turn yellow with the first
frost, and fall toward the beginning of February. In the mean
time they are eagerly devoured by horses and cows turned loose
into the forests after the herbage has perished.

The flowers spring from the base of the leaves, and appear
early in the season : they are yellowish, sweet-scented, and com-
posed of a great number of stamina shorter than the petals and
united in separate groups at the base. The fruit is cylindrical,
minute, and of a deep blue color at its maturity.

The foliage is the only part of this tree which promises to be
of any utility; when dry, it affords, by decoction, a beautiful
yellow color, which is rendered permanent by the addition of a
little alum, and is used to dye wool and cotton. But, if these
leaves had possessed any considerable value, they would doubt-
less have found their way into commerce. The first obstacle to
their use is the expense, in a country where labor is dear, of
collecting them in sufficient quantities. Of this I can judge
from the difficulty I experienced in gathering a few pounds.

PLATE CXVII.

A branch with leaves and flowers of the natural size. Fig. 1. A young shoot
with fruit of the natural size.

ASHES.

Except the Oak, no tree of Europe or of North America is so
generally useful as the Ash. The distinguishing properties of
its wood are strength and elasticity; and it unites them in so
high a degree, that, for many valuable purposes, it could be but
imperfectly replaced by any other tree. This remark is particu-
larly applicable to the Common Ash of Europe and to the White
Ash of the United States, which are the largest species, the
most multiplied, and the most useful in the arts.

Eight species of Ash are mentioned by botanists as indigenous
to Europe ; and a much greater number exist in America, as I
am convinced by my own observations, and by examples, con-
tained in my father's herbarium or cultivated in our gardens
and nurseries, of species which escaped my researches in
America. Probably more than thirty species will be found
east of the Mississippi.

As a close analogy reigns throughout this genus, each species
should be raised from the seed, in order to study the develop-
ment of its vegetation as well as the characters of its flowers and
its fruit. By observing them while young, we shall be able to
ascertain the comparative rapidity of their growth. My resi-
dence in the United States was not long enough for the execu-
tion of this interesting task; I have confined myself, therefore,
to the description of those species which are the most remark-
able for their utility or for the form of their seeds.

[See Nuttali's Supplement, vol. ii. 124, et seq]

47

48 ASHES.

[Soil, Propagation, &c. The Ash will grow in barren soils,
and in the bleakest and most exposed situations, but in such
will not attain a timber-like size. If planted by ditch-sides, or
in low boggy situations, according to Withering, the roots act as
under-drains, and render the ground about them firm and hard ;
but Sang observes more correctly that the Ash is found in the
highest perfection on dry, loamy soils, and that in moist but not
wet soils it grows fast, but soon sickens; retentive clay soils do
not agree with it. In rich soils its wood is short and brittle; in
sandy soils it is tough and reedy, qualities which for several
purposes much enhance its value. In loam mixed with decom-
posed rocks, at the bottom of a mountain where it is sheltered,
the Ash arrives at a great size. The largest trees will be found
where they have running water within reach of their roots.
Marshall recommends the Ash to be planted alternately with
the Oak, because, as the Ash draws its nourishment from the
surface and the Oak from the subsoil, the ground would thus be
fully and profitably occupied. It should undoubtedly be planted
either along with its own species, or with other trees, so as to
draw it up with a clear, straight stem, the value of the timber
depending on the closeness and clearness of the grain.

The species is always propagated from seed, and the varieties
by grafting or budding on the species. The seeds should be
gathered and taken to the rotting-ground, mixed with light
sandy earth, and laid in a heap of a flat form, not more than
ten inches thick, in order to prevent them from heating. Here
they should be turned over several times in the course of the
winter, and in February they may be removed, freed from the
sand by sifting, and sown in beds in any middling soil, well
broken by the rake. The seeds may be deposited at the dis-
tance of half an inch every way, and covered a quarter of an
inch with soil. The plants may be taken up at the end of the
year, and planted in nursery-lines; and at the end of the second
year they may be removed to where they are finally to remain.

While Ash.
era* rf/fu. i" amencaiM .

W H I T E A S II. 4«J

The Weeping Ash, properly treated, is one of the most orna-
mental shrubbery trees I have seen abroad. The limbs of a
regular tree are pinned to the ground in a circle, and in a few
years form an arbor of great beauty: a seat is placed around
the stem.

The Golden-barked Ash and many other varieties are also an
ornament to the shrubbery not to be neglected by the tasteful
planter.]

WHITE ASH.

Fraxinus Americana.* F. foliis integerrimis, longe acuminatis, petiolatis,
subtus glaucis.

Polygamia dioecia. Linn. Jasminese. Juss.

The White Ash is one of the most interesting among the
American species for the qualities of its wood, and the most
remarkable for the rapidity of its growth and for the beauty of
its foliage. It abounds in New Brunswick and Canada; in the
United States, it is most multiplied north of the river Hudson,
and is more common in Genesee than in the southern parts of
New York, in New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. A cold climate
seems most congenial to its nature. It is everywhere called
White Ash, probably from the color of the bark, by which it is
easily distinguished. I have observed, too, that on large stocks
the bark is deeply furrowed, and divided into small squares from
one to three inches in diameter.

The situations most favorable to the White Ash are the banks
of rivers and the edges and surrounding acclivities of swamps.

* [Fraxinus acuminata. Lam.]
Vol. III.— 4

50 WHITE ASH.

It sometimes attains the height of eighty feet with a diameter
of three feet, and is one of the largest trees of the United States.
In the district of Maine and in the upper part of New Hamp-
shire, it is always accompanied by the White Elm, Yellow Birch,
White Maple, Hemlock Spruce, and Black Spruce; and in New
Jersey it is mingled with the Red Maple, Shellbark Hickory,
and Buttonwood, in places that are constantly wet and occasion-
ally inundated.

The White Ash is a fine tree, with a trunk perfectly straight
and often undivided to the height of more than forty feet. The
leaves are twelve or fourteen inches long, opposite, and com-
posed of three or four pair of leaflets surmounted by an odd one.
The leaflets, which are borne by short petioles, are three or four
inches long, about two inches broad, oval-acuminate, rarely den-
ticulated, of a delicate texture and an undulated surface. Early
in the spring they are covered with a light down, which gradu-
ally disappears, and at the approach of summer they are per-
fectly smooth, of a light green color above and whitish beneath.

;■" As the contrast of color between the surfaces is remarkable, and
is peculiar to this species, Dr. Muhlenberg has denominated it

: — Fraxinus discolor.

The seeds are one and eight-tenth inches long, cylindrical near

'•.•'. •• the base, and gradually flattened into a wing, the extremity of
which is slightly notched. They are united in bunches four or
five inches long, and are ripe in the beginning of autumn. The
shoots of the two preceding years are of a bluish-gray color and
perfectly smooth: the distance between their buds sufficiently
proves the vigor of their growth.

In large trees, the perfect wood is reddish and the sap is
white. This wood is highly esteemed for its strength, supple-
ness, and elasticity, and is employed with advantage for a great
variety of uses, of which I shall mention only the most common.
It is always selected by coach-makers for shafts, for the fellies
of wheels, and at New York and Philadelphia for the frame of

WHITE ASH. 51

carriage-bodies; by wheelwrights it is used for sledges and for
the handles of wheelbarrows; in the district of Maine, it replaces
the White Oak for the circular back of windsor chairs; scythe
and rake handles, the hoops of water-pails, the circular piece of
butter-boxes, sieves, and large spinning-wheels, which are manu-
factured principally at Hingham, or near Boston, are of White
Ash; and in Connecticut it is usually preferred for wooden
bowls. In the district of Maine it is extensively used for
staves, which are of a quality between those of White and
those of Red Oak, and are esteemed the best for containing
salted provisions. It is admitted also into the lower frame of
vessels, but is considered inferior to the Yellow Birch and to
the heart of the Red Beech. In all the Atlantic States the
blocks used in ships and the pins for attaching the cordage are
of Ash, for which purpose the White Ash is employed in the
Northern and the Red Ash in the Southern ports. On account
of its strength and elasticity, the White Ash is esteemed supe-
rior to every other wood for oars, and second only to the
Hickory for handspikes. In these forms it is exported to
England and to the West Indies. It is also sent to England
in planks, and is acknowledged by Oddy, in his Treatise on
European Commerce, to be superior in many respects to the
Common Ash.

The White Ash has long been known in France, England,
and Germany, where it is propagated with success from the seed
and by grafting; I have even remarked that in moist grounds
its vegetation is more rapid than that of any indigenous species ;
its leaves are, at the same time, less liable to injury from the
Spanish fly. Besides the beauty of its foliage, in which it sur-
passes the Common European Ash, it may be recommended for
the excellence of its wood as a valuable acquisition to the North
of Europe.

52 WHITE ASH.

PLATE CXVIII.

A branch with leaves of half the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds of the natural

size.

See Nuttall's Supplement, vol. ii. p. 129.]

[The leaves and branches of the White Ash are said to be
poisonous to serpents, and the leaf to cure their bite. No rattle-
snakes are found in White-Ash swamps. An Ash leaf rubbed
upon the swellings caused by mosquitos removes the itching
and soreness immediately. The same effect is produced on the
poison occasioned by the sting of the bee. According to
Emerson, it is found in every part of Massachusetts. It thrives
best near streams of water, but sometimes is seen nestling
among rocks, where it attains a height of one hundred feet and
more: one has been observed with a shaft of seventy feet
without a limb; it was four and a half feet in diameter.

The Ash has been called the painters' tree, being, while young,
remarkable for its gracefulness, and the softness and mellow
green of its foliage producing a fine effect in contrast with the
darker woods.")

Red Ash.

/'/■(r.rt'/it/.i' iomenlo*ra

RED ASH.

Fraxinus tomentosa. F. foliolis subnovenis, dentatis, petiolatis; ramulis
peliolisque pubescenti-tomentosis.

Fraxinus pubescens. Linn.

Of all the Ashes, this species is the most multiplied in
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. It is commonly called
Red Ash, and frequently Ash. Like the White Ash, it prefers
swamps and places frequently inundated or liable to be covered
with water by copious rains, and in these situations it is accom-
panied by the Shellbark Hickory, Bitternut Hickory, Swamp
White Oak, Red Maple, Sweet Gum, and Tupelo.

The Red Ash is a beautiful tree, rising perpendicularly to the
height of sixty feet with a diameter of fifteen or eighteen inches.
It is inferior to the White Ash not only in size, but in the
rapidity of its growth : the length of the annual shoots and the
distance of the buds are but half as great as in the preceding
species.

The leaves are from twelve to fifteen inches long, and are
composed of three or four pair of very acuminate, denticulated
leaflets, with an odd one. Their lower surface, as well as the
shoots of the same season to which they are attached, is covered
with a thick dowTn : on insulated trees, this down is red at the
approach of autumn, whence, probably, is derived the name of
Red Ash. The seeds are shorter than those of the White Ash,
but similar in form and arrangement.

The bark upon the trunk is of a deep brown, and the perfect

wood is of a brighter red than that of the White Ash. The

wood of this species possesses all the properties for which the

other is esteemed, and in the ports of the Middle and Northern

53

54 GREEN ASH.

States the j are indifferently applied to the same diversified uses ;
that of the Red Ash, however, is somewhat harder, and con-
sequently less elastic. Notwithstanding its inferiority of size,
the Red Ash is perhaps more valuable for the regions to which
it has been assigned by nature; of this the Americans will be
able to judge by experience: both species are of such general
utility that the utmost pains should be bestowed upon their
preservation and increase.

PLATE CXIX.

A branch with leaves of half the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds of the natural

size.

[The specimen at Bartram's is fifty feet in height and five feet
two inches in circumference. It thrives best in a moist situa-
tion.— Meehan.]

GREEN ASH.

Fraxinus viridis.* F. foliis septejiis, dentatis, peiiolatis, viridibus;
ramulis petiolisque glabris.

Fraxinus juglandifblia. Linn.

The Green Ash is more common in the western districts of
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, than in any other part
of the United States; but even here it is less multiplied than
the White Ash and the Black Ash. Dr. Muhlenberg has par-

* [Fraxinus juglandifolia. Lam. The Walnut-leaved Ash.

M. J. Be.frufr JJ,

Green Ask.
frcuxxmw viridia

0,1 /'/■/.•/ <>\v//fi'.

GREEN ASH. 55

ticularly observed it on the islands of the Susquehanna near
Columbia, and I have found it most abundant on the banks
of the Monongahela and the Ohio, between Brownsville and
Wheeling. Probably this species is of moderate dimensions ; for
I have seen it laden with seeds while only twenty-five or thirty-
five feet high and four or five inches in diameter.

The Green Ash is easily recognised by the brilliant color of
its young shoots and of its leaves, of which the two surfaces are
nearly alike. From this uniformity, which is rarely observed
in the foliage of trees, Dr. Muhlenberg has given the species the
name of Fraxinus concohr, and for the same reason, as it has
received no popular specific name, I have called it Green Ash.

The leaves vary in length from six to fifteen inches, according
to the vigor of the tree and to the coolness of the soil, and are
composed of three, four, or five pair of petiolated, oval-acumi-
nate and distinctly-denticulated leaflets surmounted by an odd
one. The seeds are only half as large as those of the White
Ash, but are similar in form. The wood of the Green Ash is
distinguished by the same properties with that of the preceding
species; but, as the others are common in the same regions, and
are so much superior in size, it is only accidentally employed.

This species has been multiplied in France from seeds sent
home by my father in 1785. It supports the inclemency of our
winter, and is esteemed by amateurs for the singular tint of its
foliage, which is strikingly contrasted with that of the surround-
ing trees.

PLATE CXX.

A branch with leaves of half the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds of the natural

COMMON EUROPEAN ASH.

Fraxinus excelsior. F. foliis subsessilibus, lanceolato-oblongis, attenu-
atis, serratis ; floribus ?iudis ; seminibus apice emarginatis.

The Ash is the most common and the most useful species of
its genus upon the Old Continent. Like the Common Oak and
the White Oak, it is found throughout Europe and the North of
Asia, and, as it is less sensible to cold, would probably be more
multiplied than the Oaks, were it not restricted to certain soils.
It is found almost exclusively on the borders of rivers and
swamps, and in places constantly cool and shaded, without
being exposed to inundation; in a word, in situations analogous
to those which, in the United States, produce the White Ash
and the Red Ash.

The Common Ash is ranked among trees of the first order.
It is sometimes ninety feet high and nine or ten feet in circum-
ference; but when sixty or seventy feet in height, it is in per-
fection for all the uses to which it is applied. The trunk is
straight and well-proportioned; the branches are opposite,
covered, while young, with a smooth, greenish bark, and
garnished with short, round buds, nearly black, like those of
the Black Ash. The leaves, which consist of four or five pair
of leaflets with an odd one, are opposite like the branches, of a
dark green color, smooth, acuminate, and slightly toothed. The
flowers are not conspicuous, and are united in bunches; barren,
fertile, and hermaphrodite flowers are found upon the same tree.
The seeds are of a lanceolate-oval shape, and terminated by a
flat wing, which is usually notched at the end : they are ripe
toward the beginning of autumn.

In the properties and uses of its wood, the European Ash
56

Common Ruronean AsJti

/''./,' ■-■"■.<■ , ,.-, 'elnor.

COMMON EUROPEAN ASH. 57

resembles the White Ash of America. In France, handsome
articles of furniture are made with the pieces immediately be-
low the first ramification, and with the knobs from the trunk
of old trees, which exhibit more varied and more agreeable ac-
cidents in the direction of the fibres. The Common Ash is
subject to be worm-eaten, and is rarely employed in building
houses. It burns better than any other wood before it is sea-
soned, and affords excellent coal.

In the department of the Cantal, and in some other parts of
France, the branches of the Ash are given both dry and green
to sheep and cows, without imparting a disagreeable taste to
the milk and butter.

Spanish flies are very fond of the leaves of this tree, upon
which they sometimes swarm in such numbers as to diffuse an
offensive odor.

The ancients, as we are informed by Pliny, believed that sei-
pents had an antipathy to the Ash, and that they never ap-
proached it : this prejudice, which is still entertained, has given
rise to the belief that a decoction of its roots or leaves in milk
is an antidote for the poison of reptiles.

The general utility of its wood causes great attention to be
bestowed, in every part of Europe, upon the propagation of the
Ash. For this purpose, nurseries are formed from the seed, and
the young plants, at the age of two or three years, are set out
wherever the soil is cool and moist enough for their reception :
they succeed well on uplands which are not too dry and sandy,
or composed of too great a proportion of clay.

There are several varieties of the European Ash, the most
remarkable of which is the Drooping Ash ; its branches decline
toward the earth, and the effect is peculiarly picturesque in
solitary trees which have been formed by grafting this variety
upon the Common Ash.

Many medicinal properties have been ascribed to the Ash,
and more accurate observations lead me to believe that if these

58 COMMON EUROPEAN ASH.

virtues exist they can reside only in the inner bark, which is
bitter and astringent.

The White Ash and the Blue Ash of the United States are
superior to the Common European Ash in the very properties
for which this species is most esteemed ; there is no motive,
therefore, for introducing it into the American woods : that it
would nourish there is evinced by a beautiful example in the
garden of Mr. W. Bartram, in the vicinity of Philadelphia.

PLATE CXXI.

A leaf of half the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds of the natural size.

[There are many varieties of this tree, among which the
Pendula should be planted and trained as an ornamental arbor.

There is a very interesting specimen at Bartram's, forming
the "Washington Arbor," under which the Father of his country,
Benjamin Franklin, Wilson, and other eminent men, have often
sat ; and wherein, surrounded by scenes he loved, William Bar-
tram breathed his last. Here sat Washington when he replied
to the French ambassador's playful inquiry what kind of a nut
that (bombshell) was : — " It is a nut too hard for John Bull to
orack." — Meeiian.]

Black Ash.

/'/■(i.ri/itt.t' irambuci'/b/ia }

BLACK ASH.

Fraxinus sambucifolia. F. foliolis sessilibus, acuminatls, serratis;
ramis punctatis.

In the extensive country comprising the northern section of
the United States, and the provinces of New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia, the White Ash and the Black Ash, sometimes
called Water Ash, are the most abundant in the forests, and the
most accurately known by the inhabitants.

The Black Ash is sixty or seventy feet in height and about
two feet in diameter. It requires a moister soil exposed to
longer inundations than the White Ash, and is usually accom-
panied by the Red-flowering Maple, the Yellow Birch, the Black
Spruce, and the Arbor- Vitae; in the Middle States it prefers
the company of the Red-flowering Maple and Red Ash.

The buds of the Black Ash are of a deep blue, and the young
shoots of a bright green sprinkled with dots of the same color,
which disappear as the season advances. The leaves at their
unfolding are accompanied by stipulge, which fall after two or
three weeks : they are twelve or fifteen inches long when fully
developed, and composed of three or four pair of leaflets with
an odd one. The leaflets are sessile, oval-acuminate, denticu-
lated, of a deep green color, smooth on the upper surface, and
coated with red down upon the main ribs beneath : when
bruised, they emit an odor like that of Elder leaves. The
seeds, which are disposed in bunches four or five inches long,
are flat, and, like those of the Blue Ash, are nearly as broad at
the base as at the summit.

The Black Ash is easily distinguished from the White Ash

by its bark, which is of a duller hue, less deeply furrowed, and

has the layers of the epidermis applied in broad sheets. The

59

60 BLACK ASH.

perfect wood is of a brown complexion and fine texture ; it is
tougher and more elastic than that of the White Ash, but less
durable when exposed to the vicissitudes of dryness and mois-
ture, and for this reason it is less extensively used. Coach-
makers do not employ it, and it is never wrought into oars,
handspikes, and pulleys. In the district of Maine, it is pre-
ferred to the White Ash for hoops, which are made of saplings
from six to ten feet in length, split in the middle. As this
wood may be separated into thin, narrow strips, it is selected in
the country for chair-bottoms and riddles.

The Black Ash is more liable than any other species to be
disfigured with knobs, which are sometimes of considerable size
and are detached from the body of the tree to make bowls.
The wood of these excrescences has the advantage of superior
solidity, and, when carefully polished, exhibits singular undula-
tions of the fibre ; divided into thin layers, it might be employed
to embellish mahogany.

In Vermont and New Hampshire, which furnish great
quantities of potash, I have been informed that the ashes of
this tree are singularly rich in alkali.

Such are the principal uses of the Black Ash, from which a
general idea may be formed of its projyerties. It deserves a
place in the forests of the North of Europe, and by employing
its wood we shall learn to estimate its value with greater
precision.

Observation. Another lofty species of Ash exists in Kentucky,
which is also called Black Ash; but I am too imperfectly
acquainted with it to attempt a description.

PLATE CXXII.

A branch with leaves of half the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds of the natural

H.J23.

Blue Ash

(racrie/ sclJr.

BLUE ASH Gl

[The Black Ash is not considered an ornamental tree, and is
avoided in plantations. For baskets it is much employed.
When it is to be divided, it is beaten with mallets until the
fibres are somewhat loosened, when it may be divided into
uniform ribbons of any required dimensions.]

BLUE ASH.

Fraxixus qtjadraxgulata. F. ramulis quadrangulatis, foliolis ad sum-
mum 4:-jugis, subsessilibus, ovali-hnceolatis, argute serratis, subtus pubes-
centibus, capsidis utrinque obtusis.

The Blue Ash is unknown in the Atlantic parts of the United
States, and is found only in Tennessee, Kentucky, and the
southern part of Ohio. The climate of these countries is mild,
and the soil in some places so fertile that it is difficult, without
having witnessed them, to form an idea of the luxuriance of
vegetation and the productiveness of agriculture. The richness
of the soil proves a substitute for that degree of moisture which,
in the Atlantic States, seems indispensable to the Ash. In
Kentucky and West Tennessee, the forests upon dry and uneven
lands, at a distance from the rivers, are composed of the
Walnuts, the Bed Maple, the Moose Wood, the Hack Berry, the
American Nettle, and the Oaks; several species of which, east
of the mountains, grow only in the most humid soils.

The Blue Ash frequently exceeds sixty or seventy feet in
height and eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. Its leaves
are from twelve to eighteen inches long, and are composed of
two, three, or four pair of leaflets with an odd one. The
leaflets are large, smooth, oval-acuminate, distinctly toothed, and
supported by short petioles. The young shoots to which the

G2 BLUE ASH.

leaves are attached are distinguished by four opposite mem-
branes, three or four lines broad and of a greenish color, extend-
ing through their whole length : this character disappears the
third or fourth year, leaving only the traces of its existence.
The seeds are flat from one extremity to the other and a little
narrowed toward the base.

The wood of the Blue Ash possesses the characteristic pro-
perties of the genus; and, of all the species of the Western States,
it is the most extensively employed and the most highly
esteemed. Besides the habitual use that is made of it for the
frames of carriages and for the fellies of wheels, it is generally
selected for the flooring of houses, frequently for the exterior
covering, and sometimes for the shingles of the roof; but for
the last purpose the Tulip Tree is preferred. I have been told
that a blue color is extracted from the inner bark of this tree;
but I have never seen it employed, and do not know by what
process it is obtained. Milk in which the leaves have been
boiled is said to be an unfailing remedy for the bite of the
rattlesnake : we may be allowed, however, to doubt its efficacy
till it is attested by enlightened physicians.

My father first described the Blue Ash in his Flora Boreali
Americana, and from the seeds which he sent home have sprung
the beautiful stocks that are now growing in Europe ; but they
are still too young to yield fruit, and they are propagated by
grafting upon the Common Ash.

The various uses to which the wood of the Blue Ash is appro-
priated in America should induce the Europeans to multiply
it in their forests, till they are enabled to appreciate its com-
parative value.

PLATE CXXIII.

A branch with leaves of half the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds of the natu-
ral size.

/y 144.

Carolinian Asli

//VA/V///AC />/(l/(( Yt/'JPO

CAROLINIAN ASH.

Fraxinus platicarpa. F. foliolis petiolaiis, ovalibus, serratis; capsules
lato lanceolatis.

This species of Ash, which is very distinctly characterized by
the form of its leaves and seeds, is confined to the Southern
States. It abounds particularly on the river Cape Fear, in
North Carolina, and upon the Ashley and the Cooper, in South
Carolina. As it has received no specific name from the inhabit-
ants, I have given it that of Carolinian Ash.

The marshy borders of creeks and rivers, and all places ex-
posed to long inundations, are congenial to this Ash, which
delights in more abundant moisture than the other species. Its
vegetation is beautiful, but its stature rarely exceeds thirty feet,
and it fructifies at half this height. In the spring the lower
side of the leaves and young shoots is covered with thick down,
which disappears at the approach of summer. The leaves com-
monly consist of two pair of leaflets with a terminal odd one.
The leaflets are large, nearly round, petiolated, and distinctly
toothed. The flowers, as in the other species, are small and
not very conspicuous ; the seeds, unlike those of any Ash with
which we are acquainted, are flat, oval, and broader than they
are long.

From its inferior dimensions, the Carolinian Ash is totally
neglected ; but accurate experiments on the nature of different
species of wood in America will perhaps evince that this tree,
as well as others that are regarded as worthless, possesses pro-
perties of eminent utility.

PLATE CXXIV.

