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Henry h. Gibson

WHITE PIXE

B a

American
Forest Trees

BY

HENRY H. GIBSON

Edited by

HU MAXWELL

Hardwood Record

CHICAGO
1913

a u

COPTRIGHT 1013 BY

HARDWOOD RECORD
Chicago, Ilx.

The Reg.vn Printing Hocse
Chicago.

PREFACE

THE material on which this volume is based, appeared in
Hardwood Record, Chicago, in a series of articles beginning in
1905 and ending in 1913, and descriptive of the forest trees of this
country. More than one hundred leading species were included in the
series. They constitute the principal sources of lumber for the United
States. The present volume includes all the species described in the
series of articles, with a large number of less important trees added.
Every region of the country is represented ; no valuable tree is omitted,
and the lists and descriptions are as complete as they can be made in
the limited space of a single volume. The purpose held steadily in
view has been to make the work practical, simple, plain, and to the
point. Trees as they grow in the forest, and wood as it appears at
the mill and factory, are described and discussed. Photographs and
drawings of trunk and foliage are made to tell as much of the
story as possible. The pictures used as illustrations are nearly
all from photographs made specially for that purpose. They are a
valuable contribution to tree knowledge, because they show forest
forms and conditions, and are as true to nature as the camera can make
them. Statistics are not given a place in these pages, for it is no part
of the plan to show the product and the output of the country's mills
and forests, but rather to describe the source of those products, the
trees themselves. However, suggestions for utilization are offered, and
the fitness of the various woods for many uses is particularly indicated.
The prominent physical properties are described in language as free as
possible from technical terms, and yet with painstaking accuracy and
clearness. Descriptions intended to aid in identification of trees are
given; but simplicity and clearness are held constantly in view, and
brevity is carefully studied. The different names of commercial trees
in the various localities where they are known, either as standing timber
or as lumber in the yard and factory, are included in the descriptions as
an assistance in identification. The natural range of the forest trees,
and the regions where they abound in commercial quantities, are outlined
according to the latest and best authorities. Estimates of present and
future supply are offered, where such exist that seem to be authoritative.
The trees are given the common and the botanical names recognized
as official by the United States Forest Service. This lessens misunder-
standing and confusion in the discussion of species whose common
names are not the same in different regions, and whose botanical names

3

4 American Forest Trees

are not agreed upon among scientific men who mention or describe them.
The forests of the United States contain more than five hundred
kinds of trees, ranging in size from the California sequoias, which
attain diameters of twenty feet or more and heights exceeding two
hundred, down to indefinite but very small dimensions. The separating
line between trees and shrubs is not determined by size alone. In a
general way, shrubs may be considered smaller than trees, but a seedling
tree, no matter how small, is not properly called a shrub. It is custom-
ary, not only among botanists, but also among persons who do not
usually recognize exact scientific terms and distinctions, to apply the
name tree to all woody plants which produce naturally in their native
habitat one main, erect stem, bearing a definite crown, no matter what
size they may attain.

The commercial timbers of this country are divided into two classes,
hardwoods and softwoods. The division is for convenience, and is
sanctioned by custom, but it is not based on the actual hardness and
softness of the different woods. The division has, however, a scientific
basis founded on the mechanical structures of the two classes of woods,
and there is little disagreement among either those who use forest
products or manufacture them, or those w-ho investigate the actual
structure of the woods themselves, as to which belong in the hardwood
and which in the softwood class.

Softwoods — The needleleaf species, represented by pines, hem-
locks, firs, cedars, cypresses, spruces, larches, sequoias, and yews, are
softwoods. The classification of evergreens as softwoods is erroneous,
because all softwoods are not evergreen, and all evergreens are not
softwoods. Larches and the southern cypress shed their leaves yearly.
Most other softwoods drop only a portion of their foliage each season,
and enough is always on the branches to make them evergreen. Soft-
woods are commonly called conebearers, and that description fits most
of them, but the cedars and yews produce fruit resembling berries rather
than cones. Though the needleleaf species are classed as softwoods,
there is much variation in the absolute hardness of the wood produced
by different species. The white pines are soft, the yews hard, and the
other species range between. If there were no other means of separating
trees into classes than tests of actual hardness of wood, the line dividing
hardwoods from softwoods might be quite different from that now so
universally recognized in this country.

Hardwoods — The broadleaf trees are hardwoods. Most, but not all,
shed their foliage yearly. It is, therefore, incorrect to classify deciduous
trees as hardwoods, since it is not true in all cases, any more than it is
true that softwoods are evergreen. Live oaks and American holly are

American Forest Trees 5

evergreen, and yet are true hardwoods. In a test of hardness they
stand near the top of the list.

There are more species of hardwoods than of softwoods in this
country ; but the actual quantity of softwood timber in the forests greatly
exceeds the hardwoods. Nearly two hundred species of the latter are
seldom or never seen in a sawmill, while softwoods are generally cut and
used wherever found in accessible situations.

As in the case of needleleaf trees, there is much variation in actual
hardness of the wood of different broadleaf species. Some which are
classed as hardwoods are softer than some in the softwood list. It is
apparent, therefore, that the terms hardwood and softwood are com-
mercial rather than scientific.

Palm, cactus, and other trees of that class are not often employed
as lumber, and it is not customary to speak of them as either hardwoods
or softwoods.

Sapwood and Hearhvood — Practically all mature trees contain
two qualities of wood known as sap and heart. The inner portion is
the heartwood, the outer the sap. They are usually distinguished by
differences of color.

The terms are much used in lumber transactions and are well
understood by the trade. The two kinds of wood need be described
only in the most general way, and for the guidance and information of
those who are not familiar with them. Differences are many and
radical in the relative size and appearance of the two kinds of wood in
different species, and even between different trees of the same species.
No general law is followed, except that the heartwood forms in the
interior of the tree, and the sapwood in a band outside, next to the bark.
In the majority of cases young trees have little heartwood, often none.
It is a development attendant on age, yet age does not always produce it.
Some mature trees have no heartwood, others very little.

The two kinds of wood belong to needleleaf and broadleaf trees
alike; but palms, owing to their manner of growth, have neither. Their
size increases in height rather than in diameter. With palms, the oldest
wood is in the base of the trunk, the newest in the top ; but in the ordinary
timber tree the oldest wood is in the center of the trunk, the youngest
in the outside layers next the bark. It is the oldest that becomes heart-
wood, and it is, of course, in the center of the tree. The band of sapwood
is of no certain thickness, but averages much thicker in some species
than in others. The sapwood of Osage orange is scarcely half an inch
thick, and in loblolly pine it may be six inches or more.

Heartwood is known by its color. The eve can detect no other
difference between it and the surrounding band of sapwood. There is

6 American Forest Trees

no fundamental difference. The heart was once sapwood, and the latter
will sometime become heartwood if the tree lives long enough. As the
trunk increases in size and years, the wood near the heart dies. It no
longer has much to do with the life of the tree, except that it helps
support the weight of the trunk. The heartwood is, therefore, dead-
wood. The activities of tree life are no longer present. The color
changes, because mineral and chemical substances are deposited in the
wood and fill many of the cavities. That process begins at the center
of the trunk and works outward year by year, forming a pretty distinct
line between the living sapwood and the dead and inert heartwood.

For some reason, the heartwood of certain species is prone to decay.
Sycamore is the best example. The largest trunks are generally hollow.
The heart has disappeared, leaving only the thin shell of sapwood, and
this is required not only to maintain the tree's life and activities, but to
support the trunk's weight. In most instances the substances deposited
in the heartwood, and associated with the coloring matter, tend to
preserve the wood from decay. For that reason heart timber lasts
longer than sap when exposed in damp situations. The dark and
variegated shades of the heartwood of some species give them their
chief value as cabinet and furniture material. The sapwood of black
walnut is not wanted by anybody, for it is light in color and is character-
less; but when the sap has changed to heart, and its tones have been
deepened by the accumulation of pigments, it becomes a choice material
for certain purposes. The same is true of many other timbers, notably
sweet and yellow birch, black cherry, and several of the oaks.

It sometimes happens that when sapwood is transformed into heart,
a physical change, as well as a coloring process, affects it. Persimmon
and dogwood are examples, and hickory in a less degree. The sapwood
of persimmon and dogwood makes shuttles and golf heads, but after the
change to heartwood occurs, it is considered unsuitable. Handle
makers and the manufacturers of buggy spokes prefer hickory sapwood,
but use the red heartwood if it is the same weight as the sap.

Annual Rings — The trunks of both hardwoods and softwoods are
made up of concentric rings. In most instances the eye easily detects
them. They are more distinct in a freshly cut trunk than in weathered
wood, though in a few instances weathering accentuates rather than
obliterates them. A count of the rings gives the tree's age in years, each
ring being the growth of one year. An occasional exception should be
noted, as when accident checks the tree's growth in the middle of the
season, and the growth is later resumed. In that case, it may develop
two rings in one year. A severe frost late in spring after leaves have
started may produce that result; or defoliation by caterpillars in early

American* Forest Trees 7

summer may do it. Perhaps not one tree in a thousand has that
experience in the course of its whole life. Trees in the tropics where
seasons are nearly the same the year through, seldom have rings.
Imitations of mahogany are sometimes detected by noting clearly
marked annual rings. It is difficult for the woodfinisher to obliterate
the annual rings, but some of the French woodworkers very nearly
accomplish it.

No law of growth governs the width of yearly rings, but circum-
stances have much to do with it. When the tree's increase in size is
rapid, rings are broad. An uncrowded tree in good soil and climate
grows much faster than if circumstances are adverse. Carolina poplar
and black willow sometimes have rings nearly three-fourths of an inch
broad, while in the white bark pine, which grows above the snow line
in California, the rings may be so narrow as to be invisible to the naked
eye.

There is no average width of yearly rings and no average age of
trees. A few (very few) of the sequoias, or "big trees" of California, are
two thousand years old. An age of six or seven centuries appears to be
about the limit of the oldest of the other species in this country, though
an authentic statement to that effect cannot be made. There are species
whose life average scarcely exceeds that of men. The aspen generally
falls before it is eighty; and fire cherry scarcely averages half of that.
Of all the trees cut for lumber, perhaps not one in a hundred has passed
the three century mark. That ratio would not hold if applied to the
Pacific coast alone.

Spring and Summer wood — These are not usual terms with
lumbermen and woodworkers, but belong more to the engineer who
thinks of physical properties of timber, particularly its strength. Yet,
sawmill and factory men are well acquainted with the two kinds of wood,
but they are likely to apply the term "grain" to the combination of the
two.

Spring and summerwood make the annual ring. Springwood
grows early in the season, summerwood later. In fact, it usually is the
contrast in color where the summerwood of one season abuts against the
springwood of the next which makes the ring visible. The inside of the
ring — that portion nearest the heart of the tree — is the springwood, the
rest of the ring is the summerwood. The former is generally lighter in
color. Sometimes, and with certain species, the springwood is much
broader than the other. The summerwood may be a very narrow
band, not much wider than a fine pencil mark, but its deeper color makes
it quite distinct in most instances. In other instances, as with some of
the oaks, the summerwood is the wider part of the annual ring. The

8 American Forest Trees

figure or "grain" of southern yellow pine is largely due to the contrast
between the dark summerwood and light springwood of the rings. The
same is true of ash, chestnut, and of many other woods.

Pores — Wood is not the solid substance it seems to be when seen
in the mass. If magnified it appears filled with cavities, not unlike a
piece of coral or honeycomb; but to the unaided eye only a few of the
largest openings are visible, and in some woods like maple, none can be
seen. The large openings are known as pores. They are so prominent
in some of the oaks that in a clean cut end or cross section they look like
pin holes. Very little magnifying is required to bring them out distinct-
ly. A good reading glass :.s sufficient.

Pores belong to hardwoods only. The resin ducts in some soft-
woods present a similar appearance, but are far less numerous. All
pores are, of course, situated in the annual rings, but in different species
they are differendy located as to spring and summerwood. In some
woods the largest pores are in the springwood only and therefore run in
rings. Such woods are called "ring porous," and the oaks are best
examples. In other species the pores are scattered through all parts of
the ring in about the same proportion, and such woods are called
"diffuse porous," as the birches. Softwoods have no pores proper, and
are classed "non-porous."

Medullary Rays — A smoothly-cut cross section of almost any oak,
but particularly white oak and red oak, exhibits to the unaided eye
narrow, light-colored lines radiating from the center of the tree toward
the bark like spokes of a wheel. They are about the breadth of a fine
pencil mark, and are generally a sixth of an inch or less apart. They
are among the most conspicuous and characteristic features of oak wood,
and are known as medullar}' or pith rays.

Oak is cited as an example because the rays are large and promi-
nent, but they are present in all wood, and constitute a large part of its
body. They vary greatly in size. In some woods a few are visible
unmagnified ; but even in oak a hundred are invisible to the naked eye
to one that can be seen. Some species show none until a glass is used.
Some pines have fifteen thousand to a square inch of cross section, all of
which are so small as to elude successfully the closest search of the
unaided eye.

The medullary rays influence the appearance of most wood.
They determine its character. Oak is quarter-sawed for the purpose of
bringing out the bright, flat surfaces of these rays. The prominent
flecks, streaks, and patches of silvery wood are the flat sides of medul-
lary rays. In cross section, only the line-like ends are seen, but
quarter-sawing exposes their sides to view.

American Forest Trees 9

That explains in part why some species are adapted to quarter-
sawing and others are not. If no broad rays exist in the wood, as with
white pine, red cedar, and Cottonwood, quarter-sawing cannot add much
to the wood's appearance.

Grain — The grain of wood is not a definite quality. The word
does not mean the same thing to all who use it. It sometimes refers
to rings of yearly growth, and in that sense a narrow-ringed wood is fine
grained, and one with wide rings is coarse grained. A curly, wavy,
smoky, or birdseye wood does not owe its quality to annual rings, yet
with some persons, all of these figures are called grain. The term some-
times refers to medullary rays, again to hardness, or to roughness.
Some mahogany is called "woolly grained" because the surface polishes
with difficulty. The pattern maker designates white pine as "even
grained", because it cuts easily in all directions. The handle maker
classes hickory as "smooth grained", because it polishes well and the sole
idea of the maker is smoothness to the touch. There are other grains
almost as numerous as the trades which use wood. In numerous
instances "figure" is a better term than "grain." Feather mahogany,
birdseye birch, burl ash, are figures rather than grains. There is no
authority to settle and decide what the real meaning of grain is in wood
technology. It has a number of meanings, and one man has as much
authority as another to interpret it in accordance with his own ideas,
and the usage in his trade. It is a loose term which covers several
things in general and nothing in particular.

Weight — The weight of wood is calculated from different stand-
points. It has a green weight, an air-dry weight, a kiln-dry weight, and
an oven-dry weight. All are different, but the differences are due to the
relative amounts of water weighed. Sawlogs generally go by green
weight; yard lumber by air-dry or partly air-dry weight; while the
wood used in ultimate manufacture, such as furniture, is supposed to
be kiln-dry.

The absolute weight of wood, with all air spaces, moisture, and
other foreign material removed, is about 100 pounds per cubic foot,
which is 1.6 times heavier than water; but that is not a natural form
of wood. It is known only in the laboratory.

The actual wood substance of one species weighs about the same
as another. Dispense with all air spaces, all water, and all other foreign
substance, and pine and ebony weigh alike. It is apparent that the
different weights of woods, as between cedar and oak for example, are
due chiefly to porosity. The smaller the aggregate space occupied by
pores and other cavities, the heavier the wood. That accounts for the
differences in weights of absolutely dry woods of different kinds, except

10 American Forest Trees

that a small amount of other foreign material may remain after water
has been driven off. Florida black ironwood is rated as the heaviest in
the United States, and it weighs 81.14 pounds per cubic foot, oven-dry.
The lightest in this country is the golden fig which is a native of Florida
also. It weighs 16.3 pounds per cubic foot, oven-dry. When weights
of wood are given, the specimen is understood to be oven-dry, unless it
is stated to be otherwise: it is a laboratory weight, calculated from
small cubes of the wood. Such weights are always a little less than that
of the dryest wood of the same kind that can be obtained in the lumber
market.

Moisture in Wood — The varying weights of the same wood indi-
cate that moisture plays an important part. No man ever saw
absolutely dry- wood. If heated sufficiently to drive off all the moisture,
the wood is reduced to charcoal and other products o." destructive
distillation.

The pores and other cavities in green timber are more or less filled
with water or sap. This may amount to one-third, one-half, or even
more, of the dry weight of the wood. The water is in the hollow
vessels and cell walls. A living tree contains about the same quantity
of water in winter as in summer, though the common belief is otherwise.
It is misleading to say that the sap is "down" in one season and "up" in
another, although there is more activity at certain times than in others.
Strictly speaking, there is a difference between the water in a tree, and
the tree's sap; but in common parlance they are considered identical.
What takes place is this: water rises from the tree's roots, through the
wood, carrying certain minerals in solution. Some of it reaches the
leaves in summer where it mixes with certain gases from the air, and is
converted into sap proper. Most of the surplus water, after giving up
the mineral substance held in solution, is evaporated through the leaves
into the air; but the sap, starting from the leaves which act as laborator-
ies for its manufacture, goes down through the newly-formed (and form-
ing), layer of wood just beneath the bark, and is converted into wood.
This newly-formed wood is colorless at first. It builds up the annual
ring, first the springwood very rapidly, and then the summerwood
more slowly.

The force which causes water to rise through the trunk of a tree is
not fully understood. It is one of nature's mysteries which is yet to be
solved. Forces known as root pressure, capillary attraction, and
osmosis, are believed to be active in the process, but there seems to be
something additional, and no man has yet been able to explain what it is.

The seasoning of wood is the process of getting rid of some of the
water. As soon as lumber is exposed to air, the water begins to escape.

American Forest Trees 11

Long exposure to dry air takes out a large percentage of the moisture
which green wood holds, and the lumber is known as air-dry. But
some of the original moisture remains, and air at climatic temperature
is unable to expel it. The greater heat of a drykiln drives away some
more of it, but a quantity yet remains. The lumber is then kiln-dry.
Greater heat than the drykiln's is secured in an oven, and a little
more of the wood's moisture is expelled; but the only method of driving
all the moisture out is to heat the wood sufficiently to break down its
structure, and reduce it to charcoal.

Wood warps in the process of drying unless it seasons equally on
all sides. It curls or bends toward the side which dries most rapidly.
Dry wood may warp if exposed to dampness, if one side is more exposed
and receives more moisture than another. It curls or bends toward
the dryer side.

Warping is primarily due to the more rapid contraction or ex-
pansion of wood cells on one side of the piece than on the other.
Saturated cells are larger than dry ones.

Moisture in wood affects its strength, the dryer the stronger, at
least within certain limits. Architects and builders carefully study the
seasoning of timber, because it is a most important factor in their busi-
ness. The moisture which most affects a wood's strength is that ab-
sorbed in the cell walls, rather than that contained in the cell cavities
themselves.

Some woods check or split badly in seasoning unless attended with
constant care. Checking is due chiefly to lack of uniformity in season-
ing. One part of the stick dries faster than another, the dryer fibers
contract, and the pull splits the wood. The checks may be small,
even microscopic, or they may develop yawning cracks such as some-
times appear in the ends of hickory and black walnut logs. Greenwood
checks worse in summer than in winter, because the weather is warmer,
the wood's surface dries faster, and the strain on the fibers is greater.
Phases of the moon have no influence on the seasoning, checking, warp-
ing, or lasting properties of timber.

Stiffness, Elasticity , and Strength — Rules for measuring the stiffness
of timber are involved in mathematical formulas; but the practical
quality of stiffness is not difficult to understand. Wood which does not
bend easily is stiff. If it springs back to its original position after the
removal of the force which bends it, the wood is elastic. The greatest
load it can sustain without breaking, is the measure of its strength. The
load required to produce a certain amount of bending is the measure of
its stiffness. Flexibility, a term much used by certain classes of w< irkers
in wood, is the opposite of stiffness. A brittle wood is not necessarily

12 American Forest Trees

weak. It may sustain a heavy load without breaking, but when it fails,
the break is sudden and complete. A tough wood behaves differently,
though it may not be as strong as a brittle one. When a tough wood
breaks, the parts are inclined to adhere after they have ceased to sustain
the load. Hickory is tough, and in breaking, the wood crushes and
splinters. Mesquite is brittle, and a clean snap severs the stick at once.

Builders of houses and bridges, and the manufacturers of articles
of wood, study with the greatest care the stiffness, elasticity, strength,
toughness, and brittleness of timber. Its chief value may depend
upon the presence or absence of one or more of these properties. Take
away hickory's toughness and elasticity and it would cease to be a
great vehicle and handle material. Reduce the stiffness and strength of
longleaf pine and Douglas fir and they would drop at once from the high
esteem in which they are held as structural timbers. Destroy the
brittleness of red cedar and it would lose one of the chief qualities which
make it the leading lead pencil wood of the world.

There are recognized methods of measuring these important
physical properties of woods, but they are expressed in language so
technical that it means little to persons who are not specialists. For
ordinary purposes, it is unnecessary to be more explicit than to state a
certain wood is or is not strong, stiff, tough and elastic. Some species
possess one or more of these properties to double the degree that others
possess then. Different trees of the same species differ greatly, and
even different parts of the same tree. Most tables of figures which show
the various physical properties of woods give averages onty, not abso-
lute values.

Hardness — In some woods hardness is considered an advantage,
but not in others. If sugar maple were as soft as white pine, it would
not be the great floor material it is ; and if white pine were as hard as
maple, pattern makers would not want it, door and sash manufacturers
would get along with less, and it would not be the leading packing box
material in so wide a region.

It is generally the summer growth in the annual rings which makes
a wood hard. The summerwood is dense. A given bulk of it contains
more actual wood substance and less air and water than the spring-
wood. For the same reason, summerwood gives weight, and a relation-
ship between hardness and weight holds generally. It may be added
that strength goes with weight and hardness, but it is not a rule without
apparent exceptions.

Some woods possess twice or three times the hardness of others.
Among some of the hardest in the United States are hickory, sugar
maple, mesquite, the Florida ironwoods, Osage orange, locust, persim-

American- Forest Trees 13

mon, and the best oak and elm. Among the softest species are buckeye,
basswood, cedar, redwood, some of the pines, spruce, hemlock, and
chestnut.

The hardness of wood is tested with a machine which records the
pressure required to indent the surface. The condition of the specimen,
as to dryness, has much to do with its hardness. So many other factors
exercise influence that nothing less than an actual test will determine
the hardness of a sample. A table of figures can show it only approxi-
mately and by averages.

Cleavability — Wood users generally demand a material which does
not split easily, but the reverse is sometimes required. Rived staves
must come from timbers which split easily. Many handles are from
billets which are split in rough form and are afterwards dressed to the
required size and shape. In these instances, splitting is preferable to
sawing, because a rived billet is free from cross grain.

The cleavability of woods differs greatly. Some can scarcely be
split. Black gum is in that list, and sycamore to a less extent. Young
trees of some species split more readily than old, while with others, the
advantage is with the old. Young sycamore may generally be split
with ease, but old trunks seem to develop interlocked fibers which defy
the wedge. A white oak pole is hard to split, but the old tree yields
readily. Few woods are more easily split than chestnut. With most
timbers cleavage is easiest along the radial lines, that is, from the heart
to the bark. The flat sides of the medullary rays lie in that plane.
Cleavage along tangential lines is easy with some woods. The line of
cleavage follows the soft springwood. Green timber is generally, but
not always, more easily split than dry. As a rule, the more elastic a
wood is, the more readily it may be split.

Durability — In Egypt where climatic conditions are highly favor-
able, Lebanon cedar, North African acacia, East African persimmon, and
oriental sycamore have remained sound during three or four thousand
years. In the moist forests of the northwestern Pacific coast, an alder
log six or eight inches in diameter will decay through and through in a
single year. Xo wood is immune to decay if exposed to influences
which induce it, but some resist for long periods. Osage orange and
locust fence posts may stand half a century. Timber from which air
is excluded, as when deeply buried in wet earth or under water,
will last indefinitely; but if it is exposed to alternate dampness and
dryness, decay will destroy it in a few years.

It is apparent that resistance to decay is not a property inherent in
the wrood, but depends on circumstances. However, the ability to
resist decay varies greatly with different species, under similar circum-

14 American Forest Trees

stances. Buckeye and red cedar fence posts, situated alike, will not
last alike. The buckeye may be expected to fall in two or three years,
and the cedar will stand twenty. Timbers light in weight and light in
color are, as a class, quick-decaying when exposed to the weather.

The rule holds in most cases that sapwood decays more quickly
than heart when both are subject to similar exposure. The matter
of decay is not important when lumber and other products intended for
use are in dry situations. Furniture and interior house finish do not
decay under ordinary circumstances, no matter what the species of wood
may be; but resistance to decay overshadows almost any other consider-
ation in choosing mine timbers, crossties, fence posts, and tanks and silos.

Decay in timber is not simply a chemical process, but is due
primarily to the activities of a low order of plants known as fungi,
sometimes bacteria. The fungi produce thread-like filaments which
penetrate the body of the wood, ramifying in and passing from cell to
cell, absorbing certain materials therein, and ultimately breaking down
and destroying the structure of the wood. Both air and dampness are
essential to the growth of fungus. That is the reason why timbers deep
beneath ground or water do not decay. Air is absent, though moisture
is abundant; while in the dry Egyptian tombs, air is abundant but
moisture is wanting, fungus cannot exist, and consequentlv decay of the
wood does not occur. Nothing is needed to render timber immune to
decay except to keep fungus out of the cells. Some of the fungus
concerned in wood rotting is microscopic, while other appears in forms
and sizes easily seen and recognized.

Timber may be protected for a time against the agencies of decay
by covering the surface with paint, thereby preventing the entrance of
fungus. By another process, certain oils or other materials which are
poisonous to the insinuating threads of fungus, are forced into the pores
of the wood. Creosote is often used for this purpose. Attacks are thus
warded off, and decay is hindered. The preservative fluid will not
remain permanently in wood exposed to weather conditions, but the
period during which it affords protection and immunity extends over
some years; but different woods vary greatly in their ability to receive
and retain preservative mixtures.

The better seasoned, the less liable is timber to decay, because it
contains less moisture to support fungi. It is generally supposed that
timber cut in the fall of the year is less subject to decay than if felled in
summer. If it is so, the reason for it lies in the fact that fungus is inac-
tive during winter, and before the coming of warm weather the timber
has partly dried near the surface, and fungi cannot pass through the
dry outside to reach the interior. Timber cut in warm weather mav l>e

American Forest Trees 15

attacked at once, and before cold weather stops the activities of fungus
it has reached the interior of the wood and the process of rotting is
under way. When the agents of decay have begun to grow in the wood,
destruction will go on as long as air and moisture conditions are favor-
able.

The bluing of wood is an incipient decay and is generally due to
fungus. Some kinds of wood are more susceptible to bluing than others.
Though boards may quickly season sufficiently to put a stop to the bluing
process before it has actually weakened the material, the result is more
or less injurious. The wood's natural color and luster undergo deteri-
oration; it does not reflect light as formerly, and seems dead and flat.

Decay affects sapwood more readily than heart. The reason may
be that sapwood contains more food for fungus, thereby inducing greater
activity. The sapwood is on the outside of timbers and is often more
exposed than the heart. In some instances greater decay may be due to
greater exposure. Another reason for more rapid decay of sapwood
than heart is the fact that the pores of the heartwood are more or less
filled with coloring matter deposited while the growth of the tree was
in progress. The coloring matter, in many cases, acts as a preservative ;
it shuts the threads of fungus out. Sometimes the sapwood of a dead
tree or a log is totally destroyed while the heart remains sound. This
often happens with red cedar and sometimes with black walnut, yellow
poplar, and cherry. Occasionally a tree's bark is more resistant to decay
than its wood. Paper birch and yellow birch logs in damp situa-
tions occasionally show this. What appears to be a solid fallen trunk,
proves to be nothing more than a shell of bark with a soft, pulpy
mass of .decayed wood within.

WHITE PINE*

(Pinus Strobus)

THE best known wood of the United States has never been burdened
with a multitude of names, as many minor species have. It is
commonly known as white pine in every region where it grows, and in
many where the living tree is never seen, except when planted for
ornament. The light color of the wood suggests the name. The bark
and the foliage are of somber hue, though not as dark as hemlock and
many of the pines. The name Weymouth pine is occasionally heard, but
it is more used in books than by lumbermen. It is commonly supposed
that the name refers to Lord Weymouth who interested himself in the
tree at an early period, but this has been disputed. In Pennsylvania it
is occasionally called soft pine to distinguish it from the harder and
inferior pitch pine and table mountain pine with which it is sometimes
associated. It is the softest of the pines, and the name is not in-
appropriate. In some regions of the South, where it is well known,
it is called northern spruce pine in recognition of the fact that it is a
northern species which has followed the Appalachian mountain ranges
some hundreds of miles southward. There is no good reason for this
name when applied to white pine. It should be remembered, however,
that no less than a dozen tree species in the United States are sometimes
called spruce pine. Cork pine is a trade name applied more frequently
to the wood than to the living tree. It is the wood of old, mature, first
class trunks, as nearly perfect as can be found. Pumpkin pine is another
name given to the same class of wood. It is so named because the grain
is homogeneous, like a pumpkin, and may be readily cut and carved in
any direction. It is the ideal wood for the pattern maker, but it is now
hard to get because the venerable white pines, many hundred years old,
are practically gone.

The northern limit of the range of white pine stretches from
Newfoundland to Manitoba, more than 1800 miles east and west across
the Dominion of Canada, and southward to northern Georgia, 1200
miles in a north and south direction. But white pine does not grow in
all parts of the territory thus delimited. It attained magnificent

*The following 12 species are usually classed soft pines: White Pine (Pinus
strobus); Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana) ; Western White Pine (Pinus monticola);
Mexican White Pine (Pinus strobiformis) ; Limber Pine (Pinus flexiiis)) Whitebark
Pine (Pinus albicaulis): Foxtail Pine (Pinus balfouriana) ; Parry Pino (Pinus
quadrifolia) ; Mexican Pinon (Pinus cembroides); Pinon (Pinus edulis); Singleleaf
Pinon (Pinus monophylla); Uristlecoue Pine (Pinus aristaia).

20 American Forest Trees

development in certain large regions before lumbering began, and in
others it was scarce or totally wanting. Its ability to maintain itself
on land too thin for vigorous hardwood growth gave it a monopoly of
enormous stretches of sandy country, particularly in the Lake States. It
occupied large areas in New England and southern Canada; developed
splendid stands in New York and Pennsylvania; and it covered certain
mountains and uplands southward along the mountain ranges across
Maryland, West Virginia, and the elevated regions two or three hundred
miles farther south.

A dozen or more varieties of white pine have been developed under
cultivation, but they interest the nurseryman, not the lumberman.
In all the wide extension of its range, and during all past time, nature
was never able to develop a single variety of white pine which departed
from the typical species. For that reason it is one of the most interesting
objects of study in the tree kingdom. True, the white pine in the south-
ern mountains differs slightly from the northern tree, but botanically it
is the same. Its wood is a little heavier, its branches are more resinous
and consequent!)' adhere a longer time to the trunk after they die,
resulting in lumber with more knots. The southern wood is more
tinged with red, the knots are redder and usually sounder than in the
North.

It is unfortunately necessary in speaking of white pine forests to
use the past tense, for most of the primeval stands have disappeared.
The range is as extensive as ever, because wherever a forest once grew,
a few trees remain; but the merchantable timber has been cut in most
regions. The tree bears winged seeds which quickly scatter over vacant
spaces, and new growth would long ago, in most cases, have taken the
place of the old, had not fires persistently destroyed the seedlings. In
parts of New England where fire protection is afforded, dense stands of
white pine are coming on, and in numerous instances profitable lumber
operations are carried on in second growth forests. That condition
does not exist generally in white pine regions. Primeval stands were
seldom absolutely pure, but sometimes, in bodies of thousands of acres,
there was little but white pine. Generally hardwoods or other soft-
woods grew with the pine. At its best, it is the largest pine of the
United States, except the sugar pine of California. The largest trees
grew in New England where diameters of six or more feet and heights
exceeding 200 feet were found. A diameter of four and five feet and a
height of 150 feet are about the size limits in the Lake States and the
southern mountains. Trees two or three feet through and ninetv and
120 tall are a fair average for mature timber.

The wood of white pine is among the lightest of the commercial

American Forest Trees 21

timbers of this country, and among the softest. While it is not strong, it
compares favorably, weight for weight, with most others. It is of rather
rapid growth, and the rings of annual increase are clearly defined,
and they contain comparatively few resin ducts. For that reason it
may be classed as a close, compact wood. It polishes well, may be
cut with great ease, and after it is seasoned it holds its form better than
most woods. That property fits it admirably for doors and sash and for
backing of veneer, where a little warping or twisting would do much
harm.

The medullary rays are numerous but are too small to be easily
seen separately, and do not figure much in the appearance of the wood.
The resin passages are few and small, but the wood contains enough
resin to give it a characteristic odor, which is not usually considered
injurious to merchandise shipped in pine boxes. The white color of the
wood gives it much of its value. Though rather weak, white pine is
stiff, rather low in elasticity, is practically wanting in toughness, has
little figure, and when exposed to alternate dryness and dampness it is
rated poor in lasting properties ; yet shingles and weather boarding of this
wood have been known to stand half a century. The sapwood is lighter
in color than the heart, and decays more quickly.

As long as white pine was abundant it surpassed all other woods
of this country in the amount used. It was one of the earliest exports
from New England, and it went to the West Indies and to Europe.
England attempted to control the cutting and export of white pine, but
was unsuccessful. At an early period the rivers were utilized for trans-
porting the logs and the lumber to market, and that method has con-
tinued until the present time. Spectacular log drives were common in
early times in New England, later in New York and Pennsylvania,
and still later in Michigan and the other Lake States. Many billions
of feet of faultless logs have gone down flooded rivers. The scenes in
the woods and the life in lumber camps have been written in novels and
romances, and the central figure of it all was white pine.