A branch of half the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds of the natural size.

63

BLACK WILLOW.

Salix nigra. S. foliis lanceolatis, acuminatis, serratis, glabris; petiolis
pubescentibus.

Amentacese. Juss.

This species is the most common of the American Willows,
and the most analogous to that of Europe. It is less multiplied
in the Northern and Southern than in the Middle and espe-
cially in the Western States. It is found on the banks of the
great rivers, such as the Susquehanna and the Ohio, and is
called Black Willow, or simply Willow.

The Black Willow is rarely more than thirty or thirty-five
feet high and twelve or fifteen inches in diameter. It divides
at a small height into several divergent but not pendent limbs,
and forms a spacious summit. The leaves are long, narrow,
finely denticulated, of a light green, and destitute of stipulse.
In the uniformity of its coloring, the foliage of this species dif-
fers from that of the European Willow, the lower surface of
which is glaucous.

Upon the trunk the bark is grayish and finely chapped ; upon
the roots it is of a dark brown, whence may have been derived
the specific name of the tree. The roots afford an intensely-
bitter decoction, which is considered in the country as a purifier
of the blood, and as a preventive and remedy for intermittent
fevers.

The wood is white and soft, and the branches are easily
broken from the tree. Neither the wood nor the twigs are
applied to any useful purpose.

PLATE CXXV.

Fig. 1. Leaves of the natural size.
64

&.120

A.JifJout, //•/

i .Jflarlc Willow

Solid- /liy/Yl .

2. CiLamplam Whlow

3 . SluiULlO' WlIloW.

iSalia' ludda,.

CHAMPLAIN WILLOW. G5

[See Nuttall's Supplement, vol. i., for a great number of Wil-
lows found in the countries bordering on our Pacific coast. See
also Emerson's " Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts."

The Black Willow is known to basket-makers as the " Wicker
Willow."

The subject of Willow-planting, for the uses of the basket-
maker, has been much referred to of late. For the best mode
of cultivating it for profit, see " Transactions of the Norfolk
(Massachusetts) Agricultural Society, 1852," and the several
volumes of the " Horticulturist."]

CHAMPLAIN WILLOW.

Salix ligustrina. S. foliis lanceolato-linearibus, acumi?iatis, serratis;
stipulis incequaliter cordatis; petiolis villosis.

I have found this Willow on the shores of Lake Champlain,
particularly near the village of Skeensborough. It is about
twenty-five feet high and seven or eight inches in diameter : its
first aspect resembles that of the Black Willow, but its leaves
are longer, narrower, and accompanied at the base by cordiform,
serrate stipuhe. Its wood and branches are appropriated to no
use.

PLATE CXXV.

Fig. 2. Leaves of the natural size.

Vol. III.— 5

SHINING WILLOW.

Salix lucida. S. foliis oblongis, cuspidaio-acuminatis, nitidis; argute
serratis; serraturis glandulosis.

I have observed the Shining Willow — which is so called by
some persons on account of the brilliancy of its foliage — only in
the Northern and Middle States. It is found in moist but open
grounds, and is more common on the edges of the salt meadows
than in the interior of the forests ; it is also seen on the islands
not covered with woods, in the rivers and near the shores of
the lakes.

This species is easily distinguished by the superior size of its
leaves, which are oval-acuminate, denticulated, and sometimes
four inches in length.

The Shining "Willow attains the height of eighteen or twenty
feet; but its ordinary elevation is nine or ten feet. Baskets
are made of its branches when those of the European Willow,
which are preferable, cannot be obtained ; but it possesses no
property that recommends it to attention.

Observation. Many species of Willow are found in the United
States and in Canada, the greater part of which are susceptible
of no useful application. The three species which I have de-
scribed are distinguished only by their superior height; but
even these are greatly inferior to the European Willow in size
and in the properties of their wood. In the Northern and Mid-
dle States, particularly in Pennsylvania and in some townships
in the lower part of New Jersey, great numbers of the Euro-
pean Willow have been planted, of which light baskets are
fabricated for the market of Philadelphia. This tree furnishes
the charcoal for the manufacture of gunpowder.

66

PLATE OXXV.

Fig. 3. A leaf of the natural size.

FUe

While i\im.
////>// >r Americana

WHITE ELM.

Ulmus Americana. U. ramis Icevibus, pendulis; folils subuniformiter
serraiis ; floribus mamfesie pedicellatis ; fructibus densissimo jimbriatis.

Pentandria digynia. Linn. Amentaceae. Juss.

This tree, which is known throughout the United States by
the name of White Elm, is found over an extensive tract of the
North American Continent. Toward the north, my father
indicates its first appearance in the latitude of about 48° 20',
eighteen miles from the mouth of the river Mistassin, which
empties into Lake St. John, in Canada. I have myself observed
it from Nova Scotia to the extremity of Georgia, — a distance of
twelve hundred miles. It abounds in all the Western States;
and I have learned that it is common in the neighborhood of
the great rivers that water Upper Louisiana and empty into
the Mississippi. But it appeared to be the most multiplied and
of the loftiest height between the 42d and 46th degrees of lati-
tude, which comprise the provinces of Lower Canada, New
Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, the northeastern section of the
United States, and Genesee, in the State of New York.

The leaves of the White Elm are four or five inches long,
borne by short petioles, alternate, unequal at the base, oval-
acuminate, and doubly denticulated. They are generally smaller
than those of the Red Elm, of a thinner texture and a smoother
surface, with more regular and prominent ribs.

This species differs also essentially from the Red Elm and
the European Elm in its flowers and seeds; the flowers appear
before the leaves, and are very small, of a purple color, sup-
ported by short, slender footstalks, and united in bunches at the

extremity of the branches. The seeds are contained in a flat,

67

68 W II I T E E L M.

oval, fringed capsule, notched at the base : the season of their
maturity is from the 15th of May to the 1st of June.

The White Elm delights in low, humid, substantial soils, such
as in the Northern States are called interval lands. In the
Middle States it grows in similar situations, and on the borders
of swamps, where it is usually accompanied by the White Oak,
the Sweet Gum, the Tupelo, the Red Maple, and the Shagbark
Hickory. West of the mountains, it abounds in all the fertile
bottoms watered by the great rivers that feed the Ohio and the
Mississippi. I have constantly observed it on their banks with
the White Maple and the Buttonwood, where its base is inun-
dated at the rising of the waters in the spring. On the margins
of these rivers it is sometimes four feet in diameter. In the
Middle States it stretches to a great height, but does not ap-
j)roach the magnificence of vegetation which it displays in the
countries peculiarly adapted to its growth. In clearing the
primitive forests a few stocks are sometimes left standing; insu-
lated in this manner, it appears in all its majesty, towering to
the height of eighty or one hundred feet, with a trunk four or
five feet in diameter, regularly shaped, naked, and insensibly
diminishing to the height of sixty or seventy feet, where it
divides into two or three primary limbs. The limbs, not widely
divergent near the base, approach and cross each other eight or
ten feet higher, and diffuse on all sides long, flexible, pendulous
branches, bending into regular arches and floating lightly in the
air. A singularity is observed in this tree which I have wit-
nessed in no other; two small limbs four or five feet long grow
in a reversed position near the first ramification, and descend
along the trunk.

The Buttonwood astonishes the eye by the size of its trunk
and the amplitude of its head; but the White Elm has a more
majestic appearance, which is owing to its great elevation, to
the disposition of its principal limbs, and the extreme elegance
of its summit. In New Hampshire, between Portsmouth and

WHITE ELM. 69

Portland, a great number of young White Elms are seen de-
tached in the middle of the pastures ; they ramify at the height
of eight, ten, or twelve feet, and their limbs, springing at the
same point; cross each other and rise with a uniform inclination,
so as to form of the summit a sheaf of regular proportions and
admirable beauty.

The trunk of this Elm is covered with a white, tender bark,
very deeply furrowed. The wood, like that of the Common
European Elm, is of a dark brown, and, cut transversely or ob-
liquely to the longitudinal fibres, it exhibits the same numerous
and fine undulations; but it splits more easily, and has less
compactness, hardness, and strength. This opinion was given
me by several English wheelwrights established in the United
States ; and I have since proved its correctness by a comparison
of the two species. The White Elm is used, however, at New
York and farther north for the naves of coach-wheels, because it
is difficult to procure the Black Gum, which at Philadelphia is
preferred for this purpose. It is not admitted into the construc-
tion of houses or of vessels, except occasionally, in the district
of Maine, for keels, for which it is adapted only by its size. Its
bark is said to be very easily detached during eight months of
the year; soaked in water and suppled by pounding, it is used
in the Northern States for the bottom of common chairs.

Such are the few and unimportant uses of the White Elm in
the United States ; it is far inferior to the European Elm, which
is a tree of very extensive utility, and it deserves attention in
the Old World only as the most magnificent vegetable of the
temperate zone.

PLATE CXXVI.

A branch with leaves of the natural size. Fig. 1. Flowers. Fig. 2. Seeds

[See Nuttall's Supplement, vol. i. p. 51.]

70 WHITE ELM.

[Soil, Propagation, &c. The suckers produced by the Com-
mon Elm, both near and at a distance from the stem, afford a
ready mode of propagation adopted throughout Europe ; the
suckers are procured from the roots of grown-up trees, in hedge-
rows or plantations. Layers from stools, and grafting on the
U. montana, may also be employed; the layers are made in
autumn or the winter, and are rooted, or fit to be taken off, in
a year. The seeds fall from the tree in May as soon as they
are ripe, and, being swept up, are sown immediately in beds of
rich, light soil, the seeds being placed about one inch apart
every way, and covered to the depth of an eighth of an inch.
The plants come up the same season, and are fit for transplant-
ing into nursery-lines in the autumn.

The Elm is not a brittle tree, and not liable to be injured by
high winds. It is, however, subject to many diseases, and
attacked by many kinds of insects. As a noble ornamental
tree, its value is widely appreciated, and its importance in this
respect does not require to be enforced. In New England, par-
ticularly, fine avenues are to be met with. In France, the Elm
is subjected to being trimmed in artificial forms, flat surfaces,
and for hedges ; it is very patient of the knife : at the town of
Versailles, near Paris, and at other places on the continent, the
traveller is struck with the formal avenues of Elm Trees of very
considerable size which have been subjected to an annual shear-
ing ; they then present a flat surface on each side of the street.

The White Elm in many districts is particularly subject to
be preyed upon by insects, and has therefore been abandoned by
many.]

J?L

W ahoo.

t |

<

v

WAHOO.

Ulmits alata. U. ramis passim ex utroque latere in alam suberosam cor-

ticalem dilatatis ; foliis oblongo-ovalibus, sensim acutis, basi subsequalibus ;

fructu pubescente et confertius cilioso.

Ulmus pumila. Walter.

The Wahoo is a stranger to the Northern and Middle States,
and to the mountainous regions of the Alleghanies ; it is found
only in the lower part of Virginia, in the maritime districts of
the Carolinas and Georgia, in West Tennessee, and in some
parts of Kentucky. Probably it grows also in the two Floridas
and in Lower Louisiana, of which the soil and climate are
analogous to those of the maritime parts of the Southern States,
and of which the vegetable productions, with some exceptions,
are the same.

The name of Wahoo, given to this species of Elm in South
Carolina and Georgia, is derived from the Indians; but I am
ignorant of its meaning.

The Wahoo grows of preference on the banks of rivers and
in the great swamps enclosed in the pine-barrens : it has always
appeared to me to be less multiplied than the trees by which it
is accompanied. It is of a middling stature, commonly not ex-
ceeding thirty feet, with a diameter of nine or ten inches : the
two largest stocks that I have seen were at Wilmington, N.C. ;
they were, perhaps, forty or forty-five feet high, fifteen inches
in diameter, and seemingly very old.

The flowers, like those of other Elms, open before the leaves.

The seeds are fringed, and differ from those of the White Elm

only by a little inferiority of size. The leaves are borne by

short petioles, and are oval, denticulated, and smaller than

those of the White and Red Elms.

71

72 W A II 0 0.

The branches are furnished throughout their whole length,
on two opposite sides, with a fungous appendage two or three
lines wide, from which the name of alata, "winged," has been
given to the species.

The wood of the Wahoo is fine-grained, more compact,
heavier, and, I believe, stronger, than that of the White Elm.
The heart is of a dull red approaching to chocolate color, and
always bears a large proportion to the sap. At Charleston, S.C.,
and in some other towns of the Southern States, it is employed
for the naves of coach-wheels, and is even preferred, for this
object, to the Tupelo, as being harder and tougher; but it is
appropriated to no other use.

For economical purposes, this species is uninteresting to the
Europeans, as the Common Elm is greatly superior in size and
in the quality of its wood : these advantages should engage the
Americans to introduce the European species into their forests.

PLATE CXXVII.

A branch with leaves of the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds of the natural

size.

•d Elm,

Clmus Rub?' a

RED ELM.

Ulmus rubra. U. foliis plerumque ovalibus oblongis, rarius cordato-ova-
libus, utrinque rugosis; gemmis sub explications densd fidvdque land
tomentosis; jloribus sessilibus.

Except the maritime districts of the Carolinas and Georgia,
this species of Elm is found in all parts of the United States and
of Canada. It bears the names of Red Elm, Slippery Elm, and
Moose Elm, of which the first is the most common : the French
of Canada and Upper Louisiana call it Orme tjras.

The Red Elm, though not rare, is less common than the Oaks,
the Maples, the Sweet Gum, and the Sassafras; it is also less
multiplied than the White Elm, and the two species are rarely
found together, as the Red Elm requires a substantial soil free
from moisture, and even delights in elevated and open situa-
tions, such as the steep banks of rivers, particularly of the
Hudson and the Susquehanna. In Ohio, Kentucky, and Ten-
nessee, it is more multiplied than east of the mountains, and
with the Hickories, the Wild Cherry Tree, the Red Mulberry,
the Sweet Locust, the Coffee Tree, and some other species, con-
stitute the growth upon the richest lands of an uneven surface.

This tree is fifty or sixty feet high and fifteen or twenty
inches in diameter. In the winter it is distinguished from the
White Elm by its buds, which are larger and rounder, and
which, a fortnight before their development, are covered with a
russet down.

The flowers are aggregated at the extremity of the young

shoots. The scales which surround the bunches of flowers are

downy like the buds. The flowers and seeds differ from those

of the preceding species: the calyx is downy and sessile, and
III.— 5* 73 .

74 RED ELM.

the stamina are short and of a pale rose color; the seeds are
larger, destitute of fringe, round, and very similar to those of
the European Elm ; they are ripe toward the end of May. The
leaves are oval-acuminate, doubly denticulated, and larger,
thicker, and rougher than those of the White Elm.

The bark upon the trunk is brown; the heart is coarser-
grained, and less compact than that of the White Elm, and of
a dull-red tinge. I have remarked that the wood, even in
branches of one or two inches in diameter, consists principally
of perfect wood. This species is stronger, more durable when
exposed to the weather, and of a better quality, than the White
Elm; hence in the Western States it is employed with greater
advantage in the construction of houses, and sometimes of
vessels on the banks of the Ohio. It is the best wood of the
United States for blocks, and its scarceness in the Atlantic
States is the only cause of its limited consumption in the ports.
It makes excellent rails, which are of long duration and are
formed with little labor, as the trunk splits easily and regularly ;
this is probably the reason that it is never employed for the
naves of wheels.

The Red Elm bears a strong likeness to a species or a variety
in Europe known by the name of Dutch Elm. The leaves and
the bark of the branches, macerated in water, yield, like those
of the Dutch Elm, a thick and abundant mucilage, which is
used for a refreshing drink in colds, and for emollient plasters
in place of the marsh-mallow root, which does not grow in the
United States.

Though the Red Elm is superior to the White Elm, it is not
equal to our European species, and its culture cannot be gene-
rally recommended.

Observations. In the district of Maine and on the banks of
Lake Champlain I have found another Elm which I judged to
be a distinct species. Its leaves were oval-acuminate, rough, and

COMMON EUROPEAN ELM. 75

deeply toothed; but I have not seen its flowers or its seeds.
The length of its young shoots announced a vigorous vegetation.
It is confounded in use with the White Elm, to which it is per-
haps superior; it is found in the nurseries of France, and pro-
bably it came originally from Canada.

PLATE CXXVIII.

A branch with leaves and seeds of the natural size.

COMMON EUROPEAN ELM.

Ulmus campestris. TJ. foliis duplicato-serratis, basi incequalibus ; flori-

bus subsessilibus, conglomeratis, pentandris ; fructibus glabris.

Upon the Old Continent one of the most useful trees in the
mechanical arts is the Elm, which is indigenous to the centre
of Europe and to the North of Asia. It was formerly most
abundant in Germany; and the town of Ulm, in Suabia, is said
to derive its name from the vast forests of Elm that existed in
its vicinity.

This tree was cultivated by the ancients, and highly esteemed
for the excellence of its wood : it is frequently mentioned by
Virgil, Pliny, and Theophrastus.

No forests consisting wholly of Elm are found in England,
Germany, France, or Italy; but the habitual use and superior
fitness of its wood for certain valuable purposes cause it to be
propagated on private estates, by the sides of highways, and in
the large forests which in different countries are protected by
Government. Thus cultivated and artificially multiplied, it has
produced numerous varieties, like the fruit trees, which are dis-

76 COMMON EUROPEAN ELM.

tinguished principally by their foliage: in some of them the
leaves are small, shining, and coriaceous ; in others, large, downy,
and supple. To this difference must be added that of the bark :
upon a trunk six inches in diameter, in some varieties, the bark
is smooth; in others it is rough and scaly upon saplings less
than two inches thick. Distinctions are also founded upon the
rapidity of vegetation and the quality of the wood. Nursery-
men assure us that new varieties are constantly appearing
among the young plants reared from the seed; hence it becomes
impossible to compose invariable definitions, or to harmonize
the confusion of botanical writers.

But all these varieties may be referred to two types, in which
remarkable differences are found and constantly reproduced.
One of these is the Common Elm, under which are ranged all
the ordinary varieties ; the other is the Large-leafed or Dutch
Elm.

The Common Elm is one of the tallest and finest trees of the
temperate zone of Europe; several stocks yet survive in France
which were planted in the reign of Henry IV., about the year
1580, by the orders of Sully, and which are twenty-five or
thirty feet in circumference and eighty or ninety feet high.

The leaves of the Common Elm are oblong, pointed, doubly
serrate, and unequal at the base. The flowers appear in the
beginning of March, about three weeks before the leaves : they
are small, reddish, not conspicuous, and are united in clusters
on the shoots of the preceding year; they are succeeded by
oval, bordered capsules, containing a single flat, roundish seed,
which varies in size in different varieties, and is ripe toward the
end of April.

The wood of the Elm has less strength than the Oak and
less elasticity than the Ash, but it is tougher and less liable to
split. In France, it is usually employed for mounting artillery,
and for this purpose is selected with the greatest care. The
trees are cut according to the use to which they are destined,

COMMON EUROPEAN ELM. 77

and the pieces are stored under shelter to dry during six or
seven years; the precaution is even observed of turning them
every six months, that the seasoning may proceed more uni-
formly. Thus perfected, the wood is used for the carriages of
cannon, and for the gunwale, the blocks, &c. of ships. It is
everywhere preferred by wheelwrights for the naves and fellies
of wheels, and for other objects.

The quality of this wood depends in a singular degree on the
situation in which it grows : high ground and a strong soil are
necessary to its perfection ; and when planted in such a soil on
the side of roads, or on the ramparts of fortified towns, where
it is vexed by the winds and exposed to all the influences of the
seasons, it is firmer and more solid.

The knobs which grow upon old trunks are divided into thin
plates by cabinet-makers, and when polished they exhibit very
diversified accidents in the arrangements of the fibre, and form
beautiful articles of furniture.

Well-cords are made of the bark of the Elm ; the wood is an
excellent combustible, and in some countries the leaves are
given for food to sheep and larger cattle.

In fertile and humid soils the Elm is subject to a species of
ulceration, which appears on the body of the tree at the height
of three or four feet, and which discharges a great quantity of
sap. The disease penetrates gradually into the interior of the
tree and corrupts its substance. Many attempts have been
made to cure it in the beginning or to arrest its progress, but
hitherto without success : the best treatment is to pierce the
tree to the depth of two or three inches with an auger, in the
very heart of the malady, which is declared by the flowing of
the sap.*

The English writers on forest trees — Evelyn, Miller, Marshall,

* [Another mode of treatment recommended is to pierce the ulcer, and then
dress the wound with powdered charcoal, or a mixture of cow-dung and clay.]

78 COMMON EUROPEAN ELM.

&c. — mention twenty varieties of the Elm, seven of which are
particularly remarkable, and may serve as types of the rest;
these are the True English Elm, the Narrow-leaved Cornish
Elm, the Dutch Elm, the Black Worcestershire Elm, the Nar-
row-leaved Witch Elm, and the Upright Witch Elm. On the
continent we possess these principal varieties, and those that are
referred to them ; but we consider the Dutch Elm as a distinct
species, not derived, like the others, from the Common Elm.

In England, the true English Elm is recognised as the best
wood; and to avoid mistake, in forming plantations, grafted
stocks are procured from the nurseries; for neither the foliage
nor the wood offers any peculiar appearance by which it may be
certainly distinguished.

In the description of the Tupelo, particular mention has been
made of a precious variety of the Common Elm, the Twisted
Elm, omitted by the German and English writers, which is pro-
pagated in the departments about Paris, in that of the North,
and in Belgium.

It is an object of importance to multiply this invaluable
variety, which can be done only by grafting or by transplanting
suckers. It is reared with the greatest care at Meaux and
Mendes, a few leagues from Paris, and thence it is procured
with the greatest certainty.

The Curled Maples, till they are seven or eight inches in dia-
meter, exhibit no undulations of the fibre, and a similar fact is
observed in the Twisted Elm; the fibres do not assume the
spiral direction till the trunk is nine or ten inches thick. In
comparing attentively young Twisted Elms less than eight
inches in diameter with other varieties planted at the same time
in the same soil, the only difference I observed was, that the
vegetation of the Twisted Elm Avas more vigorous, its foliage of
a lighter green, and its bark perfectly smooth, while that of the
other stocks, even when only two inches in diameter, was thick
and chapped.

DUTCH ELM. 79

In France, Belgium, and some parts of Germany, many of
the highways, as well as the public walks in the neighborhood
of large towns, are planted with the Elm, which, besides the
value of its wood, has a tufted foliage, and suffers the pruning-
hook without injury. The trees destined for this purpose are
reared in nurseries, and when about two inches in diameter are
set out in the autumn, at the distance of twenty-four feet.
During the first years, the ground is kept loose, that the rain
may penetrate more easily to their roots.

PLATE CXXIX.

Plate 1. Leaves of the natural size. Fig. 1. Flowers of the natural sizs.
Fig. 2. Seeds of the natural size.

DUTCH ELM.

Ulmus suberosa. U. foliis duplicato-serratis, rugosis; floribus subses-
silibus, conglomerates, tetrandris; fructibus glabris; cortice ramulorum
suberoso-alato.

This species is easily distinguished from the Common Euro-
pean Elm by its leaves, which are larger, thicker, rugged on
both surfaces, and borne by short petioles. The flowers, also,
are of a lighter tint, and the seeds are larger. In the winter,
when stripped of its foliage, the Dutch Elm is recognised by its
round buds, and by the thickness of its shoots of the preceding
year.

The bark of the young branches, as in the Eed Elm, is full of
mucilage, which, thirty years ago, was celebrated in cutaneous
affections. It was preserved and given in decoction, in doses of

80 PLANER TREE.

two ounces, steeped in a quart of river-water, reduced by boil-
ing to a pint. This practice was long prevalent; but, notwith-
standing some authentic attestations of its success, it has fallen
into disuse.

The Dutch Elm so nearly resembles the Red Elm of the
United States in its flowers, foliage, and fruit, that it is not
always easy to distinguish them: the most striking difference is
in the buds; those of the Red Elm are covered in the spring
with a thick, reddish down; those of the Dutch Elm, on the
contrary, are smooth, or, at most, are lightly powdered on the
edges of the scales. This European species attains a very lofty
height and a considerable diameter. Its wood is softer than
that of the Common Elm; but the writers on forest trees speak
variously of its qualities, and I have consulted wheelwrights
without obtaining satisfactory information; on the most favor-
able supposition, it is greatly inferior to the Twisted Elm.

PLATE CXXIX.

Plate 2. A branch with a leaf of the natural size. Fig. 1. A seed of the
natural size.

PLANER TEEE.

Planera ulmifolia. P. foliis petiolatis, oblongo-ovalibus, sensim angus-
tatis, acutis, basi obtusis, cequaliter serraiis ; capsuld scabra.

Kentucky, Tennessee, the banks of the Mississippi, and the
Southern States, are the only parts of the American Republic
where my father and myself have found the Planer Tree. Its
wood is not used, and probably for this reason the tree has
attracted no attention from the inhabitants, and has received

PU3o

Jl? An&ufr def.

GabT~ul sculp

Planer Tree.
Planera I V/fit/c '>//< r

AMERICAN LIME OR BASS WOOD. 81

no distinctive denomination; to supply the deficiency, I have
adopted the botanical name.

I have more particularly observed the Planer Tree in the
large swamps on the borders of the river Savannah, in Georgia.
It is a tree of the second order, and is rarely more than thirty-
five or forty feet high and twelve or fifteen inches in diameter.
Its bloom is early and not conspicuous. Its minute seeds are
contained in small, oval, inflated, uneven capsules. The leaves
are about an inch and a half long, oval-acuminate, denticulated,
of a lively green, and a little like those of the European Elm,
to which this species bears the greatest analogy.

The wood of the Planer Tree is hard, strong, and seemingly
proper for various uses ; it is probably similar in its characters
to the analogous species in the North of Asia, the Siberian Elm;
but, as I have already remarked, the tree is rare and the wood
neglected.

PLATE CXXX.

A branch with leaves and seeds. Fig. 1. A small shoot with male flowers.

AMERICAN LIME or BASS WOOD.

Tilia Americana. T. foliis suborbieulato-cordatis, abrupte acuminatis,
argute serraiis, glabris; petalis apice truncaiis; nuce ovatd

Polyandria monogynia. Linn. Tiliacese. Juss.

Among the Lime Trees of North America, east of the Mis
sissippi, this species is the most multiplied. It exists in Canada,
but is more common in the northern parts of the United States,
where it is usually called Bass "Wood : it becomes less frequent

Vol. III.— 6

82 AMERICAN LIME OR BASS WOOD.

toward the south; and in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia,
it is found only on the Alleghany Mountains.

I found this species of Lime Tree most abundant in Genesee,
which borders on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. In some dis-
tricts, particularly between Batavia and New Amsterdam, it
frequently constitutes two-thirds, and sometimes the whole, of
the forests. The Sugar Maple, the White Elm, and the White
Oak are the trees with which it most frequently associates.

In newly-cleared lands, the remains of the Lime Trees are
distinguished by the numerous sprouts which cover the stumps
and the large roots, whose growth can be prevented only by
stripping off the bark or by the operation of fire. The stumps
of other large trees, the Elm, the Sugar Maple, and the Ash,
left at the same height of three feet, do not produce shoots.

The presence of the Lime Tree indicates a loose, deep, and
fertile soil. It is sometimes more than eighty feet high and
four feet in diameter ; and its straight, uniform trunk, crowned
with an ample and tufted summit, forms a beautiful tree. The
leaves are alternate, large, nearly round, finely denticulated
heart-shaped at the base, and abruptly terminated in a point ai
the summit. The flowers are borne by long peduncles, pendu-
lous, subdivided at the extremity, and garnished with a long,
narrow, floral leaf. The seeds, which are ripe about the first
of October, are round and of a gray color. The flowers of the
American Lime Tree are probably endowed with the same anti-
spasmodic and cephalic properties which are ascribed to those
of the European species.

The trunk is covered with a very thick bark : the cellular
tissue, separated from the epidermis and macerated in water,
is formed into ropes, which are used only in the country; in
Europe, they are sold for certain purposes in the cities, par-
ticularly for well-cords.

The wood is white and tender; in the Northern States, where
the Tulip Tree does not grow, it is used for the panels of car-

AMERICAN LIME OR BASS WOOD. 83

riage-bodies and the seats of Windsor chairs; but, as it is softer
and splits more easily, it is less proper for these objects : in
Boston and the more northern towns, I have observed the Lime
Tree beginning to be substituted for the Tulip Tree. On the
Ohio, the images affixed to the prow of vessels are made of this
wood instead of the White Pine.

The American Lime Tree has long been cultivated in Europe,
and it is distinguished from our native species by the superior
size of its leaves.

PLATE CXXXI.

A branch with leaves diminished one-half, and with flowers of the natural

size.

[Soil, Propagation, efce. This tree may be propagated by
shoots or by seed. The seeds may be beaten down with a pole
and received on a sheet, spread in a dry place for a few days,
and planted in a rich garden-mould, covering them an inch deep.
When the plants make their appearance in the spring, they
should be constantly kept clean from weeds, and gently watered
in dry weather; in two years removed to a nursery, shortening
the roots and the young side-branches, digging between the
rows every winter and removing them when of sufficient size.
The French gardeners cut an old tree near the ground, which
soon sends up numerous shoots. Among these a quantity of
soil is thrown, and after two years the shoots are found well
rooted and ready for removal. Layering is also practised.

The American Lime Tree grows vigorously in sandy and
exposed situations, and, being little affected by the sea-breeze,
might be advantageously employed among the sands of the
sea-shore.

The wood of the European tree forms excellent charcoal : the
bark separated by maceration into fibres is used for binding
packages, and by gardeners for confining plants or bundles.

84 WHITE LIME TREE.

Where a great mass of foliage and a deep shade are required,
the American Lime, which is not so liable to be infested with
insects as the European, is recommended. It transplants
readily, especially to a rich, rather moist, loam. It attains by
age to a great size, and often presents a weeping character. Its
flowers are great favorites with bees.]

WHITE LIME TREE.

Tilia alba. T. foliis majoribus, ovatis, argute serralis; basi oblique aut
cequaliter truncatis ; subtus incanis.

I have not met with the White Lime Tree east of the river
Delaware; but it is abundant in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Dela-
ware, and the Western States. It does not grow, like the pre-
ceding species, in elevated places, nor amid other trees in the
forests, and is rarely seen except on the banks of rivers; I have
particularly observed it on those of the Susquehanna, the Ohio,
and the streams which empty into them.

The height of the White Lime Tree rarely exceeds forty feet,
and its diameter twelve or eighteen inches. Its young branches
are covered with a smooth, silver-gray bark, by which it is
recognised in the winter. The leaves are very large, denticu-
lated, obliquely heart-shaped, and pointed, of a dark-green on
the upper surface and white beneath, with small reddish tufts
on the angles of the principal nerves. This whitish tint is
most striking on solitary trees exposed to the sun.

The flowers come out in June, and, as well as the floral leaf,
are larger than those of any other Lime Tree with which I am
acquainted. The petals are larger and whiter, and are impreg-

PliSa

-P> <?• lUdoicte' del.

J>lli

J ) own v lini e Tr e e
7/7/ a jn£&&rc&w*

DOWNY LIME TREE. 85

nated with an agreeable odor. The seeds are round, or rather
oval, and downy.

The wood of this tree is white and tender, and I believe it is
never employed in the arts.

This and the following species have received no popular spe-
cific names, but are both called Lime Tree and Bass Wood; that
of White Lime, which I have given to the subject of the present
article on account of the color of its foliage, is peculiarly appro-
priate.

PLATE CXXXII.

A branch with leaves and flowers of the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds.

DOWNY LIME TREE.

Tilia pubescens. T. folus basi truncatis, obliquis, denticulato-serratis,
subius pubescentibus ; petalis emarginatis, nuce globosd.

The Downy Lime Tree belongs to the southern parts of the
United States and to the Floridas. It grows of preference on
the borders of rivers and large marshes, where the soil is cool
and fertile, but not exposed to inundation. It is little multi-
plied, and consequently is not taken notice of by the inhabit-
ants; for this reason, and because it is the only species of its
kind in the maritime parts of the Carolinas and of Georgia, it
has received no specific denomination, and is called simply
Lime Tree, to which I have added the epithet downy, derived
from a character of its foliage not observed in the preceding
species.

This tree is forty or fifty feet in height, with a proportional
diameter. In its general appearance it resembles the American

86 DOWNY LIME TREE.

Lime Tree, which grows farther north, more than the White
Lime Tree, which belongs to the Middle and "Western States.
Its leaves differ widely in size according to the exposure in
which they have grown; in dry and open places they are only
two inches in diameter, and are twice as large in cool and
shaded situations. They are rounded, pointed at the summit,
very obliquely truncated at the base, edged with fewer and
more remote teeth than those of the other Lime Trees, and very
downy beneath. The flowers, also, are more numerous, and
form larger bunches, and the seeds are round and downy.

The wood is very similar to that of the other species, and I
do not know that it is ever employed.

This tree was introduced long since into France; its vegeta-
tion is vigorous, and is uninjured by the severest winters of
Paris, which leads me to believe that it exists in Upper Louisi-
ana and in the Western States.

PLATE CXXXIII.

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size*

PINES.

The Pines are evergreen trees, and are generally of elevated
stature. They form a most interesting genus, and are highly
valuable for the resinous matter which they afford, as well as
for the excellent properties of their wood. The most striking
difference between the Pine and the Spruce is in the arrange-
ment of their foliage : the leaves of the Pines, which resemble
pieces of coarse thread, vary in length in different species, and
are united to the number of two, three, or five in the same
sheath; those of the Spruces, on the contrary, are only a few
lines long, and are attached singly round the circumference of
the branch or upon its opposite sides.

To facilitate the distinction of these trees, of which the
species are more numerous in the United States than in Europe,
I have grouped the Pines according to the roughness of their
cones and to the number of leaves united in the same sheath,
and the Spruces according to the disposition of their foliage.

[See Nuttali's Supplement, vol. ii. p. 166, et seq., for a variety
of new and valuable Pines.]

[Soil, Propagation, &c. The debris of granitic rocks may be
considered as the universal soil suited to the Pine and Fir tribe,
and a dry subsoil an essential condition for their entire pros-
perity; but they will grow on all soils whatever that are not
surcharged with water; the roots are near the surface, and
hence do not require a deep one ; and, as their needle-like leaves

do not carry off much moisture by evaporation, their earths

87

88 PINES.

may be drier than that required for any other kind of tree.
Nevertheless, a soil somewhat loamy, and a cool subsoil, are
necessary to bring the timber of the Pine to its greatest perfec-
tion. Wherever the Abietinse are to be exposed to high winds,
they require to be planted in masses, so as to shelter one
another; but none of the species become ornamental when so
planted, because they necessarily lose their side-branches.

The only mode of propagating the Pine and Fir tribe on a
large scale is by seeds; but all the species will succeed by
layers, by in-arching on closely-allied kinds, and by herbaceous
grafting; and many, if not all, may be propagated by cuttings.
The seeds are sown at the end of March, or in April. The
ground ought to be in good condition, light and sandy, rather
than loamy, and prepared as finely as possible. The seeds may
be sown in beds, and, after being gently beaten down with the
back of a spade, they should be covered with light soil or leaf-
mould, to the depth of a sixteenth, an eighth, or at most a
quarter of an inch, according to the size of the seeds, and
covered with branches of trees or shrubs, &c. to shade the soil
from the sun and protect the seeds from birds. The plants of
the greater part of the species come up in from thirty to fifty
days, though some do not appear till the second year. Great
care must be taken, when the plants are coming through the
ground, to raise sufficiently above them the material employed
in shading the beds, and also to remove it by degrees. The
young plants, in most of the species, grow slowly the first two
or three years, and all grow most rapidly between their fifth
and tenth years. For a further account of the mode of culture
of this interesting family, the reader may consult Loudon's
"Arboretum." It is a curious fact, and not without its moral,
that the young plants of many American sjDecies are now
imported to our principal sea-ports from England, where they
are grown in great numbers and sold at a rate by the thousand
with which the American gardener cannot compete.]

METHODICAL DISPOSITION

PINES AND SPRUCES

NORTH AMERICA,

ISi'l CDINS

THREE EUROPEAN SPECIES.

Moncecia monddeljphia. Linn. Com/eras, Juss.

TWO-LEAVED PINES.

Cones smooth.

1. Rod (Norway) Pine Pin us rubra.

2. Stone Pine Pi mi* pi not.

3. Gray Pine Pinus rupestris,

4. Yellow Pine Pinus mitis.

5. Wild Pine, or Scotch Fir Pinus sylvestris.

Cones thorny.

6. Jersey Pine Pinus in<>j

7. Table Mountain Pine Pinus pungent

in.— 6* 89

9.

90 METHODICAL DISPOSITION, ETC.

THREE-LEAVED PINES.

Cones smooth or with small thorns.

8. Long-leaved Pine Plnus australis.

9. Pond Pine Plnus serotina.

Cones very thorny.

10. Pitch Pine Plnus rigida.

11. Loblolly Pine Plnus Iceda.

FIVE-LEAVED PINES.

12. White Pine Plnus strobus.

SPRUCES.

Leaves short and disposed singly round the branches.

13. Norway Spruce Fir Abies picea.

14. Black or Double Spruce .... Abies nigra.

15. White or Single Spruce Abies alb\

Leaves lateral.

16. Hemlock Spruce Abies Canadensis.

17. American Silver Fir Abies balsamifera.

P/jX

Red line
Pt'n* r ,.

RED PINE or NORWAY PINE.

Pinus rubra. P. arbor maxima; cortice rubente; foliis binis 4-5 un-
cialibus ; vaginis fere uncialibus ; strobilis ovato-conicis, basi rotundatis.
folio dimidio-brevioribus, sqiiamis medio dilatatis, inermibus.

Pinus resinosa. Ait. Hort. Kew.

This tree is called, by the French inhabitants of Canada, Pin
rouge, Red Pine, and the name has been preserved by the Eng-
lish colonists. In the northern parts of the United States it is
called Norway Pine, though differing totally from that tree,
which is a species of Spruce. The first of these denominations
should be adopted by the Americans, especially as it is founded
on a distinguishing character of the species, which will be taken
notice of in its place.

In a journey made by my father in 1792 to Hudson's Bay for
the purpose of remarking, as he returned, the points at which
the vegetables of this northern region appear and disappear, he
first observed the Eed Pine near Lake St. John, in Canada, in
the 48th degree of latitude. Toward the south I have not seen
it beyond Wilkesbarre, in Pennsylvania, in latitude 41° SO7;
and it is rare in all the country south of the river Hudson. It
is found in Nova Scotia, where it bears the same name as in
Canada, and also that of Yellow Pine. Mackenzie, in the nar-
rative of his journey to the Pacific Ocean, mentions it as exist-
ing beyond Lake Superior.

But the Red Pine does not, like the Black Spruce, the Hem-
lock Spruce, and the White Pine, constitute a large proportion
of the extensive forests which cover these regions, but occupies
small tracts of a few hundred acres, alone or mingled only with
the White Pine. Like most species of this genus, it grows in

dry and sandy soils, by which the luxuriance of its vegetation

91

92 RED PINE OR NORWAY PINE.

is not checked, for it is seventy or eighty feet in height and two
feet in diameter. It is chiefly remarkable for the uniform size
of its trunk for two-thirds of its length.

The bark upon the body of the tree is of a clearer red than
upon that of any other species in the United States : hence is
derived its popular name, and hence I have substituted the spe-
cific epithet rubra for that of resinosa, employed by Aiton, and
adopted by Sir A. B. Lambert. Another motive for the change
was to prevent a mistake to which many persons would be
liable, of supposing that this species affords the resinous matter
so extensively used in ship-building.

The leaves are of a dark green, five or six inches long, united
in pairs, and collected in bunches at the extremity of the
branches, like those of the Long-leaved Pine and Maritime
Pine, Plnus maritima, instead of being dispersed, like those of
the Jersey and Wild Pines. The female flowers are bluish
during the first months after their appearance, and the cones,
which are destitute of thorns and which shed their seeds the
first year, are about two inches long, rounded at the base, and
abruptly pointed.

The concentric circles are crowded in the Red Pine, and the
wood when wrought exhibits a fine compact grain. It is ren-
dered heavy by the resinous matter with which it is impreg-
nated, and in Canada, Nova Scotia, and the district of Maine,
it is highly esteemed for strength and durability, and is fre-
quently employed in naval architecture, especially for the deck
of vessels, for which it furnishes planks forty feet long without
knots. Stripped of the sap, it makes very lasting pumps. The
mainmast of the St. Lawrence, a ship of fifty guns, built by the
French at Quebec, was of this Pine, which confirms my obser-
vation concerning its stature.

The Red Pine is exported to England in planks from the dis-
trict of Maine and the shores of Lake Champlain. I have
lately learned that this commerce is diminished, because the

PL. jM.

Pi mis Pmea

Stone puie .

Oizfiruf ssv£?.

STONE PINE. 93

timber is said to consist in too great a proportion of sap ; but
the objection appears to me unfounded : several trunks a foot in
diameter, that I have examined, contained only one inch of sap.
While young, the Red Pine has a beautiful aspect, and its
vegetation is always vigorous; it would doubtless succeed in
France and throughout the North of Europe, and the useful
properties of its wood and the resinous matter that might be
extracted from it are sufficient inducements to its cultivation.
I by no means agree with Sir A. B. Lambert that its wood is
always of an inferior quality.

PLATE CXXXIV.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

[The Norway Pine grows as rapidly as the Pitch Pine, whose
wood it resembles; but it is more free from resin, and softer.]

STONE PINE.

Pinus pinea. P. foliis geminis ; strabilis ovatis, obtusis, subinermibus;
foliis longioribus ; nucibus duris.

The isles of the Mediterranean Sea, the shores of European
Turkey, and the South of Europe in general, produce this
species of Pine. It grows with difficulty in more northern cli-
mates, and requires to be protected from the cold while young;
in this manner have been reared the stocks that exist in the
botanical garden of Paris, which support a winter as rigorous as
that of Richmond in Virginia.

The Stone Pine attains the height of fifty-five or sixty feet,

94 STONE PINE.

with a diameter of fifteen or twenty inches, and is easily distin-
guished by its wide and depressed summit. The leaves are
about five inches in length, united in pairs, and of a bright
green. The cones are five inches long, four inches broad, and
very obtuse. On the inner side of each scale, at the base, are
two pits containing a hard seed of a deep blue color, surmounted
by a short wing. The seeds enclose a white kernel, of an agree-
able taste when fresh, which is served upon the table ; but there
is a Pine known in Portugal by the name of Pinliao molar, and
in Naples by that of Piniolo molese, of which the kernel is
tender and in every respect preferable.

The Stone Pine is a conquest of civilized man from savage
nature ; and a long course of uninterrupted cultivation has been
necessary to perfect its fruit. To assign the period at which
this process was begun is perhaps impossible; it must, however,
be remote, for these cones are found, as an architectural orna-
ment, in the Greek and Roman antiquities.

Though this tree can be of little value to the United States,
it deserved to be mentioned, as it grows in the poorest soils, has
a picturesque appearance, and is associated with recollections
that are cherished by every lover of the arts and sciences.

PLATE CXXXV.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

[A very handsome tree : it will grow in any soil, and in the
bleakest situations.]

/VM.

Grev Pine

GRAY PINE.

Pinus rupestris. P. arbor humih's ; foliis binis, rigidis, uncialibus ;
strobilis cinereis, recurvis, insigniter incurvato-tortis ; squamis inermibus,
ramulo adpressis.

Pinus Banksiana. Lambert.

This species is found farther northward than any other Ame-
rican Pine. In Nova Scotia and the district of Maine, where it
is rare, it is called Scrub Pine, and in Canada, Gray Pine. I
cannot impart a juster idea of its nature than by an extract
from my father's notes upon Canada: — "In the environs of
Hudson's Bay, and of the great Mistassin Lakes, the trees which
compose the forest a few degrees farther south disappear almost
entirely, in consequence of the severity of the winter and the
sterility of the soil. The face of the country is almost every-
where broken by innumerable lakes, and covered with large
rocks piled upon each other and usually overgrown with large
black lichens, which deepen the gloomy aspect of these desolate
and almost uninhabited regions. Here and there, in the in-
tervals of the rocks, are seen a few individuals of this species
of Pine, which fructify, and even exhibit the appearance of
decrepitude, at the height of three feet. One hundred and fifty
miles farther south its vegetation is more vigorous, but it is still
not more than eight or ten feet high ; and in Nova Scotia, where
it is confined to the summit of the rocks, it rarely exceeds this
stature."

The leaves of the Gray Pine are united in pairs in the same
sheath; but they are disseminated over the branches instead of
being collected at the extremity, and are about an inch long, flat
on the interior, and rounded on the exterior face. The cones
are commonly in pairs, and are of a gray or ashy color, which

has probably lent its name to the tree: they are about two

95

96 GRAY PINE.

inches long, and have the peculiarity of always pointing in the
same direction with the branches; they are, besides, remarkable
for naturally assuming an arching shape, which gives them the
appearance of small horns. They are extremely hard, and do
not open to release the seeds before the second or third year.
The Canadians find a speedy cure for obstinate colds in a diet-
drink made by boiling these cones in water. If this property,
which is said to belong also to the fruit of the Black Spruce,
is proved to exist, it forms the only merit of a tree too diminu-
tive to be of any other utility; in my opinion, Sir A. B. Lambert
mistakes in supposing it capable of furnishing turpentine or tar
as an article of commerce.

PLATE CXXXVI.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

YELLOW PINE.

Pinus mitis. P. arbor maxima ; foliis prcelongis, tenuoribus, caniculatis ;

strobilis, parvis, scepe solitariis, conoideo-ovatis ; iessularum mucrone

minutissimo.

Pinus mitis. Mich. Flor. Bor. Am,

This tree is widely diffused in North America, and is known
in different places by different names: in the Middle States,
where it is abundant and in common use, it is called Yellow
Pine; in the Carolinas and Georgia, Spruce Pine, and more fre-
quently Short-leaved Pine.

Toward the north, this species is not found beyond certain
districts of Connecticut and Massachusetts; it is multiplied in

Pmits /ni/i,r

YELLOW PINE. 97

the lower part of New Jersey, and still more on the Eastern
Shore of Maryland and in the lower parts of Virginia, where it
is seen only upon arid soils. I have also met with it on the
right bank of the river Hudson, at a little distance from Albany,
at Chambersburg in Pennsylvania, near Mudlick in Kentucky,
on the Cumberland Mountains, and in the vicinity of Knox-
ville in East Tennessee, at Edgefield Court-house in the upper
part of South Carolina, and on the river Oconee in the upper
part of Georgia. In all these places it is united with other
trees, and enters in a greater or less proportion into the com-
position of the forests, according to the nature of the soil. It
abounds on the poorest lands; on those of a certain degree of
fertility, which is indicated by the flourishing appearance of the
Oaks and "Walnuts, it is more rare, though it still surpasses the
surrounding trees in bulk and elevation. The Yellow Pine is
also occasionally seen in the lower part of the Carolinas, in the
Floridas, and probably in Louisiana; but in these regions it
grows only, in spots consisting of beds of red clay mingled with
gravel, which here and there pierce the light covering of sand
which forms the surface of the country to the distance of 120
miles from the sea.

The Yellow Pine is a beautiful tree; and this advantage it
owes to the disposition of its limbs, which are less divergent the
higher they are placed upon the stock, and which are bent
toward the body so as to form a summit regularly pyramidal,
but not spacious in proportion to the dimensions of the trunk.
Its regularity has perhaps given rise to the name of Spruce Pine.

In New Jersey and in Maryland, this tree is fifty or sixty
feet high, and is commonly of a uniform diameter of fifteen or
eighteen inches for two-thirds of this distance; in Virginia and
the upper part of the Carolinas, there are stocks of nearly the
same height and of twice this diameter; I have measured several
that were between five and six feet in circumference.

The leaves are four or five inches long, fine, flexible, hollowed

Vol III.— 7

98 YELLOW PINE.

on the inner face, of a dark green, and united in pairs ; some-
times, from the luxuriancy of vegetation, they are found together
on the shoots of the season, but never upon the older branches ;
there is, therefore, an inaccuracy in the description of this spe-
cies as a Pine with two or three leaves, and in the specific epithet
variabilis.

The cones are oval, armed with fine spines, and smaller than
those of any other American Pine, since they scarcely exceed
an inch and a half in length upon old trees. The seeds are cast
the first year.

The concentric circles of the wood are six times as numerous
in a given space as those of the Pitch and Loblolly Pines. In
trunks fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter there are only two
inches, or two and a half, of sap, and still less in such as exceed
this size. The heart is fine-grained and moderately resinous,
which renders it more compact without great weight. Long
experience has proved its excellence and durability. In the
Northern and Middle States, and in Virginia, to the distance of
150 miles from the sea, nine-tenths of the houses are built
entirely of wood, and the floors, the casings of the doors and
wainscots, the sashes of the windows, &c. are made of this spe-
cies, as more solid and lasting than any other indigenous wood.
In the upper part of the Carolinas, where the Cypress and
White Cedar do not grow, the houses are constructed wholly of
Yellow Pine, and are even covered with it. But, for whatever
purpose it is employed, it should be completely freed from the
sap, which speedily decays. This precaution is sometimes
neglected in order to procure wider boards, especially near the
ports, where, from the constant consumption, the tree is becom-
ing rare. Immense quantities are used in the dock-yards of
New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, &c. for the docks, masts,
yards, beams, and cabins of vessels, and it is considered as next
in durability with the Long-leaved Pine. The wood from New
Jersey and Maryland is finer-grained, more compact, and

Pi M,

Wild Pine or Scotcfc Fir
Pums sijlvestru .

Cralirie? sruh

WILD PINE OR SCOTCH FIR. 99

stronger, than that from the river Delaware, which grows upon
richer lands.

The Yellow Pine, in boards from one inch to two and a half
inches thick, forms a considerable article of exportation to the
West Indies and Great Britain: in the advertisements of Liver-
pool it is designated by the name of New York Pine, and in
those of Jamaica by that of Yelloiv Pine; in both places it is
sold at a lower price than the Long-leaved Pine of the Southern
States, but much higher than the White Pine.