There are a few things for which this wood is not suitable; other-
wise its use has been nearly universal in some parts of this country.
It went into masts and matches, which are the largest and smallest
commodities, and into almost every shape and size of product between.
Most of the early houses and barns in the pine region were built of it.
Hewed pine was the foundation, and the shingles were of split and shaved
pine. It formed floors, doors, sash, and shutters. It was the ceiling
within and the weather boarding without. It fenced the fields and
bridged the streams. It went to market as rough lumber, and planing
mills turned it out as dressed stock in various forms. It has probably

22

American Forest Trees

been more extensively employed by box makers than any other wood,
and though it is scarcer than formerly, hundreds of millions of feet of it
are still used annually by box makers. Scores of millions of feet yearly
are demanded by the manufacturers of window shade rollers, though
individually the roller is a very small commodity. In this, as for
patterns and many other things, no satisfactory substitute for white
pine has been found.

As a timber tree, it will not disappear from this country, though
the days of its greatest importance are past. Enormous tracts where
it once grew will apparently never again produce a white pine sawlog.
The prospect is more encouraging in other regions, and there will always
be a considerable quantity of this lumber in the American market,
though the high percentage of good grades which prevailed in the past
will not continue in the future.

White pine belongs in the five needle group, that is, five leaves
grow in a bundle. They turn yellow and fall in the autumn of the
second year. The cones are slender, are from five to eleven inches
in length, and ripen and disperse their seeds in the autumn of the second
year.

WESTERN WHITE PINE

WESTERN WHITE PINE

{Pinus Monticola)

THE silvery luster of the needles of this tree gives it the name silver
pine, by which many people know it. It appears in literature
as mountain Weymouth pine, the reference being to the eastern white
pine {Pinus strobus), which is sometimes called Weymouth pine.
Finger-cone pine is a California name ; so are mountain pine and soft pine.
In the same state it is called little sugar pine, to distinguish it from sugar
pine {Pinus lambertiana) , which it resembles in some particulars but
not in all. It is thus seen that California is generous in bestowing names
on this tree, notwithstanding it is not abundant in any part of that state
and is unknown in most parts.

The botanical name means "mountain pine," and that describes the
species. It does best among the mountains, and it ranges from an
altitude of from 4,000 feet to 10,000 on the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Sometimes trees of very large size are found near the upper limits of its
range, but the best stands are in valleys and on slopes at lower altitudes.
Its range lies in British Columbia, Montana, Idaho, Washington,
Oregon, and California. In the latter state it follows the Sierra NeTada
mountains southward to the San Joaquin river.

This species has been compared with the white pine of the East
oftener than with any other species. The weights of the two woods are
nearly the same, and both are light. Their fuel values are about the
same. The strength of the eastern tree is a little higher, but the western
species is stiffer. The woods of both are light in color, but that of the
eastern tree is whiter; both are soft, but again the advantage is with the
eastern tree. The western pine generally grows rapidly and the annual
rings are wide; but, like most other species, it varies in its rate of
growth, and trunks are found with narrow rings. The summerwood is
thin, not conspicuous, and slightly resinous. The small resin passages
are numerous. The heartwood is fairly durable in contact with the
soil.

The western white pine has entered many markets in recent years,
but it is difficult to determine what the annual cut is. Statistics often
include this species and the western yellow pine under one name, or at
least confuse one with the other, and there is no way to determine ex-
actly how much of the sawmill output belongs to each. The bulk of
merchantable western white pine lumber is cut in Idaho and Montana.
The stands are seldom pure, but this species frequently predominates
over its associates. When pure forests are found, the yield is some-

25

26 American Forest Trees

times very high, as much as 130,000 feet of logs growing on a single
acre. That quantity is not often equalled by any other forest tree,
though redwood and Douglas fir sometimes go considerably above it.

The western white pine's needles grow in clusters of five and are
from one and a half to four inches long. The cones are from ten to
eighteen inches long. The seeds ripen the second year. Reproduction
is vigorous and the forest stands are holding their own. Trees about
one hundred and seventy-five feet high and eight feet in diameter are
met with, but the average size is one hundred feet high and from
two to three feet in diameter, or about the size of eastern white pine.

The wood is useful and has been giving service since the settlement
of the country began, fifty or more years ago. Choice trunks were split
for shakes or shingles, but the wood is inferior in splitting qualities to
either eastern white pine or California sugar pine, because of more
knots. The western white pine does not prune itself early or well. Dead
limbs adhere to the trunk long after the sugar pine would shed them. In
split products, the western white pine's principal rival has been the
western red cedar. The pine has been much employed for mine timbers
in the region where it is abundant. Miners generally take the most
convenient wood for props, stulls, and lagging. A little higher use for
pine is found among the mines, where is it made into tanks, flumes,
sluice boxes, water pipes, riffle blocks, rockers, and guides for stamp
mills. However, the total quantity used by miners is comparatively
small. Much more goes to ranches for fences and buildings. It is serv-
iceable, and is shipped outside the immediate region of production and
is marketed in the plains states east of the Rocky Mountains, where it is
excellent fence material.

A larger market is found in manufacturing centers farther east.
Western white pine is shipped to Chicago where it is manufactured into
doors, sash, and interior finish, in competition with all other woods in
that market. It is said to be of frequent occurrence that the very
pine which is shipped in its rough form out of the Rocky Mountain region
goes back finished as doors and sash. When the mountain regions
shall have better manufacturing facilities, this will not occur. In the
manufacture of window and hothouse sash, glass is more important
than wood, although each is useless without the other. The principal
glass factories are in the East, and it is sometimes desirable to ship
the wood to the glass factory, have the sash made there, and the glazing
done; and the finished sash, ready for use, may go back to the source
of the timber.

The same operation is sometimes repeated for doors; but in recent
years the mountain region where this pine grows has been supplied

American Forest Trees 27

with factories and there is now less shipping of raw material out and
of finished products back than formerly. The development of the fruit
industry in the elevated valleys of Idaho, Montana, Washington, and
Oregon has called for shipping boxes in large numbers, and western
white pine has been found an ideal wood for that use. It is light in
weight and in color, strong enough to satisfy all ordinary requirements,
and cheap enough to bring it within reach of orchardists. It meets
with lively competition from a number of other woods which grow
abundantly in the region, but it holds its ground and takes its share of
the business.

Estimates of the total stand of western white pine among its native
mountains have not been published, but the quantity is known to be
large. It is a difficult species to estimate because it is scattered widely,
large, pure stands being scarce. Some large mills make a specialty of
sawing this species. The annual output is believed to reach 150,000,-
000 feet, most of which is in Idaho and Montana.

Mexican White Pine (Pinus strobiformis) is not sufficiently
abundant to be of much importance in the United States. The best of it
is south of the international boundary in Mexico, but the species extends
into New Mexico and Arizona where it is most abundant at altitudes of
from 6,000 to 8,000 feet. The growth is generally scattering, and the
trunks are often deformed through fire injury, and are inclined to be
limby and of poor form. The best trees are from eighty to one hundred
feet high, and two in diameter; but many are scarcely half that size. The
lumbermen of the region, who cut Mexican white pine, are inclined to
place low value on it, not because the wood is of poor quality, but
because it is scarce. It is generally sent to market with western yellow
pine. Excellent grades and quality of this wood are shipped into the
United States from Mexico, but not in large amounts. An occasional
carload reaches door and sash factories in Texas, and woodworkers as
far east as Michigan are acquainted with it, through trials and experi-
ments which they have made. It is highly recommended by those who
have tried it. Some consider it as soft, as easy to work, and as free from
warping and checking as the eastern white pine. In Arizona and New
Mexico the tree is known as ayacahuite pine, white pine, and Arizona
white pine. The wood is moderately light, fairly strong, rather stiff,
of slow growth, and the bands of summerwood are comparatively
broad. The resin passages are few and large. The wood is light red,
the sapwood whiter. The leaves occur in clusters of five, are three or
four inches long, and fall during the third and fourth years. The seeds
are large and have small wings which cannot carry them far from the
parent tree.

28 American Forest Trees

Pinon (Pinus edvilis). This is one of the nut pines abounding
among the western mountains, and it is called pinon in Texas, nut pine in
Texas and Colorado, pinon pine and New Mexican pinon in other parts
of its range, extending from Colorado through New Mexico to western
Texas. It has two and three leaves to the cluster. They begin to fall
the third year and continue through six or seven years following. The
cones are quite small, the largest not exceeding one and one-half inches
in length. Trees are from thirty to forty feet high, and large trunks may
be two and one-half feet in diameter. The tree runs up mountain sides to
altitudes of 8,000 or 9,000 feet. It exists in rather large bodies, but is not
an important timber tree, because the trunks are short and are generally
of poor form. It often branches near the ground and assumes the
appearance of a large shrub. Ties of pinon have been used with various
results. Some have proved satisfactory, others have proved weak
by breaking, and the ties occasionally split when spikes are driven.
The wood's service as posts varies also. Some posts will last only three
or four years, while others remain sound a long time. The difference
in lasting properties is due to the difference in resinous contents of the
wood. Few softwoods rank above it in fuel value, and much is cut in
some localities. Large areas have been totally stripped for fuel. Char-
coal for local smithies is burned from this pine. The wood is widely
used for ranch purposes, but not in large quantities. The edible nuts
are sought by birds, rodents, and Indians. Some stores keep the nuts
for sale. The tree is handicapped in its effort at reproduction by weight,
and the small wing power of the seeds. They fall near the base of the
parent tree, and most of them are speedily devoured.

SUGAR PINE

SUGAR PINE

(Pinus Lambertiana)

THIS is the largest pine of the United States, and probably is the
largest true pine in the world. Its rival, the Kauri pine of New
Zealand, is not a pine according to the classification of botanists; and
that leaves the sugar pine supreme, as far as the world has been explored.
David Douglas, the first to describe the species, reported a tree eighteen
feet in diameter and 245 feet high, in southern Oregon. No tree of
similar size has been reported since; but trunks six, ten, and even twelve
feet through, and more than 200 high are not rare.

The range of sugar pine extends from southern Oregon to lower
California. Through California it follows the Sierra Nevada mountains
in a comparatively narrow belt. In Oregon it descends within 1,000 feet
of sea level, but the lower limit of its range gradually rises as it follows
the mountains southward, until in southern California it is 8,000 or
10,000 feet above the sea. Its choice of situation is in the mountain
belt where the annual precipitation is forty inches or more. The deep
winter snows of the Sierras do not hurt it. The young trees bear
abundant limbs covering the trunks nearly or quite to the ground, and
are of perfect conical shape. When they are ten or fifteen feet tall they
may be entirely covered in snow which accumulates to a depth of a
dozen feet or more. The little pines are seldom injured by the load, but
their limbs shed the snow until it covers the highest twig. The conse-
quence is that a crooked sugar pine trunk is seldom seen, though a
considerable part of the tree's youth may have been spent under tons
of snow. Later in life the lower limbs die and drop, leaving clean boles
which assure abundance of clear lumber in the years to come.

The tree is nearly always known as sugar pine, though it may be
called big pine or great pine to distinguish it from firs, cedars, and other
softwoods with which it is associated. The name is due to a product
resembling sugar which exudes from the heartwood when the tree has
been injured by fires, and which dries in white, brittle excrescences on
the surface. Its taste is sweet, with a suggestion of pitch which is
not unpleasant. The principle has been named "pinite."

The needles of sugar pine are in clusters of five and are about four
inches long. They are deciduous the second and third years. The
cones are longer than cones of any other pine of this country but those
of the Coulter pine are a little heavier. Extreme length of 22 inches for
the sugar pine cone has been recorded, but the average is from 12 to 1">
inches. Cones open, shed their seeds the second year, and fall the third.

32 American Forest Trees

The seeds resemble lentils, and are provided with wings which carry
them several hundred feet, if wind is favorable. This affords excellent
opportunities for reproduction ; but there is an offset in the sweetness of
the seeds which are prized for food by birds, beasts and creeping things
from the Piute Indian down to the Douglas squirrel and the jumping
mouse.

Sugar pine occupies a high place as a timber tree. It has been in
use for half a century. The cut in 1900 was 52,000,000 feet, in 1904 it
was 120,000,000; in 1907, 115,000,000, and the next year about 100,000,-
000. Ninety-three per cent of the cut is in California, the rest in Oregon.
Its stand in California has been estimated at 25,000,000,000 feet.

The wood of sugar pine is a little lighter than eastern white pine,
is a little weaker, and has less stiffness. It is soft, the rings of growth
are wide, the bands of summerwood thin and resinous; the resin passages
are numerous and very large, the medullary rays numerous and obscure.
The heart is light brown, the sapwood nearly white.

Sugar pine and redwood were the two early roofing woods in
California, and both are still much used for that purpose. Sugar pine
was made into sawed shingles and split shakes. The shingle is a mill
product; but the shake was rived with mallet and frow, and in the years
when it was the great roofing material in central and eastern California,
the shake makers camped by twos in the forest, lived principally on
bacon and red beans, and split out from 200,000 to 400,000 shakes as a
summer's work. The winter snows drove the workers from the moun-
tains, with from eight to twelve hundred dollars in their pockets for the
season's work.

The increase in stumpage price has practically killed the shake
maker's business. In the palmy days when most everything went, he
procured his timber for little or nothing. He sometimes failed to find
the surveyor's lines, particularly if there happened to be a fine sugar pine
just across on a government quarter section. His method of operation
was wastful. He used only the best of the tree. If the grain happened
to twist the fraction of an inch, he abandoned the fallen trunk, and cut
another. The shakes were split very thin, for sugar pine is among the
most cleavable woods of this country. Four or five good trees provided
the shake maker's camp with material for a year's work.

Some of the earliest sawmills in California cut sugar pine for sheds,
shacks, sluiceboxes, flumes among the mines; and almost immediately
a demand came from the agricultural and stock districts for lumber.
From that day until the present time the sugar pine mills have been
busy. As the demand has grown, the facilities for meeting it have
increased. The prevailing size of the timber forbade the use of small

American Forest Trees 33

mills. A saw large enough for most eastern and southern timbers would
not slab a sugar pine log. From four to six feet were common sizes,
and the lumberman despised anything small.

In late years sugar pine operators have looked beyond the local
markets, and have been sending their lumber to practically every state
in the Union, except probably the extreme South. It comes in direct
competition with the white pine of New England and the Lake States.
The two woods have many points of resemblance. The white pine
would probably have lost no markets to the California wood if the best
grades could still be had at moderate prices; but most of the white pine
region has been stripped of its best timber, and the resulting scarcity in
the high grades has been, in part, made good by sugar pine. Some
manufacturers of doors and frames claim that sugar pine is more satis-
factory than white pine, because of better behavior under climatic
changes. It is said to shrink, swell, and warp less than the eastern wood.

Sugar pine has displaced white pine to a very small extent only, in
comparison with the field still held by the eastern wood, whose annual
output is about thirty times that of the California species. Their uses
are practically the same except that only the good grades of sugar pine
go east, and the corresponding grades of white pine west, and therefore
there is no competition between the poor grades of the two woods. The
annual demand for sugar and white pine east of the Rocky Mountains
is probably represented as an average in Illinois, where 2,000,000 feet of
the former and 175,000,000 of the latter are used yearly.

While there is a large amount of mature sugar pine ready for
lumbermen, the prospect of future supplies from new growth is not
entirely satisfactory. The western yellow pine is mixed with it through-
out most of its range, and is more than a match for it in taking possession
of vacant ground. It is inferred from this fact that the relative positions
of the two species in future forests will change at the expense of sugar
pine. It endures shade when small, and this enables it to obtain a start
among other species; but as it increases in size it becomes intolerant of
shade, and if it does not receive abundance of light it will not grow. A
forest fire is nearly certain to kill the small sugar pines, but old trunks
are protected by their thick bark. Few species have fewer natural
enemies. Very small trees are occasionally attacked by mistletoe
(Arceuthobium occidentalc) and succumb or else are stunted in their
growth.

Mexican Pinon (Pinus ccmbroides) is known also as nut pine, pinon pine
and stone-seed Mexican pinon. It is one of the smallest of the native pines of this
country. The tree is fifteen or twenty feet high and a few inches in diameter, but
in sheltered canyons in Arizona it sometimes attains a height of fifty or sixty feet with

34

American Forest Trees

a corresponding diameter. It reaches its best development in northern Mexico and
what is found of it in the United States is the species' extreme northern extension, in
Arizona and New Mexico at altitudes usually above 6,000 feet. It supplies fuel in
districts where firewood is otherwise scarce, and it has a small place as ranch timber.
The wood is heavy, of slow growth, the summerwood thin and dense. The resin
passages are few and small; color, light, clear yellow, the sapwood nearly white. If
the tree stood in regions well-forested with commercial species, it would possess little
or no value; but where wood is scarce, it has considerable value. The hardshell nuts
resemble those of the gray pine, but are considered more valuable for food. They are
not of much importance in the United States, but in Mexico where the trees are more
abundant and the population denser, the nuts are bought and sold in large quantities.
Its leaves are in clusters of three, sometimes two. They are one inch or more in
length, and fall the third and fourth years. Cones are seldom over two inches in
length. The species is not extending its range, but seems to be holding the ground it
already has. It bears abundance of seeds, but not one in ten thousand germinates
and becomes a mature tree.

WHITE BARK PIXE

J

JK

I

^*F<

it jr

WF

■ 1

Whitebark Pine

WHITEBARK PINE

(Pinus Albicaulis)

THIS interesting and peculiar pine has a number of names, most of
which are descriptive. The whiteness of the bark and the
stunted and recumbent position which the tree assumes on bleak
mountains are referred to in the names whitestem pine in California and
Montana, scrub pine in Montana, whitebark in Oregon, white in Cali-
fornia, and elsewhere it is creeping pine, whitebark pine, and alpine
whitebark pine. It is a mountain tree. There are few heights within its
range which it cannot reach. Its tough, prostrate branches, in its
loftiest situations, may whip snow banks nine or ten months of the year,
and for the two or three months of summer every starry night deposits
its sprinkle of frost upon the flowers or cones of this persistent tree. It
stands the storms of centuries, and lives on, though the whole period of
its existence is a battle for life under adverse circumstances. At lower
altitudes it fares better but does not live longer than on the most sterile
peak. Its range covers 500,000 square miles, but only in scattered
groups. It touches the high places only, creeping down to altitudes of
5,000 or 6,000 feet in the northern Rocky Mountains. It grows from
British Columbia to southern California, and is found in Montana, Idaho,
Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and California. Its associates
are the mountain climbers of the tree kingdom, Engelmann spruce, Lyall
larch, limber pine, alpine fir, foxtail pine, Rocky Mountain juniper,
knobcone pine, and western juniper. Its dark green needles, stout and
rigid, are from one and one-half to two and one-half inches long. They
hang on the twigs from five to eight years. In July the scarlet flowers
appear, forming a beautiful contrast with the white bark and the green
needles. In August the seeds are ripe. The cones are from one and
one-half to three inches long. The seeds are nearly half an inch long,
sweet to the taste. The few squirrels and birds which inhabit the
inhospitable region where the whitebark pine grows, get busy the
moment the cones open, and few escape. Nature seems to have played
a prank on this pine by giving wings to the seeds and rendering their use
impossible. The wing is stuck fast with resin to the cone scales, and the
seed can escape only by tearing its wing off. The heavy nut then falls
plumb to the ground beneath the branches of its parent. It might be
supposed that a tree situated as the whitebark pine is would be provided
with ample means of seedflight in order to afford wide distribution, and
give opportunity to survive the hardships which are imposed by sur-
roundings; but such is not the case. The willow and the cottonwood

37

38 American Forest Trees

which grow in fertile valleys have the means of scattering their seeds
miles away; but this bleak mountain tree must drop its seeds on the
rocks beneath. In this instance, nature seems more interested in
depositing the pine nuts where the hungry squirrels can get them, than
in furnishing a planting place for the nuts themselves — therefore, tears
off their wings before they leave the cone. The battle for existence
begins before the seeds germinate, and the struggle never ceases. The
tree, in parts of its range, survives a temperature sixty degrees below
zero. Its seedlings frequently perish, not from cold and drought, but be-
cause the wind thrashes them against the rocks which wear them to pieces.
Trees which survive on the great heights are apt to assume strange and
fantastic forms, with less resemblance to trees than to great, green
spiders sprawling over the rocks. Trees 500 years old may not be five
feet high. Deep snows hold them flat to the rocks so much of the time
that the limbs cannot lift themselves during the few summer days, but
grow like vines. The growth is so exceedingly slow that the new wood
on the tips of twigs at the end of summer is a mere point of yellow.
John Muir, with a magnifying glass, counted seventy-five annual rings
in a twig one-eighth of an inch in diameter. Trunks three and one-
half inches in diameter may be 225 years old; one of six inches had 426
rings; while a seventeen-inch trunk was 800 years old, and less than six
feet high. Such a tree has a spread of branches thirty or forty feet
across. They lie flat on the ground. Wild sheep, deer, bear, and
other wild animals know how to shelter themselves beneath the prostrate
branches by creeping under; and travelers, overtaken by storms, some-
times do the same; or in good weather the sheepherder or the hunter
may spread his blankets on the mass of limbs, boughs, and needles, and
spend a comfortable night on a springy couch — actually sleeping in a
tree top within two feet of the ground. In regions lower down, the
whitebark pine reaches respectable tree form. Fence posts are some-
times cut from it in the Mono basin, east of the Sierra Nevada moun-
tains. In the Nez Perce National Forest trees forty feet high have mer-
chantable lengths of twenty-four feet. Similar growth is found in other
regions. In its best growth, the wood of whitebark pine resembles that
of white pine. It is light, of about the same strength as white pine, but
more brittle. The annual rings are very narrow; the small resin pas-
sages are numerous. The sapwood is very thin and is nearly white.
Men can never greatly assist or hinder this tree. It will continue to
occupy heights and elevated valleys.

Bristlecone Pine (Pinus aristata) owes its name to the sharp
bristles on the tips of the cone scales. It is known also as foxtail pine
and hickory pine. The latter name is given, not because of toughness,

American Forest Trees 39

but on account of the whiteness of the sapwood. It is strictly a high
mountain tree, running up to the timber line at 12,000 feet, and seldom
occurring below 6,000 or 7,000 feet. It maintains its existence under
adverse circumstances, its home being on dry, stony ridges, cold and
stormy in winter, and subject to excessive drought during the brief
growing season. Trees of large trunks and fine forms are impossible
under such conditions. The bristlecone pine's bole is short, tapers
rapidly and is excessively knotty. The species reaches its best develop-
ment in Colorado. Though it is seldom sawed for lumber, it is of much
importance in many localities where better material is scarce. In central
Nevada many valuable mines were developed and worked by using the
wood for props and fuel. Charcoal made of it was particularly important
in that region, and it was carried long distances to supply blacksmith
shops in mining camps. Railways have made some use of it for ties.
Though rough, it is liked for fence posts. The resin in the wood assists
in resisting decay, and posts last many years in the dry regions where
the tree grows. Ranchmen among the high mountains build corrals,
pens, sheds, and fences of it; but the fibers of the wood are so twisted
and involved that splitting is nearly impossible, and round timbers
only are employed. The bristlecone pine can never be more important
in the country's lumber supply than it is now. It occupies waste land
where no other tree grows, and it crowds out nothing better than itself.
It clings to stony peaks and wind-swept ridges where the ungainly
trunks are welcome to the traveler, miner, or sheepherder who is in
need of a shed to shelter him, or a fire for his night camp. In situations
exposed to great cold and drying winds, the bristlecone pine is a shrub,
with little suggestion of a tree, further than its green foliage and small
cones. The needles are in clusters of five. They cling to the twigs for
ten or fifteen years. The seeds are scattered about the first of October,
and the wind carries them hundreds of feet. They take root in soil so
sterile that no humus is visible. Young trees and the small twigs of old
ones present a peculiar appearance. The bark is chalky white, but when
the trees are old the bark becomes red or brown.

Foxtail PisE(Pinus balfouriana) owes its name to the clustering of its needles
round the ends of the branches, bristling like a fox's tail. The needles are seldom
more than one and one-half inches in length, and are in clusters of fives. They
cling to the branches ten or fifteen years before falling. The cones are about three
inches long, and are armed with slender spines. The tree is strictly a mountain species
and grows at a higher altitude than any other tree in the United States, although
whitebark pine is not much behind it. It reaches its best development near Mt.
Whitney, California, where it is said to grow at an altitude of 15,000 feet above sea
level. It has been officially reported at Farewell Gap, in the Sierra Nevada moun-
tains, at an altitude of 13,000. At high altitudes it is scrubby and distorted, but in

40

American Forest Trees

more favorable situations it may be sixty feet high and two in diameter. On high
mountains it is generally not more than thirty feet high and ten inches in diameter.
It is of remarkably slow growth, and comparatively small trees may be 200 or 300
years old. The wood is moderately light, is soft, weak, brittle. Resin passages are
few and very small. The wood is satiny and susceptible of a good polish, and would
be valuable if abundant. The seeds are winged and the wind scatters them widely,
but most of them are lost on barren rocks or drifts of eternal snow. The untoward
circumstances under which the tree must live prevent generous reproduction. It
holds its own but can gain no new foothold on the bleak and barren heights which
form its environment. The dark green of its foliage makes the belts of foxtail pines
conspicuous where they grow above the timber line of nearly all other trees. Its
range is confined to a few of the highest mountains of California, particularly about
(but not on) Mt. Shasta and among the clusters of peaks about the sources of Kings
and Kern rivers. Those who travel and camp among the highest mountains of
California are often indebted to foxtail pine for their fuel. Near the upper limit of its
range it frequently dies at the top, and stands stripped of bark for many years. The
dead wood, which frequently is not higher above the ground than a man's head, is
broken away by campers for fuel, and it is often the only resource.

LOXGLEAF PINE

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Longleaf Pine

LONGLEAF PINE

(Pinus Palusiris)

LONGLEAF is generally considered to be the most important member
of the group of hard or pitch pines in this country*. It is known
by many names in different parts of its range, and outside of its
range where the wood is well known.

The names southern pine, Georgia pine, and Florida pine are not
well chosen, because there are other important pines in the regions
named. Turpentine pine is a common term, but other species produce
turpentine also, particularly the Cuban pine. Hard pine is much
employed in reference to this tree, and it applies well, but it describes
other species also. Heart pine is a lumberman's term to distinguish
this species from loblolly, shortleaf , and Cuban pines. The sapwood
of the three last named is thick, the heartwood small, while in longleaf
pine the sap is thin, the heart large, hence the name applied by lumber-
men. In Tennessee where it is not a commercial forest tree, it is called
brown pine, and in nearly all parts of the United States it is spoken of as
yellow pine, usually with some adjective as "southern," "Georgia," or
"longleaf." The persistency with which Georgia is used as a portion of
the name of this tree is due to the fact that extensive lumbering of the
longleaf forests began in that state. The center of operations has since
shifted to the West, and is now in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The
tree has many other names, among them being pitch pine and fat pine.
These have reference to its value in the naval stores industry. The name
longleaf pine is now well established in commercial transactions. It
has longer leaves than any other pine in this country. They range in
length from eight to eighteen inches. The needles of Cuban pine are
from eight to twelve inches; loblolly's are from six to nine; and those
of shortleaf from three to five.

Longleaf pine's geographic range is more restricted than that of

♦There is no precise agreement as to what should be included in the group of
hard pines in the United States, but the following twenty-two are usually placed in
that class: Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris), Shortleaf Pine (Pinus echinata), Loblolly
Pine (Pinus teda), Cuban Pine (Pinus lielerophylla),Xor\\;\y Pine (Pinus rcsinosa),
Western Yellow Pine (Pinus ponderosa), Chihuahua Pine (Pinus chikuahuana),
Arizona Pine (Pinus arizonica). Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida). Pond Pine (Pinus
serotina), Spruce Pine (Pinus glabra), Monterey Pine (Pinus radiala), Knobcone
Pine (Pinus attenuata), Gray Pine (Pinus sabiniana), Coulter Pine (Pinus coulteri),
Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta), Jack Tine (Pinus divaricata), Scrub Pine
(Pinus virginiana), Sand Pine (Pin us clausa), Table Mountain Pine (Pinus pungcns)
California Swamp Pine (Pinus muricaia), Lorry Pine (Pinus torreyana.)

44 American Forest Trees

loblolly and shortleaf.but larger than the range of Cuban pine. Longleaf
occupies a belt from Virginia to Texas, following the tertiary sandy
formation pretty closely. The belt seldom extends from the coast
inland more than 125 miles. The tree runs south in Florida to Tampa
bay. It disappears as it approaches the Mississippi, but reappears
west of that river in Louisiana and Texas. Its western limit is near
Trinity river, and its northern in that region is near the boundary
between Louisiana and Arkansas.

Longleaf attains a height of from sixty to ninety feet, but a few
trees reach 130. The diameters of mature trunks range from one foot
to three, usually less than two. The leaves grow three in a bundle, and
fall at the end of the second year. They are arranged in thick, broom-
like bunches on the ends of the twigs. It is a tree of slow growth com-
pared with other pines of the region. Its characteristic narrow annual
rings are usually sufficient to distinguish its logs and lumber from those
of other southern yellow pines. Its thin sap-..ood likewise assists in
identification. The proportionately high percentage of heartwood in
longleaf pine makes it possible to saw lumber which shows little or
no sapwood. It is difficult to do that with other southern pines.

The wood is heavy, exceedingly har ' for pine, very strong, tough,
compact, durable, resinous, resin passages few, not conspicuous;
medullary rays numerous, not conspicuous; color, light red or orange,
the thin sapwood nearly white. The annual rings contain a large propor-
tion of dark colored summerwood, which accounts for the great strength
of longleaf pine timber. The contrast in color between the springwood
and the summerwood is the basis of the figure of this pine which gives it
much of its value as an interior finish material, including doors. The
hardness of the summerwood provides the wearing qualities of flooring
and paving blocks. The coloring matter in the body of the wood protects
it against decay for a longer period than most other pines. This,
in connection with its hardness and strength, gives it high standing for
railroad ties, bridges, trestles, and other structures exposed to weather.

Longleaf pine is as widely used as any softwood in this country.
It serves with hardwoods for a number of purposes. It has been a
timber of commerce since an early period, and was exported from the
south Atlantic coast long before the Revolutionary war; but it was
later than that when it came into keen competition with the Riga
pine of northern Europe. It has since held its own in the European
markets, and its trade has extended to many other foreign countries,
particularly to the republics of South and Central America, Mexico,
and the West Indies.

It did not attain an important position in the commerce of this

American Forest Trees 45

country until after the Civil war, but it had a place in shipbuilding before
that time, and it has held that place. The builders of cars employ large
quantities for frames and other parts of gondolas, box cars, and coaches.
Over 175,000,000 feet were so used in 1909 in Illinois. It is the leading
car building timber in this country. Its great strength, hardness, and
stiffness give it that place.

It is scarcely less important as an interior wood for house finish.
It is not so much its strength as its beauty that recommends it for that
purpose. Its beauty is due to a combination of figure and color.
Splendid variety is possible by carefully selecting the material. Manu-
facturers of furniture, fixtures, and vehicles are large users of longleaf
pine. In these lines its chief value is due to strength.

In the naval stores industry in this country, it is more important
than all other species combined. For a century and a half it has sup-
plied this country and much of the rest of the world. The principal
commodities made from the resin of this tree are spirits of turpentine
and rosin. These two articles are produced by distilling the resin which
exudes from wounds in the tree. The distillate is spirits of turpentine,
the residue is rosin. The manufacture of naval stores has destroyed
tens of thousands of trees in the past; but better methods are now in
use and loss is less. Georgia and South Carolina were once the center of
naval stores production; but it has now moved to Louisiana and
Florida.

The supply of longleaf pine has rapidly decreased during the past
twenty years, and though the end is not yet at hand, it is approaching.
Young trees are not coming on to take the place of those cut for lumber.
They grow slowly at best, and a new forest could not be produced in less
than a hundred years. Both protection and care have been lacking.
Fire usually kills seedlings in their first or second year. The result is
that many extensive tracts where longleaf pine once grew in abundance
have few young and scarcely any old trees now. As far as can be
foreseen, this valuable timber will reach its end when existing stands
have been cut.

Cuban Pine (Pinus heterophylla). The Cuban pine has several
local names; slash pine in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi;
swamp pine in Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi ; meadow pine in
Florida and Mississippi; pitch pine in Florida; and spruce pine in Ala-
bama. Its range is confined to the coast region from South Carolina to
Louisiana, from sixty to one hundred miles inland. It is the only pine
in the extreme south of Florida. The wood is heavy, hard, very strong,
tough, compact, durable, resinous, the resin passages few but conspicu-
ous, rich dark orange color, the sapwood often nearly white. The annual

46

American Forest Trees

ring is usually more than half dark colored summerwood. The Cuban
pine grows rapidly, quickly appropriates vacant ground, and the species
is spreading. Its needles, from eight to twelve inches long, fall the sec-
ond year. The wood possesses nearly the strength, hardness, and stiffness
of longleaf pine, and the trunks are as large. The two woods which are so
similar in other respects differ in figure, owing to the wider annual rings
of the Cuban pine. The sapwood of the latter species greatly exceeds in
thickness that of longleaf pine. For that reason it is often mistaken for
loblolly pine. Cuban pine never goes to market under its own name,
but is mixed with and passes for one of the other southern yellow pines.
Sand Pine {Pinus clausa). This tree is generally twenty or thirty
feet high, and eight or twelve inches in diameter. Under favorable con-
ditions it attains a height of sixty or eighty feet and a diameter of two.
The leaves are two or three inches long, and fall the thud and fourth
years. Its range is almost wholly in Florida but extends a little over the
northern border. It grows as far south as Tampa on the west coast, and
nearly to Miami on the east. It is not much cut for lumber because of
its small size and generally short, limby trunk. In a few localities
shapely boles are developed, and serviceable lumber is made. It is a
poor-land tree, as its name implies. The cones adhere to the branches
many years, and may be partly enclosed in the growing wood.