Though this species yields turpentine and tar, their extraction
demands too much labor, as it is always mingled in the forests
with other trees. The value of its wood alone renders it, for
the middle and North of Europe, the most interesting, except
the Red Pine, of the American species. Sir A. B. Lambert
begins his Latin description of it thus : — Arbor mediocris, &c; and
adds that "it does not exceed twenty-five or thirty feet in height,
is of a spongy consistence, and unfit for building."

PLATE CXXXVII.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

WILD PINE or SCOTCH FIE.

Pinus sylvestris. P. foliis geminis rigidis, sirobilis ovato-conicis, longi-
tudine foliorum ; squamis echinatis.

The Pines of the Old Continent are less numerous than those
already observed in North America. Among them, the Wild
Pine is the most valuable for the properties of its wood; it is, be-
sides, extensively diffused, and grows in the most dissimilar soils.

100 AYILD PIXE OR SCOTCH FIR.

In that part of Europe which lies above the 55th degree of
latitude are found immense forests of resinous trees, in general
composed entirely of this species; below this parallel the leafy
trees begin to mingle with them, and soon exclude them from
the forests. In the centre of Europe the Wild Pine abounds
only in the coldest and most elevated situations, such as the
Pyrenees, the Tyrolean, Swiss, and Vosgian Mountains. In
Scotland, it is so common as to leave no doubt of its being
indigenous to that kingdom, though some authors believe it to
have come originally from the continent.

This tree arrives at perfection only in the North of Europe,
where it is more than eighty feet high and four or five feet in
diameter. The full-grown trunk is covered with a thick and
deeply-furrowed bark; the leaves are in pairs, of a pale green.
stiff, twisted, and about three inches long; the flowers are of a
yellowish tint, and the cones are grayish, of a middling thick-
ness, and a little shorter than the leaves. Each scale is sur-
mounted by a retorted spine: the seeds are small, black, and
garnished with a reddish wing; they ripen the second year.

The great elevation of the Wild Pine, its uniform diameter,
and the excellent quality of its wood, resulting from a just pro-
portion of resinous fluid, render it peculiarly proper for the
masts of large ships, and for an infinite variety of secondary
uses. A considerable exportation takes place from the North of
Europe, especially from Riga, Mcmel, and Dantzic, to the
maritime states, particularly to England, where, according to Sir
A. B. Lambert, it is known by the name of Bed Deal, and in
London by that of Yellow Deal. In Poland and Russia, the
houses in the country are generally constructed of it. This
species furnishes four-fifths of the tar consumed in the dock-
yards of Europe, which is imported from Archangel, Riga, and
other ports of Russia and Norway.

In the North of Europe, great ravages are committed in the
forests composed of the Wild Pine and Norway Spruce Fir by

WILD PINE OR SCOTCH FIR. 101

several insects, of which the most destructive is the Bostrichw
jpiniperada. This little animal introduces itself into the cellular
tissues of the bark, and succeeds in dividing it from the trunk.
The separation of the bark prevents the circulation of the sap,
and hence results the inevitable death of the tree. It is impos-
sible to oppose an effectual resistance to this winged enemy; but
I have been informed by a Polish gentleman that its progress is
sometimes arrested by felling all the trees, for the space of fifty
yards in breadth, between the part of the forest which it already
occupies and that which it threatens to assail.

The faculty which I have ascribed to the "Wild Pine of grow-
ing in climates, soils, and exposures extremely different, is of
inestimable value, and its cultivation has been successfully
attempted on lands abandoned during ages of hopeless sterility.
Plantations may be formed from the seed, or with young stocks
from the nursery: of all the Pines, this species bears transplant-
ing with the least injury. It is seen flourishing on sandy
wastes exposed to the saline vapors of the sea, and, which is
more remarkable, on calcareous lands, a large tract of which, in
the Department of the Marne, called la Champagne pou'dleuse, has
begun within forty years to be covered with it, after lying desert
from time immemorial. The proprietors who first conceived
this fortunate plan have already seen their barren grounds
acquire a tenfold value. The oldest plantations yield seeds,
which are disseminated by the winds and spring up sponta-
neously. After the first growth of evergreen trees, the soil
becomes capable of sustaining the Birch, the Hornbeam, the
Oaks, &c, which in time renders it proper for the production of
cereal plants. In Belgium, large heaths have in this way been
transformed into rich, arable land.

The culture of the Wild Pine has been found so profitable
that seeds or young plants may everywhere be obtained at a
moderate price. April is the most favorable season for sowing
the seeds or removing the young stocks : six or eight pounds of

102 WILD PINE OR SCOTCH FIR.

seed should be scattered upon an acre of ground previously sown
with half the usual quantity of oats; the roller suffices to cover
them. The oats preserve a degree of coolness in the soil, and
shelter the young Pines from the ardor of the sun; but groat
care must be taken not to injure them in the harvest.

The Wild Pine is so different from the White Pine in its
foliage, the form of its cones, and the quality of its wood, that
no comparison can be instituted between them: it is more
analogous to the Yellow Pine, to which, however, it is superior.
It might be most profitably cultivated on waste lands in the
northern section of the United States.

PLATE CXXXVIII.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.
Fig. 3. Bostrichus pinijjerada, or Dermestes typographus, of the natural
size. Fig. 4. The same insect enlarged.

[This tree prefers a dry, deep loam, and a somewhat elevated
situation. Though not handsome, it is well adapted to cold-
looking, rugged scenery.]

/Y.j.l

J.iO

Pit

mi<j' ino/hr

NEW JEESEY PINE.

Pinus inops. P. arbor mediocris, ramosa; foliis binis, brevibus; strobilis
ovato-acuminatis, soHtariis, fuscis ; mucronibus tessularum rigidis ;
deorsum sub-inclinatis.

Obs. Truncus et raniuli obscure et squalide fusci.

The Jersey Pine has probably been so named from its
abounding in the lower part of New Jersey, where the soil is
meagre and sandy, and where it is often accompanied by the
Yellow Pine. It is not. however, confined to this State; for I
have seen it in Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, in Penn-
sylvania beyond Chambersburg, near the Juniata, and on the
scrubby ridges beyond Bedford, at the distance of about two
hundred miles from Philadelphia. In this part of Pennsylvania
it is called Scrub Pine, and is seen wherever the soil is composed
of argillaceous schist and is consequently poor. The leanness
of the land on which it grows is attested by the decrepit
appearance of the Scarlet, Red, Black, White, and Rock Chest-
nut Oaks, with which it is mingled. I have never met with
it northward of the river Hudson, nor in the Carolinas and
Georgia.

This tree is sometimes thirty or forty feet high and twelve or

fifteen inches in diameter, but it rarely attains these dimensions.

The trunk, which is clad in a blackish bark, tapers sensibly

from the base to the summit, and half its length is occupied by

limbs remote from each other. The leaves are united in pairs

and are of a dark green, one or two inches long, flat on the

inner face, stiff, and scattered over the young branches, which

are very flexible and smooth, while those of the other species

are scaly. The wood of the annual shoots is observed to be of

103

104 NEW JERSEY PINE.

a violet tint, which is a character peculiar to this species and to
the Yellow Pine.

The cones are a little larger than those of the preceding
species, or about two inches long and an inch in diameter at the
base: they are attached by short, thick peduncles, and are
armed with long, firm spines, pointed and bent backwards;
they are usually single and directed toward the earth. The
seeds are shed the first year of their maturity.

The size of this species of Pine forbids the useful employment
of its wood, not to mention the disadvantage under which it
labors of containing, a large proportion of sap. Near Mudlick,
in Kentuckj', a small quantity of tar is obtained from the heart
and consumed in the vicinity. I must again dissent from the
opinion of Sir A. B. Lambert, who thinks that the flexible
branches of the Jersey Pine might serve for hoops; they are
too knotty, and would decay in less than six months. Next to
the Gray Pine, this is the most uninteresting species of the
United States.

PLATE CXXXIX.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

Jj/h

Table Mountain Pnie

TABLE MOUNTAIN PINE.

Pinus pungens. P. arbor 45-50 pedalis; foliis binis, brevibus et crassis ;
strobilis turbinatis, prcemagnis, flavis, squamis echinatis, spinis luteis,
durissimis et basi latioribus.

The Table Mountain, in North Carolina, one of the highest
points of the Alleghanies, at the distance of nearly 300 miles
from the sea, has given its name to this species of Pine, which
covers it almost exclusively, though it is rare on the neighbor-
ing summits. Nor is it found in any other part of the United
States, as my father and myself have become assured by exten-
sive researches. Of all the forest trees of America this species
alone is restricted to such narrow limits, and it will probably be
among the first to become extinct, as the mountains which produce
it are easy of access, are favored with a salubrious air and a
fertile soil, and are rapidly peopling ; besides which, their forests
are frequently ravaged by fire.

The Table Mountain Pine is forty or fifty feet in height,
with a proportional diameter. The buds are resinous, and the
leaves, which grow in pairs, are thick, stiff, and about two and
a half inches in length. The cones are about three inches long
and two inches in diameter at the base, of a regular form and a
light yellow color: they are sessile, and often united to the
number of four. Each scale is armed with a strong, ligneous
spine, two lines in length, widened at the base, and bent toward
the summit of the cone.

This tree divides itself in numerous ramifications. It is

appropriated to no particular use, but in the mountains of North

Carolina its turpentine is preferred to every other as a dressing

for wounds. I cannot discover the slightest difference between

this resin and that of the Pitch Pine; and it is a remarkable
in— 7* 105

106 LONG-LEAVED PINE.

fact that all the Pines, though differing widely from each other,
yield a resin so analogous as often to be indistinguishable by
the taste and smell.

The Table Mountain Pine has no valuable properties to
recommend it to notice in Europe; it will serve only to com-
plete botanical collections and to diversify pleasure-grounds.

PLATE CXL.

A branch with a cone of the natural size.

LONG-LEAVED PINE.

Pinus palustms. P. arbor maxima ; foliis ternis longissimis ; amentia
masculis longo-cylindraceis, fusco-glaucis, divergentibus ; strobilis lon-
gissime conoideis, tessularum tuberculo tumido, mucrone minutissimo ter-
minato.

This invaluable tree is known both in the countries which
produce it, and in those to which it is exported, by different
names; in the first it is called Long-leaved Pine, Yellow Pine,
Pitch Pine, and Broom Pine ; in the Northern States, Southern
Pine and Red Pine; and in England and the West Indies,
Georgia Pitch Pine. I have preferred the first denomination,
because this species has longer leaves than any other eastward
of the Mississippi, and because the name of Yellow Pine and
Pitch Pine, which are more commonly employed, serve in the
Middle States to designate two species entirely distinct and
extensively diffused. The specific epithet austrdlis is more
appropriate than that of palustris, which has hitherto been ap-

ono1 Leavod Pino

LONG-LEAVED PINE. 107

plied to it by botanists, but which suggests an erroneous idea of
the situations in which it grows.

Toward the north, the Long-leaved Pine first makes its
appearance near Norfolk, in Virginia, where the pine-barrens
begin. It seems to be especially assigned to dry, sandy soils,
and it is found almost without interruption in the lower parts
of the Carolinas, Georgia, and the Floridas, over a tract more
than six hundred miles long from northeast to southwest, and
more than one hundred miles broad from the sea toward the
mountains of the Carolinas and Georgia. I have ascertained
three points, about one hundred miles apart, where it does not
grow : — the first, eight miles from the river Neuse, in North
Carolina, on the road from Louisburg to Raleigh; the second,
between Chester and Winesborough, in South Carolina; the
third, twelve miles north of Augusta, in Georgia. Where it
begins to show itself toward the river Neuse, it is united with
the Loblolly Pine, the Yellow Pine, the Pond Pine, the Black
Jack Oak, and the Scrub Oak ; but immediately beyond Raleigh
it holds almost exclusive possession of the soil, and is seen, in
company with the Pines just mentioned, only on the edges of
the swamps enclosed in the barrens ; even there not more than
one stock in a hundred is of another species. With this excep-
tion, the Long-leaved Pine forms the unbroken mass of woods
which covers this extensive country. But between Fayette-
ville and Wilmington, in North Carolina, the Scrub Oak is
found in some districts disseminated in the barrens, and, except
this species of Pine, it is the only tree capable of subsisting in
so dry and sterile a soil.

The mean stature of the Long-leaved Pine is sixty or seventy
feet, with a uniform diameter of fifteen or eighteen inches for
two-thirds of this height. Some stocks, favored by local cir-
cumstances, attain much larger dimensions, particularly in East
Florida. The bark is somewhat furrowed, and the epidermis
detaches itself in thin transparent sheets. The leaves are

108 LONG-LEAVED PINE.

about a foot long, of a beautiful, brilliant green, united to the
number of three in the same sheath, and collected in bunches
at the extremity of the branches : they are longer and more
numerous on the young stocks, which are sometimes cut by the
negroes for brooms. The buds are very large, white, fringed,
and not resinous.

The bloom takes place in April ; the male flowers form masses
of divergent violet-colored aments about two inches long; in
drying they shed great quantities of yellowish pollen, which is
diffused by the wind and forms a momentary covering on the
surface of the land and water. The cones are very large, being
seven or eight inches long, and four inches thick when open,
and are armed with small retorted spines. In the fruitful year
they are ripe about the 15th of October, and shed their seed the
same month. The kernel is of an agreeable taste, and is con-
tained in a thin, white shell, surmounted by a membrane ; in
every other species of American Pine the shell is black. Some-
times the seeds are very abundant, and very voraciously eaten
by wild turkeys, squirrels, and the swine that live almost wholly
in the woods. But in the unfruitful year, a forest of a hundred
miles in extent may be ransacked without finding a single cone :
this, probably, occasioned the mistake of the French who, in
1567, attempted a settlement in Florida, that "the woods were
filled with superb Pines that never yielded seed.

The Long-leaved Pine contains but little sap ; several trunks
fifteen inches in diameter at the height of three feet, which I
have myself measured, had ten inches of perfect wood. Many
stocks of this size are felled for commerce, and none are received
for exportation of which the heart is not ten inches in diameter
when squared. The concentric circles in a trunk fully developed
are close and at equal distances, and the resinous matter, which
is abundant, is more uniformly distributed than in the other
species; hence, the wood is stronger, more compact, and more
durable : it is, besides, fine-grained, and susceptible of a bright

LONG-LEAVED PINE. 109

polish. These advantages give it a preference over every other
Pine : but its quality is modified by the nature of the soil in
which it grows ; in the neighborhood of the sea, where only a
thin layer of mould reposes on the sand, it is more resinous
than where the mould is five or six inches thick; the stocks
that grow upon the first-mentioned soil are called Pitch Pine,
and the others Yellow Pine, as if they were distinct species.

This wood subserves a great variety of uses ; in the Carolinas,
Georgia, and the Floridas, four-fifths of the houses are built of
it, except the roof, which is covered with shingles of Cypress ;
but in the country the roof is also of Pine, and is renewed after
fifteen or eighteen years, — a considerable interval in a climate so
warm and humid. A vast consumption takes place for the en-
closure of cultivated fields. In naval architecture this is the
most esteemed of the Pines : in the Southern States, the keel, the
beams, the side-planks, and the pins by which they are attached
to the ribs, are of this tree. For the deck it is preferred to the
true Yellow Pine, and is exported for that purpose to Philadel-
phia, New York, &c, where it is in request also for the flooring
of houses.

In certain soils its wood contracts a reddish hue, and it is for
that reason known in the dock-yards of the Northern States by
the name of Pted Pine. Wood of this tint is considered the
best, and, in the opinion of some shipwrights, it is more durable
on the sides of vessels, and less liable to injury from worms,
than the Oak.

The Long-leaved Pine is the only species exported from the
Southern States to the West Indies. A numerous fleet of small
vessels is employed in this traffic, particularly from Wilming-
ton, in North Carolina, and Savannah, in Georgia. The stuff
destined for the colonial market is cut into every form required
in the construction of houses and of vessels ; what is sent to
England is in planks from fifteen to thirty feet long and ten or
twelve inches broad ; they are called ranging timbers. The ves-

110 LONG-LEAVED PINE.

eels freighted with this timber repair chiefly to Liverpool, where
it is said to be employed in the building of ships and of wet-
docks : it is called Georgia Pitch Pine, and is sold twenty-five
or thirty per cent, higher than any other Pine imported from
the United States.

From the diversified uses of this wood an idea may be formed
of the consumption ; to which must be added a waste of a more
disastrous kind, which it seems impossible to arrest. Since the
year 1804, extensive tracts of the finest Pines are seen covered
only with dead trees. In 1802, I remarked a similar pheno-
menon among the Yellow Pines, in East Tennessee. This
catastrophe is felt among the Scotch Firs which people the
forests of the North of Europe, and is wrought by swarms of
small insects, which lodge in different parts of the stock, in-
sinuate themselves under the bark, penetrate into the body of
the tree, and cause it to perish in the course of the year.

The value of the Long-leaved Pine does not reside exclusively
in its wood : it supplies nearly all the resinous matter used in
the United States in ship-building, and a large residue for
exportation to the West Indies and Great Britain. In this
view, its place can be supplied by no other species, those which
afford the same product being dispersed through the woods or
collected in inaccessible places. In the Northern States, the
lands which, at the commencement of their settlement, were
covered with the Pitch Pine, were exhausted in twenty-five or
thirty years, and for more than half a century have ceased to
furnish tar.

The pine-barrens are of vast extent, and are covered with
trees of the finest growth; but they cannot all be rendered
profitable, from the difficulty of communication with the sea.
Formerly, tar was made in all the lower parts of the Carolinas
and Georgia, and throughout the Floridas vestiges are every-
where seen of kilns that have served in the combustion of resin-
ous wood. At present, this branch of industry is confined to

LONG-LEAVED PINE. Ill

the lower districts of North Carolina, which furnish almost all
the tar and turpentine exported from Wilmington and other
ports.

The resinous product of the Pine is of six sorts, — viz.: turpen-
tine, scrapings, spirit of turpentine, rosin, tar, and pitch. The
two last are delivered in their natural state; the others are
modified by the agency of fire in certain modes of preparation.
More particularly, turpentine is the sap of the tree obtained by
making incisions in its trunk. It begins to distil about the
middle of March, when the circulation commences, and flows
with increasing abundance as the weather becomes warmer, so
that July and August are the most productive months. When
the circulation is slackened by the chills of autumn, the opera-
tion is discontinued, and the remainder of the year is occupied
in preparatory labors for the following seasons, which consist —
first, in making the boxes. This is done in January and Feb-
ruary : in the base of each tree, about three or four inches from
the ground, and of preference on the south side, a cavity is
formed, commonly of the capacity of three pints, but proportioned
to the size of the trunk, of which it should occupy a quarter of
the diameter; on stocks more than six feet in circumference,
two, and sometimes four, boxes are made on opposite sides. Next
comes the raking, or the clearing of the ground at the foot of
the trees from leaves and herbage, by which means they are
secured against the fires that are often kindled in the woods by
the carelessness of travellers and wagoners. If the flames gain
the boxes already impregnated with turpentine, they are rendered
useless, and others must be made. Notching is merely making
at the sides of the box two oblique gutters, about three inches
long, to conduct into it the sap that exudes from the edges of
the wound. In the interval of a fortnight, which is employed in
this operation, the first boxes become filled with sap. A wooden
shovel is used to transfer it to pails, which in turn are emptied
into casks placed at convenient distances. To increase the pro-

112 LONG-LEAVED PINE.

duct, the upper edge of the box is clapped once a week, the bark
and a portion of the alburnum being removed to the depth of
four concentric circles. The boxes fill every three weeks. The
turpentine thus procured is the best, and is called pure dipping.

The chippings extend the first year a foot above the box, and,
as the distance increases, the operation is more frequently
repeated, to remove the sap coagulated on the surface of the
wound. The closing of the pores, occasioned by continued
rains, requires the same remedy; and it is remarked that the
produce is less abundant in moist and cool seasons. After five
or six years, the tree is abandoned; the upper edge of the wound
becomes cicatrized, but the bark is never restored sufficiently for
the renewal of the process.

It is reckoned that 250 boxes yield a barrel containing 320
pounds. Some persons charge a single negro with the care of
4000 or 4500 trees of one box; others, of only 3000, which is
an easy task. In general, 3000 trees yield, in ordinary years,
seventy-five barrels of turpentine and twenty-five of scraping,
which supposes the boxes to be emptied five or six times in the
season. The scraping is a coating of sap which becomes solid
before it reaches the boxes, and which is taken off in the fall
and added to the last runnings. In November, 1807, the pure
dipping was sold at Wilmington at three dollars a barrel, and
the scraping a quarter less.

In 1804, the exportation to the Northern States and to the
English possessions amounted to 77,827 barrels. During peace
it comes even to Paris, where it is called Boston turpentine.
Throughout the United States it is used to make yellow soap of
a good quality. The consumption in England is great, and, in
the official statements, the value imported in 1807 is 465,828
dollars; In 1805, Liverpool alone received 40,294 barrels, and in

1807, 18,924 barrels. It sold there in August, 1807, at three
dollars a hundred pounds, and, after the American embargo, in

1808, at eight or nine dollars. Oddy omits, in his list of articles

LONG-LEAVED PINE. 113

exported from Archangel and Stockholm to Great Britain, the
resinous product of the Pine, which has amounted to 100,000
barrels of tar in a year.

A great deal of spirits of turpentine is made in North Caro-
lina; it is obtained by distilling the turpentine in large copper
retorts, which are of an imperfect shape, being so narrow at the
mouth as to retard the operation. Six barrels of turpentine are
said to afford one cask, or 122 quarts, of the spirit. It is sent to
all parts of the United States, even to the Western country by
the way of Philadelphia, to England, and to France, where it is
preferred, as less odorous, to that made near Bordeaux. In 1804,
19,526 gallons were exported from North Carolina. The resi-
duum of the distillation is rosin, which is sold at one-third of
the price of turpentine. The exportation of this substance, in
1804, was 4675 barrels.

All the tar of the Southern States is made from dead wood of
the Long-leaved Pine, consisting of trees prostrated by time or
by the fire kindled annually in the forests, of the summits of
those that are felled for timber, and of limbs broken off by the
ice which sometimes overloads the leaves.*

It is worthy of remark that the branches of resinous trees
consist almost wholly of wood, of which the organization is even
more perfect than in the body of the tree; the reverse is ob-
served in trees with deciduous leaves : the explanation of the
phenomenon I leave to persons skilled in vegetable physiology.
As soon as vegetation ceases in any part of the tree, its con-
sistence speedily changes; the sap decays, and the heart, already
impregnated with resinous juice, becomes surcharged to such a
degree as to double its weight in a year; the accumulation is
said to be much greater after four or five years : the general fact
may be proved by comparing the wood of trees recently felled,
and of others long since dead.

* See "Travels West of the Alleghanies/' by F. A. Michaux. Paris, 1803.
Vol. III.— 8

114 LONG-LEAVED PINE.

To procure the tar, a hiln is formed in a part of the forest
abounding in dead wood : this is first collected, stripped of the
sap, and cut into billets two or three feet long and about three
inches thick; a task which is rendered long and difficult by the
knots. The next step is to prepare a place for piling it : for
this purpose a circular mound is raised, slightly declining from
the circumference to the centre, and surrounded with a shallow
ditch. The diameter of the pile is proportioned to the quantity
of wood which it is to receive; to obtain one hundred barrels of
tar, it should be eighteen or twenty feet wide. In the middle
is a hole with a conduit leading to the ditch, in which is formed
a receptable for the resin as it flows out. Upon the surface of
the mound, beaten hard and coated with clay, the wood is laid
round in a circle like rays.

The pile, when finished, may be compared to a cone truncated
at two-thirds of its height, and reversed, being twenty feet in
diameter below, twenty-five or thirty feet above, and ten or
twelve feet high. It is then strewed with pine leaves, covered
with earth, and contained at the sides with a slight cincture of
wood. This covering is necessary in order that the fire kindled
at the top may penetrate to the bottom with a slow and gradual
combustion; if the whole mass was rapidly inflamed, the opera-
tion would fail and the labor in part be lost; in fine, nearly the
same precautions are exacted in this process as are observed in
Europe in making charcoal. A kiln which is to afford one
hundred or one hundred and thirty barrels of tar is eight or
nine days in burning.

As the tar flows off into the ditch, it is emptied into casks of
thirty gallons, which are made of the same species of wood.

Pitch is tar reduced by evaporation : it should not be dimi-
nished beyond half its bulk to be of a good quality.

In 1807, tar and pitch were exported to England from the
United States to the amount of $265,000; the tar was sold at
Liverpool, in August of the same year, at $4.67 a barrel, and,

LONG-LEAVED PINE. 115

when the embargo became known, at $5.56 : from which infer-
ences may be drawn to the advantage of the United States.
At Wilmington, the ordinary price is from $1.75 to $2.20 a
barrel.

Oddy informs us that the tar brought to England between
1786 and '99 came in equal proportions from Russia, Sweden,
and the United States ; only a very small quantity was drawn
from Denmark. The Swedish tar is the most highly esteemed
in commerce, and next that of Archangel; that of the United
States is considered inferior to both, which is owing to its being
made from dead wood, while that of Europe is extracted from
trees recently felled: I shall speak more particularly of the
difference arising from this cause in the description of the Pitch
Pine. The tar of Carolina is said also to contain earth; this
can be attributable only to want of care in preparing the recep-
tacles : if the same pains were taken in its preparation, it would
probably equal that of Europe, though it must be considered
that the tar of Russia and Sweden is produced by a different
tree, a native of the North of Europe. It has already been
remarked that in the United States this manufacture is confined
to the maritime part of North Carolina, and to a small tract of
Virginia : but, according to the rate of consumption in America
and Great Britain, the product would not long suffice if all the
extensive regions covered with the Long-leaved Pine were made
to contribute to this object; for the dead wood is said not to be
renewed upon a tract that has been cleared, in less than ten or
twelve years. It might be advantageous to make use of green
wood, or purposely to strip the trees of their bark; and perhaps
in this way supplies might be obtained equivalent to the de-
mands of commerce.

Great benefit would result from stripping the Pines of a cer-
tain diameter, of their bark : they would pass completely into
the resinous state in fifteen months, and would be proper for
posts and many other uses which require strong and lasting

JV,&.

'

POND PINE.

Pinus serotina. P. arbor 40-45 pedalis ; foliis ternis prcelongis ; amen.tis
masculis erecto-incumbentibus ; strobilis ovatis, tessularum mucrone minu-
tissimo.

The Pond Pine frequently recurs in the maritime parts of the
Southern States, but is lost as it were among the Long-leaved
Pines which cover these regions, and, as it is appropriated to no
use, and bears a strong family-likeness to the rest of the genus,
it has received no popular specific name; that which I have
given it seems sufficiently appropriate, since it grows principally
on the borders of ponds covered with the Pond Bush, Laurus
aestivalis, and in the small swamps, whose black and miry soil is
shaded by the Loblolly Bay, Red Bay, Tupelo, and Small Mag-
nolia or White Bay.

The leaves, united to the number of three, are five or six
inches in length, and a little more upon young stocks. The
aments are straight, and six or eight lines long; the cones are
commonly opposite and in pairs, two and a half inches in length,
five and a half inches in circumference, and in form like an
egg; their scales are rounded at the extremity, and armed with
fine short spines which are easily broken off, so that in some
instances no vestige is left of their existence. The cones arrive
at maturity the second year, but do not release their seeds before
the third or fourth.

The ordinary size of the tree, which it rarely exceeds, is

thirty-five or forty feet in height and fifteen or eighteen inches

in diameter. It is remarkable for the remoteness of its

branches, which begin to spring upon the lower half of the

stock; and more than half of the largest trunks consist of sap:

117

118 PITCH PINE.

for these reasons the species is useless at home and deservedly
neglected abroad.

Observation. The Pond Pine sometimes grows with the
Long-leaved Pine in abandoned fields near the swamps. The
dryness of the soil occasions no difference in its form. This
observation is important, as the species under consideration is
frequently confounded with the Pitch Pine, which it strikingly
resembles.

PLATE CXLII.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

PITCH PINE.

Pinus eigida. P. arbor ramosa; cortice scabro-rimosa ; gemmis resino-
sis ; foliis ternis; ameniis mascidis erecto-incumbentibus ; strobilis spar sis
vet aggregatis ; squamis echinatis ; spinis rigidis.

This species is known in all the United States by the name
of Pitch Pine, and sometimes in Virginia by that of Black Tine,
but nowhere by that of Three-leaved Virginian Pi?ie, which is
used by Sir A. B. Lambert.

Except the maritime parts of the Atlantic States, and the
fertile regions west of the Alleghany Mountains, it is found
throughout the United States, but most abundantly upon the
Atlantic coast, where the soil is diversified but generally meagre.
The vicinity of Brunswick, in the district of Maine, and of Bur-
lington on Lake Champlain, in the State of Vermont, are the
most northern points at which I have observed it; in these
places it commonly grows in light, even, friable, sandy soils,

PfaU.

Pitch Pine.

riTCii tine. 119

which it occupies almost exclusively. It does not exceed twelve
or fifteen feet in height, and its slender branches, laden with
puny cones, evince the feebleness of its vegetation.

In Pennsylvania and Virginia, the ridges of the Alleghanies
are sometimes covered with it, as I have remarked in travelling
from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, and particularly in traversing
the South Mountains, on the ridge called Saddle Hill, thirty
miles from Bedford. Here the soil is a little more generous,
consisting of clay thickly sown with stones, and the Pitch Pine
is thirty-live or forty feet high and twelve or fifteen inches in
diameter.

In the lower part of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Mary-
land, it is frequently seen in the large swamps filled with the
Red Cedar, Avhich are constantly miry or covered with water ;
in such situations it is seventy or eighty feet high and from
twenty to twenty-eight inches in diameter, and exceeds the
surrounding trees both in bulk and elevation. It supports a
long time the presence of sea-water, which in spring-tides over-
flows the salt meadows, where it is sometimes found alone of its
genus.

The buds of the Pitch Pine arc always resinous, and its triple
leaves vary in length from an inch and a half to seven inches,
according to the degree of moisture in the soil. The ameiits
are an inch long, straight, and winged like those of the Pond
Pine. The size of the cones depends upon the nature of the
soil, and varies from less than an inch to more than three inches
H length ; they are of a pyramidal shape, and each scale is
pointed with an acute spine about two lines long. Wherever
these trees grow in masses the cones are dispersed singly over
the branches ; and, as I have learned by constant observation,
they release the seeds the first autumn after their maturity;
but on solitary stocks, exposed to the buffeting of the winds,
the cones are collected in groups of four, five, or even a larger
number, and remain closed for several years. This clustering

120 PITCH PINE.

of the cones serves, also, to distinguish the Jersey and Table
Mountain Pines.

The Pitch Pine has a thick, blackish, deeply-furrowed bark.
It is remarkable for the number of its branches, which occupy
two-thirds of its trunk and render the wood extremely knotty.
The concentric circles are widely distant, and three-fourths of
the larger stocks consist of sap. On mountains and gravelly
lands the wood is compact, heavy, and surcharged with resin,
whence is derived the name of Pitch Pine: in swamps, on the
contrary, it is light, soft, and composed almost wholly of sap ;
it is then called Sap Pine. These essential defects friace it be-
low the Yellow Pine; but, as that species is daily dwindling by
the vast consumption in civil and naval architecture, it is par-
tially replaced by the Pitch Pine, the poorer variety of which is
used for the boxes employed in packing certain sorts of mer-
chandise, such as soap, candles, &c.

On some parts of the Alleghanies, where this tree abounds,
houses are built of it, and the wood, if it is not covered with
paint, is recognised by its numerous knots. It is thought better
than the Yellow Pine for floors that are frequently washed, as
the resin with which it is impregnated renders it firmer and
more durable. It serves perfectly well for ship-pumps, for which
purpose trees with very little heart are preferred. The bakers
of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and the brick-makers
in the vicinity of these cities, consume it in prodigious quan-
tities. From the most resinous stocks is procured the lamp-
black of commerce.

The Pitch Pine seems to have formerly abounded in Con-
necticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire; for, since the
beginning of the seventeenth century till 1776, they have fur-
nished a certain quantity of tar. About the year 1705, upon
a misunderstanding with Sweden, whence she had drawn her
supplies, Great Britain encouraged this branch of industry in
the northern part of America by a premium of one pound ster-

PITCH PINE. 121

ling for eight barrels of tar made from dead wood, and of two
pounds for the same quantity extracted from green trees. The
method of depriving the trees of their bark and felling them
the following year, the excellence of which has since been
proved by Buffon's experiments on the conversion of alburnum
into perfect wood, and which might be profitably applied in the
United States, was published and disseminated. In consequence
of this encouragement, or from other causes, the destruction has
been so rapid that the Northern States no longer furnish tur-
pentine or tar for their own consumption. The little tar that
is made on the shores of Lake Champlain is used on the small
vessels that ply upon its surface, or is sent to Quebec. A few
of the poorer inhabitants in the maritime part of New Jersey
live by this resource, and the product of their industry is sent
to Philadelphia, where it is less esteemed than the tar of the
Southern States. What is required for the few vessels that are
annually launched on the Ohio, is obtained at an exorbitant
price from the Alleghany Mountains, and from the borders of
Tar Creek, which empties into the Ohio twenty miles below
Pittsburg. The essence of turpentine used in the Western
country in painting is brought from Philadelphia and Balti-
more.

Such is the sum of my information concerning Pitch Pine. I
have already remarked that on dry gravelly soils its wood is
knotty, and, on moist lands, of so poor a quality as to be unfit
for works that require strength and durability. Several other
species are preferable to this, such as the Yellow and Red Pines,
which grow in the same soils, and are sometimes associated with
it in the forests.

PLATE CXLIII.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

ill.— 8*

122 P I T C II P I N E.

[This tree is of extreme value, and may be cultivated with
facility, and transplanted without any difficulty. Emerson
recommends that sandy soils be sown with the seeds of the
Pitch Pine along with the sweet fern ( Comptonia) or the broom,
{Genista scojparia,) to protect the young trees, and cover the
surface sown with branches from the nearest Pine forest : not
being injured by salt water, there are enormous tracts near the
sea-shores of America that may be rendered profitable by this
process, furnishing fine fuel for steam-engines, and tar and lamp-
black; perhaps also ship-timber may be grown on land now
utterly valueless.

It is free from the stiffness of other Pines, and sometimes
attains the height of one hundred feet and four or five feet in
diameter. The trunk in dense woods is erect; in more open
situations, it is often tortuous or angled. When self-planted,
on the poorest land it increases at the rate of an inch in dia-
meter in three or four years for the first twenty-five years, and
after that at the rate of one in five or six. It differs from other
trees of this family, its stump throwing up sprouts the spring
after the stem has been felled; but these do not attain any
considerable height. The fallen trunk throws out sprouts in
the succeeding summer; and the bundles of leaves of both are
remarkable for issuing from the axil of a single leaf, in the
same manner as in the young plant. The tree is found from
the Penobscot River in Maine to the mountains of Carolina.]

P/*43.

Loblolly Pmc
Pnuup f(f</<i

LOBLOLLY PINE.

Pinus TiEDA. P. arbor maxima, supernb patula ; foliis terms, prcelongis ;
amentis masculls divergentibus ; strobilis k-uncialibus ; tessulis mucrone
sursum rigide uncinate ; fructiferis sub-rhomboideis.

Throughout the lower part of the Southern States this spe-
cies is called Loblolly Pine, and sometimes White Pine about
Petersburg and Richmond, in Virginia. I observed it for the
first time near Fredericksburg, 230 miles south of Philadelphia,
and I believe it does not exist much farther north ; it certainly
is not found in Pennsylvania, as Sir A. B. Lambert erroneously
asserts after Vanghenheim.

In the lower part of Virginia, and in the districts of North
Carolina situated northeast of the river Cape Fear, over an
extent of nearly 200 miles, it grows wherever the soil is dry and
sandy; on spots consisting of red clay mingled with gravel, it is
supplanted by the Yellow Pine and by different species of Oak ;
the two Pines are regularly alternated according to the vari-
ations in the soil, and frequently vanish and reappear at inter-
vals of four or five miles.

In the same parts of Virginia, this species exclusively occupies
lands that have been exhausted by cultivation, and, amid forests
of Oak, tracts of 100 or 200 acres are not unfrequently seen
covered with thriving young Pines. In the more southern
States it is the most common species after the Long-leaved Pine,
but grows only in the branch-swamps, or long narrow marshes
that intersect the pine-barrens, and near the creeks and rivers,
where the soil is of middling fertility and susceptible of improve-
ment : such is the vicinity of Charleston, S.C., which is covered
to the distance of five or six miles with Loblolly Pines.

The leaves are fine, of a light green, six inches long, and

123

124 LOBLOLLY PINE.

united to the number of three and sometimes of four on young
and vigorous stocks. The bloom takes place in the beginning
of April ; the aments are nearly an inch long, and are bent and
intermingled like those of the Long-leaved Pine. The cones
are about four inches in length, and armed with strong spines ;
while closed, they have the form of an elongated pyramid, and
when open, of a rhombus more or less perfect: the seeds are
cast the first year.

The tree exceeds eighty feet in height, with a diameter of
two or three feet and a wide-spreading summit. The tallest
stocks in proportion to their diameter, I observed near Rich-
mond, on a light, arid soil: from several of them, cylinders
might have been formed, twelve or fifteen inches in diameter
and fifty feet in length, perfectly regular and free from knots.

This wood has a still greater proportion of sap than that of
the Pond and Pitch Pines : in trunks three feet in diameter I
have constantly found thirty inches of alburnum; and in those
of a foot in diameter and thirty or thirty-five feet in height, not
more than an inch of heart. The concentric circles are widely
distant, as might be supposed from the rapidity of its growth in
the more southern States ; in Virginia, where it vegetates more
slowly, its texture is closer, and the proportion of sap less con-
siderable, as I have particularly observed at the saw-mills of
Petersburg.

Three-fourths of the houses in this part of Virginia are built
of the Loblolly Pine, which is even used in the absence of the
Yellow Pine for the ground-floors ; but the boards, though only
four inches wide, and strongly nailed, shrink, and become un-
even. This inconvenience is attributable to its spongy consist-
ence, and is not experienced in the Long-leaved Pine, whose
concentric circles are twelve times as numerous in the same
space.

In the ports of the Southern States this species is used, like
the Pitch Pine in those of the North, for the pumps of ships;

LOBLOLLY PINE. 125

at Charleston, the wharves are built with logs of the Loblolly
Pine, consolidated with earth ; bakers consume it in their ovens,
and it is sold a third cheaper than the more resinous wood of
the Long-leaved Pine.

This species is applied only to secondary uses: it decays
rapidly when exposed to the air, and is regarded as one of the
least valuable of the Pines. It speedily possesses itself of
deserted lands, and renders a long labor necessary to clear them
anew for cultivation. Though little esteemed in America, it
would be an important acquisition to the South of Europe,
where a tree of fine appearance and rapid vegetation is an in-
valuable treasure. It might be employed in joinery for objects
concealed from sight, for packing-cases, &c. It remains to be
proved whether it would not grow more rapidly than the
Maritime Pine on the plains of Bordeaux. It supports a more
northern climate, and even fructifies at Paris, but probably does
not attain its perfect development.

It affords turpentine in abundance, but in a less fluid state
than that of the Long-leaved Pine : as it contains more albur-
num, from which the turpentine distils, perhaps by making
deeper incisions it would yield a greater product.

The figure of this species in Sir A. B. Lambert's work is
correct; but he mistakes it in describing it as of little stature: —
arbor humilis, &c; it is, on the contrary, next to the White
Pine, the tallest tree of its genus in the United States.

PLATE CXLIV.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

WHITE PINE.

Pinus strobus. P. arbor excelsa ; cortice Icevi, cinereo cetate ; foliis quints,
gracilibus, vaginis nullis ; amentis masculis parvis, ritfis; strobilis Icevi-
gatis pendulis longo-cylindraceis.

This species, one of the most interesting of the American
Pines, is known in Canada and the United States by the name
of White Pine, from the perfect whiteness of its wood when
freshly exposed, and in New Hampshire and Maine, by the
secondary denominations of Pumpkin Pine, Apple Pine, and
Sapling Pine, which are derived from certain accidental pecu-
liarities.

The leaves of the White Pine are five-fold, four inches long,
numerous, slender, and of a bluish green : to the lightness and
delicacy of the foliage is owing the elegant appearance of the
young trees. The male aments are four or five lines long,
united to the number of five or six, and arranged like those ol
the Loblolly and Long-leaved Pines : they turn reddish before
they are cast. The cones are four or five inches long, ten lines
in diameter in the middle, pedunculated, pendulous, somewhat
arched, and composed of thin, smooth scales, rounded at the
base. They open about the first of October to release the
seeds, of which a part are left adhering to the turpentine that
exudes from the scales

This tree is diffused, though not uniformly, over a vast extent

of country: it is incapable of supporting intense cold, and still

less extreme heat. My father, in returning from Hudson's Bay,

after traversing three hundred miles without perceiving a vestige

of it, first observed it about forty leagues from the mouth of the

Mistassin, which discharges itself into Lake St. John in Canada,

in the latitude of 48° 50'. Two degrees farther south he found
126

'While Pine
Pinus tftrohus.

WHITE PINE. 127

it common, which was doubtless owing rather to a difference of
soil than of climate. From his observations and my own, it
appears to be most abundant between the 43d and 47th degrees
of latitude; farther south it is found in the valleys and on the
declivities of the Alleghanies to their termination, but at a
distance from the mountains on either side its growth is for-
bidden by the warmth of the climate. It is said, with great
probability, to be multiplied near the source of the Mississippi,
which is in the same latitude with the district of Maine, the
upper part of New Hampshire, the State of Vermont, and the
commencement of the St. Lawrence, where it attains its greatest
dimensions. In these countries I have seen it in very different
situations, and it seems to accommodate itself to all varieties of
soil, except such as consist wholly of sand and such as are almost
constantly submerged. But I have seen the largest stocks in
the bottom of soft, friable, and fertile valleys, on the banks of
rivers composed of deep, cool, black sand, and in swamps filled
with the White Cedar and covered with a thick and constantly
humid carpet of sphagnum. Near Norridgewock, on the river
Kennebeck, in one of these swamps, which is accessible only in
midsummer, I measured two trunks felled for canoes, of which
one was 154 feet long and fifty-four inches in diameter, and the
other 142 feet long and forty-four inches in diameter, at three
feet from the ground. Mention is made, in Belknap's "History
of New Hampshire," of a White Pine felled near the river Merri-
mack, seven feet eight inches in diameter; and near Hallowell I
saw a stump exceeding six feet; these enormous stocks had
probably reached the greatest height attained by the species,
which is about 180 feet : I have been assured, by persons worthy
of belief, that in a few instances they had felled individual trees
of nearly this stature. Hence we must conclude that the
authors who have stated its height at 2G0 feet have been misled
by incorrect reports.

But this ancient and majestic inhabitant of the North American

128 WHITE PINE.

forests is still the loftiest and most valuable of their productions,
and its summit is seen at an immense distance aspiring toward
heaven, far above the heads of the surrounding trees. The
trunk is simple for two-thirds or three-fourths of its height, and
the limbs are short and verticillate, or disposed in stages one
above another to the top of the tree, which is formed by three
or four upright branches, seemingly detached and unsupported.
In forests composed of the Sugar Maple, the Beeches, or the
Oaks, where the soil is strong and proper for the culture of corn,
as, for example, on the shores of Lake Champlain, it is arrested
at a lower height, and diffused into a spacious summit ; but it is
still taller and more vigorous than the neighboring trees.

In the district of Maine and the province of Nova Scotia, I
have constantly remarked that the White Pine is the foremost
tree in taking possession of barren, deserted lands, and the most
hardy in resisting the impetuous gales from the ocean.

On young stocks not exceeding forty feet in height, the bark
of the trunk and branches is smooth and even polished; as the
tree advances in age it splits and becomes rugged and gray, but
does not fall off in scales like that of the other Pines. The
White Pine is also distinguished by the sensible diminution of
its trunk from the base to the summit, in consequence of which
it is more difficult to procure sticks of great length and uniform
diameter; this disadvantage, however, is compensated by its
bulk and by the small proportion of its alburnum; a trunk of
one foot in diameter contains eleven inches of perfect wood.

The wood of this species is employed in greater quantities
and far more diversified uses than that of any other American
Pine: yet it is not without essential defects; it has little
strength, gives a feeble hold to nails, and sometimes swells by the
humidity of the atmosphere. These properties are compensated,
however, by others which give it a decided superiority; it is
soft, light, free from knots, and easily wrought; is more durable,
and less liable to split when exposed to the sun ; furnishes boards

WHITE PINE. 129

of a great width, and timber of large dimensions : in fine, it is
still abundant and cheap.

I have constantly observed the influence of soil to be greater
upon resinous than upon leafy trees. The qualities of the
White Pine, in particular, are strikingly affected by it. In
loose, deep, humid soils, it unites in the highest degree all the
valuable properties by which it is characterized, especially
lightness and fineness of texture, so that it may be smoothly
cut in every direction ; and hence, perhaps, is derived the name
of Pumpkin Pine. On dry, elevated lands, its wood is firmer
and more resinous, with a coarser grain and more distant con-
centric circles ; and it is then called Sapling Pine.

Throughout the Northern States, except in the larger capitals,
seven-tenths of the houses are of wood, of which three-quarters,
estimated at about 500,000, are almost wholly of White Pine :
even the suburbs of the cities are built of wood. The principal
beams of churches and the other large edifices are of White Pine.

The ornamental work of outer doors, the cornices and friezes
of apartments, and the mouldings of fireplaces, which in Ame-
rica are elegantly wrought, are of this wood. It receives gild-
ing well, and is therefore selected for looking-glass and picture-
frames. Sculptors employ it exclusively for the images that
adorn the bows of vessels, for which they prefer the variety
called Pumpkin Pine.

At Boston, and in other towns of the Northern States, the
inside of mahogany furniture and of trunks, the bottom of
Windsor chairs of an inferior quality, water-pails, a great part
of the boxes used for packing goods, the shelves of shops, and
an endless variety of other objects, are made of White Pine.

In the district of Maine, it is employed for barrels to contain
salted fish, especially the variety called Sapling Pine, which is
of a stronger consistence. For the magnificent wooden bridges
over the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, and the Delaware at Tren-
ton, and for those which unite Cambridge and Charlestown with

Vol. III.— 9

130 WHITE PINE.

Boston, of which the first is 1500 and the second 3000 feet in
length, the White Pine has been chosen for its durability. It
serves exclusively for the masts of the numerous vessels con-
structed in the Northern and Middle States, and for this purpose
it would be difficult to replace it in North America. Before the
war of Independence, England is said to have furnished herself
with masts from the United States ; and she still completes from
America the demand which cannot be fully supplied from the
North of Europe. The finest timber of this species is brought
from Maine, and particularly from the river Kennebeck.

Soon after the establishment of the colonies, England became
sensible of the value of this resource, and solicitous for its pre-
servation. In 1711 and 1721, severe ordinances were enacted,
prohibiting the cutting of any trees proper for masts on the
possessions of the crown. The order comprised the vast
countries bounded on the south by New Jersey and on the
north by the upper limit of Nova Scotia. I am unable to say
with what degree of rigor it was enforced before the American
Revolution; but for a space of six hundred miles, from Phila-
delphia to a distance beyond Boston, I did not observe a single
stock of the White Pine large enough for the mast of a vessel of
six hundred tons.

The principal superiority of the White Pine masts over those
brought from Riga is their lightness; but they have less
strength, and are said to decay more rapidly between-decks and
at the point of intersection of the yards; this renders the Long-
leaved Pine superior to the White Pine in the opinion of the
greater part of American ship-builders. But some of them are
of opinion that the White Pine would be equally durable if the
end was carefully protected from the weather. With this view^
an experiment has been imagined of a hole several feet deep
made in the top of the mast, filled with oil, and hermetically
sealed: the oil is said to be absorbed in a few months. The
bowsprits and yards of ships of war are of this species.

WHITE PINE. 131

The wood is not resinous enough to furnish turpentine for
commerce, nor would the labor of extracting it be easy, since
the White Pine occupies exclusively tracts of only a few hun-
dred acres, and is usually mingled in different proportions with
the leafy trees.

The vast consumption of this tree for domestic use, and for
exportation to the West Indies and to Europe, renders it neces-
sary every year to penetrate farther into the country; and in-
roads are already made, in quest of this species only, upon
forests which probably will not be cleared for cultivation in
twenty-five or thirty years.

The persons engaged in this branch of industry are in general
emigrants from New Hampshire, led by inconstancy of character
or by the desire of amassing rapidly the means of purchasing a
hundred acres of land* for the establishment of their families.
In the summer they unite in small companies, and traverse
these vast solitudes in every direction to ascertain the places in
which the Pines abound. After cutting the grass and convert-
ing it into hay for the nourishment of the cattle to be employed
in their labor, they return home. In the beginning of winter
they enter the forests again, establish themselves in huts
covered with the bark of the Canoe Birch or the Arbor- Vitse;
and, though the cold is so intense that the mercury sometimes
remains for several weeks from forty to forty-five degrees of
Fahrenheit below the point of congelation, they jDersevere with
unabated courage in their work. When the trees are felled,
they cut them into logs from fourteen to eighteen feet long, and
by means of their cattle, which they employ with great dex-
terity, drag them to the river, and, after stamping on them a
mark of property, roll them upon its frozen bosom. At the
breaking up of the ice in the spring, they float down with the

* The price of land in the county of Kennebeck, in 1807, was five or six dollars
an acre.

132 WHITE PINE.

current. All the logs that come down the Kennebeck are stopped
at Winslow, about one hundred and twenty miles from the sea,
where each person selects his own, and forms them into rafts
with the intention of selling them to the proprietors of the
numerous saw-mills between that place and the sea, or of having
them sawn for his own benefit at the price of a half or even of
three-quarters of the product in abundant years.