SHORTLEAF PIXE

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Shortleaf Pine

SHORTLEAF PINE

(Pinus Echinata)

IN the markets the lumber of this species is known as yellow pine,
southern yellow pine, and sap pine, and in some localities the term
shortleaf is used. The latter is descriptive, and can be easily understood
when reference is made to the living tree, because its short needles
distinguish it from its associates in the pine forest ; but in speaking of
lumber only, the reference to the leaves has less meaning, particularly
to one who is not acquainted with the tree's appearance. Its wood so
closely resembles that of Cuban and loblolly pine that they are not
easily distinguished by sight alone. In the East the name Carolina pine
or North Carolina pine is much used, but it is not often heard west of the
Allegheny mountains. Referring to the manner and locality of its
growth it is called slash pine in North Carolina and Virginia, old-field
pine in Alabama and Mississippi, and poor-field pine in Florida. Its
tendency to take possession of abandoned ground has given it these
names. It is occasionally called pitch pine in Missouri. That name
would not distinguish it in most parts of the South where several species
of pitch pine grow. In some regions it is known as spruce pine, but the
name is not based on any characteristic of the living tree or of its wood.
In North Carolina and Alabama, and in literature, it is sometimes known
as rosemary pine, but that name applies rather to fine timber cut from
any southern yellow pine, than to this species in particular. In Delaware
it is known as shortshat and in Virginia as bull pine. To those who are
familiar with the tree's appearance, the name shortleaf pine is most
accurate in definition.

The commercial range of shortleaf pine has contracted to a con-
siderable extent since the settlement of the country. It once grew as
far north as Albany, New York, and from fifty to a hundred years ago it
was lumbered in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia in regions
where it has now ceased to exist, or is found only as scattered trees. Its
geographical range is now usually given from New York to Florida, west
to Missouri and Oklahoma and northeastern Texas. It is important in
lumber operations in North Carolina and southward, and westward to
the limits oi its range. The tree reaches its largest size and attains its
finest stands west of the Mississippi river. In average size it exceeds
longleaf pine. It may reach a height above 100 feet and a trunk diam-
eter of three or four. Squared timbers of large size were formerly ex-
ported from Virginia and North Carolina. Similar sizes cannot now be
procured there.

50 American- Forest Trees

Shortleaf pine varies greatly in the quality and amount of sapwood.
It is normally a thick sap tree, but midway between loblolly and longleaf .
The young tree increases rapidly in size until it is from six to ten inches
in diameter, and the yearly rings are wide. The rate of growth then
decreases and during the rest of its life the rings are narrow. This
feature is often of assistance in identifying southern yellow pine logs or
large timbers which contain the heart and also the sap. Wide rings
near the heart, followed by narrow ones, and a thick sapwood are pretty
good evidence that the timber — if a southern yellow pine — is shortleaf
pine. The rule is not absolute ; for a high authority on timber has said
that no infallible rule can be laid down for distinguishing by sight alone
the woods of the four southern yellow pines — longleaf, shortleaf, Cuban,
and loblolly.

The wood of shortleaf pine is strong, heavy, hard, and compact;
very resinous, resin passages large and numerous; medullary rays numer-
ous, conspicuous; color, orange, the sapwood nearly white. The thor-
oughly seasoned wood weighs thirty-eight pounds per cubic foot. It is
about five pounds heavier than loblolly pine, five pounds lighter than
longleaf, and nearly nine pounds lighter than Cuban pine. There is so
great a variation in weight of shortleaf pine that only general averages
have value.

Shortleaf pine is not as strong as longleaf, and is not so extensively
employed in heavy structural work, but in certain other lines it has the
advantage of longleaf. It is softer, and door and sash makers like it
better. It is easier to work, and when manufactured into doors and
interior finish many consider it superior to longleaf. The wide rings of
annual growth in the heartwood show fine contrast in color, and when
these are developed by stains and fillers, the grain or figure of the wood is
very pleasing. Where hardness is not an essential, it is much used for
floors. It is in great demand by builders of freight cars, but less for
frames and heavy beams than for siding and decking. Car builders in
Illinois bought 77,000,000 feet of it in 1909. That was nearly half of the
entire quantity of this wood used in the state. The second largest users
in Illinois were manufacturers of sash, doors, blinds, and general mill-
work. If the whole country is considered, this is probably the largest
use of the wood. Makers of boxes and crates in the South employ large
quantities.

The depletion of shortleaf forests has progressed rapidly, but in the
absence of reliable statistics it is impossible to give figures by decades or
years. In 18S0 an estimate placed the amount west of the Mississippi
at 95,000,000,000 feet. That was probably less than half of the country 's
supply at that time. In 1911 the Commissioner of Corporations esti-

American Forest Trees 51

mated that the combined remaining stand of loblolly and shortleaf pine
in the South was 152,000,000,000 feet. It is doubtful if half of it was
shortleaf. In that case, there was less shortleaf pine in the entire South
in 191 1 than there was west of the Mississippi river thirty years before.

Rapid decrease in total stand of a species does not necessarily
imply exhaustion. The cut will fall off as scarcity pinches. In the case
of shortleaf pine, an influence is active which will bring good results in
the future. This pine reproduces with vigor. Its small triangular seeds
are equipped with wings which carry them into vacant areas where they
quickly germinate if they fall on mineral soil. The seedling trees suffer
much from fire, but their power of resistance is fairly good, and dense
new growth is coming on in many localities. A good many years are
required to bring a seedling to maturity, but it will reach sawlog size
sometime, and there is no question but that the market will welcome it.

The shortleaf pine is peculiar among eastern softwoods in one
respect. Stumps will sprout. That occurs oftener west of the Mississippi
than east. However, the tree's ability to send up sprouts from the
stump is of little practical value, since the sprout* seldom or never
develop into merchantable trees. In that respect it differs from the
other well-known sprouting softwood of this country, the California red-
wood, whose numerous sprouts grow into large trunks.

Spruce Pine (Pinus glabra). This is one of the softest and the
whitest of the hard pines of this country. Nothing but its scarcity
stands in the way of its becoming an important timber tree. The best of
it is a satisfactory substitute for white pine in the manufacture of doors.
It grows rapidly, and the wide rings contain a high percentage of light
colored springwood, though there is enough summerwood of darker
color to give the dressed lumber a character. It weighs about the same
as northern white pine, but is weaker. In South Carolina and Florida it
is called white pine, but the name spruce is more general. It is known
also as kingstree, poor pine, Walter's pine, and lowland spruce pine. Its
range is restricted to southern South Carolina, northern Florida and
southern Alabama and Mississippi, and northeastern Louisiana. Its
leaves are from one and a half to three inches in length, grow two in a
bundle, and fall the second and third years. Large and well-formed
trunks attain a height of from eighty to 100 feet and a diameter from
two to nearly three. It reaches its best development in north western
Florida, and its light, symmetrical trunks have long been in use there as
masts for small vessels. It is too scarce to attract much attention from
lumbermen, but they are well acquainted with its good qualities, and
some of them take pains to keep the lumber separate from associated
pines, and sell it to manufacturers of doors and interior finish. The bark

52 American Forest Trees

bears considerable resemblance to spruce, which probably accounts for
the name of the tree.

Table Mountain Pine (Pinus puyigens). The French botanist, Michaux
the younger, has been criticized for the statement which he made more than a hundred
years ago that this species was confined to a certain flat-topped mountain in the
southern Appalachian ranges, and he called it table mountain pine. It lacked/much
of being confined within the narrow limits where it was discovered. It grows in
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia.
Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. Its other names are prickly
pine, hickory pine, and southern mountain pine. It supplies timber in all parts of its
range, but, except in very restricted localities, it is not abundant. The lumber in the
market is seldom distinguished from other pines, but some of the Tennessee mills sell
it separately to local customers. The wood is medium light, rather strong (about
like Piniis rigida, or pitch pine, which it resembles in other respects), is less stiff than
white pine, and is resinous. The thick sapwood is nearly white, the heartwood
brown. It is not a durable timber in contact with the ground. Its fuel value is low.
Its needles grow in clusters of two, and are generally less than two inches long. The
cones which are in clusters of from three to eight, and from two to three and a half
inches long, are armed with stout, curved hooks. The cones shed their seeds irregu-
larly during two or three years, and sometimes hang on the trees for twenty years.
In open ground this pine occasionally produces fertile seeds when only a few feet
high. Its forest form and open-ground form are quite different. In thick woods the
tree is tall, with good bole, but in open ground it is only twenty or thirty feet high, and
is covered with limbs almost to the ground.

LOBLOLLY PINE

LOBLOLLY PINE

(Pinns Tada)

FEW trees have more names than this. The names, however, may
be separated into groups, one group referring to the foliage, another
to the situations in which the tree grows, and a third to certain characters
or uses of the wood. Names descriptive of the leaves are longschat pine,
longshucks pine, shortleaf pine, foxtail pine, and longstraw pine. The
names which refer to locality or situation are loblolly pine, old-field pine,
slash pine, black slash pine, Virginia pine, meadow pine and swamp
pine. Names which refer to the character of the wood or of the standing
tree are torch pine, rosemary pine, frankincense pine, cornstalk pine,
spruce pine, and yellow pine. Not one of these names is applied to the
tree in its entire range, and it has several names other than those listed.
Sap pine is widely applied to the lumber, because the tree's sapwood is
very thick, sometimes amounting to eighty per cent of a trunk. It has
borne the name old-field pine for a hundred and fifty years in Virginia,
and the name suggests a good deal of history. Some of the improvident
early Virginia tobacco growers neglected to fertilize their fields, and the
land wore out under constant cropping, and was abandoned. The pine
quickly took possession, for the fields which were too far exhausted to
produce tobacco or corn were amply able to grow dense stands of lob-
lolly pine, and the farmers noticing this, called it old-field pine. It has
been taking possession of abandoned fields in Virginia and North Carolina
ever since, and the name still applies. The tree grows from New Jersey
to Florida, west to Texas, north to Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West
Virginia, but it does not cover the whole territory thus outlined. It is
very scarce near its northern limit. There is evidence that the range
of loblolly has extended in historic times, not into new or distant regions,
but outside the borders which once marked its range. Since white men
in Texas stopped the Indians' grass fires, the pine has encroached upon
the prairie. Early writers in Virginia and North Carolina spoke of pine
as scarce or totally wanting, except on the immediate coast. It is now
found from one hundred to two hundred miles inland, and many saw-
mills now cut logs which have grown in fields abandoned since the
Revolutionary war. This has occurred on the Atlantic coast rather than
west of the Appalachian ranges of mountains. Virginia has more
sawmills than any other state, and many of them are working on
loblolly pine which has grown in the last hundred years.

The tree bears seeds abundantly and scatters them widely. It is
vigorous, grows with great rapidity, and is able to fight its way if it finds

56 American Forest Trees

conditions in any way favorable. Turpentine operators have not found
the working of loblolly pine profitable, and this has relieved it of a drain
which has done much to deplete the southern forests of longleaf pine.

Loblolly's leaves are from six to nine inches long, and fall the third
year. This species, in common with other southern yellow pines, is
disposed to grow tall, clear trunks, with a meager supply of limbs and
foliage at the top. The lumber sawed from trunks of that kind is clear
of knots. No other important forest tree of the United States comes as
nearly being a cultivated tree as the loblolly pine. This is particularly
true in the northeastern part of its range, in North Carolina, Virginia,
and Maryland. Though nature has done the actual planting, men
provided the seed beds by giving up old fields to that use ; and many of
the stands are as thick and even as if they had been planted and cared
for by regular forestry methods. Trees are from eighty to one hundred
feet tall, and from two to four in diameter, some very old ones being a
little larger.

The annual rings of loblolly pine are broad, with good contrast
between the spring and summer growth. The wood is light, not strong,
brittle, not durable, very resinous, the resin passages are few and not
conspicuous; medullary rays are numerous and obscure; color, light
brown, the thick sapwood orange or nearly white. When this tree is of
slow growth it is lighter, less resinous, and has thinner sapwood. It is
sometimes known as rosemary pine.

The use of loblolly pine lumber was greatly stimulated when the
custom of drying it in kilns became general. It is largely sapwood and
dries slowly in air. Its market is found in all eastern and central parts
of the United States, and it is exported to Europe and Central and South
America. It is a substantial material for many common purposes and
its use is very large on the Atlantic coast. In quantity it exceeds any
other species in the wood-using industries of Maryland, and all others
combined in North Carolina. It is not as often employed in heavy
structural timbers as longleaf pine, but in the market of which Baltimore
is the center, much use is made of it for that purpose. It is ten pounds
a cubic foot lighter than longleaf, has about three-fourths of the strength,
and nearly four-fifths of longleaf s elasticity. It is thus seen to be
considerably inferior to it as a structural timber where heavy loads must
be sustained ; but builders use it for many purposes in preference to or on
an equality with longleaf. It is fine for interior finish and doors. Rail-
roads employ large quantities in building freight cars, much for cross-
ties, and bridge builders find many places for it. It is not a long lasting
wood when exposed to weather, unless it has been treated with creosote to
preserve it from decay. It is one of the most easily treated woods.

American Forest Trees 57

In North Carolina and Virginia loblolly tobacco hogsheads are
common; and box factories within easy reach of it use much. A list of
its uses, compiled from reports of factory operations in Maryland, will
give an idea of the range it covers: Basket bottoms, beer bottle boxes,
boats, cart bodies, crates, flooring, frames for doors and windows, fruit
boxes, interior finish, nail kegs, oyster boxes, seats for boats, siding for
houses, staves for slack cooperage, store fixtures, wagon beds, balusters,
brackets, chiffoniers, mantels, molding, picture frames, stair railing,
sash, scrollwork, sideboards, tables.

The amount of loblolly pine timber in this country is not known.
No other important species comes so near growing as much as is cut
from year to year. It covers 200,000 square miles with stands ranging
from little or nothing in some parts to 20,000 feet per acre in others, or
more in exceptional eases. The area of fully stocked loblolly pine is
believed to be as large now as it ever was. Before the Civil war it was
predicted that its period of greatest production was over; but large
tracts are now being logged on which the pine seeds had not been sown
in 1860.

Pond Pine (Pinus serotina). Sargent's table of weights of woods
shows this to be the heaviest pine of the United States; but, as his
calculations were made from a single sample which grew in Duval
county, Florida, further data should be secured before his figures,
49.5 pounds per cubic foot, are accepted as an average weight for the
species. It is rated in strength about equal to longleaf and Cuban pine.
Its structure shows a large percentage of dense summerwood in the yearly
ring. The leaves are in clusters of three, rarely four, and are six or eight
inches long, and fall in their third and fourth years. The name suggests
that the cones are tightly closed, and that they adhere tenaciously to
the twigs on which they grow. This is found true. The principal im-
pression made on a person who sees the pond pine for the first time is
that it is overloaded with cones, and that it must be a prolific seeder.
Better acquaintance modifies the latter part of that impression. It is
overloaded with cones, but most of them are many years old, and have
long been seedless, although most of the trees have the seed crops of two
years on the branches at one time. Enough seed is shed to perpetuate
the species, but too little to insure an aggressive spread into surrounding
vacant ground. The pond pine may reach a diameter of three feet and a
height of eighty, but that is twice the average size. The wood is very
resinous, and is brittle.

Scrub Pine (Pinus virginiana). This tree is often called Jersey pine because
it is a prominent feature of the landscapes in the southern part of that state when- it
has spread extensively since the settlement of the Country. Its short needles have

58 American Forest Trees

been responsible for several of its names, among them being shortshuck pine in Mary-
land and Virginia, shortshat pine in Delaware, shortleaved pine in North Carolina,
and spruce pine and cedar pine in some parts of the South. In Tennessee it is known
as nigger pine, and in some parts of North Carolina as river pine. The range is fairly
well outlined by the above discussion of its names. It grows from New York to
South Carolina, and west of the mountains it is found in northern Alabama and middle
Tennessee, in Kentucky and West Virginia. It reaches its largest size in southern
Indiana where it is sometimes 100 feet high and three in diameter. It is there a
valuable tree for many purposes, but is not abundant. Its average size is small in the
eastern states, usually not over fifty feet high, and often little more than half of that.
Few trunks east of the Allegheny mountains are more than eighteen inches in diam-
eter. The name scrub pine is an index to the opinions held by most people regarding
this tree. It is often considered an encumbrance rather than an asset ; yet statistics
of wood-using industries hardly justify that view. Millions of feet of it are employed
annually in each of the states of New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina,
for boxes, slack cooperage, and common lumber. The wood is moderately strong, but
is not stiff. It is medium light, soft, brittle, with summerwood narrow and very
resinous. Its color is light orange or yellow, the thick sapwood ivory white. The
needles are from one and a half to three inches long, and fall in the third and fourth
years. Cones are two or three inches long, and scatter their seeds in autumn. The
wings are too small to carry the seeds far, yet the tree succeeds in quickly spreading
into surrounding vacant spaces. Cones adhere to the branches three or four years.
Tar makers and charcoal burners utilized scrub pine in New Jersey, northeastern
Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvania a century and a half ago. The tree seems
to be as abundant now as it ever was. Unless it occupies very poor land — which it
generally does — the growth is liable to be suppressed and crowded to death by broad-
leaf trees before the stands become very old. As a species, it is weak in self-defense,
and it owes its survival to its habit of retreating to poor soils where enemies cannot
follow. It may be said of it as the Roman historian Tacitus said of certain men:
"The cowards fly the farthest, and are the longest survivors."

NORWAY PINE

NORWAY PINE

(Pinus Resinosa)

EARLY explorers who were not botanists mistook this tree for
Norway spruce, and gave it the name which has since remained in
nearly all parts of its range. It is called red pine also, and this name is
strictly descriptive. The brown or red color of the bark is instantly
noticed by one who sees the tree for the first time. In the Lake States it
has been called hard pine for the purpose of distinguishing it from the
softer white pine with which it is associated. In England they call it
Canadian red pine, because the principal supply in England is imported
from the Canadian provinces.

Its chief range lies in the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence river,
which includes the Great Lakes and the rivers which flow into them.
Newfoundland forms the eastern and Manitoba the western outposts of
this species. It is found as far south as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
northern Ohio, central Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It con-
forms pretty generally to the range of white pine but does not accom-
pany that species southward along the Appalachian mountain ranges
across West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Where it
was left to compete in nature's way with white pine, the contest was
friendly, but white pine got the best of it. The two species grew in
intermixture, but in most instances white pine had from five to twenty
trees to Norway's one. As a survivor under adversity, however, the
Norway pine appears to surpass its great friendly rival, at least in the
Lake States where the great pineries once flourished and have largely
passed away. Solitary or small clumps of Norway pines are occasionally
found where not a white pine, large or small, is in sight.

The forest appearance of Norway pine resembles the southern
yellow pines. The stand is open, the trunks are clean and tall, the
branches are at the top. The Norway's leaves are in clusters of two,
and are five or six inches long. They fall during the fourth or fifth
year. Cones are two inches long, and when mature, closely resemble
the color of the tree's bark, that is, light chestnut brown. Exceptionally
tall Norway pines may reach a height of 150 feet, but the average is
seventy or eighty, with diameters of from two to four. Young trees are
limby, but early in life the lower branches die and fall, leaving few
protruding stubs or knots. It appears to be a characteristic that trunks
are seldom quite straight. They do not have the plumb appearance of
forest grown white pine and spruce.

The wood of Norway pine is medium light, its strength and stiffness

61

82 American- Forest Trees

about twenty-five per cent greater than white pine, and it is moderately
soft. The annual rings are rather wide, indicating rapid growth. The
bands of summerwood are narrow compared with the springwood,
which gives a generally light color to the wood, though not as light as the
wood of white pine. The resin passages are small and fairly numerous.
The sapwood is thick, and the wood is not durable in contact with the
soil.

Norway pine has always had a place of its own in the lumber
trade, but large quantities have been marketed as white pine. If such
had not been the case, Norway pine would have been much of tener heard
of during the years when the Lake State pineries were sending their
billions of feet of lumber to the markets of the world.

Because of the deposit of resinous materials in the wood, Norway
pine stumps resist decay much better than white pine. In some of the
early cuttings in Michigan, where only stumps remain to show how large
the trees were and how thick they stood, the Norway stumps are much
better preserved than the white pine. Using that fact as a basis of
estimate, it may be shown that in many places the Norway pine consti-
tuted one-fifth or one-fourth of the original stand. The lumbermen
cut clean, and statistics of that period do not show that the two pines
were generally marketed separately. In recent years many of the
Norway stumps have been pulled, and have been sold to wood-distilla-
tion plants where the rosin and turpentine are extracted.

At an early date Norway pine from Canada and northern New York
was popular ship timber in this country and England. Slender, straight
trunks were selected as masts, or were sawed for decking planks thirty or
forty feet long. Shipbuilders insisted that planks be all heartwood,
because when sapwood was exposed to rain and sun, it changed to a green
color, due to the presence of fungus. The wood wears well as ship
decking. The British navy was still using some Norway pine masts
as late as 1875.

The scarcity of this timber has retired it from some of the places
which it once filled, and the southern yellow pines have been substituted.
It is still employed for many important purposes, the chief of which
is car building, if statistics for the state of Illinois are a criterion for the
whole country. In 1909 in that state 24,794,000 feet of it were used for
all purposes, and 14,7S3,000 feet in car construction.

For many years Chicago has been the center of the Norway pine
trade. It is landed there by lake steamers and by rail, and is distributed
to ultimate consumers. The uses for the wood, as reported by Illinois
manufacturers, follow : Baskets, boxes, boats, brackets, casing and frames
for doors and windows, crating, derricks for well-boring machines, doors,

American Forest Trees 63

elevators, fixtures for stores and offices, foot or running boards for tank
cars, foundry flasks, freight cars, hand rails, insulation for refrigerator
cars, ladders, picture moldings, roofing, sash, siding for cattle cars, sign
boards and advertising signs, tanks, and windmill towers.

As with white pine, Norway pine has past the period of greatest
production, though much still goes to market every year and will long
continue to do so. The land which lumbermen denuded in the Lake
States, particularly Michigan and Wisconsin, years ago, did not reclothe
itself with Norway seedlings. That would have taken place in most
instances but for fires which ran periodically through the slashings until
all seedlings were destroyed. In many places there are now few seed-
lings and few large trees to bear seeds, and consequently the pine forest
in such places is a thing of the past. The outlook is better in other
localities.

The Norway pine is much planted for ornament, and is rated one of
the handsomest of northern park trees.

Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida). The name pitch pine is locally applied to almost
every species of hard, resinous pine in this country. The Pinus rigida. has other
names than pitch pine. In Delaware it is called longleaved pine, since its needles are
longer than the scrub pine's with which it is associated. For the same reason it is
known in some localities as longschat pine. In Massachusetts it is called hard pine, in
Pennsylvania yellow pine, in North Carolina and eastern Tennessee black pine, and
black Norway pine in New York. The botanical name is translated "rigid pine," but
the rigid refers to the leaves, not the wood. Its range covers New England, New
York, Pennsylvania, southern Canada, eastern Ohio, and southward along the
mountains to northern Georgia. It has three leaves in a cluster, from three to five in-
ches long, and they fall the second year. Cones range in length from one to three
inches, and they hang on the branches ten or twelve years. The wood is medium
light, moderately strong, but low in stiffness. It is soft and brittle. The annual
rings are wide, the summerwood broad, distinct, and very resinous. Medullary rays
are few but prominent ; color, light brown or red, the thick sapwood yellow or often
nearly white. The difference in the hardness between springwood and summerwood
renders it difficult to work, and causes uneven wear when used as flooring. It is
fairly durable in contact with the soil.

The tree attains a height of from forty to eighty feet and a diameter of three.
This pine is not found in extensive forests, but in scattered patches, nearly always on
poor soil where other trees will not crowd it. Light and air are necessary to its
existence. If it receives these, it will fight successfully against adversities which
would be fatal to many other species. In resistance to forest fires, it is a salamander
among trees. That is primarily due to its thick bark, but it is favored also by the
situations in which it is generally found — open woods, and on soil so poor that ground
litter is thin. It is a useful wood for many purposes, and wherever it is found in
sufficient quantity, it goes to market, but under its own name only in restricted lo-
calities. Its resinous knots were once used in place of candles in frontier homes.
Tar made locally from its rich wood was the pioneer wagoner's axle grease, and the
ever-present tar bucket and tar paddle swung from the rear axle. Torches made by
tying splinters in bundles answered for lanterns in night travel. It was the best pine

64

American Forest Trees

for floors in some localities. It is probably used more for boxes than for anything
else at present. In 1909 Massachusetts box makers bought 600,000 feet, and a little
more went to Maryland box factories. Its poor holding power on spikes limits its
employment as railroad ties and in shipbuilding. Carpenters and furniture makers
object to the numerous knots. Country blacksmiths who repair and make wagons
as a side line, find it suitable for wagon beds. It is much used as fuel where it is
convenient.

Torrey Pine (Pinus torrcyana), called del mar pine and Soledad pine, is an
interesting tree from the fact that its range is so restricted that the actual number of
trees could be easily known to one who would take the trouble to count them. A
rather large quantity formerly occupied a small area in San Diego county, California,
but woodchoppers who did not appreciate the fact that they were exterminating a
species of pine from the face of the earth, cut nearly all of the trees for fuel. Its
range covered only a few square miles, and fortunately part of that was included in
the city limits of San Diego. An ordinance was passed prohibicing the cutting of a
Torrey pine under heavy penalty, and the tree was thus saved. A hundred ana
fifty miles off the San Diego coast a few Torrey pines grow on the islands of Santa
Cruz and Santa Rosa, and owing to their isolated situation they bid fair to escape the
cordwood cutter for years to come. Those who have seen this tree on its native
hills have admired the gameness of its battle for existence against the elements.
Standing in the full sweep of the ocean winds, its strong, short branches scarcely
move, and all the agitation is in the thick tufts of needles which cling to the ends of
the branches. Trees exposed to the seawinds are stunted, and are generally less than
a foot in diameter and thirty feet high ; but those which are so fortunate as to occupy
sheltered valleys are three or four times that size. The needles are five in a cluster.
The cones persist on the branches three or four years. The wood is light, soft, moder-
ately strong, very brittle; the rings of yearly growth are broad, and the yellow bands
of summerwood occupy nearly half. The sapwood is very thick and is nearly white.

WESTERN YELLOW PINE

Western Yellow Pini

WESTERN YELLOW PINE

(Pinus Pondcrosd)

THE range of western yellow pine covers a million square miles. Its
eastern boundary is a line drawn from South Dakota to western
Texas. The species covers much of the country between that line and the
Pacific ocean. It is natural that it should have more names than one in
a region so extensive. It is best known as western yellow pine, but
lumbermen often call it California white pine. The standing timber is
frequently designated bull pine, but that name is not often given to the
lumber. Where there is no likelihood of confusing it with southern pines,
it is called simply yellow pine. The name heavy-wooded pine, sometimes
applied to the lumber in England, is misleading. When well seasoned it
weighs about thirty pounds per cubic foot, and ordinarily it would not
be classed heavy. In California it is called heavy pine, but that is to
distinguish it from sugar pine which is considerably lighter. The color
of its bark has given it the name Sierra brownbark pine. The same tree
in Montana is called black pine.

The tree has developed two forms. Some botanists have held there
are two species, but that is not the general opinion. In the warm, damp
climate of the Pacific slope the tree is larger, and somewhat different in
appearance from the form in the Rocky Mountain region. The same
observation holds true of Douglas fir.

The wood of western yellow pine is medium light, not strong, is
low in elasticity, medullary rays prominent but not numerous ; resinous,
color light to reddish, the thick sapwood almost white. The annual
rings are variable in width, and the proportionate amounts of spring-
wood and summerwood also vary. It is not durable in contact with the
ground.

The wood is easy to work and some of the best of it resembles
white pine, but as a whole it is inferior to that wood, though it is ex-
tensively employed as a substitute for it in the manufacture of doors,
sash, and frames. It is darker than white pine, harder, heavier,
stronger, almost exactly equal in stiffness, but the annual rings of
the two woods do not bear close resemblance.

The tree reaches a height of from 100 to 200 feet, a diameter from
three to seven. It is occasionally much larger. Its size depends much
on its habitat. The best development occurs on the Sierra Nevada
mountains in California and the best wood comes from that region,
though certain other localities produce high-grade lumber.

Western yellow pine holds and will long hold an important place

67

68 American Forest Trees

in the country's timber resources. The total stand has been estimated
at 275,000,000,000 feet, and is second only to that of Douglas fir, though
the combined stand of the four southern yellow pines is about 100,000,-
000,000 feet larger. It is a vigorous species, able to hold its ground under
ordinary circumstances. Next to incense cedar and the giant sequoias
which are associated with it in the Sierra Nevada mountains, it is the
most prolific seed bearer of the western conifers, and its seeds are
sufficiently light to insure wide distribution. It is gaining ground within
its range by taking possession of vacant areas which have been bared by
lumbering or fire. In some cases it crowds to death the more stately
sugar pine by cutting off its light and moisture. It resists fire better
than most of the forest trees with which it is associated. On the other
hand, it suffers from enemies more than its associates do. A beetle
(Dendroctoniis ponder os<z), destroys large stands. In the Black Hills
in 1903 its ravages killed 600,000,000 feet.

This splendid pine has run the gamut of uses from the corral pole
of the first settler to the paneled door turned out by the modern factory.
It has almost an unlimited capacity for usefulness. It grows in dry
regions of the Rocky Mountains where it is practically the only source
of wood supply; and it is equally secure in its position where forests
are abundant and fine. It has supplied props, stulls, and lagging for
mines in nearly every state touched by its range. Without its ties and
other timbers some of the early railroads through the western mountains
could scarcely have been built. It has been one of the leading flume
timbers in western lumber and irrigation development. It fenced many
ranches in early times and is still doing so. It is used in general con-
struction, and in finish ; from the shingle to the foundation sill of houses.
It finds its way to eastern lumber markets. Almost 20,000,000 feet
a year are used in Illinois alone. Competition with eastern white pine
is met in the Lake States because, grade for grade, the western wood is
cheaper, until lower grades are reached. The western yellow pine, in the
eastern market, is confused with the western white pine of Idaho and
Montana (Pinus monticola) and separate statistics of use are impossible.

The makers of fruit boxes in California often employ the yellow
pine in lieu of sugar pine which once supplied the whole trade. It is
also used by coopers for various containers, but not for alcoholic liquors.

The leaves are in clusters of twos and threes, and are from five to
eleven inches long. Most of them fall during the third year. The
cones are from three to six inches long, and generally fall soon after
they reach maturity.

CoiXTER Pine (Pir.us coulleri) is also known as nut pine, big cone pine, and
long cone pine. It is a California species, scarce, but of much interest because of its

American Forest Trees 69

cones. They are larger than those of any other American pine and are armed with
formidable curved spines from half an inch to an inch and a half in length. The
cones are from ten to fourteen inches long. The tree is found on the Coast Range
mountains from the latitude of San Francisco to the boundary between California
and Mexico. It thrives at altitudes of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet. It never occurs in
pure stands and the total amount is small. It looks like the western yellow pine, but
is much inferior in size. Trunks seldom attain a length of fifteen feet or a diameter
of two. There is no evidence that Coulter pine is increasing its stand on the ground
which it already occupies, or spreading to new ground. The wood is light, soft,
moderately strong, and very tough. The annual rings are narrow and consist largely
of summerwood. The heartwood is light red, the thick sapwood nearly white. It is
a poor tree for lumber, and it has been little used in that way, but has been burned
for charcoal for blacksmith shops, and much is sold as cordwood. The leaves of
Coulter pine are in clusters of three, and they fall during the third and fourth years.

California Swamp Pine (Pinus muricata) clearly belongs among minor
species listed as timber trees. It meets a small demand for skids, corduroy log roads,
bridge floors, and scaffolds in the redwood logging operations in California. It is
scattered along the Pacific coast 500 miles, beginning in Lower California and ending a
hundred miles north of San Francisco. It is known as dwarf marine pine, prickle-
cone pine, bishop pine, and obispo pine. The last name is the Spanish translation of
the English word bishop. The largest trees seldom exceed two feet in diameter, and
a height of ninety feet. The average size is little more than half as much. The
wood is very strong, hard, and compact, and the annual growth ring is largely dense
summerwood. Resin passages are few, but the wood is resinous, light brown in
color, and the thick sapwood is nearly white. The needles are in clusters of two, and
are from four to six inches long. They begin to fall the second year. Some of the
trees retain their cones until death, but the seeds are scattered from year to year.
Under the stimulus of artificial conditions in the redwood districts this pine seems to
be spreading. Its seeds blow into vacant ground from which redwood has been
removed, and growth is prompt. The seedlings are not at all choice as to soil, but
take root in cold clay, in peat bogs, on barren sand and gravel, and on wind-swept
ridges exposed to ocean fogs. Its ability to grow where few other trees can maintain
themselves holds out some hope that its usefulness will increase.

Monterey Pine {Pinus radiata). This scarce and local species is restricted
to the California coast south of San Francisco, and to adjacent islands. Under
favorable circumstances it grows rapidly and promises to be of more importance as a
lumber source in the future than it has been in the past. It is, however, somewhat
particular as to soil. It must have ground not too wet or too dry. If these require-
ments are observed, it is a good tree for planting. Its average height is seventy or
ninety feet, diameter from eighteen to thirty inches. Trunks six feet in diameter are
occasionally heard of. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, tough, annual
rings very wide and largely of springwood; color, light brown, the very thick
sapwood nearly white. The leaves are from four to six inches long, in clusters of two
and three, and fall the third year. Cones are from three to five inches long.
The lumber is too scarce at present to have much importance, but its quality is
good. In appearance it resembles wide-ringed loblolly pine, and appears to be
suitable for doors and sash, and frames for windows and doors. Its present uses are
confined chiefly to ranch timbers and fuel. If it ever amounts to much as a
lumber resource, it will be as a planted pine, and not in its natural si

Jack Pine (Pinus dtiaricata) is a far northern species which extends its range

70 American Forest Trees

southward in the United States, from Maine to Minnesota, and reaches northern
Indiana and Illinois. It grows almost far enough north in the valley of Mackenzie
river to catch the rays of the midnight sun. It must necessarily adapt itself to cir-
cumstances. When these are favorable, it develops a trunk up to two feet in
diameter and seventy feet tall ; but in adversity, it degenerates into a many-branched
shrub a few feet high. The average tree in the United States is thirty or forty feet
tall, and a foot or more in diameter. Its name is intended as a term of contempt,
which it does not deserve. Others call it scrub pine which is little better. Its other
names are more respectful, Prince's pine in Ontario, black pine in Wisconsin and
Minnesota, cypress in Quebec and the Hudson Bay country, Sir Joseph Banks' pine
in England, and juniper in some parts of Canada. "Chek pine" is frequently given in
its list of names, but the name is said to have originated in an attempt of a German
botanist to pronounce "Jack pine" in dictating to a stenographer. The tree straggles
over landscapes which otherwise would be treeless. It is often a ragged and uncouth
specimen of the vegetable kingdom, but that is when it is at its worst. At its best,
as it may be seen where cared for in some of the Michigan cemeteries, it is as hand-
some a tree as anyone could desire. The characteristic thinness and delicacy of its
foliage distinguish it at once from its associates. The peculiar green of its soft, short
needles wins admiration. The wood is light, soft, not strong; annual rings are moder-
ately wide, and are largely composed of springwood. The thin bands of summerwood
are resinous, and the small resin ducts are few. The thick sapwood is nearly white,
the heartwood brown or orange. It is not durable.