When I was at Winslow, in August, 1806, the river was still
covered with thousands of logs, of which the diameter of the
greater part was fifteen or sixteen inches, and that of the re-
mainder (perhaps one-fiftieth of the whole) twenty inches. The
Blue Ash and the Red Pine were the only species mingled with
them, and these not in the proportion of one to a hundred.
The logs which are not sawn the first year are attacked by large
worms, which form in every direction holes about two lines in
diameter; but if stripped of the bark they remain uninjured for
thirty years: the same remark is applicable to the stumps,
which resist the influences of heat and moisture during a great
length of time ; and it has passed into a proverb, that the man
wTho cuts down a Pine never lives to see it decay. In Hallowell,
near the Kennebeck, I saw several stunrps unchanged after an
exposure of forty years. Next to the district of Maine, which
furnishes three-quarters of the White Pine exported from the
United States, including what comes from New Hampshire by
the Merrimack and is brought to Boston, the shores of Lake
Champlain appeared to be the most abundantly peopled with
this species, and to be not unfavorably situated for its trans-
portation. All that is cut beyond Ticonderoga, comprising
about three-fourths of the length of the lake, which is one
hundred and sixty miles from north to south, is carried to
Quebec, two hundred and seventy miles distant, by the Sorel
and the St. Lawrence. What is furnished by the southern part
of the lake is sawn at Skeensborough, transported seventy miles
in the winter on sledges to Albany, and, with all the lumber of

WHITE PINE. 183

the North River, brought down in the spring to New York in
sloops of eighty or one hundred tons, to be afterwards exported
in great part to Europe, the West Indies, and the Southern
States.

By an extract from the custom-house register of Fort St.
John, the quantity of this wood that passed down the Sorel for
Quebec, between the 1st of May, 1807, and the 30th of July
following, was 132,720 cubic feet of square timber, 160,000
feet of common boards, 67,000 feet of planks two inches thick,
twenty masts, and 4545 logs of the same dimensions as are
brought from the district of Maine.

The upper part of Pennsylvania, near the source of the Dela-
ware and Susquehanna, which is mountainous and cold, pos-
sesses large forests of this Pine, and in the spring the timber
floats down these streams for the internal consumption of the
State. It enters into the construction of houses both in the
country and in the towns, and is sawn into planks for expor-
tation from Philadelphia to the West Indies. The masts of
vessels built at Philadelphia are also obtained from the Dela-
ware.

Beyond the mountains, near the springs of the river Alle-
ghany, from 150 to 180 miles from its junction with the Ohio,
is cut all the White Pine destined for the market of New Or-
leans, which is 2900 miles distant. In the spring, immense
quantities descend the river for the consumption of the country.
Three-quarters of the houses of Wheeling, Marietta, and Pitts-
burg, and of Washington, in Kentucky, are built with White
Pine boards.

Boston is the principal emporium of this commerce in the
Northern States. The White Pine is found there in the follow-
ing forms: — In square pieces from twelve to twenty-five feet
long, and of different diameters ; in scantling, or square pieces
six inches in diameter, for the lighter part of frames ; and in
boards, which are divided into merchantable or common, and into

134 WHITE PINE.

clear or picked* boards. The merchantable boards are three-
fourths of an inch thick, from ten to fifteen inches wide, from
ten to fifteen feet long, and frequently deformed with knots :
at New York, they are called Albany boards, and are sold at
the same price as at Boston. The clear boards, formed from
the largest stocks of the Pumpkin Pines, are of the same length
and thickness as the first, and twenty, twenty-four, and thirty
inches wide. They should be perfectly clear; but they are ad-
mitted if they have only two knots small enough to be covered
with the thumb : they are employed for all light and delicate
works of joinery, particularly for the panels of doors and the
mouldings of apartments : at Philadelphia, they are called White
Pine panels.

This wood is also formed into clapboards and shingles. The
clapboards are of an indeterminate length, six inches wide,
three lines thick at one edge, and thinner at the other: they
form the exterior covering of houses, and are placed horizon-
tally, lapping one upon another, so that the thinner edge is
covered. The shingles are commonly eighteen inches long,
from three to six inches wide, three lines thick at one end, and
one line at the other: they should be free from knots, and
made only of the perfect wood. They are packed in square
bundles, and sustained by two cross-pieces of wood confined by
withes. The bundles sometimes consist of five hundred, but
oftener of two hundred and fifty shingles : the price at Hal-
lowell, in 1807, was three dollars a thousand : two men can
make sixteen or eighteen hundred in a day.

East of the river Hudson, the houses are almost invariably
covered with these shingles, which last only twelve or fifteen
years. They are exported in great quantities to the West In-
dies, and in the French islands they are called essentes blanches.

From these details an estimate may be formed of the con-

* Called also panel boards.

W II I T E P I N E. 135

sumption of the White Pine in the United States : that of
Europe and the West Indies is also considerable. In a table
of importation from the United States, presented to the Par-
liament of Great Britain, the timber introduced in 1807 is
reckoned at $1,302,980, of which I suppose the White Pine
to have formed a fifth. In 1808, it was sold at Liverpool at
about sixty cents the cubic foot. Planks two inches thick and
twelve wide were worth four cents a foot, and common planks
six cents.

In this statement the wood imported from New Brunswick is
not included, nor the vast quantities sent from the United
States to the West India Islands not dependent upon Great
Britain.

The precious qualities and varied uses of this tree are suffi-
cient motives for propagating it in Europe. It flourishes in the
centre of France; but it would succeed better on the borders of
the Rhine, in the valleys of the Alps and Pyrenees, and in the
cold and humid climates of Germany, Poland, and Russia. Its
vegetation appeared to me more vigorous in Belgium than in
the neighborhood of Paris. When the forests of Wild Pine
and of Norway Spruce Fir are renewed in those countries, the
White Pine should be introduced : it will be easy to decide
whether it can be successfully naturalized.

PLATE CXLV.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

[In England this tree is called the Weymouth Pine, — a name
which is gradually becoming common in America. Dr. D wight
says that formerly they were seen in the forest two hundred
and fifty feet in height; and fifty or sixty years since, one was
cut down in Lancaster, New Hampshire, which measured two
hundred and twenty-three feet. Where it has been cultivated

136 WHITE PINE.

in England and France, it has been found to increase in height
at the rate of from fifteen inches to three feet each year, for
fifty or sixty years. Emerson says that, in 1846, the exporta-
tion from the growth of Massachusetts had almost ceased, and
from New Hampshire and the southern parts of Maine it had
much diminished, and the lumber had become of an inferior
quality. From the Penobscot, and other great rivers of the
northern parts of the latter State, the exportation is still large ;
but the lumberers have to go every year to a greater distance
from the great watercourses, and to ascend smaller streams and
more remote lakes. The same is occurring in New York; and
the day is evidently not far distant when New England even
will have to depend on Canada for this wood, unless measures
are taken to restore the Pine forests on the great tracts fitted for
no other use.

It is not uncommon to see old Pines standing, deformed by
the loss of the leading shoot, — a loss which old trees never
recover, though nature makes an effort to throw up an erect
stem from one of the horizontal limbs, distant from the centre.
It is liable to lose its limbs and be injured in appearance by
the weight of snow lodged on its branches. For ornamental
planting the Bhotan Pine, Piniis excelsa, is a more beautiful
tree than the White Pine, from its thicker habit of growth
and more numerous and compact tufts of leaves.]

[See Nuttall's Supplement, vol. ii. p. 176.]

Pl.iAS.

■few id.

Norway Spruce Fit

Abies nut'ti .

Gdriel. «u£>

NORWAY SPRUCE FIR.

Abies picea. A. arbor excelsa; folds solitariis, subtetragonis, subulatis,
strobilis cylindraceis, pendulis; squamis rhombeis, jplanis; margine re-
pandis, erosis.

The Norway Spruce Fir, like the Wild Pine, is indigenous to
the northern climates of Europe and Asia, and becomes rare in
descending toward the south. In France, Italy, and Spain, it
abounds only among the mountains, in deep valleys, and on
declivities exposed to the north.

This is one of the tallest trees of the Old Continent: it is
straight-bodied, from one hundred and twenty to one hundred
and fifty feet in height, and from three to five feet in diameter,
and is a hundred years in acquiring its growth. Its dark foliage
gives it a funereal aspect, which is rendered more gloomy by the
declining of its branches toward the earth. The limbs, as in
the American Spruces, are verticillate, and spring from a com-
mon centre. The leaves are longer but less numerous than
those of the American species, and are slightly arched, firm,
and acute. The flowers form red aments at the extremity of
the upper branches, and are succeeded by reddish, cylindrical
cones, five or six inches long and fifteen or eighteen lines in
diameter, containing small winged seeds, which are ripe toward
the end of November.

The wood is essentially different from that of the "Wild Pine,

being whiter, far less impregnated with resin and consequently

lighter, to which is added greater elasticity. The union of

these qualities renders it peculiarly proper for the yards of large

ships. Besides this important use, it is much employed in

England in joinery, and is called, among workmen, White Deal.

It is brought principally from Norway, and forms a large pro-
III.— 9* 137

138 NORWAY SPRUCE FIR.

portion of the commerce of that country in wood, which exceeds
a million and a half of dollars annually. In the North of
Europe its bark is frequently substituted for that of the Oak
in tanning. A resinous substance, less fluid than that of the
Pines, distils between the bark and the trunk, which is mixed
with lampblack and used by shoemakers.

The Norway Spruce Fir is attacked, like the Wild Pine, by
the insect Bostrichus piniperda, which makes such havoc of the
resinous trees.

The extensive use of this wood in Germany has caused great
attention to be paid to the forming and preserving of forests.
The plantation is begun by thoroughly loosening the ground in
the month of March, and the seed is mixed, in the proportion
of one-sixth, with oats.

The wood of the Norway Spruce is not superior to that of the
Black Spruce ; but in my opinion the European species would be
preferable for the northern parts of America.

Observation. A variety of this species is said to exist, called
Long Cornish Fir, of which the cones are much larger.

PLATE CXLVI.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A seed.

[As an ornamental evergreen, this tree is unsurpassed. See
Nuttall's Supplement, vol. ii., for a number of new species.

No tree is better adapted than the Norway Fir for planting
in narrow strips for shelter or seclusion. The tree bears the
shears; and, as it is of rapid growth, it makes excellent hedges
for shelter in nursery-gardens. Such are not unfrequent in
Switzerland, and in Bavaria and Baden. In 1814, there were
fir-hedges in the neighborhood of Moscow between thirty and
forty feet high. The whole hedge may be cut down to five feet,
and afterward trimmed into ornamental shapes : every portion

/'. U:

Black (double) Spruce

/:'■■/■-: <,v.,..,: /■

BLACK OR DOUBLE SPRUCE. 139

will thus become beautiful and green; the annual growths are
then very short, giving the surface of the hedge a fine, healthy
appearance. In the great prairie-country of America this
beautiful tree should be employed for shelter; without some
protection from trees, the prairies will never develop their full
resources.]

BLACK or DOUBLE SPRUCE.

Abies nigra. A. arbor maxima; folds solitariis undique circa ramos
erectis, brevioribus, subtetragonis ; strobilis ovatis, pendulis ; squamis
subundulatis, apiee crenulatis aid dicisis.

This tree, which appertains to the coldest regions of North
America, is called Epinette noire and Epinette a la bi&re in
Canada, Double Spruce in the district of Maine, and Black
Spruce in Nova Scotia, though the two last denominations are
known throughout all these countries. I have preferred that
of Black Spruce, which expresses a striking character of the
tree and is contrasted with that of the following species, the
White Spruce. From the influence of the soil upon the wood, it
is sometimes called Red Spruce; and this variety has been
considered, erroneously, as I prove in the sequel, as a distinct
species.

The Black Spruce is most abundant in the countries lying
between the 44th and 53d degrees of latitude, and between the
55th and 75th degrees of longitude, — viz. : Lower Canada, New-
foundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the district of Maine,
Vermont, and the upper part of New Hampshire; and it is so
multiplied as often to constitute a third part of the forests by
which they are uninterruptedly covered. Farther south it is

140 BLACK OR DOUBLE SPRUCE.

rarely seen except in cold and humid situations on the top of
the Alleghanies. It is particularly remarked in a large swamp
not far from Wilkesbarre, in Pennsylvania, and on the Black
Mountain, in South Carolina, which is one of the loftiest sum-
mits of the Southern States, and is probably thus named from
the melancholy aspect occasioned by the dusky foliage of this
tree. It is sometimes met with also in the White Cedar swamps
near Philadelphia and New York; but in these places, which
are always miry and sometimes submerged, its vegetation is
feeble. The leaves are of a dark, gloomy green, about four lines
long, firm, numerous, and attached singly over the surface of
the branches. The flowers appear at the extremity of the
highest twigs, and are succeeded by small, reddish, oval cones,
pointing toward the earth, and varying in length from eight
lines to two inches. They are composed of thin scales, slightly
notched at the base, and sometimes split for half their length
on the most vigorous trees, on which the cones are also the
largest : they are not ripe till the end of autumn, when they are
open for the escape of the seeds, which are small, light, and
surmounted by a wing, by means of which they are wafted
abroad by the wind.

The regions in which the Black Spruce is the most abundant
are often diversified with hills, and the finest forests are found
in valleys where the soil is black, humid, deep, and covered with
a thick bed of moss : though crowded so as to leave an interval
of only three, four, or five feet, these stocks attain their fullest
development, which is seventy or eighty feet in height and from
fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. The summit is a regular
pyramid, and has a beautiful appearance on insulated trees.
This agreeable form is owing to the spreading of the branches
in a horizontal instead of a declining direction like those of the
true Norway Pine, which is a more gloomy tree.

The trunk, unlike that of the Pines, is smooth, and is remark-
able for its perpendicular ascension and for its regular diminu-

BLACK OR DOUBLE SPRUCE. 141

tion from the base to the summit, which is terminated by an
annual shoot twelve or fifteen inches long. It is found in the
same countries on the declivities of mountains, where the soil is
stony, dry, and covered only with a thin bed of moss; but, as
this soil is less favorable, its growth is less luxuriant and its
stature less commanding. The same observation is applicable
to other tracts, designated by the name of poor black lands, which
are meagre spots covered with the Black Spruce. In these
situations it has shorter, thicker leaves, of a still darker color,
with cones only half as large, but similar in form, and ripe at
the same period.

I shall frequently have occasion to observe that the inhabit-
ants of the country, and mechanics who work in wood, take
notice only of certain striking appearances in forest trees, such
as the quality of the wood, its color, and that of the bark ; and
that, from ignorance of botanical characters, they give different
names to the same tree, according to certain variations in these
respects arising from local circumstances. To this cause must
be attributed the popular distinction of Black and Red Spruce.
Sir A. B. Lambert, misled by the remarkable size of the cones
of the last variety which have been sent to England, and by
incorrect information, determined, with some hesitation, to
describe and figure it under the name of Abies rubra : he repre-
sents it as inferior in every respect to the Black Spruce, though,
according to my own observations in the country where it grows,
it unites in the highest degree all the good qualities which cha-
racterize the species. Samples of the heart would probably
have confirmed his opinion that they are distinct species; for
that of the Black Spruce is white, and that of the other variety
reddish. But I repeat, that this difference in the wood of trees
of the same species is produced only by the influence of soil.

The distinguishing properties of the Black Spruce are
strength, lightness, and elasticity. Josselyn, in his "History
of New England," published in London in 1G72, informs us that

142 BLACK OR DOUBLE SPRUCE.

it was considered at that period as furnishing the best yards
and topmasts in the world. Besides possessing these qualities,
as we have already observed, in a higher degree, the Red Spruce
is superior in size to the other variety, which grows in a poorer
soil, and is less supple and more liable to be crooked.

In the dock-yards of the United States, the spars are usually
of Black Spruce from the district of Maine, and for the same
purpose it is exported in great quantities from Maine, New
Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, to the West Indies and to Liver-
pool.

Oddy says that in England it is preferred to the Norway
Pine, Abies picea, but that it does not afford pieces of sufficient
dimensions for the yards of men-of-war, which are made of the
Norway Pine or of the White Pine.

The knees of vessels are frequently of Black Spruce, in the
district of Maine, and sometimes at Boston, where the Oak is
becoming rare. When these pieces are of Oak, they are formed
of two limbs united at the base ; but when of Spruce, they are
made from the base of the trunk and one of the principal roots.
From its strength and durability, this species is the most proper
substitute for the Oak and the Larch, which is also rare in the
northern parts of the United States. In Maine and at Boston
it is often employed for the rafters of houses, and is more es-
teemed than the Hemlock Spruce, which was formerly preferred.
Some persons select it for floors ; it is tougher than the White
Pine, but more liable to crack.

In all these regions, and particularly in Maine and New
Brunswick, the Black Spruce is sawed into boards of consider-
able width, which are sold a fourth cheaper than those of White
Pine. They are exported to the West Indies and to England ;
and I have been informed that a large part of them are con-
sumed at Manchester and Birmingham in packing goods. The
supply, I doubt not, will long be abundant, for the species is a
hundred times more multiplied than the White Pine. In Nova

BLACK OR DOUBLE SPRUCE. 143

Scotia, the Red Spruce, which is straight-grained and more easily
wrought, is employed for barrels to contain salted fish. This
species is not resinous enough to afford turpentine as an article
of commerce. The wood is filled with air, and snaps, in burn-
ing, like Chestnut.

With the young branches, especially those of the Black
Spruce, is made the salutary drink known by the name of
spruce beer, which in long voyages is found an efficacious pre-
ventive of the scurvy. The twigs are boiled in water, a certain
quantity of molasses or maple sugar is added, and the mixture
is left to ferment. The essence of spruce is obtained by eva-
porating, to the consistence of an extract, water in which the
summits of the young branches have been boiled. As I have
never seen the operation performed, I cannot describe its de-
tails ; but I have often witnessed the process of making the
beer in the country about Halifax and in Maine, and can affirm
with confidence that it is not, as Sir A. B. Lambert asserts, the
White Spruce which is used for this purpose.

If the wood of this species has in fact been proved in Eng-
land to be superior to that of the Norway Pine, it would be
useful to propagate it on the Old Continent ; but in my opinion
it would flourish only in the coldest and most humid countries
of the North of Europe, and on some parts of the Alps, the
Pyrenees, and the Highlands of Scotland.

PLATE CXLVII.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A leaf.

WHITE or SINGLE SPRUCE.

Abies alba. A. arbor 45-50 pedalis; foliis subglaucis imdique circa

ramos erectis, tetragonis ; strobilis oblongo-cylindraceis, pendulis, laxis;
squamis margine integerrimis.

Tnis species is indigenous to the same countries as the pre-
ceding. In Canada it is called Epinette blanche, in Nova Scotia,
White Spruce, and in New Brunswick and the district of Maine,
Single Spruce. As the two last denominations are generally
known, I have adopted that which appeared to me the best.

The White Spruce commences a few degrees farther south
than the species just described. In my father's notes it is first
mentioned near Lake St. John, between the 48th and 49th degrees
of latitude. In the district of Maine, at least in the parts which
I have visited, it is much less common than the Black Spruce;
and the comparison is easily made, as they are readily distin-
guished, especially young and insulated stocks. Though the
leaves of both encompass the branches, they are marked by
several characteristic differences : those of the White Spruce are
less numerous, longer, more pointed, at a more open angle with
the branches, and of a pale, bluish green; whence is derived
the specific name of alba. The cones are also peculiar, being
of a lengthened oval form, about two inches in one direction
and six or eight lines in the other : the dimensions vary accord-
ing to the vigor of the tree, but the form is unchangeable. The
scales are loose and thin, with entire edges, unlike those of the
Black Spruce. The seeds, also, are rather smaller, and are ripe
a month earlier.

This species grows in nearly the same situations as the pre-
ceding, but it has a more tapering trunk, and is inferior in sta-
ture, rarely exceeding fifty feet in height, and twelve or sixteen
144

Pl.rti

\\lr.i< I Sprao<

WHITE OR SINGLE SPRUCE. 145

inches in diameter at three feet from the ground. Its summit,
like that of the Black Spruce, is a regular pyramid, but less
branching and tufted. The bark is lighter-colored, and the
difference is more striking upon the young shoots.

The wood is employed for the same uses as the other: it
is, however, inferior in quality, and snaps more frequently in
burning. The fibres of the roots, macerated in water, are very
flexible and tough; being deprived in the operation of their
pellicle, they are used in Canada to stitch together the canoes
of Birch bark, the seams of which are afterward smeared with
a resin, improperly called gum, that distils from the tree.

Sir A. B. Lambert asserts that the bark is employed in tan-
ning: this may possibly be true in Lower Canada and Newfound-
land, which I have not visited, but it is never done in Maine,
New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The branches are not used
for beer, because the leaves when bruised diffuse an unpleasant
odor, which they are said to communicate to the liquid.

This species is much more common in France than the Black
Spruce. It is an elegant tree while young, and, as it forms an
agreeable contrast with the darker foliage of the other Spruces,
it is esteemed a valuable ornament for parks and gardens.

Nurserymen in France and Germany distinguish two varie-
ties, the White or Silver Spruce and the Blue Spruce.

PLATE CXLVIII.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

Vol. III.— 10

HEMLOCK SPRUCE.

Abies Canadensis. A. arbor maxima ; ramis gratilibus ; ramulis novellis
villosissimis ; foliis solitariis, planis, subdistichis ; strobilis terminalibus,
minimis, ovatis, despicientibus.

The Hemlock Spruce is known only by this name throughout
the United States, and by that of Perusse among the French
inhabitants of Canada. It is natural to the coldest regions of
the New World, and begins to appear about Hudson's Bay, in
latitude 51°; near Lake St. John, and in the neighborhood of
Quebec, it fills the forests, and in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
the district of Maine, the State of Vermont, and the upper part
of New Hampshire, where I have observed it, it forms three-
quarters of the evergreen woods, of which the remainder con-
sists of the Black Spruce. Farther south it is less common,
and in the Middle and Southern States is seen only on the Alle-
ghanies ; even there it is often confined to the sides of torrents
and to the most humid and gloomy exposures.

In the country east and north of Massachusetts, which, with-
out embracing Canada, is more than 750 miles long, and about
250 miles broad, the resinous trees are constantly found at the
foot of the hills, and constitute nearly half of the unbroken
forests which cover these regions. Hence we may conceive how
extensively this species is multiplied.

Moist grounds appear not to be, in general, the most favorable
to its growth: when mingled with the Black Spruce, it pre-
dominates less as the soil is more humid; and I have often seen
large stocks among the Beeches and Sugar Maples on soils
proper for corn.

The Hemlock Spruce is always larger and taller than the

Black Spruce; it attains the height of seventy or eighty feet,
146

Ma,

Hemlock Spruce
Abies < Y?///rf//'//.r/<r.

HEMLOCK SPRUCE. 147

with a circumference of from six to nine feet and uniform for two-
thirds of its length. But if the number and distance of the
concentric circles afford a certain criterion of the longevity of
trees and the rapidity of their vegetation, it must be nearly
two centuries in acquiring such dimensions.

The leaves are six or eight lines long, flat, numerous, irre-
gularly disposed in two ranks, and downy at their unfolding.
The cones are a little longer than the leaves, oval, pendulous,
and situated at the extremity of the branches. In a favorable
soil, this tree has an elegant appearance while less than thirty
feet high, owing to the symmetrical arrangement of its branches
and to its tufted foliage ; and at this age it is employed in land-
scape-gardening. When arrived at its full growth, the large
limbs are usually broken off four or five feet from the trunk,
and the dried extremities are seen staring out through the little
twigs which spring around them. In this mutilated state, by
which it is easily recognised, it has a disagreeable aspect, and
presents, while in full vigor, an image of decrepitude. This
accident, which is attributed to the snow lodging upon the close,
horizontal, tufted branches, never happens to the young trees,
whose fibres are more flexible. The woods are also filled with
dead stocks; but I am unable to say whether their destruction is
occasioned by an insect which attaches itself of preference to
the Pines, or to some other cause. The dead, moss-grown trees,
which stand mouldering for twenty or thirty years, deform the
forests of this part of the United States, and give them a gloomy
and desolate appearance.

The Hemlock Spruce is distinguished by the peculiarity of
sometimes ceasing to grow at the height of twenty-four or thirty
inches. In this state it has a pyramidical shape, and its com-
pact, tufted branches adhere to the ground. It might be em-
ployed to form hedges and to decorate gardens in place of the
Yew, to which it is preferable for the superior rapidity of its
growth and the sprightlier tint of its foliage, while it bears the

148 HEMLOCK SPRUCE.

pruning-hook with equal j)atience: this remark I made while
observing the Spruces upon an open, dry, stony spot between
Portland and York.

Unhappily, the properties of its wood are such as to give this
species only a secondary importance, notwithstanding its abun-
dant diffusion : it is the least valuable in this respect of all the
large resinous trees of North America. But the regret which
we should experience to see it occupying so extensively the
place of more useful species is forbidden by a property of its
bark inestimable to the country where it grows, — that of being
applicable in tanning.

It is esteemed an excellence in wood to split in a straight line,
which it does when the fibre is vertical : that of the Hemlock
Spruce is so oblique that it makes the circuit of stocks fifteen or
twenty inches in diameter in ascending five or six feet. Besides
this defect, which is essential, and which renders it unfit for
rural fence, the old trees frequently have the concentric circles
separated at intervals, or, in the language of the country, are
shaky, which greatly impairs their strength. This effect is pro-
duced by the winds, which have a powerful hold upon a large,
compact summit exposed above the heads of the surrounding
trees. It is found to decay rapidly when open to the atmo-
sphere, and is therefore improper for the external covering of
houses, which is another important defect in a country where
nearly all the houses are of wood. But, as the White Pine
becomes rarer, this species is substituted for it as extensively as
possible: it is firmer, though coarser-grained, affords a tighter
hold to nails, and offers more resistance to the impression of
other bodies; for this reason it is employed in the district of
Maine, in the form of two-inch planks, for threshing-floors.
But the most common use in which great quantities of it are
consumed in the Northern States is for the first sheathing of
wooden houses, which are afterward covered with clap-boards of
White Pine. For economy, the interior frame if sometimes

HEMLOCK SPRUCE. 149

made of Hemlock Spruce ; and it is found when guarded from
humidity, to be as durable as any other species. It is always
chosen for the laths of the interior walls, and is exported in
this form to England. In the district of Maine, it is usually
taken for the posts of rural fences, which last about fifteen
years, and are preferable to those of Gray and Red Oak. It
contains little resin ; and I have found the trunk but slightly
coated with turpentine where large pieces of bark had been
removed long before.

I have already observed that this bark is a substitute for that
of the Oaks in the preparation of leather. It is taken from the
tree in the month of June, and half the epidermis is shaved off
with a plane before it is thrown into the mill. From the
district of Maine it is exported to Boston, Providence, &c, and
is almost exclusively employed in the tan-yards. It is brought
to New York from the upper parts of the Hudson, and is some-
times carried to Baltimore. Its deep red color is imparted to
the leather, and I have been informed by tanners that it is
inferior to Oak bark, but that the two species united are better
than either of them alone. Hemlock Spruce bark was once
exported to England, but the commerce has ceased with the
demand. The Indians are said to use it in dyeing their light
baskets made of Red Maple.

This species yields seed in many gardens of France, England,
and Germany; but in France its vegetation is not luxuriant,
because it is usually planted in situations too open and dry.
It offers no inducement to propagate it in Europe.

The figure in Sir A. B. Lambert's work is correct, but he
repeatedly errs in the brief description annexed, and takes no
notice of the peculiar property of the bark.

PLATE CXLIX.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A seed.

150 AMERICAN SILVER FIR,

[This is one of the most beautiful trees of the family; its
tufted foliage, tapering branchlets, and the smoothness of its
limbs, and its small, delicate terminal cones, and the majestic
gracefulness of full-grown specimens, should strongly recom-
mend it to those who are unselfish enough to plant for pos-
terity. The cones are mature in the autumn, and shed their
seeds then and during the winter. The Hemlock is patient of
the knife, and consequently makes a highly-ornamental hedge.
It forms in a few years an impenetrable evergreen wall, which
would be invaluable for shelter from northwest winds. I have
seen hedges of this kind in America superior to any other in
ornamental appearance. In the beginning of summer the deli-
cate-green branches, surmounted with a tuft of yellowish-green
recent leaves, have an effect of peculiar beauty. A hedge of
Hemlock should be trimmed twice a year, in June and August,
without which it will not attain its full beauty.]

AMERICAN SILVER FIR.

Abies balsamifera. A. arbor 40-45 pedalis; foliis solitariis, subtus
argenteis, apice emarginatis integrisve, subrecurvo-paientissimis ; strobilis
cylindraceis, violaceis, sursum spectantibus.

The coldest regions of North America are the native country
of this species of Spruce. In the United States, Canada, and
Nova Scotia, it is called Silver Fir, Fir Balsam, and Balm of
Gilead.

From the observations of Messrs. Titus Smith, estimable
botanists who have explored Nova Scotia and with whom I
became acquainted at Halifax, by those of my father who
visited Canada, and by my own, the Silver Fir appears not to

Pl./o

American Silver Fir. <>r Balui of Gilead Fir
. litres &altpami/er& .

AMERICAN SILVER FIR. 151

constitute masses of woods, but to be disseminated, in greater or
less abundance, among the Hemlock and Black Spruces. Far-
ther south it is found only on the summit of the Alleghanies,
and particularly on the loftiest mountains of North Carolina,
Its height rarely exceeds forty feet, with a diameter of twelve
or fifteen inches. This statement is confirmed by the persons
whom I have just cited ; and Vanghenheim, who never travelled
in these countries, and after him Sir A. B. Lambert, mistakenly
assert that it is a tree of elevated stature. The body tapers
from a foot in diameter at the surface of the ground to seven or
eight inches at the height of six feet. When standing alone
and developing itself naturally, its branches, which are nume-
rous and thickly garnished with leaves, diminish in length in
proportion to their height, and form a pyramid of perfect regu-
larity. The leaves are six or eight lines long, and are inserted
singly on the sides and on the top of the branches; they are
narrow, rigid, and flat, of a bright green above and a silvery
white beneath; whence probably is derived the name of the
tree.

The cones are nearly cylindrical, four or five inches long, an
inch in diameter, and always directed upward ; this last charac-
teristic, which belongs also to the Silver Fir of Europe, distin-
guishes those species from the Epicias, whose cones are turned
toward the earth.

The wood of the Silver Fir is light and slightly resinous,
and the heart is yellowish. In Maine, where it chiefly abounds,
it is not employed, on account of its deficiency of size or of
strength. I was informed by Messrs. Smith, that in Nova
Scotia it sometimes serves for the staves of casks used in pack-
ing fish; but for this purpose the White Pine and Yellow
Spruce are commonly preferred.

The resin of the Pines is extracted by means of incisions in
the body of the tree at which it exudes from the pores of the
bark and from the sap-vessels of the alburnum : in the American

152 AMERICAN SILVER FIR.

and European Silver Firs, this substance is naturally deposited
in vesicles on the trunk and limbs, and is collected by bursting
these tumors and receiving their contents in a bottle; only a
few bottles are annually obtained in Canada, the district of
Maine, and the adjacent countries. It is sold in England and
the United States under the name of balm of Gilead, though
everybody knows that the true balm of Gilead is produced by
the Amyris Gtteadensis, a very different vegetable and a native
of Asia: perhaps the name has been borrowed in consequence
of some resemblance between the substances in taste and smell.
The fresh turpentine is a greenish transparent fluid, of an acrid,
penetrating taste ; given inconsiderately it produces heat in the
bladder, and applied to wounds it causes imflammation and acute
pain. It has been highly celebrated in England, and is recom-
mended in certain stages of the pulmonary consumption; in
these cases it is preferred to the resin of the European Silver
Fir, which is collected in a similar manner in Switzerland and
in some parts of Germany.

This tree has been long cultivated in Europe ; but it must be
reserved for the embellishment of pleasure-grounds, where its
regular form and agreeable foliage give it a distinguished place
among evergreen trees.

The Silver Fir of Europe is so analogous to that of America,
that it is unnecessary to describe it: the only difference is that
it has longer leaves and bigger cones, and attains a much greater
elevation : according to M. Burgsdorf, Grand-forester of Prussia,
it is sometimes one hundred and fifty feet high and six feet in
diameter. The wood of the two species is similar in its general
character, and, though the advantage is on the side of the Silver
Fir of Europe, it is still inferior to the Norway Spruce Fir,
which is the more to be regretted on account of its size.

PLATE CL.

A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A seed.

AMERICAN SILVER FIR. 153

[As an ornamental tree, the Balm of Giload retains its beauty
for only the first fifteen or twenty years of its existence, during
which period, when in health and vigor, it is extremely beauti-
ful both in color and form. After this period it loses its lower
branches, has a sickly hue, and should then be dismissed from
the pleasure-grounds.]

m.— 10*

CYPRESSES.

The researches of botanists have made us acquainted with
only seven species of Cypress, of which two belong to the New
Continent and are indigenous to the United States. Among the
exotic species the Pyramidical Cypress, Cupressus fastigiata,
deserves attention in the Southern States. This tree has been
celebrated from antiquity for the excellence of its wood and the
singularity of its form. From the gloomy appearance of its
tufted branches, compressed about the trunk and charged with
dark, impenetrable foliage, it was consecrated to funeral solemni-
ties and planted about temples and tombs.

" The Pyramidical Cypress, originally from Crete, is thirty or
forty feet in height, smooth, and free from the defect observed
in the Virginian Cedar, of cracking at the insertion of the limbs.
The wood is hard, odoriferous, of a uniform texture and a bril-
liant red complexion. Pliny affirms that it is very durable, and
that its color is unchangeable: — Cariem vetustatemque non sentit
Cupressus . . . Materice nitor maxime valet ceternus. Plhst: lib. xvi.
caj). 40. Formerly the rarest and most precious objects were
preserved in boxes of Cypress; and we are informed that the
doors of St. Peter's at Rome, which had lasted 1200 years, from
Constantine to Eugene IV., were of this wood. It is also em-
ployed for tables, musical instruments, and the tubes of organs.
The fruit, which is known by the name of Cypress nut, is em-
ployed in medicine as an astringent; and Pliny assures us that
the leaves pounded and mingled with seeds preserve them from
worms.

" The Cypress is multiplied from the seed, which is the best
154

n ma

Bewa i/el

(h/>ry/.

yprcss.
( upre* >\ i v/« f (/(* rfcon a

CYPRESS. 155

method ; by laj^ers and by slips. In the beginning of spring
the seeds are sown and lightly covered in vessels filled with
mould and sand. The young plants must be kept in the shade
and protected from the frost. To obtain good seed, Duhamel
says that in March and April we should select the cones which
begin to open, and store them in a dry place : the seeds which
fall out are the best ; those which are obtained by opening the
cones very rarely germinate." — Desfontaines, Hist, des Arb. et
Arbriss., torn. ii. p. 5G7.

CYPRESS.

Moncecia rnonadelphia. Linn. Coniferae. Juss.

Cupressus disticha. C. foliis plmiis, quasi pinnatim distichis, (deciduis,)
floribus masculis aphyllb-racemosis ; strobilis subgloboso-ovoidcis.

Taxodium distichum. Rich.

This species is the most interesting of its genus for the varied
applications of its wood and for its extraordinary dimensions in
a favorable soil and climate. In Louisiana it is called Gypre or
Cyprus, and in the Atlantic Southern States Cypress, and some-
times Bald Cypress. The names of Black and White Cypress,
in the Carolinas and Georgia, are founded only on the quality
and color of the wood.

The banks of Indian River, a small stream that waters a part
of Delaware, in latitude 38° 50', may be assumed as its northern
boundary. Hence, in proceeding southward, it becomes con-
stantly more abundant in the swamps; but in Maryland and
Virginia it is confined to the vicinity of the sea, where the
winter is milder and the summer more intense. Beyond Nor-

156 CYPRESS.

folk its limits coincide exactly with those of the pine-barrens,
and in the Carolinas and Georgia it occupies a great part of the
swamps which border the rivers after they have found their way
from among the mountains and have entered the lowlands.

East Florida, which I have visited, is similar in its aspect to
the maritime parts of the Southern States, except that the soil
is in general more uniform; hence, the Long-leaved Pine and
the Cypress are accompanied by a smaller variety of trees, and
are consequently more abundant, the one on the low grounds
and the other on the uplands.

The Mississippi, from its mouth to the river Arkansas, a
distance, in following its windings, of more than six hundred
miles, is bordered with marshes, which, at the annual overflow-
ing of this mighty stream, form a vast expanse of waters. In
Louisiana, those parts of the marshes where the Cypress grows
almost alone are called Cypri&res, Cypress swamps, and they
sometimes occupy thousands of acres. As in the Floridas, the
swamps are contiguous to immeasurable plains covered with
Pines, or oftener with tall grass mingled with other plants. In
the midst of these Pine forests and savannas is seen here and
there a bog or a plash of water filled with Cypresses, whose
squalid appearance, when they exceed eighteen or twenty feet
in height, proves how much they are affected by the barrenness
of a soil which differs from the surrounding waste only by a
layer of vegetable mould a little thicker upon the quartzy sand.
From these particulars, a sufficiently just idea may be formed
of the geographical situations and of the soil in which the Cy-
press is found, over an extent of more than 1500 miles, from its
first appearance toward the north to the Mississippi. Toward
the southwest my information does not reach beyond Louisiana,
though I have some reason to believe that it is seen as far as
the mouth of the River Del Norte, latitude 26°, which, if we
measure the circuit of the Gulf of Mexico, makes a distance of
more than 3000 miles.

CYPRESS. 157

M. de Humboldt, in his interesting account of New Spain,
mentions several trees of this species in the ancient gardens of
the Emperor of Mexico, which were planted before the arrival
of the Spaniards, and are now of considerable size.

In the swamps of the Southern States and the Floridas, on
whose deep, miry soil a new layer of vegetable mould is every
year deposited by the floods, the Cypress attains its utmost
development. The largest stocks are one hundred and twenty
feet in height, and from twenty-five to forty feet in circum-
ference above the conical base, which, at the surface of the
earth, is always three or four times as large as the continued
diameter of the trunk : in felling them, the negroes are obliged
to raise themselves upon scaffolds five or six feet from the
ground. The base is usually hollow for three-quarters of its
bulk, and is less regularly shaped than that of the Large Tupelo.
Its surface is longitudinally furrowed with deep channels, whose
ridges serve as cramps to fix it more firmly in the loose soil.
The roots of the largest stocks, particularly of such as are most
exposed to inundation, are covered with conical protuberances,
commonly from eighteen to twenty-four inches and sometimes
four or five feet in thickness ; they are always hollow, smooth
on the surface, and covered with a reddish bark like the roots,
which they resemble, also, in the softness of their wood ; they
exhibit no sign of vegetation, and I have never succeeded in
obtaining shoots by wounding their surface and covering them
with earth. No cause can be assigned for their existence ; they
are peculiar to the Cypress, and begin to appear when it is
twenty or twenty-five feet in height ; they are not made use of,
except by the negroes for beehives. The summit of the Cy
press is not pyramidal like that of the SjDruces, but is widely
spread and even depressed upon old trees. The foliage is open,
light, and of a fresh, agreeable tint; each leaf is four or five
inches long, and consists of two parallel rows of leaflets upon a
common stem. The leaflets are small, fine, and somewhat arch-

158 CYPRESS.

ing, with the convex side outward. In the autumn they
change from a light green to a dull red, and are shed soon
after. Boiled during three hours in water, they afford a fine,
durable cinnamon color : such, at least, has been the result of
several experiments made in Europe.

The Cypress blooms in Carolina about the first of February. *
The male and female flowers are separately borne by the same
tree, the first in flexible pendulous aments, and the second in
bunches scarcely apparent. The cones are about as large as
the thumb, hard, round, of an uneven surface, and stored with
small, irregular, ligneous seeds, containing a cylindrical kernel :
they are ripe in October, and retain their productive virtue for
two years.

The wood is fine-grained, and, after being for some time
exposed to the light, of a reddish color: it possesses great
strength and elasticity, and is lighter and less resinous than
that of the Pines. To these j)roperties is added the faculty of
long resisting the heat and moisture of the southern climate.
The color of the bark and the properties of the wood vary with
the nature of the soil; the stocks which grow near the natural
bed of the rivers, and are half the year surrounded with water
to the height of three or four feet, have a lighter-colored bark
than those which stand retired in places which the waters do not
reach, or where they sojourn but a moment. The wood, also, is
whiter, less resinous, and less heavy. These are called White
Cypresses. The others, of which the bark is browner and the
wood heavier, more resinous, and of a duskier hue, are called
Black Cypresses. When destined to be employed in the arts,
both varieties should be felled in the winter, and kept, till by
a long process, the wood has become perfectly dry. A resin of
an agreeable odor and a red color exudes from the Cypress; it
is not abundant enough to be collected for commerce, though
more copious than that of the White Cedar, which is probably
the reason of the wood being denser and stronger : the negroes

CYPRESS. 159

prefer it to that of the Pines as a dressing for suppurating
wounds.

This wood is more generally employed in Louisiana than in
any other part of the United States : it is profitably substituted
for the White Oak and the Pine, which are rare; and it is
proved to be twice as durable as the Pine. Nearly all the
houses in New Orleans were of wood, and the frame, the interior
Work, and the outer covering, of Cypress. It was almost as
generally employed in Georgia and the Carolinas soon after
their settlement; but it is now replaced by other species, as all
the large stocks have been consumed in the populous districts:
near the swamps, where it abounds, the houses are still built, or
at least covered, with it. Of whatever materials the building is
constructed in these States, the roof is universally covered with
Cypress shingles, which, if made from trees felled in the winter,
last forty years. They are split off in a direction parallel to the
concentric circles. At Norfolk in Virginia, near the Dismal
Swamp, where immense quantities are made both of this species
and of White Cedar, those of Cypress are preferred; at Phila-
delphia and Baltimore, where they are also procured at equal
prices, the preference is given to those of White Cedar. This
fact seems to support the conclusion that each unites the prin-
ciples which insure durability only in the soil and climate in
which they respectively abound.

In the towns of the Southern States where the White Pine is
cheap, it has in a great measure taken the place of the Cypress
for the interior work of houses; but Cypress boards are still
preferred for the inside of brick houses, and for window-sashes,
and the panels of doors exposed to the weather: cabinet-makers
also choose it for the inside of mahogany furniture.

I have been assured that in Louisiana it is found highly
proper for the masts and sides of vessels, and it has the same
reputation in Charleston and Savannah, though at present it is
little employed. Wherever it grows it is chosen for canoes,

160 CYPRESS.

which are fashioned from a single trunk and are thirty feet long
and five feet wide, light, solid, and more durable than those of
any other tree.

On the banks of the Mississippi it is used to enclose planta-
tions, and posts made of the perfect wood last a long time in
the ground. For this last it is preferred to every other tree in
those districts of Georgia in which it abounds or is easily pro-
cured. It makes the best pipes to convey water under ground ;
especially the Black Cypress, which is more resinous and solid.

The inexhaustible Cypress-swamps on the Mississippi not
only supply materials for every species of building in Lower
Louisiana, but furnish for exportation to the West Indies. This
branch of commerce, which consisted principally of boards and
shingles, has declined within a few years, in consequence of the
great exportation from the Northern States of different species
of Pine, particularly the White Pine, which are sold at half the
price and devoted to nearly the same uses.

At Havana, the White Pine has generally superseded the
Cypress for sugar-cases, for which it was once extensively used;
for the covering of houses, Cypress shingles are still preferred,
and the consumption in the French, English, and Danish colo-
nies is estimated at one hundred millions of shingles annually,
of which the greater part come from Norfolk, Wilmington, and
Savannah: more than fifteen millions have been brought in
a single year from Norfolk, and more than thirty millions
from Wilmington. They are twenty-two or forty-four inches
long and from three to six inches wide: in February, 1808, the
price of the longest was from four to five dollars a thousand in
Philadelphia, and they usually bear a double price in the West
Indies.

In Europe, the patrons of useful culture and ornamental
gardening have labored zealously for more than fifty years to
multiply the Cypress. Many of them are of opinion that, as it
supports the winter of Paris and even of Belgium and England,

CYPRESS. 161

it might be profitably planted in many vacant marshes and
watery ground. The warmest praise is due to the intentions
with which this plan is recommended, but I cannot fully adopt
the sanguine hopes that are entertained of its result: probably
it will always be more advantageous to occupy these spots with
the Ashes, the Willows, the Alders, the Poplars, and the Maples,
which are incomparably more rapid in their growth, which
sprout afresh when felled, and whose wood is as useful in Europe,
where the houses are built of stone and covered with tiles or
slate. I am convinced the Cypress can never be profitably
cultivated above the 44th degree of latitude; it requires heat as
well as humidity, and the moderate temperature of our scanty
summers is insufficient to ripen the seeds of the Bald Cypresses
which were planted about Paris more than forty years since, and
which bloom every year. To the same cause must be attributed
the slowness of their growth; the greater part of them are not
more than twenty or twenty-five feet in height. The largest
stocks in France are on the ancient estates of Duhamel, about
sixty miles from Paris. Planted more than forty years ago, in
a congenial situation, they have reached the height of forty feet,
with a diameter of eleven or twelve inches; but the seeds are
rarely matured. An agriculturist of excellent practical views,
whose property lies partly in the plains of Bordeaux, where he
has formed an establishment for the naturalization of exotic
trees, has attempted the cultivation of the Cypress with the
most satisfactory success.

It would be unavailing to recommend the preservation and
multiplication of the Cypress in the maritime districts of the
Carolinas and Georgia; though for an extent of more than 900
miles they have neither stone nor slate for building, it becomes
daily more profitable for the increasing population to convert the
marshes into rice-grounds, which afford a sure subsistence to the
inhabitants and swell the mass of exported produce. Instead of
wood, the houses will be constructed of bricks, which is already

Vol. III.— 11

162 WHITE CEDAR.

beginning to be done, and covered with slate imported from the
Northern States or from Europe. It is highly probable that in
less than two centuries the Cypress will disappear from the
Southern States.

PLATE CXLI.

A branch with leaves of the natural size. Fig. 1. A cone. Fig. 2. A seed.
Fig. 3. A kernel. Fig. 4. The half of a seed. Fig. 5. A conical excres-
cence from the roots.

[Soil, P)*opagation, &c. A rich, moist soil is required to pro-
duce the deciduous Cypress of any great size, and it will not
thrive in high situations. The species is increased by seeds
which come up the first year. The tree may also be propagated
by cuttings, put, in autumn, into sand or heath-soil, in the shade,
and kept moist. Cuttings of the winter wood, or of the sum-
mer shoots with the leaves on, will root in a vessel of water in
a very few weeks; and if an inch of soil be placed at the bottom
of the vessel, the fibres will root in it, and the plants may be
used as if they had been struck in the usual manner. Layers
put down in moist soil root the first year.]

WHITE CEDAR.

Cupressus thyoides. C. foliis squamidatim imbricatis ; ramidis com-
pressis ; strobilis minutis, globulosis.

Among the resinous trees of the United States, the White
Cedar is one of the most interesting for the varied utility of its
wood. North of the ,river Connecticut, it is rare and little
employed in the arts; in the Southern States, I have not seen

WLile Cedar.

( f/y>/-(\i\ru,r f/u/o/t/e,,-

WHITE CEDAR. 163

it beyond the river Santee, but I have been assured that it is
found, though not abundantly, near Augusta on the Savannah :
it is multiplied only within these limits, and to the distance of
fifty miles from the shore of the ocean.

In New York, and in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, it is
known by the name of White Cedar, and in Maryland, Virginia,
and North Carolina, by that of Juniper. I have adopted the
first denomination, which is not unknown where the second is
habitually used, because the tree belongs to a different genus
from the Junipers. At Boston, and in Vermont, New Hampshire,
and the more northern parts of America, the Arbor- Vitse is
called White Cedar; but I have thought proper to retain the
name for the species we are considering.

The White Cedar grows only in wet grounds. In the mari-
time districts of New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, it nearly
fills the extensive marshes which lie adjacent to the salt-mea-
dows and are exposed in high tides to be overflowed by the sea.
In New Jersey it covers almost alone the whole surface of the
swamps, of which the Tupelo and Red Maple occupy the skirts.
Farther south, it is mingled with the Cypress, by which it is at
length entirely supplanted. In Lower Jersey and Maryland,
the swamps are accessible only during the dryest part of the
summer and when they are frozen in winter. The trees stand
so thick in them that the light can hardly penetrate the foliage,
and in their gloomy shade spring at every step tufts of the
Dwarf Rose Bay, Honeysuckle, and Andromeda, whose luxuriant
vegetation proves that they delight in dark and humid expo-
sures.

The White Cedar is seventy or eighty feet high, and rarely
more than three feet in diameter, unless, perhaps, in the great
swamps which have not been thoroughly explored, such as the
Dismal Swamp near Norfolk in Virginia, which is covered with
this species and the Cypress. When the White Cedars are
close and compressed, the trunk is straight, perpendicular, and

164 WHITE CEDAR.

destitute of branches to the height of fifty or sixty feet : they
are observed to choose the centre of the swamps, and the
Cypresses the circumference.

The epidermis is very thin on the young stocks ; but as they
grow older it becomes thick, of a soft filaceous texture, of a
reddish color, and similar to that of an old vine. When cut, a
yellow transparent resin of an agreeable odor exudes, of which
a few drops could hardly be collected in a summer from a tree
of three feet in circumference.

The foliage is evergreen; each leaf is a little branch nume-
rously subdivided, and composed of small, acute, imbricated
scales, on the back of which a minute gland is discerned with
the lens. In the angle of these ramifications grow the flowers,
which are scarcely visible, and which produce very small, rugged
cones of a greenish tint, which changes to bluish toward the
fall, when they open to release the fine seeds.

The concentric circles are always perfectly distinct, even in
stocks of considerable size ; but their number and compactness
prove that the tree arrives at its full growth only after a long-
lapse of years. I have counted two hundred and seventy-seven
annual layers in a trunk twenty-one inches in diameter at
five feet from the ground, and fortj-seven in a plant only eight
in2hes thick at the surface, which proved it to be already fifty
years old. I was told that the swamp in which it grew had
been burnt at least half a century before, and had been repeopled
from a few stocks that escaped the conflagration, or perhaps by
the seeds of the preceding year.