Jack pine can never be an important timber tree, because too small; but a
considerable amount is used for bed slats, nail kegs, plastering lath, barrel headings,
boxes, mine props, pulpwood, and fuel. Aside from its use as lumber and small
manufactured products, it has a value for other purposes. It can maintain its
existence in waste sands ; and its usefulness is apparent in fixing drifting dunes along
some of the exposed shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. It lives on dry
sand and sends its roots several feet to water; or, under circumstances entirely
different, it thrives in swamps where the watertable is little below the surface of the
ground. It fights a brave battle against adversities while it lasts, but it does not
live long. Sixty years is old age for this tree. It grows fast while young, but later
it devotes all its energies to the mere process of living, and its increase in size is slow,
until at a period when most trees are still in early youth, it dies of old age, and the
northern winds quickly whip away its limbs, leaving the barkless trunk to stand a few
years longer.

LODGEPOLE PINE

LODGEPOLE PINE

(Pinus Contorla)

THE common name of this tree was given it because its tall, slender,
very light poles were used by Indians of the region in the con-
struction of their lodges. They selected poles fifteen feet long and
two inches in diameter, set them in a circle, bent the tops together, tied
them, and covered the frame with skins or bark. The poles were
peeled in early summer, when the Indians set out upon their summer
hunt, and were left to season until fall, when they were carried to the
winter's camping place, probably fifty miles distant. Tamarack is a
common name for this pine in much of its range; it is likewise known as
black pine, spruce pine, and prickly pine. Its leaves are from one to two
inches long, in clusters of two. The small cones adhere to the branches
many years — sometimes as long as twenty — without releasing the seeds,
which are sealed within the cone by accumulated resin. The vitality of
the seeds is remarkable. They don't lose their power of germination
during their long imprisonment.

The lodgepole pine has been called a fire tree, and the name is
not inappropriate. It profits by severe burning, as some other trees
of the United States do, such as paper birch and bird cherry. The
sealed cones are opened by fire, which softens the resin, and the seeds
are liberated after the fire has passed, and wing their flight wherever
the wind carries them. The passing fire may be severe enough to kill
the parent tree without destroying or bringing down the cones. The
seeds soon fall on the bared mineral soil, where they germinate by
thousands. More than one hundred thousand small seedling trees may
occupy a single acre. Most of them are ultimately crowded to death, but
a thick stand results. Most lodgepole pine forests occupy old burns.
The tree is one of the slowest of growers. It never reaches large size-
possibly three feet is the limit. It is very tall and slender. A hundred
years will scarcely produce a sawlog of the smallest size.

The range of this tree covers a million square miles from Alaska
to New Mexico, and to the Pacific coast. Its characters vary in different
parts of its range. A scrub form was once thought to be a different
species, and was called shore pine.

The wood is of about the same weight as eastern white pine. It is
light in color, rather weak, and brittle, annual rings very narrow,
sunxnerwood small in amount, resin passages few and small ; medullary
rays numerous, broad, and prominent. The wood is characterized by
numerous small knots. It is not durable in contact with the ground,

74 American Forest Trees

but it readily receives preservative treatment. In height it ranges from
fifty to one hundred feet.

The government's estimate of the stand of lodgepole pine in the
United States in 1909 placed it at 90,000,000,000 feet. That makes
it seventh in quantity among the timber trees of this country, those
above it being Douglas fir, the southern yellow pines (considered as
one), western yellow pine, redwood, western hemlock, and the red
cedar of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

Lodgepole pine has been long and widely used as a ranch timber in
the Far West, serving for poles and rails in fences, for sheds, barns, cor-
rals, pens, and small bridges. Where it could be had at all, it was gener-
ally plentiful. Stock ranges high among the mountains frequently de-
pend almost solely upon lodgepole pine for necessary timber.

Mine operators find it a valuable resource. As props it is cheap,
substantial, and convenient in many parts of Colorado, New Mexico,
Wyoming, and Montana. A large proportion of this timber which is
cut for mining purposes has been standing dead from fire injury many
years, and is thoroughly seasoned and very light. It is in excellent
condition for receiving preservative treatment.

Sawmills do not list lodgepole pine separately in reports of lumber
cut, and it is impossible to determine what the annual supply from
the species is. It is well known that the quantity made into lumber
in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho is large. Its chief market
is among the newly established agricultural communities in those states.
They use it for fruit and vegetable shipping boxes, fencing plank,
pickets, and plastering lath.

Railroads buy half a million lodgepole pine crossties yearly.
When creosoted, they resist decay many years. Lodgepole pine has
been a tie material since the first railroads entered the region, and
while by no means the best, it promises to fill a much more important
place in the future than in the past. It is an ideal fence post material
as far as size and form are concerned, and with preservative treatment
it is bound to attain a high place. It is claimed that treated posts will
last twenty years, and that puts them on a par with the cedars.

In Colorado and Wyoming much lodgepole was formerly burned for
charcoal to supply the furnaces which smelted ore and the blacksmith
shops of the region. This is done now less than formerly, since railroad
building has made coal and coke accessible.

In one respect, lodgepole pine is to the western mountains what
loblolly pine is to the flat country of the south Atlantic and other south-
ern states. It is aggressive, and takes possession of vacant ground.
Although the wood is not as valuable as loblolly, it is useful, and has

American Forest Trees 75

an important place to fill in the western country's development. Its
greatest drawback is its exceedingly slow growth. A hundred years is a
long time to wait for trees of pole size. Two crops of loblolly sawlogs can
be harvested in that time. However, the land on which the lodgepole
grows is fit only for timber, and the acreage is so vast that there is
enough to grow supplies, even with the wait of a century or two for
harvest. The stand has increased enormously within historic time, the
same as loblolly, and for a similar reason. Men cleared land in the East,
and loblolly took possession; fires destroyed western forests of other
species and lodgepole seized and held the burned tracts.

If fires cease among the western mountains, as will probably be the
case under more efficient methods of patrol, and with stricter enforce-
ment of laws against starting fires, the spread of lodgepole pine will
come to a standstill, and existing forests will grow old without much
extension of their borders.

Jeffrey Pine (Pinus jeffreyi) is often classed as western yellow
pine, both in the forest and at the mill. Its range extends from southern
Oregon to Lower Calif ornia, a distance of 1,000 miles, and its width east
and west varies from twenty to one hundred and fifty miles. It is a
mountain tree and generally occupies elevations above the western
yellow pine. In the North its range reaches 3,600 feet above sea level;
in the extreme South it is 10,000 feet. The darker and more deeply-
furrowed bark of the Jeffrey pine is the usual character by which lumber-
men distinguish it from the western yellow pine. It is known under
several names, most of them relating to the tree's appearance, such as
black pine, redbark pine, blackbark pine, sapwood pine, and bull pine.
It reaches the same size as the western yellow pine, though the average
is a little smaller. The leaves are from four to nine inches long, and fall in
eight or nine years. The cones are large, and armed with slender, curved
spines. The seeds are too heavy to fly far, their wing area being small.
It is a vigorous tree, and in some regions it forms good forests. Some
botanists have considered the Jeffrey pine a variety of the western
yellow pine.

Gray Pine (Pinus sabiniana), called also Digger pine because the Digger
Indians formerly collected the seeds, which are as large as peanuts, to help eke out a
living, is confined to California, and grows in 3 belt on the foothills surrounding
the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. Its cones are large and armed with hooked
spines. When green, the largest cones weigh three or four pounds. Leaves are from
eight to twelve inches long, in clusters of two and three, and fall the third and fourth
years. The wood is remarkable for the quickness of its decay in damp situations. It
lasts one or two years as fence posts. A mature gray pine is from fifty to seventy feet
high, and eighteen to thirty inches in diameter. Some trees are much larger. It is
of considerable importance, but is not in the same class as western yellow and sugar

76

American Forest Trees

pine. The wood is light, soft, rather strong, brittle. The annual rings are generally
wide, indicating rapid growth. Very old gray pines are not known. An age of 185
years seems to be the highest on record. The wood is resinous, and it has helped in a
small way to supply the Pacific coast markets with high-grade turpentine, distilled
from roots. It yields resin when boxed like the southern longleaf pine. There are
two flowing seasons. One is very early, and closes when the weather becomes hot;
the other is in full current by the middle of August. It maintains life among the
California foothills during the long rainless seasons, on ground so dry that semi-
desert chaparral sometimes succumbs; but it is able to make the most of favorable
conditions, and it grows rapidly under the slightest encouragement. The seedlings
are more numerous now than formerly, which is attributed to decrease of forest fires.
The tree has enemies which generally attack it in youth. Two fungi, Peridermium
harknessi, and Dttdalia vorax, destroy the young tree's leader or topmost shoot,
causing the development of a short trunk. The latter fungus is the same or is closely
related to that which tunnels the trunk of incense cedar and produces pecky cypress.

Gray pine has been cut to some extent for lumber, but its principal uses have
been as fuel and mine timbers. Many quartz mines have been located in the region
where the tree grows ; and the engines which pumped the shafts and raised and crushed
the ore were often heated with this pine. Thousands of acres of hillsides in the vicin-
ity of mines were stripped of it, and it went to the engine house ricks in wagons, on
sleds, and on the backs of burros. In two respects it is an economical fuel for remote
mines: it is light in weight, and gives more heat than an equal quantity of the oak
that is associated with it.

Chihuahua Pine (Pinus chihuahuana) is not abundant, but it exists in small
commercial quantities in southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. Trees are
from fifty to eighty feet high, and from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. The
wood is medium light, soft, rather strong, brittle, narrow ringed and compact. The
resin passages are few, large, and conspicuous; color, clear light orange, the thick
sapwood lighter. The tree reaches best development at altitudes of from 5,000 to
7,000 feet. When the wood is used, it serves the same purposes as western yellow
pine; but the small size of the tree makes lumber of large size impossible. The
leaves are in clusters of three, and fall the fourth year. The cones have long stalks
and are from one and a half to two inches long.

TAMARACK

TAMARACK

(Larix Laricina)

THERE are three species of tamarack or larch in the United States,
and probably a fourth is confined to Alaska. One has its range in
the northeastern states, extending south to West Virginia and northwest-
ward to Alaska. Two are found in the northwestern states. Other
species are native of the eastern hemisphere, and some of them have
been planted to some extent in this country. A species of Europe is of
much importance in that country. The tamaracks lose their leaves in
the fall and the branches are bare during the winter. The name tamarack
or larch should be applied only to trees of the genus larix. This rule is
not observed in some parts of the West where the noble fir (Abies nobilis)
is occasionally called larch by lumbermen. It is not entitled to that
name, and confusion results from such use.

The larches are easily identified. They have needle leaves like
those of pines and firs, but they are differently arranged. They are
produced in little brush-like bundles, from twelve to forty leaves in each,
on all the shoots, except the leaders. On these the leaves occur singly.
The little brushes are so conspicuous, and so characteristic of this
genus, including all its species, that there should be little difficulty in
identifying the larches when the leaves are on. In winter, when the
branches are bare, there are other easy marks of identification.

The little brushes are interesting objects of study. Botanists tell
us that the excrescence or bud-like knob from which the leaves grow is
really a suppressed or aborted branch, with all its leaves crowded
together at the end. If it were developed, it would bear its leaves
singly, scattered along its full length, as they occur on the leading
shoots. The warty appearance of the branches in winter is a very
convenient means of identification when the leaves are down.

The cones of larches mature in a single season, and often hang on
the trees several years. They are conspicuous in winter when the
branches are bare of foliage. The adhering cones are generally seedless
after the first season, since they quickly let their winged seeds go. The
male and female flowers are produced singly on branches of the previous
year.

The eastern and northern larch (Larix laricina) has a number of
names. It is commonly known as tamarack in the New England states
and in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Wiscon-
sin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and in Canada. The name larch is
applied in practically all the regions where it grows, but it is not used as

79

80 American Forest Trees

frequently as tamarack. Hackmatack, which was the Indian name for
the tree in part of its eastern range, is still in use in Maine, New Hamp-
shire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, and
Ontario. Nurserymen call it American larch to distinguish it from other
larches on the market, particularly the European larch. Michaux, an
early French botanist who explored American forests, called it American
larch (Larix americana), and the name which he gave has been retained
by many scientists to this day. In the Canadian provinces north of the
Great Lakes, and also in Maine and New Brunswick, it is frequently
called juniper, but without good reason, for it has little of the appearance
and few of the qualities of the junipers. In some localities it is called
black larch, and in others red larch. The first name refers to the color
of its bark, the last to the leases when about to fall, for they then change
to a brown or reddish color. They fall in the autumn, and the branches
are bare until the next spring. Some of the New York Indians observed
that peculiarity of the tree which they thought should be an evergreen
like the balsam and pines with which it was often associated, and they
named it kenehtens, meaning "the leaves fall". Indians did not, as a
rule, give separate names to tree species, and when they did so, it was
because of food value, or from some peculiarity which could not fail to
attract the notice of a savage.

The tamarack's geographical range is remarkable. It is said to be
best developed in the region east of Manitoba, but it extends southward
into West Virginia and northward to the land of the midnight sun. It
maintains its place almost to the arctic snows, and the willow is about
the only tree that pushes farther north. It is found from Newfoundland
and Labrador far down toward the mouth of the Mackenzie river, north
of the arctic circle. It grows on dry land as well as wet, but is oftenest
found in cold swamps, particularly in the southern part of its range.
Siltedup lakes are favorite situations, and on the made-land above old
beaver dams.

Tamarack forests frequently stand on ground so soft that a pole
may be thrust ten feet deep in the mud. The moist, monotonous
sphagnum moss generally furnishes ground cover in such places. A
tamarack swamp in summer is cool and pleasant — provided there is not
too much water on the ground — but in winter a more desolate picture
can scarcely be imagined. The leafless trees appear to be dead, and
covered with lifeless cones ; but the first warm days bring it to life.

The average height of tamarack trees is from forty to sixty feet,
diameter twenty inches or less. Leaves are one-half or one and a half
inches long; cones one-half or three-quarter inches, and bright chestnut
brown at maturity. They fall when two years old. The winged seeds

American Forest Trees 81

are very small. The tree is neither a frequent nor abundant seeder.
The foliage is thin, and is not sufficient to shut much sunlight from the
ground.

The wood is heavy, hard, very strong, and is durable in contact
with the soil. The growth is slow, annual rings narrow, summerwood
occupies nearly half the ring, and is dark-colored, resinous, and con-
spicuous; resin passages few and obscure; medullary rays numerous
and obscure; color of wood light brown, the sapwood nearly white.

The uses of tamarack go back to prehistoric times. The Indians
of Canada and northeastern United States drew supplies from four
forest trees when they made their bark canoes. The bark for the shell
came from paper birch, threads for sewing the strips of bark together
were tamarack roots, resin for stopping leaks was a product of balsam fir,
and the light framework of wood was northern white cedar.

The roots which best suited the Indian's purpose came from trees
which grew in soft, deep mud, where lakes and beaver ponds had silted
up. Such roots are long, slender, and very tough and pliant, and may
be gathered in large numbers, particularly where running streams have
partly undermined standing trees.

White men likewise made use of tamarack roots in boat building,
but the roots were different from what the Indians used. "Instep"
crooks were hewed for ship knees. These were large roots, the larger
the better. Trees which produced them did not grow in deep mud, for
there the roots did not develop crooks. The ship knee operator hunted
for tamarack forests growing on a soft surface soil two or three feet
deep, underlaid by stiff clay or rock which roots could not penetrate.
In situations like that the roots go straight down until they reach the
hard stratum, and then turn at right angles and grow in a horizontal
direction. The turning point in the root develops the crook of which
the ship knee is made.

Tamarack is seldom of sufficient size for the largest ship knees.
Such were formerly supplied by southern live oak; and in that case
crooks formed by the union of trunk and large branches were as good
as those produced by the union of trunk and large roots.

Tamarack is still employed in the manufacture of boat knees, but
not as much as formerly. Steel frames have largely taken the place of
wood in the construction of ship skeletons. Boat builders use tamarack
now for floors, keels, stringers, and knees.

Tamarack has come into much use in recent years. Sawmills cut
from it more than 125,000,000 feet of lumber a year. Fourteen states
contribute, but most of the lumber is produced in Minnesota, Michigan,
and Wisconsin. Railroads in the United States buy 5,000,000 or more

82

American Forest Trees

tamarack ties a year, which reduced to board measure amount to over
150,000,000 feet. Fence posts and telegraph poles come in large num-
bers from tamarack forests.

The wood is stiff and strong, its stiffness being eighty-four per cent
of that of long leaf pine, and its strength about eighty per cent. Unusual
variations in both strength and stiffness are found. One stick of tama-
rack may rate twice as high as another.

The wood-using factories of Michigan consume nearly 20,000,000
feet of this wood yearly. It is made into boxes, excelsior, pails, tanks,
tubs, house finish, refrigerators, windmills, and wooden pipes for water-
works and for draining mines.

There is little likelihood that the supply of tamarack will run short
in the near future. While it is not in the first rank of the important
trees in this country, it is useful, and it is fortunate that it promises to
hold its ground against fires which do grave injury to northern forests.
In the swamps where the most of it is found the ground litter is too
damp to burn. The tree does not grow rapidly, but it usually occupies
lands which cannot be profitably devoted to agriculture, and it will,
therefore, be let alone until it reaches maturity.

Tamarack is a familiar tree in parks, and it grows farther south than
its natural range extends. It is not as desirable a park tree as hemlock,
spruce, fir, the cedars, and some of the pines, because its foliage is thin in
summer and wanting in winter. It is in a class with cypress. In the
early spring, however, while its soft green needles are beginning to show
themselves in clusters along the twigs, its delicate and unusual appear-
ance attracts more attention than its companion trees which are always
in full leaf and for that reason are somewhat monotonous.

WESTERN LARCH

WESTERN LARCH

(Larix Occidentalis)

THIS is a magnificent tree of the Northwest, and its range lies
principally on the upper tributaries of the Columbia river, in
Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, but it occurs also among the Blue
Mountains of Washington and Oregon. It is the largest member of the
larch genus, either in the old world or the new. The finest trees are 250
feet high with diameters of six or eight feet, but sizes half of that are
nearer the average. The trunk is of splendid form. In early life it is
limby, but later it prunes itself, and a long, tapering bole is developed
with a very small crown of thin foliage. No other tree of its size, with the
possible exception of old sequoias, has so little foliage in proportion to
the trunk.

The result is apparent in the rate of growth after the larch has
passed its youth. Sometimes such a tree does not increase its trunk
diameter as much in seventy-five years as a vigorous loblolly pine or
willow oak will in one year. The trunk of a tree, as is well known,
grows by means of food manufactured by the leaves and sent down to be
transformed into wood. With so few leaves and a trunk so large, the
slowness of growth is a natural consequence. Though the annual rings
are usually quite narrow, the bands of summerwood are relatively
broad. That accounts for the density of larchwood and its great weight.
It is six per cent heavier than longleaf pine, and is not much inferior in
strength and elasticity. The leaves are from one to one and three-
quarter inches long, the cones from one to one and a half inches, and the
seeds nearly one-quarter inch in length. They are equipped with wings
of sufficient power to carry them a short distance from the parent tree.

The bark on young larches is thin, but on large trunks, and near
the ground, it may be five or six inches thick. When a notch is cut in
the trunk it collects a resin of sweetish taste which the Indians use as
an article of food.

The western larch reaches its best development in northern Idaho
and Montana on streams which flow into Flathead lake. The tree
prefers moist bottom lands, but grows well in other situations, at alti-
tudes of from 2,000 to 7,000 feet. The figures given above on the wood's
weight, strength, and stiffness show its value for manufacturing purposes.
Its remoteness from markets has stood in the way of large use, but it has
been tried for many purposes and with highly satisfactory results. In
1910 sawmills in the four western states where it grows cut 255,180,000
feet. Most of this is used as rough lumber, but some is made into

86 American Forest Trees

furniture, finish, boxes, and boats. The wood has several names,
though larch is the most common. It is otherwise known as tamarack
and hackmatack, which names are oftener applied to the eastern tree;
red American larch, western tamarack, and great western larch.

Some of the annual cut of lumber credited to western larch does
not belong to it. Lumbermen have confused names and mixed figures
by applying this tree's name to noble fir, which is a different tree. If
the fir lumber listed as larch were given its proper name, it would result
in lowering the output of larch as shown in statistical figures. In
spite of this, however, larch lumber fills an important place in the trade
of the northern Rocky Mountain region.

There is little doubt that it will fill a much more important place in
the future, for a beginning has scarcely been made in marketing this
timber. The available supply is large, but exact figures are not avail-
able. Some stands are dense and extensive, and the trees are of large
size and fine form. It is not supposed, however, that there will be much
after the present stand has been cut, because a second crop from trees
of so slow growth will be far in the future. Sudworth says that larch
trees eighteen or twenty inches in diameter are from 250 to 300 years
old, and that the ordinary age of these trees in theforests of the Northwest
is from 300 to 500 years ; while larger trees are 600 or 700. Much remains
to be learned concerning the ages of these trees in different situations and
in different parts of its range. It is apparent, however, that when a
period covering two or three centuries is required to produce a sawlog
of only moderate size, timber owners will not look forward with much
eagerness to a second growth forest of western larch.

The value of the wood of western larch has been the subject of much
controversy. In the tables compiled for the federal census of 1880,
under direction of Charles S. Sargent, its strength and elasticity were
shown to be remarkably high. The figures indicate that it is about
thirty-nine per cent stronger than white oak and fifty-one per cent
stiffer. This places it a little above longleaf pine in strength and nearly
equal to it in stiffness or elasticity. Engineers have expressed doubts
as to the correctness of Sargent's figures. They believe them too high.
The samples tested by Sargent were six in number, four of them col-
lected in Washington and two in Montana.

The wood of western larch is heavier than longleaf pine, and
approximately of the same weight as white oak. It is among the heaviest,
if not actually the heaviest, of softwoods of the United States. Sargent
thus described the physical properties of the wood : "Heavy, exceedingly
hard and strong, rather coarse grained, compact, satiny, susceptible
of a fine polish, very durable in contact with the soil; bands of small

American Forest Trees 87

summer cells broad, occupying fully half the width of the annual
growth, very resinous, dark-colored, conspicuous resin passages few,
obscure; medullary rays few, thin; color, light bright red, the thin sap-
wood nearly white." The wood is described by Sud worth: "Clear,
reddish brown, heavy, and fine grained ; commercially valuable ; very
durable in an unprotected state, differing greatly in this respect from
the wood of the eastern larch."

The seasoning of western larch has given lumbermen much
trouble. It checks badly and splinters rise from the surface of boards.
It is generally admitted that this is the most serious obstacle in the way
of securing wide utilization for the wood. The structure of the annual
ring is reason for believing that there is slight adhesion between the
springwood and that of the late season. Checks are very numerous
parallel with the growth rings, and splinters part from the board along the
same lines. Standing timber is frequently windshaken, and the cracks
follow the rings.

All of this is presumptive evidence that the principle defect of
larch is a lack of adhesion between the early and the late wood. If that
is correct, it is a fundamental defect in the growing tree, and is inherent
in the wood. No artificial treatment can wholly remove it. It should
not be considered impossible, however, to devise methods of seasoning
which would not accentuate the weaknesses natural to the wood.

The form of the larch's trunk is perfect, from the lumberman's
viewpoint, and its size is all that could be desired. It is amply able to
perpetuate its species, though it consumes a great deal of time in the
process. Abundant crops of seeds are borne, but only once in several
years. It rarely bears seeds as early as its twenty-fifth year, and gener-
ally not until it passes forty; but its fruitful period is long, extending
over several centuries. The seeds retain their vitality moderately well,
which is an important consideration in view of the tree's habit of opening
and closing its cones alternately as the weather happens to be damp
or dry. The dispersion of seeds extends over a considerable part of the
season, and the changing winds scatter them in all directions. Many
seeds fall on the snow in winter to be let down on the damp ground
ready to germinate during the early spring. The best germination
occurs on mineral soil, and this is often found in areas recently bared by
fire. Lodgepole pine contends also for this ground; but the race be-
tween the two species is not swift after the process of scattering seeds
has been completed; for both are of growth so exceedingly slow that a
hundred years will scarcely tell which is gaining. In the long run,
however, the larch outstrips the pine and becomes a larger tree. If
both start at the same time, and there is not room for both, the pine

88 American Forest Trees

will kill the larch by shading it. The latter's thin foliage renders it
incapable of casting a shadow dense enough to hurt the pine. The best
areas for larch are those so thoroughly burned as to preclude the im-
mediate heavy reproduction of lodgepole pine.

Much of the natural ranges of larch and lodgepole pine lie in the
national forests owned by the government, and careful studies have
been made in recent years to determine the requirements, and the actual
and comparative values of the two species. It has been shown that
larch is one of the most intolerant of the western forest trees. It cannot
endure shade. Its own thin foliage, where it occurs in pure stands, is
sufficient to shade off the lower limbs of boles, and produce tall, clean
trunks; but if a larch happens to stand in the open, where light is
abundant, it retains its branches almost to the ground. It is more
intolerant, even, than western yellow pine, which so often grows in open,
parklike stands.

Alpine Larch (Larix lyallii) never grows naturally below an
altitude of 4,000 feet, and near the southern border of its range it climbs
to 8,000, where it stands on the brink of precipices, faces of cliffs, and on
windswept summits. It is too much exposed to storms, and has its
roots in soil too sterile to develop symmetrical forms. It is found in
Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The finest trees are some-
times seventy-five feet high and three or four in diameter, but the
average height ranges from forty to fifty, with diameters of twenty
inches or less. Its leaves are one and a half inches or less in length;
cones one and a half inches long, and bristling with hair; seeds one -eighth
of an inch long with wings one-fourth inch; wood heavy, hard, and of
a light, reddish brown color. It is seldom used except about mountain
camps where it is sometimes burned for fuel or is employed in construct-
ing corrals for sheep and cattle. It is impossible for lumbermen ever
to make much use of it, because it is scarce and hard to get at.

RED CEDAR

T

RED CEDAR

(Juniperus Virginiana)

*HIS widely distributed tree is called red cedar in New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri,
Illinois,' Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and
Ontario; cedar in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, South Caro-
lina, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio; savin in Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota; juniper in New York
and Pennsylvania; juniper bush in Minnesota; cedre in Louisiana.

The names as given above indicate the tree's commercial range.
It appears as scattered growth and in doubtful forms outside of that
range, particularly in the West where several cedars closely resemble the
red cedar, yet differ sufficiently from it to give them places as separate
species in the lists of some botanists. They are so listed by the United
States Forest Service; and the following names are given: Western
Juniper, Rocky Mountain Juniper, One Seed Juniper, Mountain Juniper,
California Juniper, Utah Juniper, Drooping Juniper, Dwarf Juniper, and
Alligator Juniper. These species are not of much importance from the
lumberman's viewpoint, yet they are highly interesting trees, and in this
book will be treated individually.

The red cedar grows slowly, and thrives in almost any soil and
situation except deep swamps. It is often classed as a poor-land species,
yet it does not naturally seek poor land. That it is often found in such
situations is because it has been crowded from better places by stronger
trees, and has retreated to rocky ridges, dry slopes, and thin soils where
competitors are unable to follow. The trees often stand wide apart or
solitary, yet they can grow in thickets almost impenetrable, as they do
in Texas and other southern states. It is an oldfield tree in much of its
range. Birds plant the seeds, particularly along fence rows. That is
why long lines of cedars may often be seen extending across old fields or
deserted plantations.

The extreme size attained by this cedar is four feet in diameter,
and one hundred in height, but that size was never common, and at
present the half of it is above the average. That which reaches market
is more often under than over eighteen inches in diameter. The
reddish-brown and fibrous bark may be peeled in long strips. Stringi-
ness of bark is characteristic of all the cedars, and typical of red cedar.
The wood is medium light and is strong, considering that it is very

92 American Forest Trees

brittle. Tests show it to be eighty per cent as strong as white oak.
The grain is very fine, even, and homogeneous, except as interfered with
by knots. The annual rings are narrow, the summerwood narrow and
indistinct; medullar}' rays numerous but very obscure. The color is
red, the thin sapwood nearly white. The heart and sap are sometimes
intermingled, and this characteristic is prominent in the closely-related
western species of red cedar. The wood is easily worked, gives little
trouble because of warping and shrinking, and the heart is considered as
durable as any other American wood. It has a delicate, agreeable frag-
rance, which is especially marked. This odor is disagreeable to insects,
and for that reason chests and closets of cedar are highly appreciated as
storage places for garments subject to the ravages of the moth and
buffalo bug. An extract from the fruit and leaves is used in medicine,
while oil of red cedar, distilled from the wood, is used in making perfume.
Cedar has a sweet taste. It burns badly, scarcely being able to support
a flame; it is exceedingly aromatic and noisy when burning and the
embers glow long in still air. Some of the bungalow owners in Florida
buy cedar fuel in preference to all others for burning in open fireplaces.
Its representative uses are for posts, railway ties, pails, sills,
cigar boxes, interior finish and cabinet making, but its most general
use is in the manufacture of lead pencils, for which its fine, straight grain
and soft texture are peculiarly adapted. The farther south cedar is
found, the softer and clearer it is. In the North, in ornamental trees, it
is very hard, slow-growing, and knotty. It shows but a small percentage
of clear lumber. In eastern Tennessee there were considerable quantities
of red cedar brake that were for years considered of little value. About
the only way the wood was employed a few years ago was in fence rails
and posts, fuel, and charcoal. Of late people in localities where cedar
grows in any abundance have awakened to its value, and cedar fences
are rapidly disappearing, owing to the high prices now paid for the wood,
and the excellent demand. On no other southern wood has such
depredation been practiced. Because of its lightness and the ease with
which it can be worked, it has been used for purposes for which other
and less valuable woods were well adapted. On account of its slow
growth, its complete exhaustion has often been predicted, but a second
growth has appeared which, though much inferior to the virgin timber,
can be used in many ways to excellent advantage. Instead of the huge
piles of cedar flooring, chest boards, and smooth railings of the old days,
one now sees at points of distribution great piles of knotty, rough poles,
ten to forty feet long, which years ago would have been discarded.
Today they represent bridge piling, the better and smoother among them
being used for telephone and telegraph poles.

American Forest Trees 93

Middle Tennessee has produced more red cedar than any other
part of the United States, but the bulk of production has been confined
to a few counties, which produce a higher class and more aromatic
variety of wood than that found elsewhere. A century ago these
counties abounded in splendid forests of cedar. The early settlers built
their cabins of cedar logs, sills, studding, and rafters; their smoke
houses were built of them; their barns; even the roofs were shingled
with cedar and the rooms and porches floored with the sweet-scented
wood. Not many years ago trees three feet or more in diameter were
often found, but the days are past when timber like that can be had
anywhere.

Although the most general use at the present time is for lead
pencils, few people who sharpen one and smell the fragrant wood, stop
to wonder where it came from. One would smile were it suggested to
him that perhaps his pencil was formerly part of some Tennessee farmer's
worm fence. The best timber obtained now is hewn into export logs
and shipped to Europe, particularly Germany, where a great quantity is
converted into pencils. The red wood is made into the higher grades
and the sap or streaked wood is used for the cheaper varieties and for pen
holders. The smaller and inferior logs are cut into slats, while odds and
ends, cutoffs, etc., are collected and sold by the hundred pounds to
pencil factories. There are many such factories in the United States
now, as well as in Europe, and pencil men are scouring the cedar sections
to buy all they can. The farmer who has a red cedar picket or worm
fence can sell it to these companies at a round price. Pencil men are
even going back over tracts from which the timber was cut twenty-five
years ago, buying up the stumps. When the wood was plentiful
lumbermen were not frugal, and usually cut down a tree about two feet
above the ground, allowing the best part of it to be wasted.

The German and Austrian pencil makers foresaw a shortage in
American red cedar, and many years ago planted large areas to provide
for the time of scarcity. The planted timber is now large enough for
use, but the wood has been a disappointment. It does not possess the
softness and brittleness which give so high value to the forest cedar of
this country. As far as can be seen, when present pencil cedar has been
exhausted, there will be little more produced of like grade. It grows so
slowly that owners will not wait for trees to become old, but sell them
while young for posts and poles.

One of the earliest demands for red cedar was for woodenware
made of staves, such as buckets, kegs, keelers, small tubs, and firkins.
Material for the manufacture of such wares was among the exports to
the West Indies before the Revolutionary war. The ware was no less

94 American Forest Trees

popular in this country, and the home-made articles were in all neighbor-
hoods in the red cedar's range. Scarcity of suitable wood limits the
manufacture of such wares now, but they are still in use.

Cedar was long one of the best woods for skiffs and other light
boats, and it was occasionally employed in shipbuilding for the upper
parts of vessels. A little of it is still used as trim and finish, particularly
for canoes, motor boats, and yachts.

The early clothes chest makers selected clear lumber, because it
could be had and was considered to be better; but modern chest manu-
facturers who cannot procure clear stock, make a merit of necessity, and
use boards filled with knots. The wood is finished with oils, but the
natural colors remain, and the knots give the chest a rustic and pleasing
appearance.

Southern Red Juniper (Juniperus barbadensis) so closely resembles the red
cedar with which it is associated that the two were formerly considered the same
species, and most people familiar with both notice no difference. However, botanists
clearly distinguish the two. The southern red cedar's range is much smaller than the
other's. It grows from Georgia to the Indian river, Florida, in swamps. It is found in
the vicinity of the Apalachicola river, forming dense thickets. Its average size is much
under that of the red cedar, but its wood is not dissimilar. It has been used for the
same purposes as far as it has been used at all. One of the largest demands upon it
has been for lead pencils. Those who bought and sold it, generally supposed they were
dealing in the common red cedar.