The wood is light, soft, fine-grained, and easily wrought.
When perfectly seasoned, and exposed for some time to the
light, it is of a rosy hue. It has a strong aromatic odor, which
it preserves as long as it is guarded from humidity. The perfect
wood resists the succession of dryness and moisture longer than
that of any other species, and for this quality principally, as well
as its extreme lightness, it is preferred at Baltimore and Phila-

WHITE CEDAR. 165

delphia for shingles, which are cut transversely to the concentric
circles, and not parallel like those of the Cypress. They are
from twenty-four to twenty-seven inches long, from four to six
inches broad, and three lines thick at the larger end: in the
advertisements of Baltimore they are called Juniper shingles.
At Philadelphia and Baltimore they are generally preferred to
those of Cypress, as they are larger, and are free from the defects
of splitting when nailed upon the rafters. The houses in those
cities, as well as in New York and the smaller circumjacent
towns, are covered with them : they usually last thirty or thirty-
five years. The domestic consumption is great, and the exporta-
tion to the West Indies is estimated at several millions.

The White Cedar has long since ceased to be employed for
the frames of houses; stocks of sufficient dimensions are rare,
and are more profitably reserved for shingles and for other works
of joinery, for which this species is superior to the White Pine,
being still more durable and more secure from worms. It con-
tinues to be used in building only near the great swamps in
which it abounds, as about Great Egg Harbor and Indian River
in New Jersey, and near the Dismal Swamp in Virginia.

The superior fitness of this wood for various household uten-
sils has given rise, in Philadelphia, to a distinct class of mecha-
nics, called cedar-coopers; and a great number of workmen are
employed for the domestic and foreign market. They fabricate
principally pails, washtubs, and churns of different forms. This
ware is cheap, light, and neatly made ; and instead of becoming-
dull, like that of other wood, it grows whiter and smoother by
use. The hoops are made of young Cedars stripped of the bark
and split into two parts. The saplings are appropriated
exclusively to this object, and vary in price according to their
length : the largest are two inches thick at the base and eleven
or twelve feet long.

At the mouth of the river Cape Fear, the pilots and fishermen
cover the sides of their boats with clapboards of White Cedar,

166 W H I T E C E D A R.

which they prefer to those of Cypress, as being lighter, more
durable, and less liable to split.

I have been assured that this wood, selected with care, makes
excellent sound-boards for forte-pianos. The merchants of Phi-
ladelphia find it the best for preserving oils. Charcoal highly
esteemed in the manufacture of gunpowder is made of young
stocks about an inch and a half in diameter, deprived of their
bark; and the seasoned wood affords beautiful lampblack,
lighter, and more intensely colored, though less abundant, than
that obtained from the Pine.

In New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia, the farmers on the
borders of the Cedar swamps employ this tree for field-fences;
the rails, formed of young stocks entire or split in the middle,
last from fifty to sixty years when deprived of the bark.

Swamps which produce the White Cedar are a valuable spe-
cies of property, and might be rendered more profitable by more
judicious management.

PLATE CLII.

•A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A seed.

[This graceful and beautiful tree connects the Arbor- Vitas with
the Cypresses, having the characters of both : — the scale-like,
imbricate leaves, and fan-shaped branches of the former, and the
lofty port and globular or many-sided fruit of the latter. It
should be extensively cultivated, and is attended with less
expense and trouble than any other forest tree, and it conflicts
with no other. Sow the seeds abundantly on cold, swampy
lands, in the fall of the year, upon the surface of the ground or
water, and in six to eighteen months they will vegetate. In a
few years thinnings might be made, which, for enclosure alone,
would pay a high rate of interest upon the value of the land
and of the labor bestowed. — Emerson.]

PlM

J!«.™ <M

AmcricnuLareii .

AMERICAN LARCH.

Larix Americana. L. folds brevioribus, deciduis ; slrobilis partis,
ovoideo-subglobosis ; squamis paucioribus.

In" the North of the United States this tree is commonly
designated by the name of Hackmatack; but I have preferred
that of American Larch, which is not unknown where the other
is habitually used. The French Canadians call it Epinette
rouge.

The European and American Larches are more strictly con-
fined than any other resinous trees of the northern zone of the
two continents, and they are the first to disajmear in approach-
ing a milder sky. The American species is most abundant in
Vermont, New Hampshire, and the district of Maine; but, though
the soil is well adapted to its growth and the winter is long and
severe, it does not form the hundredth part of the resinous
growth, which consists principally of the Black Spruce, the
Hemlock Spruce, and the Red Cedar. According to my father's
observations in his journey to Hudson's Bay, it is only beyond
the St. Lawrence, particularly near Lake St. John, and the Great
and the Little Lake Mistassin, that it begins to abound and to
form masses of woods, some of which are several miles in extent.
I have been informed that it is profusely multiplied in New-
foundland, in nearly the same latitude. New Jersey, Pennsyl-
vania, and the coldest and gloomiest exposures in the mountain-
ous tracts of Virginia, are the limit of its appearance toward the
south : but it is rare in these States, and in Lower Jersey, in
the vicinity of New York, it is seen only in the swamps of
White Cedar, with which it is scantily mingled. The numerous

descendants of the Dutch in New Jersey call it Tamarack.

167

168 AMERICAN LARCH.

I have remarked that in Vermont, and the district of Maine,
the Larch grows only in low and moist places, and never on
uplands, as about Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland; hence we
may conclude that the climate of the northern extremity of the
United States is too mild for its constitution.

The American Larch, like that of Europe, is a magnificent
vegetable, with a straight, slender trunk eighty or one hundred
feet in height and two or three feet in diameter. Its numerous
branches, except near the summit, are horizontal or declining.
The bark is smooth and polished on the trunk and longer limbs,
and rugged on the smaller branches. The leaves are flexible,
shorter than those of the European species, and collected in
bunches; they are shed in the fall and renewed in the spring.
The flowers, like those of the Pines, are separate upon the same
tree; the male aments, which appear before the leaves, are
small, oblong, and scaly, with two yellow anthers under each
scale; the female flowers are also disposed in aments, and are
composed of floral leaves covering two ovaries, which in process
of time become small, erect, scaly cones three or four lines long.
At the base of each scale lie two minute winged seeds. On
some stocks the cones are violet-colored in the spring instead of
green; but this is an accidental variation, for the trees are in
no other respects peculiar.

The wood of the American Larch is superior to any species
of Pine or Spruce, and unites all the properties which distin-
guish the European species, being exceedingly strong and singu-
larly durable. In Canada it is considered as among the most
valuable timber, and has no fault except its weight. In the
district of Maine it is more esteemed than any other resinous
wood for the knees of vessels, and is always used for this pur-
pose when proper pieces can be procured. Turpentine is never
extracted from it in America, as is done from our native species
in Europe.

The Larch is justly appreciated in the United States; but it is

AMERICAN LARCH. 169

little employed, because it is rare and may be replaced by seve-
ral resinous trees which are cheaper and more abundant.

Sir A. B. Lambert, in his splendid work upon the Pines,
describes two species of American Larch, the first of which is
evidently the tree we have been considering; the second he
denominates Larix microcarpa, and characterizes it by smaller
fruit and drooping branches. My father doubtless considered it
as a variety.

The cones of the European Larch are twice as large as those
of the American species; but the two trees are so analogous
that a separate description is unnecessary.

PLATE CLIIL

A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1. A seed.

[As an ornamental tree, the European Larch takes prece-
dence of the American; the latter grows generally with a
crooked top, and its leaves are shorter than the European,
which is fit for every useful purpose in forty years' growth.

The soils suitable for Larch, according to Matthew, are sound
rock, with a covering of loam ; gravel not ferruginous, in which
water does not stagnate, even though nearly bare of vegetable
mould ; firm, dry clays, and sound, brown loam ; all very rough
ground, particularly ravines. The most desirable situation is
where the roots will neither be drowned by stagnant water in
winter nor parched by drought in summer. See Loudon's " Ar-
boretum," pp. 2353-2399.]

ill.— n*

CEDAR OF LEBANON.

Lasix cedrits. L. foliis fasciculatis, jperennantibus ; strobilis oralis, ob-
tusis, erectis; squamis adpressis, rotundatis.

The Cedar of Lebanon is the largest and most majestic
among the resinous trees of the Old World, and one of the
finest vegetable productions of the globe. Till Pallas dis-
covered it in the North of Russia, in 1770, it was believed to
be peculiar to the mountains of Lebanon, in Asia Minor.

Modern travellers, and, among others, Mr. Labillardiere, who
visited that part of the East in 1788, inform us that the large
forests seen by Belon, in 1550, upon Mount Aman, have dis-
appeared, and that a few of these trees only are found upon the
highest ridge, where they grow immediately below the snow
which caps the summit during a great part of the year. He
computes their number at about one hundred, of which he ob-
served seven of extraordinary size, and measured one that was
thirty feet in circumference, with the primary limbs nine or ten
inches in diameter. Standing alone, and enjoying the free
access of the light and air, they were less remarkable for
stature than for expansion. In massive forests they probably
attain a height proportioned to their diameter; but this tree
has always been remarked for the length of its limbs, as is
proved by the allusion of the Hebrew poet: — aThey shall
spread out their branches like the Cedar."

The ancients ascribed to the wood of the Cedar a duration of
many ages. The sacred historians inform us that it was chosen
for the building of Solomon's Temple ; it was also employed in
that of Apollo at Utica.

Other proofs might be adduced in evidence of the opinion

entertained by the Greeks and Hebrews of the durability of
170

Cedar of Lebanon
Lan.r cednu .

CEDAR OF LEBANON. 171

this wood, which they brought at a great expense from Mount
Lebanon; but Professor Martyn justly observes that there is
great obscurity in the passages of the ancient authors, as dif-
ferent species, and even different genera, were confounded
under the name of Cedar. Their accounts of the Cedar of
Lebanon are, in some respects, inapplicable to the tree we are
considering, which is an inferior kind of deal,. soft, inodorous,
and of short duration.

If these remarks detract from the interest which we attach
to the Cedar of Lebanon, the majestic and beautiful form of
this species renders it highly deserving of our notice.

The few remaining stocks upon Mount Lebanon are preserved
with religious veneration by the Christians of that country.
According to the missionaries in the East, the Patriarch of the
Maronite Christians inhabiting Mount Lebanon, attended by a
number of bishops, priests, and monks, and followed by five or
six thousand devotees, annually celebrate in their shade the
festival of the Transfiguration, which is called the Feast of
Cedars; and ecclesiastical censures are denounced against those
who shall injure these consecrated trees.

About the year 1680, the first stocks were brought to Europe
and planted in the medical garden of Chelsea, near London ;
one hundred years after, two of them were upward of twelve
and a half feet in circumference at two feet from the ground,
and diffused their limbs more than twenty feet in every direc-
tion. They have yielded seed abundantly for more than half a
century, and have given birth to the fine stocks that adorn
the parks and gardens of the continent of Europe.

The beauty of the Cedar of Lebanon is due to the arrange-
ment of its branches, which are verticillate with a slight incli-
nation toward the earth, and to its thick, dark-green foliage,
which casts a dense and impervious shade.

It flowers in the month of October: the cones are about three
inches long and two broad, and do not arrive at complete ma-

172 CEDAR OF LEBANON.

turity before the second year. They are grayish, and very hard,
in consequence of the compactness of the scales. To obtain the
seeds, of which three-fourths are usually barren, the cone is
pierced with a gimlet at the base, left to soak two days in water,
and, after it is dry, opened by means of a small wooden wedge
driven into the hole.

This tree is in great request for the fineness of its form : it is
not difficult in the choice of soils, and develops itself luxuriantly
on gravelly lands.

The young stock should be transplanted when the circulation
begins to be renewed, which is indicated by the swelling of the
buds; as much earth as possible should be left adhering to the
roots, and they should be replaced in the ground without delay.
When permanently fixed, its branches should never be lopped,
and the main stem, which constantly inclines toward the north,
should be carefully preserved.

PLATE CLIV.

A branch with a cone of the natural size.

[It would be no difficult task to fill several pages with
eulogies on this tree, which from some cause was almost en-
tirely neglected by our American ancestors, but one or two
specimens of much size having come under my observation in
the United States. Every person who plants should procure
one specimen at least, even though he may not survive to see
its perfect majesty and beauty. In England it is common, and
appears nowhere without impressing the beholder with favor-
able ideas of the planter's taste. It is perfectly adapted to our
climate, and young trees are to be readily procured in every
extensive nursery. This, the Deodara, and the Araucaria
imbricata, at the South, are essential to all grounds of even
moderate extent.

PliSS.

Wo A Cedar

Jt

/(/i fix vv/, i' i>//-f/{/i((r,ia .

RED CEDAR. 173

M. Laure, an officer of the French marine, who, with the
Prince de Joinville, visited Mount Lebanon in 1836, says that
all but one of the sixteen old Cedars mentioned by Belon in
1550, and by Maundrell in 1696, were still alive, although in a
decaying state, and that one of the healthiest but perhaps the
smallest trunks measured thirty-six English feet in circum-
ference.]

RED CEDAR.

Juniperus Virginiana. J. foliis ternis, basi adnatis, junioribus imbri-
catis, senioribus paiulis.

The Red Cedar, which belongs to the Junipers, is the most
common species of its genus in the United States, and the only
one which attains such dimensions as to be useful in the arts.
Next to that which grows in Bermuda, it is the largest hitherto
discovered. According to my father's observations on the topo-
graphy of American plants, Cedar Island, in Lake Champlain,
nearly opposite to Burlington, in latitude 44° 25', may be as-
sumed as one of the remotest points at which it is found toward
the north. Eastward, on the border of the sea, I have not seen
it beyond Wiscasset, a small town of the district of Maine, at
the mouth of the Kennebeck, and in nearly the same latitude
with Burlington. From Wiscasset it spreads without interup-
tion to the Cape of Florida, and thence round the Gulf of
Mexico to a distance beyond St. Bernard's Bay, — an extent of
more than three thousand miles. In retiring from the shore, it
becomes gradually less common and less vigorous, and in Vir-
ginia and the more southern States it is rare at the point where
the tide ceases to flow in the rivers; farther inland it is seen only

174 RED CEDAR.

in the form of a shrub in open, dry, sandy places. In the Western
States it is confined to spots where the calcareous rock shows
itself naked, or is so thinly covered with mould as to forbid
the vegetation of other trees.

Though the Red Cedar grows naturally in the district of
Maine, and on some of the islands of Lake Champlain, it is
repressed by a winter as intense as that of the North of Ger-
many, and develops itself less vigorously than in Virginia, and
farther south, where the soil and climate are favorable to its
expansion and to the perfection of its wood. Upon the downs
it is usually buried in the sand cast up by the waves, except
the summit of the branches, which appear like young trees
above the surface. When unencumbered with sand, as in the
middle of the islands and on the borders of the narrow sounds
that flow between them and the main, it is forty or forty-five
feet in height and twelve or thirteen inches in diameter; but it
would be difficult at present to find stocks of this size north-
eastward of the river St. Mary within the ancient limits of the
United States.

The foliage is evergreen, numerously subdivided, and com-
posed of small sharp scales encased in one another. It diffuses
a resinous, aromatic odor when bruised : dried and reduced to
powder, it has the same effect as the common juniper, of increas-
ing the efficacy of blister-plasters. The male and female flowers
are small, not conspicuous, and borne separately on the same or
on different stocks. The seeds are small, ovate berries, bluish
when ripe, and covered with a white exudation. They arrive
at maturity about the beginning of fall, and if sown immediately
the greater part of them shoot the following spring, but not
before the second year if they are kept several months. The
quantity of gin made from them in the United States is small
compared with what is imported from Holland.

The name of Red Cedar is descriptive only of the jDerfect
wood, which is of a bright tint : the sap is perfectly white.

RED CEDAR. 175

The most striking peculiarity in the vegetation of the Red
Cedar is that its branches, which are numerous and close,
spring near the earth and spread horizontally, and that the
lower limbs are during many years as long as the body of
the tree. The trunk decreases so rapidly that the largest
stocks rarely afford timber for ship-building of more than eleven
feet in length. Its diameter is very much diminished by deep,
oblong crevices in every part of the trunk, which are occa-
sioned by the large branches persisting after they are dead.
My own observations and experiments lead me to believe that
the growth of the tree might be thickened, and this deformity
prevented, by cutting the limbs even with the trunk for two-
thirds of its height.

The wood is odorous, compact, fine-grained, and very light,
though heavier and stronger than that of the White Cedar and
Cypress. To these qualities it unites the still more precious
character of durability, and is consequently highly esteemed
for such objects as require it in an eminent degree. But as
it is procured with difficulty, and is every day becoming scarcer,
it is reserved exclusively for the most important uses. The
reproduction is too trifling to be mentioned in comparison with
the consumption in the ports of the United States at large, and
particularly at New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In
the upper part of the frame of vessels it is joined with the
Live Oak to compensate its excessive weight; and this usage,
more than any other, has wasted the species. Recourse is now
had to the coast of East Florida between the St. Mary and the
St. John, which will soon be exhausted in its turn. The nearer
the Red Cedar grows to the sea, and the farther southward, the
better is its wood. Next to ship-building, it is most commonly
used for posts, which are highly esteemed and are reserved for
enclosing court-yards and gardens in the cities and their vici-
nity. The barriers of the side-walks in the streets of Phila-
delphia are made of this wood ; they are ten or eleven feet long

176 RED CEDAK.

and eight inches in diameter, and are sold at eighty cents each,
while those of White Cedar cost only sixteen or seventeen cents.
It is eminently fitted for subterranean water-pipes, but is rarely
employed, from the difficulty of obtaining stocks of sufficient
diameter. Small, round, or oval tubs, very neatly wrought
and hooped with brass, are made with staves consisting partly
of the sap and partly of the heart. I have observed that the
tanners at Philadelphia make the large stopcocks of this wood.
In the Southern States it is commonly chosen for coffins.

In some parts of Lower Virginia, particularly in the county
of York, the Cedars are trimmed and the branches interlaced
with stakes driven into the earth at small distances, for the en-
closure of cultivated fields ; but this is a poor resource, the only
advantage of which is the economy of wood.

The Red Cedar is exported to England, but I am unable to
say for what purpose; probably it is not solely for the manu-
facture of pencils, though it seems as well adapted to that ob-
ject as the Juniper of Bermuda.

The Red Cedar has been naturalized more than fifty years
in the pleasure-grounds of France and England: its growth
would be rapid on the borders of the sea in our southern de-
partments, where its propagation cannot be too warmly recom-
mended.

PLATE CLV.

A branch with leaves and berries of the natural size.

ttiSb'.

J. Redpute del.

Arbor x\\& or ^Inte cedar
7/iin/(t occtdenfa/is.

L'lll'Hi'/ o,-il!i>

AMERICAN ARBOR-VITJE,

WHITE CEDAR.

Thuya Occidentals. T. ramulis ancipitibus, foliis quadrifarium imbri-
catis, ovato-rhombeis, adpressis, nudis, tuberculatis ; strobilis ovaiis;
squamis oblong e-ovallbus ; seminibus alatis.

This species of Thuya — the only one that has been discovered
in the New World — is the most interesting of the genus for the
properties of its wood. My father mentions the shores of Lake
St. John, in Canada, as its northern limit, beyond which he
saw no trace of it in travelling in that direction more than
three hundred miles. It abounds in favorable situations be-
tween the parallels of 48° 50' and 45° ; farther south it becomes
rare, and solitary stocks only are seen on the sides of torrents
and on the banks of certain rivers, as on the Hudson amid the
highlands, and near the rapids of the Potomac, in Virginia.
Goat Island, round which the Niagara divides itself to form
the stupendous cataract which is one of the most wonderful
spectacles of nature, is seen from the banks of the river to be
bordered with the Arbor- Vitae.

In Canada and the northern part of the United States, this
tree is called White Cedar; but in the district of Maine it is
frequently designated by the name of Arbor- Vitae, which I have
preferred, though less common, because the other is appropriated
to the Cupressus thyoides.

The Arbor- Vitse is forty-five or fifty feet in height and some-
times more than ten feet in circumference ; usually, however, it
is not more than ten or fifteen inches in diameter at five feet
from the ground. From the number and the distinctness of the

Vol. III.— 12 177

178 AMERICAN ARBOE-VITiE.

concentric circles in stocks of this size, its growth must be
extremely slow: I have counted one hundred and seventeen
in a log thirteen inches and five lines in diameter. They are
more compressed near the centre, as in the Cypress and White
Cedar, which is contrary to the arrangement observed in the
Oaks, the Beeches, and the Maples.

The foliage is evergreen, numerously ramified, and flattened
or spread. The leaves are small, opposite, imbricated scales;
when bruised, they difluse a strong aromatic odor. The sexes
are separate upon the same tree. The male flowers are in the
form of small cones; to the female blossom succeeds a yellowish
fruit about four lines in length, composed of oblong scales, which
open through their whole length for the escape of several
minute seeds surmounted by a short wing.

In Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Vermont, and the district
of Maine, the Arbor- Vitse is the most multiplied of the resinous
trees, after the Black and the Hemlock Spruces. A cool soil
seems to be indispensable to its growth. It is never seen on
the uplands among the Beeches, the Birches, &c, but is found
on the rocky edges of the innumerable rivulets and small lakes
which are scattered over these countries, and occupies in great
part, or exclusively, swamps from fifty to one hundred acres in
extent, some of which are accessible only in the winter, when
they are frozen and covered with several feet of snow. It
abounds exactly in proportion to the degree of humidity, and
in the dryest marshes it is mingled with the Black Spruce,
the Hemlock Spruce, the Yellow Birch, the Black Ash, and
a few stocks of the White Pine. In all of them, the surface is
covered with a bed of sphagnum so thick and surcharged with
moisture that the foot sinks half-leg deep while the water rises
under its pressure.

The full-grown Arbor- Vitae is easily distinguished by its
shape and foliage. The trunk tapers rapidly from a very
Targe base to a very slender summit, and is laden with branches

AMERICAN ARBOR-VITiE. 179

for four-fifths of its height. The principal limbs, widely dis-
tant and placed at right angles with the body, give birth to a
great number of drooping secondary branches, whose foliage
resembles that of the White Cedar.

On the borders of the lakes, where it has room and enjoys
the benefit of the light and air, it rises perpendicularly, grows
more rapidly and attains a greater size than when crowded in
the swamps, where its thick foliage intercepts the light and
impedes the circulation of the air. I have besides remarked
that in the swamps its trunk is rarely straight, but forms the
arch of an ellipse more or less inclined. Its sides swell into
two or three large ridges, which are a continuation of the prin-
cipal roots.

The bark upon the body is slightly furrowed, smooth to the
touch, and very white when the tree stands exposed. The
wood is reddish, somewhat odorous, very light, soft, and fine-
grained: in the northern part of the United States, and in
Canada, it holds the first place for durability. From the shape
of the trunk, it is difficult to procure sticks of considerable
length and a uniform diameter; hence, in the district of Maine
it is little employed for the frame of houses, though in other
respects proper for this object; and still less for the covering.
It is softer than the White Pine, and gives a weaker hold to
nails, for which reason the Canadians always join it with some
more solid wood. The following extract from my father's
journal confirms what I have said of its durability: — "In my
journey to Hudson's Bay, in 1792, I arrived in August in the
vicinity of Lake Chicoutome, in latitude 48°. I found the
mansion-house of the church established by the Jesuits for the
instruction of the natives yet standing. This building, con-
structed in 1728, as was proved by an inscription over the door,
with square beams of the Arbor- Vitae laid upon one another
without covering on either side, remained perfectly sound after
more than sixty years."

180 AMERICAN ARBOR-VIT^.

The most common use of this tree is for rural fences, for
which it is highly esteemed. The posts last thirty-five or forty
years, and the rails sixty, or three or four times as long as
those of any other species. The posts subsist twice as long
in argillaceous as in sandy lands. While the use of such
fences continues, the utmost economy should be practised in
cutting the Arbor- Vitse, according to the rules prescribed for
resinous trees. In Canada it is selected for the light frame
of bark canoes. Its branches, garnished with leaves, are formed
into brooms, which exhale an agreeable aromatic odor. Kalm
affirms that the leaves, pounded and moulded with hog's lard,
form an excellent ointment for the rheumatism.

The Arbor- Vitse was introduced into France more than two
hundred years since ; the superior beauty of its form and foliage
entitle it to preference over the Chinese Thuya as an orna-
ment of pleasure-grounds, and the quality of its wood is a suffi-
cient motive for propagating it in unimproved marshes in the
North of Europe ; but the White Cedar, which is taller and of a
more uniform diameter, more rapid in its growth, and of equal
durability, would be a still more valuable acquisition.

PLATE CLYI.

A branch with leaves and cones of the natural size. Fig. 1. Seeds.

[Soil, Propagation, &c. This tree grows best in a cool, moist
soil, but succeeds in any ground not too dry. As a hedge or
screen, it has few compeers. At the residence of my friend,
A. J. Downing, Esq., near Newburg, a screen of Arbor- Vita?,
in his grounds, was remarkable for its beauty and perfection.

As it ripens abundance of seeds, it is readily propagated ; or
it may be procured at a very small price from the State of
Maine.]

[See Nuttall's Supplement, vol. ii. p. 163.]

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