NORTHERN WHITE CEDAR

Northern White Cedar

NORTHERN WHITE CEDAR

(Thuja Occidentalis)

THIS tree is designated as northern white cedar because there is
also a southern white cedar, (Chanuxcyparis thyoides) and the
boundaries of their ranges approach pretty closely. The name occi-
dentalis, meaning western, applied to the northern white cedar is em-
ployed by botanists to distinguish it from a similar cedar in Asia, which is
called orientalis, or eastern.

The American species has several names, as is usual with trees
which grow in different regions. It is called arborvitae in Maine,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana,
Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario. White
cedar is a name often used in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina,
Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario. In Maine, Vermont, and
New York it is called cedar. In New York, and where cultivated in
England, American arborvitae is the name applied to it. The Indians
in New York knew it as feather-leaf. In Delaware the name is
abridged to vitse.

The tree has been widely planted, and under the influence of
cultivation it runs quickly into varieties, of which forty-five are listed
by nurserymen. It is a northern species which follows the Appalachian
mountains southward to North Carolina and Tennessee. It grows
from New Brunswick to Manitoba, and is abundant in the Lake States.

The bark of arborvitae is light brown, tinged with red on the branch-
lets; it is thin, and cracks into ridges with stringy, rough edges; the
branchlets are very smooth.

In general appearance the tree is conical and compact, with short
branches; it attains a height of from twenty-five to seventy feet, and a
diameter of from one to three feet. It thrives best in low, swampy
land, along the borders of streams.

The wood of arborvitae is soft, brittle, light and weak; it is very
inflammable. The fact that it is durable, even in contact with the soil,
permits* its use for railway ties, telegraph poles, posts, fencing, shingles
and boats. However, the trunk is so shaped that it is seldom used for
lumber, but oftener for poles and posts, the lower section being flattened
into ties. A cubic foot of the seasoned wood weighs approximately
nineteen pounds. The heartwood is light brown, becoming darker with
exposure; the sapwood is thin and nearly white, with fine grain.

98 American Forest Trees

The northern white cedar varies greatly in size and shape, depend-
ing on the soil, climate, and situation. Though it is usually associated
with swamps in the North, it adapts itself to quite different situations.
It grows in narrow, rocky ravines, on stony ridges, and it clings to the
faces of cliffs, or hangs on their summits as tenaciously as the western
juniper of the Sierra Nevada mountains. However, little good timber
is produced by this species on rocky soils. Trees in such situations are
short, crooked, and limby.

The wood of the northern white cedar possesses a peculiar tough-
ness which is seen in its wearing qualities. A thin shaving, such as a
carpenter's plane makes, may be folded, laid on an anvil, and struck
repeatedly with a hammer, without breaking. It is claimed for it that
it will stand a severer test of that kind than any other American wood.
Toughness and wearing qualities combined make it an admirable wood
for planking and decking for small boats. Its exceptionally light weight
is an additional factor as a boat building material. The Indians knew
how to work it into frames for bark canoes. Its lightness appealed to
them; but the ease with which they could work it with their primitive
tools was more important. It is a characteristic of the wood to part
readily along the rings of annual growth. The Indian was able to split
canoe ribs with a stone maul, by pounding a cedar billet until it parted
along the growth rings and was reduced to very thin slats.

The property of this cedar which appealed to the Indians is disliked
by the sawmill man. It is hard to make thin lumber that will hang
together. The tendency to part along the growth rings develops
wind-shake while the tree is standing. About nine trees in ten are so
defective from shake that little good lumber can be made from them.
It is a common saying, which probably applies in certain localities only,
that a thousand feet of white cedar must be sawed to get one hundred
feet of good lumber.

It is good material for small cooperage such as buckets, pails, and
tubs, and has been long used for that purpose in the northern states.

It was once laid in large quantities for paving blocks. Hundreds of
miles of streets of northern cities were paved with round blocks sawed
from trunks of trees from five to ten inches in diameter. They were not
usually treated with chemicals to prevent decay, but they gave service
ranging from six to twelve years. They are less used now than formerly.
Southern yellow pine has largely taken the cedar's place as paving
material. Much northern cedar has been used in the manufacture of
bored pipe for municipal waterworks, shops, salt works, paper mills,
and other factories.

The early settlers of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania made

American Forest Trees 99

a rheumatism ointment by bruising the leaves and molding them with
lard. This is probably not made now, but pharmacists distill an oil from
twigs and wood, and make a tincture of the leaves which they use in the
manufacture of pulmonary and other medicines.

There is little likelihood that northern white cedar will ever cease
to be a commercial wood in this country. It will become scarcer, but
its manner of growth is the best guarantee that it will hold its place. It
lives in swamps, and the land is not in demand for any other purpose.

One-Seed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) is also called naked-seed juniper.
Its range lies in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Arizona. It attains its
greatest development in the bottoms of canyons in northern Arizona. It is a
scrawny desert tree which lives in adversity but holds its ground for centuries, if fire
does not cut its career short. Its growth is too scattered to attract lumbermen, and
the form of its trunk is uninviting. It may reach a height of forty or fifty feet, and a
diameter of three, but that is above the average in the best of its range. The desert
Indians make the most of one-seed juniper. They weave its stringy bark into sleeping
mats, rough blankets, and saddle girts. They make cords and ropes of it for use
where great strength is not required, such as leashes for leading dogs, strands with
which to tie bundles on the backs of their squaws, and cords for fastening their
wigwam poles together. They likewise weave the bark into pokes and pouches for
storing and carrying their dried meat and mesquite beans. The juniper berries are
an article of diet and commerce with the Indians, who mix them with divers ingre-
dients, pulp them in stone mortars, and bake them in cakes which become the greatest
delicacy on their bill of fare. White men, when driven to it by starvation, have
sustained life by making food of the berries. A small quantity of one-seed juniper
reaches woodworkers in Texas. The lumber is short and rough. The numerous
knots are generally much darker than the body of the wood. That is not necessarily
a defect, for in making clothes chests, the striking contrast in color between the knots,
and the other wood gives the article a peculiar and attractive appearance. The
trunks are sharply buttressed and deeply creased. Sometimes the folds of bark
within the creases almost reach the center of the tree. The sapwood is thin, the heart-
wood irregular in color. Some is darker than the heartwood of southern red cedar,
other is clouded and mottled, pale yellow.cream-colored, the shade of slate, or streaked
with various tints. The wood can be economically worked only as small pieces. It
takes a soft and pleasing finish. It is a lathe wood and shows to best advantage as
balusters, ornaments, grill spindles and small posts, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, balls,
and lodge gavels. It has been made into small game boards with fine effect, and it is
an excellent material for small picture frames. Furniture makers put it to use in
several ways, and it has been recommended for small musical instruments where the
variegated colors can be displayed to excellent advantage. At the best it can never
be more than a minor species, because it is difficult of access in the remote deserts,
and it is not abundant.

Mountain Juniper {Juniperus sabinoides) is a Texas tree, occupying a range
southward and westward of the Colorado river. It has several local names, rock
cedar being a favorite. This name is due to the tree's habit of growing on rocky
ridges and among ledges where soil is scarce. It is called juniper cedar, and juniper.
Under the most favorable circumstances the tree may attain a height of 100 feet and a
diameter of two, but it nearly always grows where conditions are adverse, and its

100 American Forest Trees

size and form change to conform to circumstances. It is often small and ragged. Its
lead-colored bark is apt to attract attention on account of its woeful appearance,
hanging in strings and tatters which persistently cling to the trunk in spite of whip-
ping winds. When the tree is cut for fuel, or for any other purpose, the ragged bark
is occasionally pulled off and is tied in bales or bundles to be sold for kindling. When
the mountain juniper is taken from its native wilds and planted where environments
are different, it sometimes assumes fantastic forms. It has been planted for orna-
ment on the low, flat coast in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, and though it lives
and grows, it often takes on a peculiar appearance. The trunks resemble twisted
and interwoven bundles of lead-colored vines, buttressed, fluted, and gnarled. The
branches lose their upright position, and hang in careless abandon, with drooping
festoons. In winter the wind whips most of the foliage from them. The leaves
become brittle and may be easily brushed from the twigs by a stroke of the hand.
Some of the planted trees have trunks so deeply creased as to be divided in two
separate stems. This very nearly happens with some of the wild trees among the
western mountains. The sapwood of mountain juniper is very thin. The average
tree cannot be profitably cut into lumber of the usual dimensions because of the odd-
shaped and irregular trunk. It lends itself more economically to the manufacture
of articles made up of small pieces. Some of the wood is extremely beautiful, having
the color and figure of French walnut; but there is great difference in the figure and
color, and the wood of one tree is not a sure guide to what another may be. Boards
a foot wide, or even less, may show several figures and colors. Some pieces suggest
variegated marble; others are like plain red cedar; some are light red in color, others
have a tinge of blue. It varies greatly in hardness, eyen in the same tree. Part of
it may be soft and brittle enough for lead pencils; another part may be hard and
tough. Clothes chests have been made of it, of most peculiar appearance — resembl-
ing crazy quilts of subdued colors. Sometimes the heartwood and the.sapwood are
inextricably mixed, both being found in all parts of the trunk from the heart out. On
the whole, the tree can never have much importance as a source of lumber, but it is
a most interesting member of the cedar group.

SOUTHERN WHITE CEDAR

thern White Cedar

SOUTHERN WHITE CEDAR

(Chamcecyparis Thyoides)

THIS tree is called southern white cedar to distinguish it from
northern white cedar or arborvitse. When there is little likelihood
of confusion, the name white cedar is applied locally in different parts of
its range from Massachusetts to Florida. It is a persistent swamp tree
and on that account has been called swamp cedar ; but that name alone
would not distinguish it from the northern white cedar, for both grow
in swamps; but it does separate it from red cedar which keeps away from
swamps. The ranges of the two are side by side from New England to
Florida. Post cedar is a common name for it in Delaware and New
Jersey, because of the important place it has long filled as fence material ;
but again, the name does not set it apart from red cedar or northern
white cedar, for both are used for posts. The only name thus far
applied, which clearly distinguishes it from associated cedars, is southern
white cedar. Its range extends northward to Maine, but the tree's
chief commercial importance has been in New Jersey and southward to
North Carolina, very near the coast. Somehow, it seems to skip Georgia
where no one has reported it for many years, though there is historical
evidence that it once grew in that state. It grows as far west as Miss-
issippi, but is scarce.

The small leaves remain green two years and then turn brown but
adhere to the branches several years longer. The fruit is about one-
fourth inch in diameter, and the small seeds are equipped with wings.

The wood is among the lightest in this country. It is only moder-
ately strong and stiff. The tree usually grows slowly. Fifty years may
be required to produce a fence post, but under favorable conditions
results somewhat better than that may be expected. The summerwood
of the yearly ring is narrow, dark in color, and conspicuous, making the
counting of the rings an easy matter. The medullary rays are numerous
but thin. When the sap is cut tangentially in very thin layers it is
white and semi-transparent, presenting somewhat the appearance
of oiled paper. The heartwood is light brown, tinged with red, growing
darker with exposure. The wood is easily worked, and is very durable
in contact with the soil. Fence posts of this wood have been reported
to stand fifty years, and shingles are said to last longer. Trees reach a
height of eighty feet and diameter of four; but such are of the largest size.
C7reat numbers are cut for poles and posts which are little more than a
foot in diameter. Few forest trees grow in denser stands than this. It
often takes possession of swamps, crowds out all other trees, and develops

103

104 American Forest Trees

thickets so dense as to be almost impenetrable. Southern white cedar
is cut in ten or twelve states, but the annual supply is not known,
because mills generally report all cedars as one, and the regions which
produce this, produce one or more other species of cedar also. It has
held its place nearly three hundred years, and much interesting history
is connected with it. A considerable part of the Revolutionary war
was fought with powder made from white cedar charcoal burned in
New Jersey and Delaware. However, that was by no means the earliest
place filled by this wood.

Two hundred years ago in North Carolina John Lawson wrote of
its use for "yards, topmasts, booms, bowsprits for boats, shingles, and
poles." It was cut for practically the same purposes in New Jersey at
an earlier period, and 160 years ago Gottleib Mittelberger, when he
visited Philadelphia, declared that white cedar was being cut at a rate
which would soon exhaust the supply. But that prophecy, like similar
predictions that oak and red cedar were about gone, proved not well
founded. Seventy years after the imminent exhaustion of this wood
was foretold, William Cobbett, an English traveler, declared with
evident exaggeration that "all good houses in the United States" were
roofed with white cedar shingles.

After boat building, the first general use of the southern white
cedar was for fences and farm buildings, and doubtless twenty times as
much went to the farms as to the boat yards. In all regions where the
wood was convenient, little other was employed as fencing material, and
many of the earliest houses in New Jersey and some in Pennsylvania were
constructed almost wholly of this wood. Small trees which would split
two, three, and four rails to the cut, were mauled by thousands to enclose
the farms. The bark soon dropped off, or was removed, and the light
rails quickly air-dried, and decay made little impression on them for
many years. The larger trunks were rived for shingles or were sawed
into lumber. About 1750 the use of round cedar logs for houses and
barns began to give way to sawed lumber. It was an ideal milling
timber, for the logs were symmetrical, clear, and easily handled. North
Carolina sawmills were at work on this timber many years before the
Revolution. It was acceptable material for doors, window frames,
rafters, and floors, but especially for shingles which were split with frow
and mallet, and were from twenty-four to twenty-seven inches long.
They were known in market as juniper shingles and sold at four and
five dollars a thousand. About 1750 builders in Philadelphia were
criticized because they constructed houses with no provision for other
than white cedar roofs ; the walls being too weak for heavier material
which would have to be substituted when cedar could be no longer

American Forest Trees 105

procured. Philadelphia was not alone in its preference for cedar
roofs. Large shipments of shingles were going from New Jersey to New
York, and even to the West Indies earlier than 1750.

Southern white cedar is said to have been the first American wood
used for organ pipes. The resonance of cedar shingles under a pattering
rain suggested this use to Mittelberger when he visited America, and he
tried the wood with such success that he pronounced it the best that he
knew of for organ pipes.

Coopers were among the early users of white cedar. The "cedar
coopers of Philadelphia" were famous in their day. They used this
wood and also red cedar {Juniperus virginiana), and their wares occupied
an important place in domestic and some foreign markets. Small
vessels prevailed, such as pails, churns, firkins, tubs, keelers, piggins,
noggins, and kegs. The ware was handsome, strong, durable, and light
in weight. Oil merchants, particularly those who dealt in whale oil
which was once an important commodity, bought tanks of southern
white cedar. It is a dense wood and seepage is small.

A peculiar superstition once prevailed, and has not wholly disap-
peared at this day, that white cedar possessed powerful healing proper-
ties. It was thought that water was purified by standing in a cedar
bucket, and even that a liquid was improved by simply running through
a spigot of this wood. Some eastern towns at an early period laid cedar
water mains, partly because the wood was known to be durable, and
partly because it was supposed to exercise some favorable influence upon
the water flowing through the pipes. It was even believed that standing
trees purified the swamps in which they grew. Vessels putting to sea
from Chesapeake bay, sometimes made special effort to fill their water
casks with water from the Dismal swamp, where cedars grew abundantly
in the stagnant logoons.

About 100 years ago it was found that whole forests of cedar had
been submerged in New Jersey during prehistoric times, and that deep
in swamps the trunks of trees were buried out of sight. No one knows
how long the prostrate trees had lain beneath the accumulation of peat
and mud, but the wood was sound. Mining the cedar became an im-
portant industry in some of the large swamps, and it has not ended yet.
The wood is sound enough for shingles and lumber, though it has been
buried for centuries, as is proved by the age of the forests which grew
over the submerged logs. Sometimes a log which has lain under water
hundreds of years, rises to the surface by its own buoyancy when pressure
from above is removed. This is remarkable and shows how long a time
this cedar resists complete waterlogging. The wood of green cedar has a
strong odor, and that characteristic remains with the submerged trunks.

JOG American Forest Trees

Experienced men who have been long engaged in mining the timber,
are able to tell by the odor of a chip brought to the surface from a deeply
submerged log whether the wood is sufficiently well preserved to be
worth recovering and manufacturing. Trunks six feet in diameter
have been brought to the surface. Few if any living white cedars of
that size exist now.

Many of the early uses of southern white cedar have continued till
the present time, but in much smaller quantities. Fence rails are no
longer made of it; shingles and cooperage have declined. On the other
hand, it now has some uses which were unknown in early times, such as
telephone and telegraph poles, crossties, and piling for railroad bridges
and culverts.

The supply of southern white cedar is not large, and it is being cut
faster than it is growing. The deep swamps where it grows protect
white cedar forests from fire, and for that reason it is more fortunate than
many other species. Not even cypress can successfully compete with it
for possession of water soaked morasses. It does not promise great
things for the future, for it will never be extensively planted. Its range
has been pretty definitely fixed by nature to deep swamps near the
Atlantic coast. Within those limits it will be of some importance for a
long time. Where it finds its most congenial surroundings, little else
that is profitable to man will grow. This will save it from utter ex-
termination, because much of the land which it occupies will never be
wanted for anything else.

INCENSE CEDAR

^SiX

ki

S|

^fejBl

\

Incense Cedar

INCENSE CEDAR

(Libocedrus Decurrens)

IN California and Oregon this tree is known as white cedar, cedar, and
incense cedar; in Nevada and California it is called post cedar and
juniper, and in other localities it is red cedar and California post cedar.
It is a species of such strong characteristics that it is not likely to be
confused with any other. Though different names may be applied to it,
the identity of the tree is always clear.

Its range extends north and south nearly 1,000 miles, from Oregon
to Lower California. It is a mountain species, and it faces the Pacific
ocean in most of its range. In the North it occupies the western slope
of the Cascade mountains in southern Oregon and northern California;
and it grows on the western slope of the Sierras for five hundred miles, at
altitudes of from 4,000 to 8,000 feet, where it is mixed with sugar pine,
western yellow pine, white fir, and sequoias.

It is a fine, shapely tree, except that the butt is much enlarged.
It has the characteristic form of a deep swamp tree, but it has nothing to
do with swamps. Its best development is on the Sierra Nevada moun-
tains, where swamps are few, and the incense cedar avoids them. It
occupies dry ridges and slopes, but not sterile ones. It must have as
good soil as the sugar pine demands. Its height when mature ranges
from seventy-five to 125 feet, diameter four feet from the ground, from
three to six feet, but some trees are larger. It is not a rapid grower,
but it maintains its vigor a long time. As an average, it increases its
diameter an inch in from seven to ten years.

The wood is dense. It contains no pores large enough to be seen
with an ordinary reading glass. The medullary rays are so small as to
be generally invisible to the naked eye, but when magnified they are
shown to be thin and numerous. The summerwood forms about one-
fourth of the annual ring. The wood is nearly as light as white pine, is
moderately strong, is brittle, straight grained, the heartwood is reddish,
the thick sapwood nearly white. It is an easy wood to work, and in
contact with the soil it is very durable.

The incense cedar is the only representative of its genus in the
United States. It has many relatives in the pine family, but no near
ones. Its kin are natives of Formosa, China, New Zealand, New Guinea,
and Patagonia.

The name incense cedar refers to the odor of the wood rather than
of the leaves. Those who work with freshly cut wood are liable to attacks
of headache, due to the odor; but some men are not affected by it.

110 American Forest Trees

The forest grown tree is of beautiful proportions. Unless much
crowded for room, it is a tall, graceful cone, the branches drooping
slightly, and forming thick masses. In the Sierra Nevada mountains,
within the range of this cedar, the winter snows are very heavy. It is
not unusual for two or three feet of very wet snow to fall in a single day.
The incense cedar's drooping branches shed the snow like a tent roof, and
a limb broken or seriously deformed by weight of snow is seldom seen.
Deer and other wild animals, when surprised by a heavy fall of snow,
seek the shelter of an incense cedar, if one can be found, and there lie in
security until the storm passes.

It is a tree which does fairly well in cultivation, and several varieties
have been developed. It lives through the cold of a New England
winter. Its cones are about three-fourths inch in length, and ripen in the
autumn.

Incense cedar has filled an important place in the development of
the great central valley of California, where it has supplied more fence
posts than any other tree. Posts of redwood have been its chief com-
petitor, but generally the region has been divided, and each tree has
supplied its part. The redwood's field has been the coast, the cedar's
the inland valley within reach of the Sierras. It has been nothing
unusual for ranchmen to haul cedar posts on wagons forty or fifty miles.

The manufacture of posts from incense cedar has entailed an enor-
mous waste of timber. The thick sapwood is not wanted, and in the
process of converting a trunk into posts, the woodsman first splits off the
sap and throws it away. In trunks of small and medium size, the sap-
wood may amount to more than the heartwood, and is a total loss.

The tree's bark is thick and stringy, and it is generally wasted; but
in some instances it is used as a surface dressing for mountain roads. It
wears to pieces and becomes a pulpy mass, and it protects the surface of
the road from excessive wear, and from washing in time of heavy rain.

Approximately one-half of the incense cedar trees, as they stand in
the woods, are defective. A fungus {Dadaiia vorax) attacks them in the
heartwood and excavates pits throughout the length of the trunks. The
galleries resemble the work of ants, and as ants often take possession of
them and probably enlarge them, it is quite generally believed that the
pits are due to ants. The excavations are frequently filled with dry,
brown dust, sometimes packed very hard and tight. The cedar thus
affected resembles "pecky cypress," and it is believed that the same
species of fungus, or a closely related species, is responsible for the
injury to both cypress in the South and incense cedar on the Pacific
coast. It is not generally regarded by users of cedar posts that the
honey-combed condition of the wood lessens the service which the post

American Forest Trees 111

will give, unless by weakening it and causing it to break, or by rendering
it less able to hold the staples of wire fences, or nails of plank and picket
fences.

Post makers often prefer fire-killed timber. If a tree is found
with the sapwood consumed, as is not unusual, it is nearly always free
from fungous attack. The reason it stands through the fire which burns
the sapwood off, is that the heart is sound — if it were not sound, the
whole tree would be consumed.

The wood of the incense cedar is serviceable for many purposes.
The rejection of the sapwood by so many users is the most discouraging
feature. The heart, when free from fungus, is a fine, attractive material
that does not suffer in comparison with the other cedars, though it may
not equal some of them for particular purposes. Tests show it fit for
lead pencils, and recent purchases of large quantities have been made by
pencil makers. Clothes chests and wardrobes are manufactured from
this wood on the assumption that the odor will keep moths out of furs
and other clothing stored within. It has been used for cigar boxes, but
has not in all instances proven satisfactory. The odor of the wood is
objected to by some smokers. Another objection and a somewhat
peculiar one, has been filed against incense cedar as a cigar box material.
It is claimed that the boxes are attacked voraciously by rats which gnaw
the wood, to which they are doubtless attracted by the odor.

Sawmills turn out incense cedar lumber which is worked into
frames for doors and windows, and doors are made of it, and also interior
finish. Shipments of inch boards are sold in New York and Boston, and
exports go to London, Paris, and Berlin.

The long period during which incense cedar has been used and
wasted, has reduced the supply in most regions, but there is yet much in
the forest. It is never lumbered separately, but only in connection
with pine and fir ; but post makers have always gone about picking trees
of this species and passing by the associated species.

Alligator Juniper (Juniperus pachyphlaa) is so named from its
bark which is patterned like the skin of an alligator. It is called oak-
barked cedar in Arizona, mountain cedar in Texas, and checkered-
barked juniper in other places. Its range lies in southwestern Texas,
about Eagle pass and Limpia mountains, and westward on the desert
ranges of New Mexico and Arizona, south of the Colorado plateau, and
among the mountains of northern Arizona. Its range extends south-
ward into Mexico. It is one of the largest of the junipers, but only when
circumstances are wholly favorable. It is then sixty feet high, and four
or five feet in diametei ; but it is generally small and of poor form for
lumber, because of its habit of separating into forkes near the ground.

112 American Forest Trees

It does best at elevations of from 4,000 to 6,000 feet in bottoms of can-
yons and ravines. The grayish green color of the foliage is due to the
conspicuous white glands which dot the center of each leaf. The berries
are small and blue, of sweetish taste which does not particularly appeal
to the palate of civilized man, but the Indians of the region, whose
normal state is one of semi-starvation, eat them with relish. The line
separating heartwood from sap in alligator juniper is frequently irregular
and vague, and like some of its kindred junipers of the West, patches of
sap are sometimes buried deep in the heartwood, while streaks of heart-
wood occur in the sap. This heartwood is usually of a dirty color, sug-
gesting red rocks and soil of the desert where it grows. Small articles
which can be made of wood selected for its color are attractive. They
may be highly polished, and the surface takes a satiny finish; but the
wood does not show very well in panel or body work where wide pieces
are used. The best utilization of alligator juniper appears to lie in small
articles. It is fine for the lathe, and goblets, napkin rings, match safes,
and handkerchief boxes are manufactured from the wood in Texas. Its
rough uses are as fence posts and telephone poles. It is durable in
contact with the soil.

California Juniper (Juniperus californica) is called white cedar,
juniper, sweet-fruited juniper, and sweet-berried cedar. Its range is in
California south of Sacramento, among the ranges of the coast moun-
tains, and the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Its height runs from
twenty to forty feet, diameter one to two. The leaves fall in the second
or third year. This tree is of poor form and size for lumber. Trunks
frequently divide into branches near the ground. The wood resembles
that of other western junipers, and usually the fine color which distin-
guishes the red cedar of the East is wanting, and in its stead is a dull
brown, tinged with red. The wood is soft and durable, and is strongly
odorous. The sapwood is thin and is nearly white. Fuel and fence
posts are the most important uses of the California juniper. Indians eat
the berries raw or dry them and pound them to flour.

WESTERN' RED CEDAR

WESTERN RED CEDAR

(Thuja Plicata)

IN the eastern markets the lumber from this tree is usually called
western cedar without further description, but that name does not
always sufficiently identify it. There are other western cedars, notably
incense and yellow; but they have not generally appeared in eastern
markets. Western red cedar is the name given it when the purpose is to
separate it from other western cedars. It is the only red cedar in the far
West, except the scarce junipers which are totally unknown as its com-
petitors in lumber centers. Gigantic cedar is a name which takes size
into account. It is the largest of American cedars. Trunks fifteen
feet in diameter and 200 feet high are sometimes seen, but the usual size
is 100 high, from two to four in diameter. Canoe cedar is a name bestowed
upon this western tree for the same reason that canoe wood is one of the
yellow poplar's names in the East. It is one of the best woods for
dugout canoes. Botanists have called the tree giant arborvitae, but
the name never got beyond books. When the people of Washington and
Oregon speak of cedar without a qualifying term, they mean this species.
It is widely known as shingle wood or shingle cedar, because more
shingles are made of it than of all other kinds of timber in the United
States combined.

The western red cedar's range covers 300,000 square miles, not
counting regions of small or scattered growth. For a timber tree, that
range is large, but not nearly as large as some others. It exceeds one-
hundred fold the commercial range of redwood, and probably a thousand
fold that of Port Orford cedar, but its range is not one-third that of the
eastern red cedar, though in total quantity of available lumber it sur-
passes the eastern tree a hundred fold. Its range begins in Alaska on the
north, and follows the coast to northern California, and extends eastward
into Idaho. The best development occurs in the regions of warm, moist
Pacific winds, but not in the immediate fog belts. The largest quantity
of this wood, and probably the largest trees also, are in Washington.
Abundant rainfall is essential to western red cedar's development. It
would be difficult to approximate the amount of the remaining stand.
This cedar does not form pure forests, and estimates of so many feet per
acre or square mile cannot be based on fairly exact information as may be
done with redwood, and some of the southern pines. Though the drain
upon the cedar forests is heavy, it is generally believed there is enough of
this species to meet demands for a long period of years.

Nature made ample provision for the spread and perpetuation of

116 American Forest Trees

this tree. The seeds are fairly abundant, are light, have good wing
power, and are great travelers in search of suitable places to germinate
and take root. The tree's greatest enemy is fire. The cedar's bark is
thin, even when trunks are mature, and a moderate blaze often proves
fatal to large trees ; but small ones, with all their branches close to the
ground, have no chance when the fire burns the litter among them.
Some tree seeds germinate readily on soil bared by fire — such as lodge-
pole pine, wild red cherry, and paper birch — but the western red cedar's
do not, if the humus is sufficiently burned to lessen the soil's capacity to
retain moisture. For that reason, this cedar seldom follows fire, and the
result is that it constantly loses ground. Under normal conditions, it is
not exacting in its requirements; but anything that disturbs natural
conditions is more likely to harm than help this cedar. In that respect it
is like beech and hemlock, which suffer when forest conditions are dis-
turbed.

Trunks are large but not shapely. They are generally fluted, and
greatly swelled at the base. These deformities develop rather late in the
tree's life; at least, they are not prominent in young timber. Western
cedar poles of large size are beautiful in outline; but when maturity
approaches, the trunk grows faster near the ground than some distance
above ; the annual rings are wider near the base than twenty feet above,
resulting in great enlargement near the ground. At the same time ribs
and creases slowly develop, and by the time the tree is old, it is as un-
gainly as one of the giant sequoias. Its appearance is hurt by character-
istics other than the swelled base and the buttresses. While the tree is
small, the limbs ascend, and maintain a graceful upright position.
Toward middle life they begin to droop, and the limbs of old trees hang
down the trunks — the reverse of their attitude in early life.

The western red cedar lives to an old age, from 600 to 1,000 years.
The oldest are liable to be hollow near the ground. The tree is remark-
able for what happens after it falls. Often the trunk crashes down in a
bed of moss, which in a few years buries it from sight. The moss holds
so much water that the buried log is constantly too wet for fungous attack.
Consequently decay does not take place. Fallen trees have lain for
hundreds of years — as much as 800 having been claimed in one instance—
and at the end of that time they are sound enough for shingles. The
position of living trees growing upon buried logs furnishes the key to the
length of time since the trunks fell. The long period during which the
moss-buried wood has remained sound has led to the claim that western
red cedar is the most enduring wood in America. Such is not necessarily
the case. A good many others would probably last as long if protected
in the same way.

American Forest Trees 117

Western red cedar is strong and stiff but falls from twenty to
thirty per cent below white oak in these factors. It is light, and the
texture of the wood is rather coarse. The springwood and summerwood
are distinct, the latter constituting one-half or less of the annual ring.
The medullary rays are numerous and obscure. The wood's color is dull
brown, tinged with red. The thin sapwood is nearly white.

The ease with which western red cedar may be worked led the
Indians to use it in their most ambitious woodcraft. The gigantic
totem poles which have excited the curiosity and admiration of travelers
near the coast in Alaska and southward have nearly all been of this
wood. Some of them are the largest single pieces of wood carving in the
world. Trunks three or four feet in diameter and forty or fifty feet
long have been hewed and whittled in weird, uncouth, and fantastic
forms, decorated with eagle heads, bear mouths, and with various
creatures of the forest or sea, or from the realms of imagination. Before
the northern Pacific coast Indians procured tools from white men they
executed their carving by means of bone, stone, shell, and wooden tools,
assisted by fire.

The making of canoes was in some ways a work more laborious
for the Indians than the manufacture of totem poles. Their canoes were
dugouts of all sizes, from the small trough which carried one or two
persons, to the enormous canoe which carried fifty warriors with all their
equipment. Such a canoe, now in the National Museum at Washington,
D. C, is fifty-nine feet long, seven feet, three inches deep at the bow,
five feet three inches at the stern, and three feet seven inches in the
middle, and eight feet wide. It was made on Vancouver island, and is
capable of carrying 100 persons. The capacity of the canoe is thirty-five
tons. Civilized man has produced no vessel with lines more perfect than
are seen in some of these canoes made by savages; but all the canoes
are not alike : some are crude and clumsy. It is claimed that large cedar
canoes of Indian manufacture were early carried from the Pacific coast
by fur traders, and New York and Boston shipbuilders took them as
models in constructing the celebrated clipper ships which formerly
sailed between New York and San Francisco.

The Indians formerly made much use of western red cedar bark
which they twisted into ropes and cords, braided for mats, wove for
cloth, used in making baskets, roofing wigwams, constructing fish nets
and bird snares, ladders for climbing cliffs, and they even pulped the
inner bark by pounding it in mortars, and mixed it with their food.

White men have put western red cedar to many uses, as shingles,
lumber, cooperage, poles, posts, piles, car siding and roofing, boat
building from skiffs to ships, and general furniture and interior finish.

118 American Forest Trees

Western Juniper (Juniperus occidental is) is a high mountain tree
with all the characteristics belonging to that class of timber. The
trunks are short and strong, the limbs wide-spreading, the wood of slow
growth, and dense. The tree attains a diameter of ten inches in about
130 years. Trunks ten feet in diameter have been reported, but trees
that large would be hard to find now. John Muir said that the western
juniper lives 2,000 years, and that the tree is never uprooted by wind.
The trunk is usually short, six or eight feet being a fair average, and very
knotty. However, when a block of clear wood is found, it is high class,
the heaviest of the cedars, straight grain, soft, compact, brittle. The
summerwood is so narrow that it resembles a fine, black line. The
medullary rays are numerous and very obscure. The wood is slightly
aromatic, splits easily, works nicely, and in color is brown, tinged with
red. In appearance, the sapwood suggests spruce. The average height
of the trees is from twenty-five to forty-five feet, diameter two to four
feet. The range of this tree is in Idaho, eastern Oregon, and through the
Cascades and Sierras to southern California. It seldom occurs below
an altitude of 6,000 feet, and ascends to 10,000 or more. On the highest
summits it is deformed and stunted. Its fruit is eaten by Indians, and
it furnishes fuel for mountain camps and ranches, timber for mines, and
sometimes a little lumber. The crooked limbs and trunks are made into
corral fences where better material cannot be had. The wood has been
found suitable for lead pencils, but that of proper quality is too scarce
to attract manufacturers. Other names for this tree are juniper, cedar,
yellow cedar, western cedar, western red cedar, and western juniper.
Some of these names are applied to other species of the same region.

PORT ORFORD CEDAR

PORT ORFORD CEDAR

{Chamcecyparis Lawsoniana)

PORT Orford cedar of the northwestern coast is an interesting
member of the cedar group with a very limited range. Specimens
are found throughout an area of about 10,000 square miles, but the dis-
trict moderately heavily timbered does not exceed 300 or 400 miles in
area. It lies near Coos bay in southwestern Oregon. The tree is found
as far south in California as the mouth of Klamath river, and it was once
reported on Mt. Shasta, but it is very scarce there if it exists at all.
In the best of its range Port Orford cedar runs 20,000 feet to the acre,
and a single acre has yielded 100,000 feet. Trees run from 135 to 175
feet in height and three to seven in diameter. The largest on record
were about 200 feet high and twelve in diameter. Few trees of any species
have smaller leaves. They often are only one-sixteenth of an inch in
length. They die the third year and change to a bright brown. The
cones are about one-third of an inch in diameter. Two or four seeds lie
under each fertile cone scale, and ripen in September and October. The
seeds are one-eighth inch in length, and are winged for flight. The bark
of the tree is much thicker than of most cedars, being ten inches near the
base of large trees. This ought to protect the trunks against fire but it
falls short of expectations. About sixty years ago much of the finest
timber was killed by a great fire which swept the region. Some of the
dead trunks stood forty years without exhibiting much evidence of
decay, and those that fell remained sound many years.

The whole history of this interesting tree, from its first announced
discovery by white men until the present time, is embraced in the
memory of living men. It had not been heard of prior to 1855. Though
fire and storm have destroyed large quantities, it has been estimated that
4,000,000,000 feet of merchantable timber remain, an average of 15,000
feet per acre for an area of 400 square miles. The wood is moderately
light, is nearly as strong as white oak, and falls only sixteen per cent
below it in stiffness. The annual rings are generally narrow, but distinct.
The summerwood is narrow, but dark in color in the heartwood. The
medullary ravs are numerous and obscure. The wood abounds in
odorous resin. The odor persists long after the wood has ceased to be
fresh. Workmen in mills where this cedar is cut, and on board of vessels
freighted with it, are sometimes seriously affected by the odor. It is
reputed to repel insects, and is made into clothes chests, wardrobes, and
shelves, with the expectation that moths will be kept at a distance.
Several other cedars bear similar reputations.

122 American Forest Trees

One of the first uses to which the people of the Pacific coast put
Port Orford cedar was boat building. The industry was important at
Coos bay at an early day, and vessels constructed there sailed the seas
thirty or forty years. Trunks of this cedar turn out a high percentage of
clear lumber. The wood takes a good polish, and is manufactured into
furniture, doors, sash, turnery, and matches. The latter article is
esteemed by many persons for the peculiar odor of the burning wood. It
has been found practicable to finish this cedar in imitation of mahogany,
oak, and several other cabinet woods. In its natural state it sometimes
bears some resemblance to yellow pine, and sometimes to spruce, there
being considerable variation in the appearance of wood from different
trees. When the visible supply of Port Orford cedar has been cut, the
end will be reached, for not much young growth is coming on. Sixty-
eight varieties of Port Orford cedar are recognized in cultivation.

Yellow Cedar {Chameecyparis nootkatcnsis) describes this tree
quite well. The small twigs are of that color, and so is the heartwood.
Many give it the name yellow cypress. Others know it as Alaska cy-
press, Alaska ground cypress, Noctka cypress, or Nootka sound cypress.
The name of the species, nootkatcnsis, was given it by Archibald
Menzies, a Scotch botanist who discovered it on the shore of Nootka
sound in Alaska.

Yellow cedar's geographic range extends from southeastern Alaska
to Oregon, a distance of 1,000 miles. It does not usually go far inland,
and consequently the range is narrow in most places. North of the
international boundary the tree seldom reaches an altitude of more than
2,000 or 8,000 feet, but in Washington and Oregon it is occasionally met
with at elevations of 4,000 and 5,000 feet. The species reaches its best
development on the islands off the coast of southern Alaska and British
Columbia, where the air is moist, the winds warm in winter, the rainfall
abundant, and the snowfall often deep. Well developed trees under such
circumstances are from ninety to 120 feet high, from two to six in
diameter. The blue-green leaves remain active two years, and then
die, but they do not usually fall until a year later. The presence of
the dead leaves on the twigs tones down the general color of the tree
crowns.

The cones are about half an inch long and have four, five, or six
scales. From two to four seeds lie beneath each scale until September
or October when they ripen and escape. Their wings are large enough to
carry them away from the immediate vicinity of the parent tree, and
reproduction under natural conditions is generally good. Yellow cedar
is abundant within its range, but nature has circumscribed its range,
and it shows no disposition to pass the boundary line.

American Forest Trees 123

The bark is thin and exhibits cedar's characteristic stringiness. It
is shed in thin strips.

The wood is moderately light, and is strong and stiff. It is prob-
ably the hardest of the cedars, and the grain is so regular that high polish
is possible. Under favorable circumstances trees grow with fair rapidity,
but when conditions are unfavorable, as on high mountains where
summers are short and winters severe, growth is remarkably slow, and
twenty years or more may be required for one inch increase in trunk
diameter. The wood of such trees is hard, dense, and strong.

The grain of yellow cedar is usually straight. The bands of sum-
merwood are narrow, the annual rings are indistinct, and an attempt to
count them is often attended with considerable difficulty. The wood is
easily worked, satiny, susceptible of a beautiful polish, and possesses an
agreeable resinous odor. The heartwood is bright, clear yellow, and the
thin sapwood is a little lighter in color. In common with all other
cedars, yellow cedar resists decay many years. Logs which have lain in
damp woods half a century remain sound inside the sapwood. Some-
times fallen timber in that region is quickly buried under deep beds of
moss which preserves it from decay much longer than if the logs lie
exposed to alternate dampness and dryness.

Statistics of sawmill operations in the Northwest do not distinguish
between the different cedars, and the cut of yellow cedar is unknown.
It is considerable, but of course not to be compared with the more
abundant western red cedar. Statistics of uses are as meager as of the
lumber output. In Washington the factories which use wood as raw
material report only 7,500 feet of yellow cedar a year. Doubtless much
more than that is used, but under other names. There is no occasion to
disguise this wood under other names. It has a striking individuality
and deserves a place of its own. In some respects it is one of the best
woods of the Pacific Northwest. In nearly every situation where it has
been tried, it has been found satisfactory. Its rich yellow presents a
fine appearance in furniture and interior finish, and the polish which it
takes surpasses that possible with any other cedar, with the probable
exception of some of the scarce, high mountain junipers. It has been
used for pyrography and patterns, two hard places to fill, and for which
few woods are suitable. Indians long ago in Alaska learned that it was
the best material for boat paddles which their forests afforded. It
possesses the requisite stiffness and strength, and it wears to a smooth-
ness almost like ebony. Boat factories have many uses for the wood,
decking, railing, and interior finish being among the most important. It
is said to be a satisfactory substitute for Spanish cedar in the manu-
facture of cigar boxes, but its use for that purpose is not yet large.

124 American Forest Trees

It is said that occasional exports of this wood go to China where it is
finished in imitation of scarce and expensive woods of that country.

Yellow cedar is a wood with a future. Its splendid properties
cannot fail to give it a place of no small importance in factories and in
general building operations. The supply has scarcely yet been touched,
but it cannot much longer remain an undeveloped asset. It is apparent-
ly a high-class cooperage material, but it does not seem to have been used
much if at all in that industry. The same might be said of it for doors.
It is heavier than spruce, white pine, and redwood, but where weight is
not a matter for objection, it ought to equal them in all desirable
qualities.

In much of its range it is generally exempt from forest fire injury,
because its native woods are nearly always too wet to burn.

Rocky Mountain Juniper (Juniperus scopulorum) is scattered over the
mountains from Dakota and Nebraska to Washington and British Columbia, and
southward to western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Except near the Pacific
coast, it is usually found at altitudes above 5,000 feet. It clings closely to dry, rocky
ridges where it attains a height of thirty or forty feet, and a diameter of three feet or
less. The trunk usually divides near the ground into several stems. The bright blue
berries ripen the second year. The wood resembles that of red cedar, and is used in
the same way, as far as it is used at all. It is not a source of lumber. A little is
sawed occasionally on mountain mills, and the lumber is used locally in house build-
ing, particularly for window and door frames; but sawlogs are short, and because of
their poor form, the output of lumber is negligible. Some of it finds its way intoTexas
where it is manufactured into clothes chests and wardrobes, and these are sold as red
cedar. A choice mountain juniper log, with large, sound heartwood, produces lumber
with a delicate grain and is more attractive than red cedar when made into chests and
boxes. By habit of growth, it includes patches of white sapwood in the darker heart-
wood. When these are sawed through in converting the logs into boards, the islands
of white wood scattered over the surface produce a unique effect not wanting in
artistic value. Some of the other western junipers possess similar characteristics.
Sometimes patches of bark are also found imbedded in the interoir of the trees.

RED SPRUCE

RED SPRUCE

(Picca Rubens)

IN New York the tree is called yellow spruce, while in foreign literature
it is known as North American red spruce. The tree is sometimes
difficult to distinguish from black spruce (Picea nigra), the main points
of difference in the appearance of the two trees being the size and shape
of the cones and of the staminate blossoms. The cones of red spruce are
larger than those of black, and they mature and drop from the branches
during their first winter, while those of the latter named species frequent-
ly remain on the trees for several seasons. Certain eminent botanists
incline to the belief that the two are different varieties of one species,
inasmuch as even the timber of red spruce bears a close resemblance to
that of the black spruce. Other botanists dispute this theory, saying
that the trees are entirely different in appearance ; that the red spruce is
a light olive-green, while black spruce is inclined to a darker olive with
perhaps a purplish tinge, so that when seen together they have no
resemblance in point of color. They further say that the cones are not
only different in size but that the scales are quite unlike in texture, those
of black spruce being much thinner and more brittle. The same au-
thorities maintain that the tiny twigs of red spruce are more conspicuous
on account of their reddish tinge.

Generally speaking the principal spruce growth of northern New
England and New York is black spruce, although interspersed with it in
some localities is a considerable quantity of red spruce. On the contrary
the chief stand of spruce in West Virginia, Virginia, western North
Carolina, and eastern Tennessee and the other high altitudes over the
South Carolina line, is largely red spruce. This botanical analysis of the
two species of wood is based entirely on the authority of botanists, but
from the viewpoint of the average lumberman there is absolutely no
difference between red and black spruce and none in the physics of the
two woods except that which rises from varying conditions of growth as
soil, rainfall, altitude or latitude, or general environment. The larger
spruce of West Virginia and the mountain region farther south, has
certain qualities of strength and texture, combined with a large percent-
age of clear lumber that is not approximated by the spruce of New
England and the British maritime provinces. In shape the tree is
pyramidal, with spreading branches. It reaches a height of from
seventy to a hundred feet. Its bark is reddish brown, slightly scaly.
The twigs are light colored when young and are covered with tiny hairs.
The leaves are thickly clustered along the branches, and are simple and

127

128 American Forest Trees

slender, pointed at the apex. They become lustrous at maturity. The
staminate flowers are oval, bright red in color; the pistillate ones are
oblong, with thin rounded scales. The fruit of the red spruce is a cone,
from one to two and a half inches in length; it is green when young,
turning dark with age, and falling from the brancheswhen the scales open.
The seeds are dark brown, and winged.

Formerly spruce was little thought of for lumber and manufactur-
ing purposes in this country, though some use was made of it from the
earliest settlements in the regions where it grew. White pine could
generally be had where spruce was abundant, and the former wood was
preferred. As pine became scarce, spruce was worked in for a number of
purposes. The tree's form is all that a sawmill man could desire. The
trunk has more knots than white pine, for the reason that limbs are a
longer time in dying and in dropping off; but knots are small and
generally sound. By careful culling, a moderate amount of clear lumber
may be obtained. The wood is light, soft, narrow-ringed, strong in
proportion to its weight, elastic, and its color is pale with a slight tinge of
red, the sapwood whiter and usually about two inches thick. The
contrast between heart and sapwood is not strong. The medullary
rays are numerous, but small and obscure. The summerwood is thin
and not conspicuous. It is the wood's red tinge which gives the tree its
commercial name.

It is believed that the yearly cut of red spruce in the United States
for lumber is about 500,000,000 feet, one-half of which comes from
West Virginia and southward, where this species reaches its highest
development; and the pulpwood cut in the same region is about one-
tenth as much in quantity. The long fiber and white color of spruce
make it one of the most satisfactory woods for pulp in this country.
Red spruce is only one of several species of spruce which contribute to the
supply. The total output of spruce pulpwood in the United States
yearly is equivalent to about 1,000,000,000 feet of lumber.

Red spruce lumber has a long list of uses. Much flooring is made of
it, and it wears well, but not as well as hard pine from the South. It is
more used for shipping boxes in the northeastern part of the United
States than any other wood, except white pine. Its good stenciling
qualities recommend it. Manufacturers of sash, doors, and blinds find
it excellent material, combining lightness, strength, and small tendency
to warp, shrink, or swell. Coopers make buckets, tubs, kegs, and churns
of it; manufacturers of refrigerators use it for doors and frames; and
makers of furniture use it for many interior parts of bureaus, tables, and
sideboards. Textile mills use spruce clothboards as center pieces round
which to wind fabrics; and a further use in mills is for bobbins. It has

American Forest Trees 129

many places in boat building, notably as spars and yards; and for
window and door frames.

The makers of piano frames employ red spruce for certain parts;
but as material for musical instruments its most important use is as
sounding boards. All the commercial spruces are so used. Wood for
this purpose must be free from defects of all kinds, and of straight and
even grain. The sounding board's value lies in its ability to vibrate in
unison with the strings of the instrument. Spruce has no superior for
that place.

Red spruce bears abundance of seeds, the best on the highest
branches. The seeds are winged, and the wind scatters them. They
germinate best on humus. In spruce forests, clumps of seedlings are
often seen where logs have decayed and fallen to dust. Seedlings do not
thrive on mineral soil, and for that reason red spruce makes a poor
showing where fires have burned. It does not spread vigorously in old
fields as white pine does. It must have forest conditions or it will do
little good. For that reason it does not promise great things for the
future. It grows very slowly, and land owners prefer white pine, where
that species will grow. If spruce is to be planted, most persons prefer
Norway spruce (Picea excclsa) of Europe. It grows faster than native
spruces. It is the spruce usually seen in door yards and parks.

Black Spruce (Picea mariana) grows much farther north than red spruce, but
the two species mingle in a region of 100.000 square miles or more northward of
Pennsylvania and in New England and southern and eastern Canada. Black spruce
grows from Labrador to the valley of the Mackenzie river, almost to the arctic circle.
It is found as far south as the Lake States where it constitutes the principal spruce of
commerce. In some of the swamps of northern Minnesota and in the neighboring
parts of Canada it is little more than a shrub, and trees three or four feet high bear
cones. On better land in that region the tree is large enough for sawlogs. It passes
under several names, among which are double spruce, blue spruce, white spruce, and
water spruce. The common name black spruce probably refers to the general appear-
ance of the crown. The small cones (the smallest of the spruces) adhere to the
branches many years, and give a ragged, black appearance to the tree when seen from
a distance. The wood is as white as other spruces. Trees vary greatly in size. The
best are 100 feet high and two and a half feet in diameter; but the average size is
about thirty feet high and twelve inches in diameter. That size is not attractive to
lumbermen; but cutters of pulpvvood find it valuable and convenient, and much of it
is manufactured into paper. The wood weighs 2S.57 pounds per cubic foot, and is
moderately strong, and high in elasticity. It is pale yellow -white with thin sapwood.
In Manitoba, lumber is sawed from black spruce, and it is cut also in the Lake States,
but it is preferred for pulp. It gives excellent service as canoe paddles. Spruce
chewing gum is made of resinous exudations from this tree, and is an article of con-
siderable importance. Spruce beer is another by-product which has long been manu-
factured in New England and the eastern Canadian provinces. It was made in Xt \\
foundland three hundred years ago and has been bought and sold in the markets of
that region ever since. Fishing vessels carry supplies of the beverage on long voyages

130 American Forest Trees

is a preventive of scurvy. The beer is made by boiling leaves and twigs, and adding
molasses to the concoction which is allowed to pass through mild fermentation.
Foresters will probably never pay much attention to black spruce because other
species promise more profit. It is little planted for ornamental purposes, as it does
not grow rapidly, is of poor form, and the accumulation of dead cones on the branches
gives it a poor appearance. Besides, planted trees do not live long.

White Spruce (Picea canadensis) is of more importance in Canada than in the
United States, because more abundant. It is one of the most plentiful timber trees
nf Alaska, and it is found west to Bering strait and north of the arctic circle. It is
5aid to approach within twenty miles of the Arctic ocean. Its eastern limit is in
Labrador, its southern in the northern tier of states from Maine to Idaho. A little
of this species is cut for lumber in northern New England and in upper Michigan, and
westward, just south of the Canadian line. The light blue-green foliage gives the
tree its name. It is known by other names as well, single spruce, bog spruce, skunk
spruce, cat spruce, double spruce, and pine. Some of its names are due to the odor
of its foliage. The largest trees are 100 feet high and three in diameter, but most are
smaller. Having a range so extensive, and in climates and situations so different,
the tree naturally varies greatly in size and form. The wood of well-developed trees
is white and handsome, the thin, pencil-like bands of summerwood having a slightly
darker tone than the springwood. The two parts of the annual ring possess different
degrees of hardness. The springwood is softer than the summerwood. The medul-
lary rays are numerous, and the surface of quarter-sawed lumber has a silvery
appearance, due to the exposed flat surfaces of the rays. In the markets, no distinc-
tion is made between white spruce lumber, and that cut from other species. The
uses of the different species are much the same. As a pulpwood, white spruce is in
demand wherever it is available. The largest output in the United States comes from
northern New England. The tree is often planted for ornamental purposes in Eruope
and in northern states. When grown in the open, the crown is pyramidal, like that
of balsam fir. It does not thrive where summers are warm and dry.

SITKA SPRUCE

SITKA SPRUCE

(Picea Sitchcnsis)

THIS is largest of the spruces. In height and in girth of trunk no
other approaches it. The moist, warm climate of the north Pacific
slope is its favorite home, though its range extends far northward along
the islands and coast of Alaska. Toward the extreme limit of its habitat
it loses its splendid form and size and degenerates into a sprawling shrub.
The limit of the species southward lies in Mendocino county, California.
Its range in a north and south direction is not less than 2,000 miles ; but
east and west the growth covers a mere ribbon facing the sea. It climbs
some of the British Columbia mountains, 5,000 feet, but it prefers the
low, wet valleys and flatlands, or the rainy and snowy slopes set to
catch the sea winds. There it is at its best, and the largest trunks are
200 feet high, fifteen feet in diameter, and about 850 years old. All
sizes less than this are found. It is not easy to name an average size
when variation runs from giants to dwarfs; but in regions where this
spruce is cut for lumber, the average height of mature trees is about
125 feet, with a diameter of four feet.

Tideland spruce is one of its names. That has reference to its
habit of sticking close to the sea. Its other names are Menzies' spruce,
great tideland spruce, and western spruce. The last may be considered
its trade name in lumber markets, for it is seldom called anything else
when it is shipped east of the Rocky Mountains. The name is appro-
priate, except that other spruces grow in the West, and are equally en-
titled to the name. This applies particularly to Engelmann spruce of the
northern Rocky Mountain region; but its lumber and that cut from
Sitka spruce are not liable to be confused in the mind of anyone who is
acquainted with the two woods. The name Sitka refers to the town of
that name in Alaska.

The leaves of this species are usually less than one inch in length,
and in color are light yellowish green. They stand out like bristles on
all sides of the twigs. Cones are from two to four inches long, and hang
by short stems, usually at the ends of twigs. They ripen the first year,
release their seeds, which fly away on small but ample wings, and the
cones drop during the fall and winter. Sitka spruce bark is generally
less than half an inch in thickness. Trunks which grow in forests prune
themselves well, and are usually clear of limbs from forty to eighty feet.
The bases of trees which grow on wet land are much enlarged like
cypress and tupelo, and lumbermen frequently cut above the swell,
leaving from 1,000 to 5,000 feet or more of lumber in the stump. Sitka

133

134 American Forest Trees

spruce's characteristic root system is shallow; but on mountain sides
where soil is dry, roots penetrate deep in search of moisture.

The wood of this spruce varies greatly in color, but it is usually a
very pale brown, with the faintest tinge of red. It is a little heavier than
white pine, considerably weaker, and with less elasticity. The size of
the trunks, with their freedom from limbs, insures a high percentage of
clear lumber when Sitka spruce is manufactured. The tree grows
slowly, the annual rings are narrow, and the bands of summer growth
are comparatively broad, to which fact the rather dark color of the
wood of the spruce is due.

Sitka spruce is an important source of lumber. The total cut in
Washington, Oregon, and California in 1910 was about 255,000,000 feet.
It is below red spruce in quantity of sawmill cut, but above all other
spruces in the United States. The people of the Pacific coast use much
of it at home, but large quantities are shipped to markets in eastern
states, and some to foreign countries. Nearly 4,000,000 feet were
bought by Illinois manufacturers in 1909, in addition to what was used
rough in the state. The commodities manufactured of this spruce in
Illinois indicate with a fair degree of accuracy the uses made of the wood
in most parts of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and
north of the Ohio river and the Potomac. Among articles so manu-
factured in Illinois are playground apparatus, porch and stair balus-
ters, doors, blinds, sash and frames, poultry brooders, sounding
boards for pianos and other musical instruments, parts of mandolins
and guitars, pipes for organs, cornice brackets, store and office fronts,
decking and spars for boats, wagon beds and windmill wheel slats,
refrigerators and cold storage rooms, ironing boards and other
woodenware.

Twenty times as much Sitka spruce is made into finished com-
modities in Washington as in Illinois. That is to be expected, since
Washington is the home of the tree and the center of supply. A partial
list of its uses in that state will show that the wood is liked at home.
Douglas fir was the only wood bought in larger amounts by Washington
manufacturers. They made 55,429,000 feet of it into boxes, and
coopers employed 12,000,000 more. The next largest users were
pulpmills, while 2,000,000 feet went into sounding boards, many of
which were for shipment abroad. Other users were basket makers, and
the manufacturers of furniture, fixtures, finish, caskets, veneer, trunks,
pulleys, vehicles, boats, and patterns. Sitka spruce decays quickly
when exposed to rain and weather.

Sitka spruce can be depended upon for the future. Though it
grows slowly it may be expected to keep growing. Its range lies in

American Forest Trees 135

regions generally too wet for woods to burn, and it will suffer less
from forest fires than trees of inland regions. It is an abundant seeder,
and its favorite seedbed is moss, muck, decayed wood, and wet ground
litter of various kinds. For the first few years seedlings are sensitive
to frost, but not in later life.

Sitka spruce is often planted as an ornamental tree in western
Europe, and occasionally in the middle Atlantic states. The New
England climate is too severe for it.

Engelmann Spruce (Picea engelmanni) was named for Dr.
George Engelmann. It has other names. In Utah it is called balsam,
white spruce in Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, mountain spruce in
Montana, Arizona spruce farther south, while in Idaho it is sometimes
known as white pine. That name is misleading, for Idaho has a species
of white pine (Pinus monticola) . In eastern markets the wood is known
as western spruce ; but that, also, is indefinite, for Sitka spruce is also a
western species and is found in the same markets as Engelmann
spruce. This tree's range extends from Yukon territory to Arizona,
fully 3,000 miles. It is a mountain species and is found in elevated
ranges. In the southern part of its habitat it ascends mountains to
heights of nearly 12,000 feet. It grows in the Cascade mountain ranges
in Washington and Oregon. The species' best development occurs in
British Columbia. At its best, trees are 150 feet high and four or five in
diameter; but every size less than that occurs in different parts of its
range, down to a height of two or three feet for fully matured trees.
Such are found on lofty and sterile mountains where frost occurs prac-
tically every night in summer, and winter snows bury all objects for
months at a time. Though the stunted spruce trees may be only two
or three feet high, their branches spread many feet, and lie flat on the
rocks. Though such situations are exceedingly unfavorable to tree
growth, the stunted spruces survive sometimes for two hundred years,
and during that long period may not grow a trunk above five inches in
diameter and four feet high. The Engelmann spruce is naturally a
long-lived tree, and large trunks are 500 or 600 years old; and trees
ordinarily cut for lumber are 300 or 400 years old. When the tree is
young, its form is symmetrical, the longest branches being near the
ground, the shortest near the top; but in crowded stands the trunk
finally clears itself. Engelmann spruce lumber is usually full of small
knots, each of which represents a limb which was shaded off as the tree
advanced in age. The wood is lighter than white pine, and is the lightest
of the spruces, the weight being 21.49 pounds per cubic foot. It is not
strong, and it rates low in elasticity. The wood is pale yellow, tinged
with red. The thick sapwood is hardly distinguishable from the heart.

136 American Forest Trees

It would be difficult to compile a list of this tree's uses, because in markets
it hardly ever carries its right name. It is used for fuel and charcoal in
the region of its growth ; also as farm timber, and as props and lagging in
mines. When it goes to market, it is manufactured into doors, window
frames, sash, interior finish for houses, and for purposes along with other
spruces. Large quantities of this wood will be accessible when lumber-
men penetrate remote mountain regions where it grows. It may be
expected to increase in importance. It is occasionally planted in
eastern states as an ornament.

Bu-E Sprixe (Picea parryana) is found among mountains in Colorado, Utah,
and Wyoming, from 6.500 to 10.000 feet above sea level. It attains a height of 150
feet and a diameter of three under favorable circumstances, but its usual size is little
more than half t f that. Its name is given on account of the color of its foliage, but
it has other names, among them being Parry's spruce, balsam, white spruce, silver
spruce, Colorado blue spruce, and prickly spruce, the last name referring to the
sharp-pointed leaves which are an inch or more in length. Cones are three inches
long, and usually grow near the top of the tree. It is not unusual for blue spruce
trees to divide near the ground in three or four branches. In its youth, particularly in
open ground, blue spruce develops a conical crown. The wood is lighter than white
pine, is soft, weak, and pale brown or nearly white in color. The sapwood is hardly
distinguishable from the heart. This is a valuable tree for ornamental planting; but
in later years it loses its lower limbs, and becomes less desirable.

Weeping Sprdce (Picea breweriana) is of little commercial importance
because of scarcity. It grows among the mountains of northern California and
southern Oregon, at elevations of from 4,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level. The leaves
are an inch or less in length, the cones from two to four inches long. They fall soon
after they scatter their seeds. This tree is named on account of its drooping branch-
lets, some of which hang down eight feet. The wood seems not to have been in-
vestigated, but its color is pale yellowish to very light brown, and the annual rings are
rather narrow. The tree ought to be valuable for ornamental planting, but nurseries
have experienced much difficulty in making it grow. It grows on high and dry
mountains where few ever see it, but refuses to become domesticated or to grace
eastern parks.

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Cypress

CYPRESS

{Taxodium Distichum)

THE name cypress has been used quite loosely in this country and
the old world, and botanists have taken particular care to explain
what true cypress is. It is of no advantage in the present case to join in
the discussion, and it will suffice to give the American cypresses according
to the authorized list published by the United States Forest Service. Two
genera, one having two and the other six species, are classed as cypress.
These are Bald Cypress {Taxodium distichum), Pond Cypress (Taxodium
imbricarium), Monterey Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa), Go wen Cypress
(Cupressus goveniana), Dwarf Cypress {Cupressus pygmaea) Macnab
Cypress (Cupressus macnabiana), Arizona Cypress (Cupressus arizonica),
and Smooth Cypress (Cupressus glabra). The first two grow in the
southern states, and the others in the Far West. Bald cypress, which is
generally known simply as cypress in the region where it grows, is more
important as a source of lumber than are all the others combined. It
probably supplies ninty-nine per cent of all cypress sold in this country.
Its range is from southern Delaware to Florida, westward to the Gulf
coast region of Texas, north through Louisiana, Arkansas, eastern
Mississippi and Tennessee, southeastern Missouri, western Kentucky
and sparsely in southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana. It is a
deep swamp tree, and it is never of much importance far from lagoons,
inundated tracts, and the low banks of rivers. Water that is a little
brackish from the inwash of tides does not injure the tree, but the
presence of a little salt is claimed by some to improve the quality of the
wood. It is lumbered under difficulties. The deep water and miry
swamps where it grows best must be reckoned with. Some of the ground
is not dry for several years at a time. Neither felling nor hauling is
possible in the manner practiced in the southern pineries. Owing to the
great weight of the green wood, it will not float unless killed by being
girdled for a year or more in advance of its being felled. In the older
logging operations, cypress was girdled and snaked out to water-
ways and floated to the mills. Lately many cypress operations are
carried on by the building of railroads through the swamps, which are
largely ' on piling and stringers, although occasionally earth fills are
utilized. The usual size of mature cypress ranges from seventy-five to
140 feet in height and three to six in diameter.

The wood is light, soft, rather weak, moderately stiff, and the grain
is usually straight. The narrow annual rings indicate slow growth.
The summerwood is comparatively broad and is slightly resinous;

140 American Forest Trees

medullary rays are numerous and obscure. The wood is light to dark
brown, the sapwood nearly white. At one time specimens of the wood
in the markets of the world were known as black or white cypress,
according as they sank or floated. Much of the dark cypress wood is
now known as black cypress in the foreign markets, where it is employ-
ed chiefly for tank and vat building. Individual specimens of the wood
in some localities are tinted in a variety of shades and some of the natural
designs are extremely beautiful.

The wood is reputed to be among the most durable in this country
when exposed to soil and weather. Some of it deserves that reputation,
but other does not. Well-authenticated cases are cited where cypress
has remained sound many years — in some instance a hundred or more —
when subjected to alternate dampness and dryness. Such conditions
afford severe tests. In other cases cypress has been known to decay as
quickly as pine.

Historical cases from the old world are sometimes cited to show the
wonderful lasting properties of cypress. Doors and statues, exposed
more or less to weather, are said to have stood many centuries. The
evidence has little value as far as this wood is concerned. In the first
place, the long records claimed are subjects for suspicion; and in the
second place, it was not the American cypress that was used — and
probably no cypress — but the cedar of Lebanon.

Sound cypress logs have been dug from deep excavations near New
Orleans, and geologists believe they had lain there 30,000 years. That
would be a telling testament to endurance were it not that any other
wood completely out of reach of air would last as long.

The estimated stand of cypress in the South is about 20,000,000,000
feet. The annual cut, including shingles.exceeds 1,000,000,000 feet. New
growth is not coming on. The traveller through the South occasionally
sees a small clump of little cypresses, but such are few and far between.
It was formerly quite generally believed that cypress in deep swamps,
where old and venerable stands are found, was not reproducing, and that
no little trees were to be seen. It was argued from this, that some
climatic or geographic change had taken place, and that the present
stand of cypress would be the last of its race. More careful investigation,
however, has shown that the former belief was erroneous. Seedling
cypresses are found occasionally in the deepest swamps. Probably
cypress which has not been disturbed by man is reproducing as well now
as at any time in the past. The tree lives three or four centuries, and if
it leaves one seedling to take its place it has done its part toward per-
petuating the species. Fire, the mortal enemy of forests, seldom hurts
cypress, because the undergrowth is not dry enough to burn.

American Forest Trees 141

The uses of cypress are so nearly universal that a list is impossible.
In Illinois alone it is reported for seventy-eight different purposes.
There is not a state, and scarcely a large wood-using factory, east of the
Rocky Mountains which does not demand more or less cypress.

The tree is graceful when young, but ragged and uncouth when
old. Though a needleleaf tree, it yearly sheds its foliage and most of its
twigs. The fruit is a cone about one inch in diameter; and the seed is
equipped with a wing one-fourth inch long and one-eighth inch wide.

When cypress stands in soft ground which most of the time is
under water, the roots send up peculiar growths known as knees. They
rise from a few inches to several feet above the surface of the mud, and
extend above the water at ordinary stages. They are sharp cones,
generally hollow. It is believed their function is to furnish air to the
tree's roots, and also to afford anchorage to the roots in the soft mud.
When the water is drained tiway, the knees die.

Cypress is widely planted as an ornament, and a dozen or more
varieties have been developed in cultivation.

Pond Cypress (Taxodium imbricarium) so closely resembles bald cypress
with which it is associated that the two were once supposed to be the same. Pond
cypress averages smaller and its range is more circumscribed. The name pond cy-
press, by which it is popularly known in Georgia, indicates the localities where it is
oftenest found. It is the prevailing cypress in the Okefenoke swamp in southeastern
Georgia. The general aspect of the foliage and fruit is the same as of bald cypress.
No detailed examination of the wood seems to have been made, but in general appear-
ance it is like the other cypress. It is said that little of it ever gets to sawmills
because it grows in situations where logging is inconvenient.

Monterey Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa). This tree has only one name
and that is due to its place of growth on the shores of Monterey bay, California. Its
range is more restricted than that of any other American softwood. It does not
much exceed 150 acres, though the trees are scattered in a narrow strip for two miles
along the coast. They approach so close the breakers that spray flies over them in
time of storm. Trees exposed to the sweep of the wind are gnarled and of fantastic
shapes. Their crowns are broad and flat like an umbrella, but ragged and unsym-
metrical in outline. That form offers least resistance to wind, and most surface to
the sun. The trees take the best possible advantage of their opportunities. Tall
crowns would be carried away by wind ; and the flat tops, with a mass of green foliage,
catch all the sunlight possible. They need it, for they grow in fog, and sunshine is
scarce. Sheltered trees develop pyramidal tops. It is widely planted in this and
other countries, and when conditions are favorable, it is graceful and symmetrical.
The largest trees are from sixty to seventy feet tall, others are five or six in diameter ;
but the tallest trees and the largest trunks seldom go together. The coins are an
inch or more in length, and each contains about 100 seeds. The leaves fall the third
and fourth years. Wood is heavy, hard, strong, and durable, but is too scarce to be
of value as lumber, even if the trunks were suitable for saulogs. The Monterey
cypress is of peculiar interest to botanists and also to physical geographers. The
few trees on the shore of Monterey bay appear to be the last remnant of a species
which was once more extensive. The ocean is eating away the coast at that point.

142

American Forest Trees

Fragments of hills, cut sheer down from top to the breakers beneath, are plainly the
last remnants of ranges which once extended westward, but have been washed away
by the encroaching waves. No one knows how much of the former coast has been
destroyed. Apparently the former range of the cypress was principally on land now
swallowed up by the encroaching ocean. A mere fringe of the trees — a belt about
200 yards wide along the beach — remains, and the sea is undermining them one by
one and carrying them down. So rapidly is the undermining process going on that
many large roots of some of the trees are exposed to view.

Arizoxa Cypress (Cupressiis arizonica), as its name implies, is an Arizona
tree. It forms considerable forests in the eastern, central, and southern parts of the
state, and is found also in Mexico. It grows at elevations up to 6,000 feet. Because
of the small population in the region where this cypress grows, it has never been
much used, but the size of the trees and the character of the wood fit it for many
purposes. Its growth is often quite rapid, and the timber is soft, light, and with
well-defined summerwood. Its usual color is gray, but occasionally faint streaks of
yellow appear. The leaves fall during the fourth and fifth years; cones are small and
flat ; and the small seeds are winged. It is believed by persons familiar with Arizona
cypress that it will attain considerable importance when the building of railroads
and the settlement of the country make the forests accessible. The wood is durable
in contact with the soil.

Smooth Cypress (Cupressus glabra) ranges in Arizona and is not believed to
have or to promise much importance as a source of lumber supply. Its name was
given on account of the smoothness of the bark. It is one of the latest species to be
given a place among the cypresses, and was described and named by George B.
Sudworth of the United States Forest Service.

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BALSAM FIR

(Abies Balsamea)

BALSAM fir is the usual name applied to this tree in New England,
New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and
Ontario. The shorter name balsam suffices in some parts of that region,
and particularly in New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Because
it is common north of the international boundary, the name Canada
balsam has been given it in some regions. In Delaware it is known as
balm of Gilead, but that name belongs to a tree of the cottonwood group,
(Popidus balsamifera) which is a broadleaf species. In New York and
Pennsylvania a word of distinction is added, and it is called balm of
Gilead fir. Toward the southern limit of its range it is spoken of as fir
pine and blister pine. New York Indians knew the tree as blisters.
They referred to the pockets under the bark of young trees and near the
tops of mature trunks, in which resin collected. The name balsam
refers to that characteristic also, as does the word balm. In some parts
of Canada the tree is known as silver pine, and as silver spruce. The
secretion of resin in bark blisters is a characteristic of several firs.

The list of names and the locality of their use indicate fairly well
the geographical range of balsam fir. Its northern limit forms a line
across eastern Canada from Labrador to Hudson bay. From Hudson
bay its northern boundary trends northwestward and reaches the
vicinity of Great Bear lake. In the United States it grows westward
to Minnesota and southward to Pennsylvania. It is cut for lumber
in eleven states.

In a range so large and including situations so various, it is natural
that the tree should vary greatly in size. In the Lake States the common
height is fifty or sixty feet, and the diameter is twelve or fifteen inches.
Young balsam firs grow vigorously when the ground is suitable and
their tops receive sufficient light. In lumbered regions in the Lake
States, this fir gets a foothold in the shade of a dense growth of paper
birch and other quickly-growing species ; and in a few years the pointed,
intensely green spires of the balsams may be seen piercing the canopy of
other young tree tops, and shooting above into the light. This is
accomplished after a struggle of some years in the shade; but the firs
ultimately win their way upward, and in a few years they shade to death
most of their broadleaf associates. If they are in competition with
northern white cedar or tamarack, they are not always successful in
winning first place.

The leaves of balsam fir are from one-half to one and one-fourth

146 American Forest Trees

inches long. They are green and lustrous above and silver white below,
the whiteness due to storaata on their undersides. On young twigs
the leaves bristle out on all sides and are very numerous and crowded
together, but on older branches the leaves are more scattered, due to the
dropping of some of them. It is their habit to adhere to the stems about
eight years.

The leaves of balsam fir possess a pleasing and characteristic odor
which is turned to account in a practical way. The small needles are
stripped from the branches in large quantities, cleaned, dried, and are
used for stuffing sofa pillows, cushions, and other kinds of upholstery.
The odor persists a long time. Much of the collecting of the needles is
done in summer as a pastime by summer campers in the northern
woods. The needles are sufficiently tough to stand much wear in pil-
lows, and they are still odorous when long use has ground them to
powder.

The cones of balsam fir follow the fashion of all species of fir, and
stand erect on the branches. Seeds are one-fourth inch in length and
are winged. The wood is of approximately the same weight as white
pine, but it falls considerably below white pine in strength and stiff-
ness. It is of moderately rapid growth when conditions are favora-
ble, and the annual ring has a fair proportion of summerwood. The
yearly rings are quit distinct. The medullary rays are numerous, and
for a softwood they are prominent. When a log is quarter-sawed, and
the surfaces of the boards are planed, the wood presents a silvery appear-
ance, but it is too monotonous to be very attractive. The heartwood
is pale brown, streaked with yellow, the thick sapwood much lighter
in color. It is perishable in contact with the soil.

Pulp manufacturers are the largest users of balsam fir. About
three per cent of all the pulpwood cut in the United States in 1910 was
from this species. Its use is on the increase, or appears to be; but recent
statistics relating to this wood cannot be safely compared with returns
for former years, because the custom of mixing fir with spruce and other
pulpwoods formerly prevailed in New England, and it was then not
possible to determine exactly how much fir reached the market. At the
present time fir goes under its own name, and the output exceeds 132,000
cords, which is equivalent to 105,000,000 feet, board measure, yearly.

Eleven states contribute to the balsam fir lumber cut, but most
is supplied by Maine, Minnesota, Vermont, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The total for 1910 was 74,580,000 feet. Much of it is employed in rough
form for fences and buildings, while other is further manufactured by
planing mills and factories. Car builders employ it in several ways. It
serves as doors, siding, lining, and roofing for freight cars. It is not a

American Forest Trees 147

durable wood when exposed to weather. The largest reported use of the
wood in New England is by box makers. Massachusetts alone works
nearly 15,000,000 feet a year into crates and shipping boxes. Its
uses in the Lake States are more varied. The makers of berry, fruit, and
vegetable baskets draw supplies from the wood. Some of the product
is of thin split slats, and other of veneer or sawed material.

The light weight and white color of balsam fir make it acceptable to
the manufacturers of excelsior. The product is employed in packing
merchandise for shipment, and to a small extent in upholster)'. The
wood fills a rather important place in the woodenware industry, where
its white color and light weight constitute its most important recom-
mendations. It is sawed into staves for pails and tubs.

Though balsam fir has little figure and its appearance is rather
common, it finds its way to planing mills and woodworking shops where
it is made into ceiling, newel posts, molding, railing, spindles, chair-
boards, and other interior finish.

The most widely known commercial product manufactured from
this tree is Canada balsam. Strictly speaking, it is not a manufactured
article except what is done in nature's laboratory, and the product is
the resin stored under bark blisters. The resin is transparent, and is
employed by microscopists in mounting objects for examination. Little
machinery or apparatus is used in removing the viscid fluid from the
pockets in the bark. With a knife the thin, soft blister is slit and the
resin is scraped out. All kinds of claims of medicinal virtue are made
for balsam resin in the region where the tree grows; but the treatment
in most cases effects cures— if any cures are really effected — by appeals
to faith and the imagination.

Balsam fir owes a large part of its importance to its abundance. It
is not exactly a swamp tree, but it does best in damp situations where
the ground is moist and cool in summer. Only in periods of protracted
drought does the ground litter become sufficiently dry to burn fiercely,
and to that fact is due much of the promise of future supply of balsam
fir. That which grows on the dry uplands may fall prey to forest fires,
but that in the damp flats, associated with northern white cedar and
tamarack, will hold its ground and continue to supply demand.

Balsam fir has an importance which can not be wholly measured
in feet, pounds, cords, or dollars. Many of the choicest Christmas trees
which in December go by tens of thousands to the cities, are of this tree.
Its form is almost perfect, being conical, broad near the bottom, and
running to a sharp apex. The deep green of the needles, which retain
their color from two weeks to a month after the trunk is severed, gives
balsam Christmas trees much of their popularity. The trees are cut

148 American Forest Trees

from Maine to Michigan, and many are shipped across the international
boundary from Canada. The custom of cutting Christmas trees is
often condemned as a waste of resources. It has been argued that the
destruction in one month of 1,000,000 young trees is equivalent to the
destruction of 500,000,000 feet of lumber, because, if allowed to reach
maturity, they would yield that much lumber. That argument does
not take into consideration the fact that not one of the young trees in
ten would reach maturity if left to the course of nature.

When Gifford Pinchot was United States forester, a protest against
the cutting of Christmas trees was formally laid before him. It was
generally believed that he would declare that the waste ought to be
stopped and would set his disapproval on the practice ; but he did noth-
ing of the sort. He declared that the forests are for the use of the
people and that they can serve in no better way than by supplying
every child in the land with a Christmas tree once a year.

FRASER FIR

FRASER FIR

(Abies Fraseri)

THE people who are acquainted with this interesting and somewhat
rare tree have seen to it that it does not want for names. Some of
these names are both definitive and descriptive, while others are neither.
Tennessee, North Carolina, and West Virginia furnish the names. With-
in the tree's range in Tennessee and North Carolina it is often known
as balsam without any qualifying word, and that is quite sufficient, for
no other fir or balsam grows within its range. In the same region it is
called balsam fir. That is the common name of its northern relative,
but there is little likelihood of confusing the two species, for their ranges
do not overlap much, if they touch at all, which they probably do not.
In Tennessee the name is reversed and instead of balsam fir it is fir
balsam. It is likewise known as double fir balsam, but why "double" is
added to the name is not clear. Similar mystery attaches to the name
"single spruce," which is applied to the balsam fir in the interior of
British America. The southern Appalachian tree is called she balsam
and she balsam fir. These names have no scientific basis, and they
appear to have originated in a desire to distinguish this tree from the red
spruce with which it is associated. The spruce is called "he balsam."
Artificial names like these are not necessary to distinguish red spruce
from Fraser fir, as very slight acquaintance should enable anybody to
tell one from the other at sight, and to see clearly that they are not of the
same species. Mountain balsam, a North Carolina name for this fir, is
well taken, for it is distinctly a mountain species. The name healing
balsam is given in acknowledgment of the supposed medicinal properties
of the resin which collects in blisters or pockets under the bark of young
trees and near the tops of old. In West Virginia, where this tree reaches
the northern limits of its habitat, it is called blister pine, on account of
the resin pockets. In the same region it is called stackpole pine,
because farmers who mow mountain meadows use straight, very light
poles cut from this fir round which to build haystacks.

This tree is decidedly an inhabitant of the high, exposed localities,
being found entirely in the upper elevations of the southern Appa-
lachian mountains, either forming extensive pure stands or growing
in the company of red spruce (Picea rubcns), with a scattering of various
stunted hardwoods, as birch, mountain ash, cherry and usually with an
undergrowth of rhododendron.

Fraser fir's range extends from the high mountains of North
Carolina, where it grows 6,000 feet above sea level, northward into

152 American Forest Trees

West Virginia, within a few miles of the Maryland line, at an altitude
of 3,300 feet. The tree is not found in all regions between its northern
and southern limits. Its best development is in the southern part of its
range.

On the upper limits of its habitat the tree presents a decidedly
picturesque appearance, being gnarled and twisted and plainly showing
the results of its long struggle for life and development. It is always
noticeable that on the exposed side the limbs are so short as to be almost
missing and on the opposite side they grow out straight and long, appear-
ing to fly before the wind. These limbs are sometimes of as great a
girth for five or six feet of their length as any part of the main stem,
and have a singular look, seeming to be all out of proportion to the rest of
the tree. The older trees are vested in a smooth, yellowish-gray, mossy
bark, which is quite different from that of the balsam fir. The bark is
thin, about one-fourth of an inch on young trunks, and half an inch near
the ground on old ones. The leaves are usually half an inch long,
sometimes one inch, and their lower sides are whitish, which tint is due
to abundant white stomata. In that respect they resemble leaves of
balsam fir and hemlock.

The cones, like those of other species of fir, stand erect on the
branches, and average about two and a half inches in length. They
are smoother than the cones of most pines. They mature in September.
The winged seeds average one-eighth inch in length, and are fairly abun-
dant. The Fraser fir grows as tall as balsam fir, from forty to sixty
feet, and the trunk diameter is greater, being sometimes thirty inches,
though half of that is nearer an average. When of pole size, that is,
from five to eight inches in diameter, Fraser fir is often tall, straight and
shapely. Its form, however, depends upon the situation in which it
grows. If in the open, it develops a relatively short trunk and a broad,
pyramidal crown. This fir differs from balsam fir in its choice of situa-
tion. The latter, though not exactly a swamp tree, prefers damp
ground, while Fraser fir flourishes on slopes and mountain tops.

On the mountains of western North Carolina fir grows in mixture
with red spruce. Sometimes the fir is fifty per cent of the stand, but
usually it is less, and frequently not more than fifteen per cent. Few fir
trees in that locality are two feet in diameter. They grow with fair
rapidity in their early years, but decline in rate as age comes on. It
may be observed in traveling through the stands of mixed spruce and fir
among the high ranges of the southern Appalachian mountains that the
proportion of spruce is much higher in old stands than in young. That is
due to the greater age to which spruce lives. Trees of that species
continue to stand after the firs have died of old age. On the other hand,

American Forest Trees 153

fir outnumbers spruce in many young stands. That is because fir
reproduces better than spruce, and grows with more vigor at first. In
stands of second growth the fir often predominates. It depends to some
extent upon the conditions under which the second growth has its start.
Fir does not germinate well if the ground has been bared by fire and the
humus burned. Consequently, old burns do not readily grow up in fir.
The best stands occur where the natural conditions have not been
much disturbed further than by removing the growth. Fortunately
conditions on the summit and elevated slopes of the southern Appa-
lachians do not favor destructive forest fires. Rain is frequent and
abundant, and the shade cast by evergreen trees keeps the humus too
moist for fire. To this condition is due the comparative immunity
from fire of the high mountain forests of fir and spruce. Sometimes,
however, fires sweep through fine stands with disastrous results. The
destruction is more serious because no second forest of evergreens is
likely on tracts which have been severely burned.

A report by the State Geological Survey on forest conditions in
western North Carolina, issued in 1911, predicted that spruce and fir
forests aggregating from 100,000 to 150,000 acres among the high moun-
tain ranges, will become barren tracts, because of the destructive effect
of fires stripping the ground of humus.

The cutters of pulpwood in the southern Appalachian mountains
take Fraser fir -.vherever they find it, mix it with spruce, and the two
woods go to market as one. Statistics show the annual cut of both, but
do not give them separately. The output of spruce, including fir, south
of Pennsylvania, in 1910 was 115,993 cords, equivalent to about 80,-
000,000 feet, board measure. Most of it was red spruce, but some was
fir, and in North Carolina probably twenty-five per cent was of that
species. The total pulpwood cut in that state was 14,509 cords of the
two woods combined, and probably 3,800 cords were Fraser fir.

The wood of Fraser fir is very light. An air dry sample from Roan
mountain, N. C, weighed 22.22 pounds per cubic foot. That is lighter
than balsam fir, which is classed among the very light woods. It is
stronger than balsam fir by twenty-five per cent. The wood is soft,
compact and the bands of summerwood in the annual rings are rather
broad and light colored and are not conspicuous. The medullary rays
are thin but numerous. The color is light brown, the sapwood mostly
white.

This wood is not of much commercial value except for pulp. It is
not abundant, and it is not suited to many purposes. It is suitable
for boxes, being light in weight and moderately strong; but other
woods which grow in the same region are as good in all respects and are

154 American Forest Trees

more abundant, and will be used in preference to fir for that purpose.
The decrease in area on account of fires, and in quantity because of pulp-
wood operations, indicates that forest grown Fraser fir has seen its best
days. On the other hand, the United States Forest Service has acquired
tracts of land on the summits of the mountains where this species has its
natural home, and the growth will be protected from fires and from
destructive cutting, and there is no danger that the species will be
exterminated.

It is an interesting tree. It contributes to the pleasure of tourists
and campers among the southern mountains. The fragrance of its
leaves and young branches add a zest to the summer camp. The
traveler who is overtaken in the woods by the coming of night, prepares
his bed of the boughs of this tree and of red spruce and sleeps soundly
beneath an evergreen canopy. Pillows and cushions stuffed with fir
needles carry memories of the mountains to distant cities.

In one respect this tree of the high mountains is like the untamed
Indians who once roamed in that region : it refuses to be civilized. The
tree has been planted in parks in this country and in Europe, but it does
not prosper. Its form loses something of the grace and symmetry which
it exhibits in its mountain home, and its life is short. Those who wish
to see Fraser fir at its best must see it where nature planted it high on
the southern mountains.

Arizona Cork Fir (Abies arizonica) very closely resembles forms of the alpine
fir, and may not be a separate species. Sudworth was unable to distinguish its
foliage and cones from those of alpine fir, but the bark is softer. Its range is on the
San Francisco mountains in Amona. It is very scarce, and only local use of its wood
is possible.

NOBLE FIR

NOBLE FIR

(Abies Nobilis)

THIS tree's name is justified by its appearance when growing at its
best in the forests of the northwest Pacific coast. It is tall,
shapely, and imposing. It often exceeds a height of 250 feet, and a
trunk diameter of six feet. It is sometimes eight feet in diameter. No
tree is more shapely and symmetrical. When grown in dense stands the
first limb may be 150 feet from the ground, and from that point to the
base there is little taper. It over-reaches so many of its forest com-
panions that it is sometimes designated locally as bigtree; but it is
believed that lumber is never so spoken of, and that the name applies
to the standing tree only. The Indians of the region where it grows call
it tuck-tuck, but information as to the meaning of these words is not at
hand. In northern California, and probably still farther north, this
species is often called red fir, feather-cone red fir, or bracted red fir. The
color of the heartwood and the appearance of the cone, doubtless are
responsible for these names. There is a tendency in the fir-growing
regions of the West to call all firs either white or red, depending upon
the color of the heartwood. There are ten or more species of fir west of
the Rocky Mountains, and to the layman they all look much alike,
but to botanists they are interesting objects of study.

The range of noble fir covers parts of three states, but the whole
of no one. Its northern limit is in Washington, its southern in northern
California, and it follows the mountains across western Oregon. It
often forms extensive forests on the Cascade mountains of Washington.
It is most abundant at elevations of from 2,500 to 5,000 feet in south-
western Washington and northwestern Oregon. On the eastern and
northern slopes of those mountains it is of smaller size and is less abun-
dant. Like several other of the extraordinarily large western trees, it
keeps pretty close to the warm, moist coast of the Pacific.

The shining, blue-green color of the leaves is a conspicuous char-
acteristic of noble fir as it appears in the forest. They vary in length
from an inch to an inch and a half. They usually curl, twist, and turn
their points upward and backward, away from the end of the branch
which bears them. The cones, following the fashion of firs, stand
upright on the twigs, and are conspicuous objects. They are four or
five inches in length, which is rather large for firs, but not the largest.
The seeds are half an inch long, and are winged. They are well provided
with the means of flight, but many of them never have an opportunity
to test their wings, for the dextrous Douglas squirrel cuts the cones from

157

158 American Forest Trees

the highest trees, and when they fall to the ground he pulls them apart
with his feet and teeth, and the seeds pay him for his pains. If cones
ripen on the trees and the released seeds sail away, there are birds of
various feather waiting to receive them. Consequently, the noble fir
plants comparatively few seeds. Their ratio of fertility is low at best,
but that is partly compensated for by the large numbers produced.

Thick stands of noble fir are not common. It generally is found, a
few trees here and there, mixed with other species. Sawmills find it
unprofitable to keep the lumber separate from other kinds. It does not
pay to do so for two reasons. Extra labor is required to handle it in
that way, and there is a prejudice against fir lumber. It does not appeal
to buyers. For that reason some operators have called this timber
Oregon larch, and have sent it to market under that name. That is a
trick of the trade which has been put into practice many times and with
many woods. The purpose in the instance of noble fir was to pass it for
the larch which grows in the northern Rocky Mountain region. The
two woods are so different that no person acquainted with one would
mistake it for the other. A recent government report of woods used for
manufacturing purposes in Washington does not list a foot of noble fir.
The inference is that it must be going to factories under some other name,
for it is incredible that this wood should be put to no use at all in the
region of its best development.

Noble fir is of slow growth, and the large trunks are very old, the
oldest not less than 800 years. The summerwood forms a narrow, dark
band in the annual ring. Medullary rays are numerous, but very thin
and inconspicuous. The wood possesses little figure. It weighs twenty-
eight pounds per cubic foot, which is four pounds less than the average
Douglas fir. It is very low in fuel value, as softwoods usually are which
have little resin. It Is very weak, and it bends easily. It is soft, easily
worked, and polishes well. This is one of its most valuable qualities.
It is deficient in a number of properties which are desirable in wood, but
partly makes up for them in its ability to take a smooth finish. It is
pale brown, streaked with red, the sapwood darker. In that particular
it is unusual, for most softwoods have sap lighter in color than the heart.

It has been already pointed out that difficulty is met when an
attempt is made to list the uses of noble fir, because it loses its name
before it leaves the sawmill yard and takes the name of some other
wood, and those who put it to use often do so without knowing what the
wood really is. It is known that some of it is manufactured into
house siding. It works nicely and looks well, but since it is liable to
quick decay it must be kept well painted when it is exposed to weather.
It serves as interior finish, and this seems to be one of its best uses. It is

American Forest Trees 159

so employed for steamboats and for houses, and many shipments of it
have been made to boat builders on the Atlantic coast. It is used for
shipping boxes, and its light color fits it for that purpose, as the wood
shows painting and stenciling to good advantage.

European nurseries have propagated noble fir with success, but it
does not do so well in the eastern part of the United States, though it
lives through winters as far north as Massachusetts. It is not known
to have been planted for other than ornamental purposes. Unless it
would grow much faster in plantations than in its wild state, it will be
too long in maturing to make it attractive to the timber planter.

White Fir (Abies concolor). The whiteness of the wood and the silver color of
the young branches give this species its name, but it is not the sole possessor of that
name, but shares it with three other firs. In California, Idaho, and Utah it is
called balsam fir. The branches and upper parts of the trunk where the bark is thin,
are covered with blisters which contain white resin. In Utah it is known as white
balsam, as silver fir in some parts of California, and as black gum in Utah. The reason
for that name is not apparent, unless it refers to the black bark on old trees. It has
several other names which are combinations of white and silver with some other term.
Its range is mostly in the Sierras and in the Rocky Mountain ranges, extending
from southern Colorado to the mountains of California, north through Oregon, and
south through New Mexico and Arizona. The immense proportions are reached only
in the Sierra growth, those trees in the Rockies being hardly above ordinary size. In
its free growth the tree is reputed to be the only one of its genus found in the arid
regions of the Great Basin, and similar localities in Arizona and New Mexico. It is
not distinguished by all botanists from the similar species, Abies grandis.

White fir attains a height of 250 feet and a diameter of six in some instances,
but the average size of mature trees among the Sierra Nevadas is 150 feet tall and
three or four in diameter. In the Rocky Mountain region the tree is smaller. It
grows from 3,000 to 9,000 feet above sea level. The leaves are long for the fir genus,
and vary from two to three inches. The tree's bark is black near the base of large
trunks but of less somber color near the top. Near the base of large trees the bark is
sometimes six inches thick. The wood of this species is light and soft. Carpenters
consider it coarse grained, by which they mean that it does not polish nicely. It is
brittle and weak. The rings of annual growth are generally broad, with the bands
of darker colored summerwood prominent. In lumber sawed tangentially, rings
produces distinct figure, but it is not generally regarded as pleasing. The medullary
rays are prominent for a softwood, but quarter-sawing does not add much to the
wood's appearance. It decays quickly in alternate wet and dry situations. Trees
are apt to be affected with wind shake, and the wood's disposition to splinter in
course of manufacture has prejudiced many users against it. However, it has some
good qualities. The wood is free from objectionable odor, and this qualifies it as box
material. Fruit shippers can use it without fear of contaminating their wares. It is
light in color, and stenciling looks well on it. Its weight is likewise in its favor.

Trees of this species seldom occur in pure stands of large extent, but are
scattered among forests of other kinds. Sawmills cut the fir as they come to it, but
seldom go much out of their way to get it. The United States census for 1910
showed that 132,327,000 feet of white fir lumber were cut in the whole country, but as
several species pass by that name it is not possible to determine how much belonged

160 American Forest Trees

to the one under discussion, but probably about half, as that much was credited to
California where this tree is at its best. The fir does not suffer in comparison with
trees associated with it. Its trunk does not average quite as large as the pines, yet
larger than most of the cedars; but in height it equals the best of its associates, and in
symmetrical form, and beauty of color of foliage^ it must be acknowledged superior.
The dark intensity of its green crown when thrown against the blue summer skies of
the Sierras forms a picture which probably no tree in the world can surpass and few
can equal. Its cones suffer from the depredations of the ever-hungry Douglas
squirrel which is too impatient to wait for nature's slow process to ripen and scatter
the seeds; but he climbs the trunks which stand as straight as plummet lines two
hundred feet or more, and clinging to the topmost swaying branches, clips the cone
stems with his teeth, and the cone goes to the ground like a shot. A person who will
stand still in a Sierra forest in lr.te summer, where fir? abound, will presently hear the
cones thumping the ground on all sides of him. If his eyes are good, and he looks
carefully, he may see the squirrels, silhouetted against the sky on far-away tree tops,
seeming so small in the distance that they look the size of mice; yet the Douglas
squirrel is about the size of the eastern red squirrel. He does not always let the cones
fall when he cuts their stems, but sometimes carries them down the long trunk to the
ground, then goes back for another. The squirrel hoards the cones for winter, but
does not neglect to fully satisfy his appetite while about the work. A single hoard —
carefully covered with pine needles as a roof against winter snow — may contain five
or ten bushels of cones, which are not all fir cones, but these predominate in most
hoards.

GRAND FIR

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GRAND FIR

(Abies Grandis)

IN California, Oregon, and Idaho this tree is called white fir, but it has
several other names, silver fir and yellow fir in Montana and Idaho.
In California some know it as Oregon fir, western white fir, and great
California fir. Grand fir is more a botanist's than a lumberman's name.
The range extends from British Columbia to Mendocino county,
California, and to the western slopes of the continental divide in Mon-
tana. The coastal growth lies in a comparatively narrow strip. In the
mountains an altitude of 7,000 feet is sometimes reached, the soil and
moisture requirements, however, being the same. The largest trees are
found in bottom lands near the coast where trunks 300 feet tall and six
feet in diameter are found, but the average is much less. In mountain
regions at considerable altitudes a height of 100 feet and a diameter of
two or three is an average size. The leaves are about an inch and a
half in length, occasionally two and a half. They are arranged in rows
along the sides of the long, flexible branches. Cones are from two to
four inches long, and bear winged seeds three-eighths of an inch long, the
wings being half an inch or more in length. The bark of old trunks may
be two inches thick, but generally is thinner. It is unfortunate that the
wood of the large western firs lacks so many qualities which make it
valuable. It is generally inferior to the woods of Douglas fir, western
hemlock, Sitka spruce and the western cedars, sugar pine, and western
yellow pine. The wood of grand fir is light, soft, weak, brittle, and not
durable in contact with the soil. Its light color and the abundance of
clear material in the giant trunks are redeeming features. These ought
to open the way for much use in the future. It cannot find place in
heavy construction, because it is not strong enough. That shuts it from
one important place for which it is otherwise fitted. Box makers find
it suitable, as all fir woods are, and large demand should come from that
quarter. Trunks that will cut from 15,000 to 20,000 feet of lumber
that is practically clear, and of good color, and light in weight, are
bound to have value for boxes and slack cooperage. Trees grow with
fair rapidity. Annual rings are usually broad, and the bands of summer-
wood are wide and distinct. This guarantees a certain figure in lumber
sawed tangentially, but it is not a figure to compare in beauty with some
of the hardwoods, or even with Douglas fir, or the southern yellow pines.
It ought to be a first class material for certain kinds of woodenware,
particularly for tubs, pails, and small stave vessels, and as far as it has
been used in that way it has been satisfactory. It cannot be recom-

164 American Forest Trees

mended for outside house finish, such as weather-boarding, cornice, and
porch work, because of its susceptibility to decay; but it meets require-
ments for plain interior finish, and tests have shown it to be good
material for cores or backing over which to glue veneers of hardwood.

While the eastern states have not yet wakened up to the fact that
this tree is of value in ornamental planting, its decorative qualities in
open stands have been recognized for some time in eastern Europe, where
trees of considerable size, promising to attain almost primeval propor-
tions, are already flourishing.

Red Fir (.4 bies magnified) is the largest fir in America. At its best
it attains a height of 250 feet and a diameter of ten, but that size is rare.
It has several names, magnificent fir, which is a translation of its botan-
ical name; redbark fir, California red fir, and golden fir. The reference
to red which occurs in its several names, is descriptive of its heartwood.
Its range lies on the Cascade mountains of southern Oregon, and along
the entire length of the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas in California.
It is common in southern Oregon and sometimes forms nearly pure
forests at elevations of 5,000 or 7,000 feet. It is plentiful in the Sierra
Nevada ranges at altitudes of from 6,000 to 9,000 feet. In southern
California it ascends 10,000 feet. On old trees the limbs, regularly
%vhorled in collars of five, are usually pendulous or down-growing and are
regularly and precisely subdivided into branches and twigs, the short,
stiff blue-green leaves, which persist for ten years, closely covering the
upper side of the latter. Its cones are the largest of the firs, are dark
purple in color and grow erect on the branches.

The cones are six or eight inches long, and three or four in diameter.
They present a fine appearance as they stand erect on the branches. The
seeds are large, but their strong wings are able to carry them away from
the immediate presence of the parent tree. The wings are extremely
beautiful, and flash light with the colors of the rainbow. Old trees are
protected by hard, dark-colored bark five or six inches thick. A forest
fire may pass through a stand of old firs without burning through the
bark, but young trees are not so protected, and are liable to be killed.

A study of the wood of the red fir reveals rather more favorable
qualities than the other firs afford. Sap and heartwood are more easily
distinguished than in the other species, the sapwood being much lighter
in color than the reddish heart. Contrary to the general rule among the
firs, this wood possesses considerable durability, especially when used
for purposes which bring it in contact with the soil. It is, however, light,
soft and weak, but has a close, fine grain and compact structure. Season-
ing defects, such as checking and warping, are liable to occur unless
properly guarded against. It weighs 29.30 pounds per cubic foot, or

American Forest Trees 165

nearly three pounds less than Douglas fir. It is used for rough lumber,
packing boxes, bridge floors, interior house finish, and fuel.

Shasta Red Fir (Abies magnified shaslensis) is pronounced by
George B. Sudworth to be only a form of red fir (Abies magnified) and not
a separate species. The principal difference is in the cones. The Shasta
form was discovered on the mountain of that name in northern Cali-
fornia in 1890 by Professor J. G. Lemmon. It was supposed to be
confined to that locality, but was subsequently found on the Cascade
mountains in Oregon, and also at several points in northern California.
It was later found in the Sierras five hundred miles south of Mount
Shasta.

Lovely Fir (Abies amabilis) is known by a number of names, red fir, silver fir,
red silver fir, lovely red fir, amabilis fir, and larch. The last name is applied to this
tree by lumbermen who have discovered that fir lumber sells better if it is given some
other name. The range of this species extends from British Columbia southward in
the Cascade mountains through Washington to Oregon. It is the common fir of the
Olympic mountains and there reaches its best development, sometimes a height of
250 feet and a diameter of five or six; but the average, even in the best part of its
range, is much under that size, while in the northern country, and high on mountains,
it is a commonplace tree, averaging less than 100 feet high, and scarcely eighteen
inches in diameter. When this fir stands in open ground, the whole trunk is covered
with limbs from base to top; but in dense stands, the limbs drop off, and a clean trunk
results.

Some of the largest trees rise with scarcely a limb 150 feet, and above that is the
small crown. The bark of young trees is covered with blisters filled with resin. The
bark is thin and smooth until the tree is a century or more old, after which it becomes
rougher, and near the base may be two and a half inches thick. It is of very slow
growth, and a century hardly produces a trunk of small sawlog size. The leaves are
dark green above, and whitish below. They are much crowded on the twigs, those
on the underside rising with a twist at the base, and standing nearly erect. They are
longer than those on the twig's upper side. The purple cones are conspicuous objects
on the tree, are from three and a half to six inches long, and bear abundance of seeds
which are well dispersed by wind. However, the reproduction of this tree is not
plentiful. The species holds its own, and not much more. When artificial reforesta-
tion takes place in this country, if that time ever comes, lovely fir will receive scant
consideration, because of its discouragingly slow growth. It ranks with lodgepole
pine in that respect. Nature can afford to wait two hundred years for a forest to
mature, but men will not plant and protect when the prospect of returns is so remote.
The wood is light, weak, moderately stiff and hard. The heartwood is pale brown.
the sap nearly white. The summerwood appears in thin but well-marked bands in
the annual rings, and the medullary rays are large enough to show slightly in quarter-
sawed lumber. Growing as it does, interspersed with really valuable woods, the
lovely fir is not highly thought of from a commercial standpoint. However, it is
exploited in conjunction with the other species and turned into lumber and general
structural material. A considerable quantity finds a market as interior finish and
other millwork. It has many of the properties which lit it for the manufacture of
packing boxes, particularly those intended for dried fruit and light merchandise. It
bears considerable resemblance to spruce. The utilization of this and similar species

166 American Forest Trees

of western fir for pulp has been suggested, but little has been done. It has been
planted ornamentally in parts of Europe, but there is no comparison between the
decorative appearance of this fir and its associated species, the others which are in
cultivation being much superior. Removal from the old habitat militates greatly
against its natural beauty and reduces it to the level of the ordinary.

Alpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa) is so called because it thrives on high mountains
and in the far North. It grows in southern Alaska, up to latitude 60°, and southward
to Oregon and Colorado. Its other names are balsam, white balsam, Oregon balsam,
mountain balsam, white fir, pumpkin tree, down-cone, and downy -cone subalpine fir.
It grows from sea level in Alaska up to 7,000 feet or more in the South. It is not
abundant, and not very well known. However, its slender, spirelike top distin-
guishes it from all associates and it may be recognized at long distances by that
characteristic. It endures cold at 40 degrees below zero, and summer climate at 90
degrees. Trees are usually small, and the trunks are covered with limbs to the
ground. On high mountains the lower limbs often lie flat on the ground, and the
twigs sometimes take root. Under very favorable circumstances this fir may reach
a height of 160 feet and a diameter of four, but the usual size is less than half of it,
even when conditions are fair, while on bleak mountains mature trees may be only
three or four feet high, with most of the limbs prostrate. The sprawling form of
growth makes the tree peculiarly liable to be killed by fire. The bark is thin,
smooth, and flinty ; and in color it is ashy gray or chalky white. Leaves are one and a
half inches or less long; the purple cones from two to four inches. Trees bear cones at
about twelve years of age. The seeds are equipped with violet or purplish wings,
and they fly far enough to find the best available places to plant themselves. The
wood is narrow-ringed, light, soft, and in color from pale straw to light yellowish -
brown. It is fairly straight grained, and splits and works easily; but trunks are very
knotty. Its best service in the past has consisted in supplying fuel to mining camps
and mountain stock ranges.

DOUGLAS FIR

DOUGLAS FIR

(Pseudotsuga Taxifolia)

DURING one hundred and ten years, from 1803 until the present
time, botanists and others have proposed and rejected names for
this tree. It has been called a fir, pine, and spruce, with various combi-
nations, but the name now seems to be fixed. Laymen have disputed
almost as much as botanists as to what the tree should be named. It
has been called red fir, Douglas spruce, Douglas fir, yellow fir, spruce, fir,
pine, red pine, Puget Sound pine, Oregon pine, cork-barked Douglas
spruce, and Douglas tree. More than a dozen varieties are distinguished
in cultivation.

The range of Douglas fir covers most of the Rocky Mountain region
in the United States and northward to central British Columbia; on the
coast from the latitude of southern Alaska to the Sierra Nevada moun-
tains in central California. It reaches its maximum development in
western Washington and Oregon, particularly between the Cascade
mountains and the Pacific ocean. In these Cascade forests, stands are
found which yield from 50,000 to 100,000 feet per acre, and mills in that
region cut the longest timbers in the world, some two feet square and 100
feet long.

Two forms of Douglas fir are recognized by botanists, not essen-
tially different except in size and habit of growth. One is the finely
developed form on the Pacific coast where the climate is warm and the
air moist. The other is the Rocky Mountain form which is smaller and
shows the effect of cold, dryness, and other adverse circumstances.
When the seeds of the two forms are planted in nurseries, where they
enjoy identical advantages, the coast form outgrows the other in Europe,
but the Rocky Mountain form thrives best in the eastern part of the
United States.

Douglas fir needles are from three-quarters to one and a quarter
inches long, and of a dark, yellow-green color. They remain on the
twigs about eight years. Coner are from two to four and a half inches
long, and are borne on long stems. The seeds, which ripen in August, are
of light, reddish-brown color with irregular white spots on the lower side ;
are about a quarter of an inch long, and are provided with wings. Trees
of this species in the moist climate of the Pacific slope average much
larger than those in the mountains farther east. The largest are 300
feet high, occasionally more, and from eight to ten in diameter. The
average among the Rocky Mountains is from eighty to 100 feet high,
and two to four in diameter. Young trees are slender with crowded

169

170 American Forest Trees

branches. In thick stands the lower limbs die and the trunks remain
bare, except an occasional small branch. Douglas fir at its best grows
in thick stands, with crowns forming a canopy so dense that sunlight can
scarcely reach the ground. The result of this is that other species have
little show where Douglas fir prevails.

The bark of large trunks attains a thickness of eight or ten inches
near the base. Young bark contains blisters filled with resin, similar to
those of balsam and other species of fir.

The wood is light red or yellow, the sap much whiter. Lumbermen
recognize two kinds of wood, yellow and red. The former is considered
more valuable. Both may come from the same trunk, and the reason for
the difference in color and quality is not well understood. It cannot be
attributed to soil or climate, or to the age of the tree, and it does not
seem to depend upon rate of growth. The bands of summerwood are
broad and quite distinct. A few scattered resin ducts are visible under
a magnifying glass of low power. The medullary rays are numerous,
rather large, frequently yellow, conspicuous when wood is split radially.
The wood's average weight is given by Sargent at 32. 14 pounds per cubic
foot, yet some specimens exceed forty pounds. It is hard, strong, and stiff.
In mechanical properties it rates about the same as longleaf pine of the
South. Elaborate tests have been made to determine which of these
woods is the better for heavy construction, and neither appears to win
over the other. In one respect, however, Douglas fir has a clear ad-
vantage over its southern rival: it may be had in much larger pieces.
No other commercial wood of the world equals it in that particular. The
Douglas fir flagstaff at the Kew gardens in England was 159 feet long,
eight inches in diameter at the top, more than three feet at the base. The
extraordinary size of squared beams cut from this species has led to
great demand for it for heavy construction in Europe and this country.
The pines from the Baltic sea region of northern Europe, which held
undisputed place in heavy work during centuries, has now yielded that
place to Douglas fir and longleaf pine.

No other single species in the United States or in the world equals
the annual sawmill cut of Douglas fir. The four species of southern
yellow pines, if counted as one, surpass it; but singly, not one comes up
to it. In 1910 the lumber cut from this fir amounted to 5,203,644,000
feet, which exceeded one-eighth of the total lumber cut in the United
States. The importance of such a timber tree can scarcely be estimated.
The available supply in the western forests is very large and will last
many years, even if the demand for more than 5,000,000,000 feet a
year continues to be met.

The timber is exported to practically every civilized nation in the

American Forest Trees 171

world. Shipbuilding creates a heavy demand. Some of the leading
European nations use it as deck lining for battleships, and except
mahogany and teak, it is said to have no equal for that purpose. Its
cheapness gives it a decided advantage over those woods.

Every important lumber market in the United States handles
Douglas fir, and its uses are so many that it would be easier to list
industries which do not use it than those which do. It is manufactured
into more than fifty classes of commodities, in Illinois alone. Among
these are boats, railroad cars, electrical apparatus, farm machinery,
laundry supplies, ladders, refrigerators, musical instruments, fixtures
for offices, stores, and banks, and sash, doors, and blinds. This list of
uses shows that its place in the country's industries includes much more
than rough construction. It may be stained in imitation of valuable
foreign and domestic woods, including walnut, mahogany, and oak.
The natural grain and figure of the wood may be deepened and improved
by stains, and this is much done by manufacturers of interior finish,
panels, and store and office fixtures. There is practically no limit to the
size of panels which may be cut in single pieces. It is easy to procure
planks large enough for whole counter tops.

The best grain of Douglas fir is not brought out by quarter-sawing.
The figures desired are not those produced by the medullary rays, but
by the rings of annual growth. Therefore, the sawyer at the mill cuts
his best logs — if intended for figured lumber — tangentially, as far as
possible. In the state of Washington, which leads all other states in the
production of Douglas fir, its chief use as a manufactured product is for
doors, sash, and blinds, and the annual consumption in that industry
exceeds 50,000,000 feet. It is cut in veneers, and it is likewise used as
corewood to back veneers. Crossarms for telegraph and telephone
poles demand 35,000,000 feet yearly in Washington alone, and many
thousands of poles are of this wood. It is third among the crosstie
woods of the United States, the combined cut of oaks standing first, and
the pine second. It is rapidly taking high position as material for
large water pipes and for braces, props, stulls, and lagging in mines
and for paving blocks for streets.

BristlEconE Fir (Abies venusta) is pronounced by George B. Sudworth to be
"the most curious fir tree in the world." It is found almost exclusively in Monterey
county, California, but a few trees grow outside of that circumscribed area. It has
been called Santa Lucia fir, because it was once supposed to exist only in canyons of
Santa Lucia mountains, but its range is now known to be more extensive. Monterey
county, California, is of peculiar interest to dendrologists. Three species of trees are
either confined to that area, or have their best development there. They are
Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocor pa) , Monterey pine (Pinus radiaia), and bristle-
cone fir. All are peculiar trees: the cypress because of its ragged form and ex-

172 American Forest Trees

tremely limited range, the pine because of its exceedingly rapid growth \phen given a
chance, and the fir, because of its peculiar form of crown, odd appearance of cone, and
extraordinary weight of wood. No reason is apparent why that particular point on
the California coast should have brought into existence — or at least should have
gathered to itself — three peculiar tree species. Bristlecone fir is well named from the
bristles an inch long covering the cone. The leaves, too, are peculiar, bearing much
resemblance to small willow leaves. Their upper sides are deep yellow-green and the
under sides silvery. The largest leaves are two inches long, cones three inches.
They ripen in August, and soon afterwards scatter their seeds. The tree is not a
prolific seeder, and it is believed that its range is becoming smaller. Bristlecone's
form of crown has been compared to an Indian club, the large end on the ground and
the handle pointing upward. Trees from sixty to eighty feet high have such
"handles" twenty or thirty feet long. That peculiarity of shape makes the tree
recognizable among associated species at a distance of several miles. The recorded
weight of the wood is 42.27 pounds per cubic foot, which is nearly twice the weight
of some other firs. The wood is moderately soft, but very firm. Few uses for it
have been reported. Trunks are very knotty, and are too few in number to be of
importance as a source of lumber. The tree has been planted successfully for orna-
ment in the south of Europe.

BigconE Sprcce (Pseudotsuga macrocarpa) is of the same genus as Douglas fir
and bears much resemblance to it, but is smaller, and its range lies wholly outside
that of its northern relative. It is a southern California species, occupying mountain
slopes and canyons in Santa Barbara and San Diego counties. It is found from 3,000
to 5,000 feet above sea level. Trees average forty or fifty feet in height and two or
three in diameter. The leaves are approximately of the same size as those of Douglas
fir; but the cones are much larger, hence the name by which the tree is known. It is
called hemlock as often as spruce. The cones are from four to seven inches long, hang
down, and usually occupy the topmost branches of trees. The winged seeds are half
an inch long. The bark is six inches or less in thickness. The wood is inferior in
most ways to that of Douglas fir, lighter, weaker, and less elastic. Its color is reddish
brown. It has never contributed much lumber to the market and never will. Its
range is local and the form of the tree is not of the best. An occasional log reaches a
sawmill, but the principal demand is for fuel.

BIGTREE

BIGTREE

(Sequoia W ashingtoniana)

BOTANISTS have had a hard time giving this tree a Latin name
which will meet the requirements of technical classification, but an
English name acceptable everywhere was early found for it — bigtree.
No fewer than a dozen names have been proposed by botanists. Most
of them attempt to express the idea of vastness or grandeur; but the
simple English name comes directly to the point and ends the contro-
versy as far as the common name is concerned.

Everything connected with this tree is interesting. Geologically,
it is as old as the yellow poplar. There were five species of sequoias in
the northern hemisphere, in Europe and America, before the ice age.
They grew in the North, nearly to the Arctic circle, at a time when the
climate of those regions was milder than it is now. The later advance of
the ice southward overwhelmed three species of bigtrees, and pushed
two survivors into the region which is now California. These are the
bigtree and the redwood. It is not known how long ago it was that the
ice sheet did its destructive work, but it antedated human history, and
the gigantic trees have been in California since that time.

Long after the ice age ceased generally in North America it
continued among the high Sierras of California, and the bigtrees to this
day give a hint of it in the peculiar outlines of their range. They are
scattered north and south along the face of the Sierra Nevada mountains
in California, a distance of 260 miles, and at elevations from 4,500 to
8,000 feet.

The aggregate of the total areas is about fifty square miles. The
stand is not continuous, but consists of "groves," that is, isolated stands
with wide intervals between, where no trees of this species are found.
The arrangement suggests that the bigtree forest was cut in sections by
glaciers which descended from the high mountains to the plains, a dis-
tance of one hundred miles or more, crossing the belt of sequoias at right
angles. The glaciers withdrew thousands of years ago, and their tracks
down the mountain slopes have long been coveted by forests; but the
bigtree groves, for some unknown reason, never spread into the inter-
vening spaces, but today are separated by wide tracts in which not a
seedling or an old trunk or log of that species is to be found. This
is one of the mysteries which add interest to those wonderful trees —
why they cannot extend their range beyond the circumscribed limits
which they occupied thousands of years ago.

It was claimed for a long time and was quite generally believed that

176 American Forest Trees

bigtrees were not reproducing, that there "were no little bigtrees."
That was conclusively disproved by Fred G. Plummer, geographer of the
United States Forest Service, who made a scientific study of a small
grove, measured the trees, and actually counted and classified them.
His work showed that there were in the area which he investigated :

Trees containing 100,000 to 120,000 feet each 2

Trees containing S0.000 to 100,000 feet each 13

Trees containing 60,000 to 80,000 feet each 49

Trees containing 40,000 to 60,000 feet each 112

Trees containing 20,000 to 40,000 feet each 251

Trees containing less than 20,000 feet each 353

"Little bigtrees" 2,682

Total 3,462

Bigtree is distantly related to southern cypress, and the shapes of
very old trees of both species bear some resemblance. Bigtree leaves
do not fall annually as those of bald cypress do. They are from one-
eighth to one-fourth of an inch long, and on the leading shoots they may
be half an inch in length. Cones are from two to three and a half inches
long, and they ripen their seeds the second year, but the empty cones
may adhere to the branches several years. The seeds are a quarter of an
inch long, and have wings sufficient to carry them a hundred yards or
more. The trees bear abundance of seeds, in proportion to the small
number of branches. Though shapely and well clothed with limbs
when young, the crown contracts with age, and consists of a few enor-
mous, crooked limbs, almost destitute of twigs and small branches.
One of these trees may actually bear more twigs when the trunk is only
a foot in diameter than will be on the same trunk when it is fifteen or
twenty feet in diameter. The old tree trunks are often without limbs
to a height of 100 or 150 feet.

The Douglas squirrel is the bigtree's greatest enemy. In proportion
to size, this little creature probably eats ten times as many tree seeds as
the most ravenous hog that roams the forest. One of the first things
that impresses a visitor in a grove of bigtrees is the rich brown of the
bark of some of the trunks. All are not brown alike, or at all seasons.
The trees on which the seed harvest is ready are the brownest, thanks to
the sharp claws, the tireless energy, and keen appetite of the Douglas
squirrel. He goes up and down the trunks for three square meals a day
among the clusters of cone-bearing branches two hundred or three
hundred feet above, and makes several extra trips for exercise: and at
each scratch of his briery foot he kicks off scales of bark, until the whole
trunk is "scratched raw." The detached scales of bark accumulate in a

American Forest Trees 177

mound about the base of the tree, where they have been so accumulating
for centuries. It is fortunate that those old trees have bark from one to
two feet thick. They can afford to be scratched for a month or two each
year.

These are the heaviest trees in America, notwithstanding their
wood is light. It weighs less than northern white cedar. The largest
bigtree trunks weigh more than 2,000,000 pounds. In order to stand at
all, they must stand plumb. It is a provision of nature that the old
trees are almost branchless, otherwise the wind would force them out of
plumb and they would go down. It has been claimed that the over-
throw of one of these giants is always brought about by one of two
causes. The development of larger limbs on one side than on another
unbalances them; or the wash of gullies undermines the roots on one
side, and draws the tree that way. It is currently believed that no big-
tree ever dies from natural causes.

A good deal of pure fiction has been published regarding the size
and age of the largest of these trees. They are old enough and large
enough without drawing upon the imagination. The tree's base is
greatly enlarged, but tapers rapidly the first few feet. There is little
doubt that some of the trunks are over forty feet in diameter, one foot
above ground, but that is not a fair measurement. The point
should be five or six feet at least. Measured thus, about twenty-five
feet inside the bark would represent the largest. With the bark added,
the diameter would be nearly thirty feet. Probably not one tree in
fifty, taking them as they occur in the whole range and counting
veterans only, is fifteen feet in diameter five feet from the ground.

There is also some extravagant guessing as to height. Too many
tourists measure with the unaided eye, or accept a guidebook's figures.
An authentic height of 365 feet — the measurement of a fallen trunk — is
probably the greatest. Very few reach three hundred feet. Many
unreliable figures have been published concerning the age of bigtrees.
One thing can be accepted without question; size is no proof of age, in
comparing one tree with another; neither is the number of annual rings
in a block cut from the side of a tree a reliable factor to determine age.
The only sure way to determine the age of one of these trees is by count-
ing all the rings from the pith to bark. Care should be taken not to
count the same ring twice, as may be done when the wood is curly.
John Muir counted 4,000 rings in a bigtree stump. It is believed that
no higher age is backed by the evidence of yearly rings. It was twenty-
four feet in diameter. The count of another of like size made it 2,200
years old; and of still another of the same size placed its age at 1,300
years. The Forest Service has made accurate measurement and record

178 American Forest Trees

of every ring of growth in a tree that was over twenty-four feet in diam-
eter, and it is shown that during certain periods of years the tree grew
three or four times as rapidly as during other periods.

The wood of bigtree is very light, soft, moderately strong, brittle,
summerwood thin and dark rendering the rings of annual growth easily
seen; the medullary rays are thin, numerous, and very obscure. The
wood is light to dark red, the thin sapwood nearly white ; it works easily,
splits readily, and polishes well. It is very durable in contact with the
soil. Trunks lie in the woods long periods before decay seriously attacks
them; but forest fires hollow them, and finally burn them up. Enor-
mous depressions are found in the forest where logs once lay, but which
disappeared long ago, judging by the size of trees which have since
grown in the depressions. The interior of some large trunks which
have been worked up on sawmills showed the scars of forest fires centuries
ago. The annual rings which covered one such scar showed that the
burning took place 1,700 years ago.

Not much can be said for the commercial uses of bigtree. Many
a species of insignificant size is much more useful. Considerable quan-
tities have been cut by sawmills. The waste is great, heavy trunks
crushing badly in fall. Logs are so large that many of them are split with
gunpowder to facilitate handling them. Some of the wood has been
exported for lead pencils; other has been used for fence posts, shingles,
and grapevine stakes, while the soft bark has been worked into novelties.

Macnab Cypress (Cupressus macnabiana) is a California tree of limited range
and little commercial value. It grows in Napa, Lake, Mendocino, and Trinity
counties; is often little more than a branching shrub, but the largest specimens may
be thirty feet high and fifteen inches in diameter. The wood is light, soft, and
usually of slow growth. The medullary rays are numerous but thin, and the bands
of summerwood are distinct. The cones are generally less than one inch long, and
the seeds have narrow wings. The foliage is grayish which is due to white glands in
the leaves. Forest foliage is fragrant. The tree is known as white cedar, Shasta
cypress, and California mountain cypress.

REDWOOD

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REDWOOD

(Sequoia Sempervirens)

THIS tree's color is responsible for its name. It is sometimes
spoken of as coast redwood to distinguish it from bigtree which
grows in the interior of California. In European markets it is known
as California redwood to distinguish it from other redwoods growing in
distant parts of the world. Its botanical name, Sequoia sempervirens ,
means evergreen sequoia. The other species of sequoia is also evergreen.
In reality, the coast redwood is less of an evergreen than the bigtree is,
because the leaves of redwood turn brown two years before they fall, but
there are always plenty of green leaves on the branches. The leaves are
from one-quarter to one-half inch in length.

The geographical range of redwood covers about 6,000 square miles,
but the commercial range is scarcely one-fifth as much. The redwood
belt extends 500 miles along the Pacific coast from southern Oregon to
central California. It varies from ten to thirty miles in width. It is
strictly a fog belt tree, and grows poorly outside the region of ocean fog,
which seldom reaches an altitude more than 2,800 feet above sea level.
Where fog is thick and frequent, and soil is moist and otherwise suitable,
redwood forests have grown in such luxuriance that no species in this
country exceeds it. Stands running much over 100,000 feet per acre are
frequent, and it is said 1 ,000,000 feet have been cut from a single acre.

Redwood cones are one inch or less in length. They ripen in one
season. Seeds are quite small, and are equipped with wings. The
bark is thick, but is much thinner than the bark of bigtrees, though it is
in great ridges like the bark of that species. The habits of the two
species, as to form of crown, are similar. Young redwoods, particularly
if they grow in the open, develop symmetrical and conical crowns which
they retain until the trunks are a foot or more in diameter. Lower
limbs die and fall off after that, and old trees have crowns so small that
it would seem impossible that they could supply the wood-building
material for trunks so large. That the growth should be slow under
such circumstances is to be expected. The ages of mature trees vary
from 500 to 800 years, but an extreme age of 1,373 years is on record.
The average is, therefore, considerably below that of bigtrees.

Redwoods grow as tall as bigtrees, but do not equal them in
diameter of trunk, though trees twenty feet in diameter occur.

A noticeable feature of the forests is that, in a given stand,
nearly all trees are of the same height, irrespective of size of trunk.
The crowns go up to the light and when they reach the common level

182 American Forest Trees

of others, and secure a share of light, they show no disposition to go
higher. The doctrine which they silently put into practice is to live
and let others live. That habit makes it possible for redwoods to grow
in very dense stands, which they could not do if a few trees domineered
over the others, and appropriated the light to themselves.

When old age overtakes the giant redwoods, they exhibit the first
symptoms of weakened vitality by dying at the top. Most trees over
five hundred years old are "stag-headed." From that period they die
slowly, but usually survive two or three hundred years after the visible
signs of approaching death strike them.

Redwood has an advantage over nearly all other needle-leaf trees
in that it propagates by both seeds and sprouts. Few softwoods send
up sprouts from stumps or roots. Redwoods of large size are produced
that way, and the stumps of very old trees send up many vigorous shoots.
Sometimes a ring of large trees surrounds a depression in the ground
where the parent tree grew, died, and decayed.

Sprouts are of course confined to the immediate proximity of the
parent tree, but redwood seeds are scattered by the wind over vacant
spaces. This results in dense stands where other conditions are favor-
able, but the species has never been able to establish itself far inland or
high on mountains.

In 1880 the Federal census made a rough estimate of the available
redwood, and placed it at 25,S25,000,000 feet. More than twenty years
later, with heavy cutting all the time, private estimates placed the
remaining stand at over 50,000,000,000 feet. The second estimate was
unquestionably nearer correct than the first. The stand of no important
timber tree in this country is more easily estimated than redwood.
The forests are compact, the trees large, the trunks similar in form,
and the well-timbered area is comparatively small. Redwood has been
called the most important timber tree of the Pacific coast. The title
probably confers too much, though the tree's importance is beyond
question. The annual cut of Douglas fir is nearly ten times as large as
of redwood, and the supply still in the forests is much greater than
that of redwood. The cut of western yellow pine likewise exceeds the
output of redwood, and the remaining supply is larger. The cut of
western red cedar, including shingles, is about the same, and the
remaining stand of cedar is very large. Western hemlock, too, exists
in large quantity, and its importance as a source of timber supply may
be equal to redwood.

Redwood is frequently referred to as one of the lightest in this
country. Its weight per cubic foot, oven-dry, is 26.2 pounds. On the
same basis, white pine is 24, southern white cedar 20.7, northern white

American Forest Trees 183

cedar 19.7, and bigtree 18.2. There are woods in Florida lighter than
any of these. Redwood is very soft, yet it dulls tools quickly. It is
moderately strong, a little below white pine; it is brittle, again ranking
below white pine; it splits and works easily and polishes well. Few, if
any woods surpass this one in splitting properties. Boards twelve feet
long and a foot wide may be rived from selected logs, and they present
surfaces nearly as smooth as if cut with a saw. However, curly and
wavy redwood is not uncommon, and that, too, splits well, but the
surface is not smooth. The width of annual rings varies, usually wide
in young timber and narrow in old. The bands of summerwood are
narrow and clearly defined. The surface of redwood lumber absorbs
water quickly, yet, for some reason, creosote and other preservatives
can be forced into the wood only with the greatest difficulty. Fortu-
nately, it is not necessary to treat this timber to prevent decay, for, in
almost any position, it wears out before it rots. Shingles, and window
and door frames of the old barracks buildings at Eureka, California,
remained in place until fifty years of wind and driven sand wore them
away. Railroads use the wood for ties until they wear out, not until
they rot out. Farmers near some of the California railroads gather up
the rejected worn ties by thousands and use them for fence posts. When
redwood is employed as city paving blocks it is wear and not decay that
puts them out of commission.

The medullary rays of redwood are thin and very obscure, but
numerous. Few woods show them to less advantage in quarter-sawing.
The lack of luster in the surface of polished panels is well known. The
wood's beauty is in its sameness and richness of color. Except curly
specimens and burls, the wood may be said to have no figure, though
in planks cut tangentially, the contrast of spring and summerwood
displays some figure in a modest way. It is possible to wash much of the
coloring matter out of the wood, if it is first chipped fine. It washes from
the surface by ordinary exposure to weather. Red rainwater runs from
a roof of new redwood shingles, and weatherboarding , posts, and picket
fences fade perceptibly in a few months. This coloring matter when
washed out in large amounts in the process of paper making has been
manufactured into fuel gas.

A complete list of the uses of redwood is not practicable, for this
material goes into most of the large wood-using factories of this country,
and much is exported — nearly 60,000,000 feet annually going to foreign
countries. It has been much employed in California cities and towns
for picket fences, and as posts for wire and plank fences. It is, next
to western red cedar, the most important shingle wood of the Pacific
coast. One western railroad alone had in its tracks 12,000,000 redwood

184

American Forest Trees

ties at one time. Builders of tanks, flumes, and water pipes procure
some of their best material, and large quantities of it, from redwood
sawmills. Few woods are more universally found in furniture factories.
Gowen Cypress (Cupressus goveniana) follows the California coast from
Mendocino county, California, to San Diego, and ascends mountains to the height of
3,000 feet in some localities. At its best it is fifty feet iiigh and two feet in diameter;
but it extends as a shrub over many sandy tracts. Specimens no more than a foot
high sometimes bear cones. The Gowen cypress sheds its leaves the third and fourth
years. Cones are from one-half to one inch long, and each bears about 100 seeds.
The wood is light, soft, weak, light brown in color, the thick sapwood nearly white.
The medullary rays are numerous but obscure. The wood is used for posts and other
ranch purposes. Woodpeckers attack t'.ie trunks, picking holes through the bark to
suck the juice from the cambium layer beneath.

Dwarf Cypress (Cupressus pygnuxa) was formerly supposed to be a stunted
form of Gowen cypress. The ranges of both lie in the same region, on the coast of
California in Mendocino county. The average height of dwarf cypress is from ten to
twenty feet, with trunk diameter from six to twelve inches; but in peat swamps and
on sterile sands it may not exceed three or four feet in height. It bears abundant
cones at that size, and sometimes a tree no more than a foot high has mature cones.
They ripen the second year, but remain a long time on the branches. The trees thrive
in the most forbidding places, and are sometimes the only occupants of bogs or sand
dunes. The wood is necessarily of little value, because of the small size of trees.
There seems to be no record of a dwarf cypress over sixty years of age; but it is be-
lieved that much older trees have fallen victims to fire.

HEMLOCK

HEMLOCK

(Tsuga Canadensis)

SEVEN hemlocks are known in the world, four of them in America.
Two of these are in the East, two in the West. The eastern species
are the Canadian and Carolinian. The former is Tsuga canadensis, the
latter Tsuga caroliniana. The western species are, mountain hemlock
(Tsuga mertensiana) , and western hemlock (Tsuga helerophylla). The
word tsuga is Japanese and means hemlock.

The hemlock lumber in eastern markets is practically all from one
species, which is known as hemlock in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Kentucky, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Ontario. In Ver-
mont, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina; in England it is called hem-
lock spruce; spruce tree in Pennsylvania and West Virginia; spruce pine
in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia; to the
New York Indians it was known as oh-neh-tah, which being interpreted
means "greens on the stick."

The range of hemlock extends east and west more than fifteen
hundred miles, from Nova Scotia to western Wisconsin; south to Dela-
ware and southern Michigan, and along the Appalachian mountains to
northern Alabama and Georgia. The original quantity of timber was
enormous, for large areas were covered with dense stands. The largest
trees are found near the southern part of its range, among the mountains
of Tennessee and North Carolina ; but the bulk of the timber has always
been in the North. It thrives best in well drained soil, but it likes cool
situations and often develops dense forests on northern slopes or in
deep ravines; but it maintains a foothold on ridges, on the banks of
streams, and around the borders of swamps.

The cones are very small, about a half inch in length, growing
singly from the lower side of the branchlet. Their scales are rounded
and thin, light brown in color. The seeds are winged and even when
ripe the cones do not spread apart perceptibly. The seeds escape,
however, slowly during the winter following their maturity. They are
very small, and their wings distribute them a hundred feet or more. The
seeds germinate best on leaf mold, but the seedling takes several years to
thrust its roots deep into the mineral soil. During that time, growth is
very slow. A seedling five years old may not exceed five inches in
height; but when its roots have developed, growth is fairly rapid. The

1S7

188 American Forest Trees

distribution of seeds is often facilitated by the activities of red squirrels,
and perhaps other small mammals, which climb the trees in winter and
tear the cones apart to get at the seeds. Many of the seeds are devoured,
but more escape and fly away on the winter winds.

Hemlock leaves are narrow and about half an inch long. Examin-
ed closely, particularly with a magnifying glass, rows of white dots extend
from end to end on the under side. Small as these white points are
separately, when seen in the aggregate they change the color of the whole
crown of the tree. This is illustrated by looking at a hemlock from a
distance — the upper sides of the leaves on the drooping twigs being then
visible and the tree's aspect dark green. Approach the tree, and
look up from its base— the under side of the leaves being then visible —
and the dark color changes to a light silvery tint. The whiteness is due
to the white spots on the leaves. The spots are stomata (mouths), and
are parts of the chemical laboratory which carriers on the tree's living
processes. All tree leaves have stomata, but all are not arranged in the
same way and are not visible alike. Few trees have them as prominent
as the hemlocks.

Hemlock attains a height from sixty to 100 feet and a diameter
from two to four. When it grows in the open, it is one of the handsom-
est and most symmetrical evergreens of any country. Its dark, dense
foliage will permit scarcely any sunlight to filter through. When forest-
grown, it loses its lower limbs. In the forester's language, they are
"shaded off," and long, smooth trunks are developed; but the stubs
from which the branches fall remain buried deep inside the smoothest bole,
and the saws will find them when the logs are converted into lumber.

Reference has been made to hemlock's slow growth during the
seedling's first four or five years. That takes place in the dense shade of
the hemlock forest. If the seed falls on open ground, in full sunlight,
the chance is that it will not germinate; but if it does, the seedling is
doomed to an early death. It cannot endure strong light. This fact is
of great importance, for it means the end of hemlock forests. When a
stand is cut and the sunshine reaches the ground, no seedlings bring on a
new forest. White pine seeds grow in open ground, in old fields, in
burnt woods, wherever they reach soil, but hemlock must scatter its
seeds in cool, deep shade or they will do little good. Strong, vigorous,
and healthy as hemlock trees are, they are killed more easily than
almost any other. Cut a few trees from the center of a mature hemlock
clump, and the chance is that several trees next to the open space thus
made will die. The unusual light proves too much for their roots which
had always been cool and damp ; but when young hemlocks are protected
until they get a start, they thrive nicely in the open.

American Forest Trees 189

The wood of hemlock is light, soft, not strong, brittle, coarse and
crooked grained, difficult to work, liable to windshake, splinters badly,
not durable. The summerwood of the annual ring is conspicuous; and
the thin medullary rays are numerous. The color of hemlock heartwood
is light brown, tinged with red, often nearly white. The sapwood is
darker. Lumbermen recognize two varieties, red and white, but botan-
ists do not recognize them.

The physical characters of hemlock are nearly all unfavorable, yet
it has become a useful and widely used wood. It is largely manufactured
into coarse lumber and used for outside work — railway ties, joists, raf-
ters, sheathing, plank walks, laths, etc. It is rarely used for inside
finishing, owing to its brittle and splintery character. Clean boards
made into panels or similar work and finished in the natural color often
present a very handsome appearance, owing to the peculiar pinkish tint
of the wood, ripening and improving with age.

With the growing scarcity of white and Norway pine, hemlock has
become the natural substitute for these woods for many purposes. It
has never been conceded that hemlock possesses the intrinsic merit of
either of the northern pines for structural purposes, but it has proven a
suitable substitute for a variety of uses, notably for framing and sheath-
ing of medium priced structures.

In 1910 hemlock lumber was cut in twenty-one states, the total
output exceeding 2,500,000,000 feet. Only four species or groups of
species exceeded it in amount. They were southern yellow pines,
Douglas fir, the oaks, and white pine. The principal cut of hemlock
lumber was in the following states in the order named: Wisconsin,
Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Maine, Vermont,
Virginia, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Ten other
states produced smaller amounts.

Hemlock possesses remarkable holding power on nails and spikes,
and that is one reason for its large use for railroad ties. It does not easily
split, and there is no likelihood that spikes will work loose ; but the wood
decays quickly in damp situations, and unless given preservative treat-
ment, hemlock ties do not last long. They are pretty soft anyway, and
where traffic is heavy, rails cut them badly.

Manufacturers of boxes and crates use much hemlock. The annual
use for that purpose in Massachusetts is about 27,000,000 feet, in Mich-
igan practically the same quantity, in Illinois 34,000,000, and varying
quantities in many other states. Michigan converts nearly 100,000,000
feet a year into flooring and other planing mill products, and Wisconsin
and other hemlock states follow it in lesser amounts. The wood is
employed by car builders, slack coopers, manufacturers ot relngerators,

190 American Forest Trees

silos, and farm implements; but the largest demand comes from those
who use the rough lumber.

Hemlock bark is the most important tanning material in this
country. It has long been used by leather makers who generally mix it
with some other bark or extract because leather tanned with hemlock
alone has a redder color than is desired.

Large areas of hemlock forests have been cut for the bark alone.
Formerly the wood was of so little value that it was cheaper to leave it in
the forest than to take it out. The peelers worked in early summer,
cutting trees and removing the bark in four-foot lengths, which was
measured by the cord, though often sold by weight. Care was taken
that the bark be removed from the slashings before the dry weather of
autumn, for fire was to be expected then, and anything combustible in
the woods at that time was likely to be lost. The tracts on which bark
peelers worked were called "slashings," and they were fire traps of the
worst kind with their tangled masses of tops and branches.

Large quantities of hemlock bark are still peeled every summer,
but the practice is less destructive than formerly. The trunks are worth
taking out, and when the fire comes late in the season it consumes little
valuable hemlock. A permanent decline in the annual production of this
wood has not yet begun, but it must soon set in, for the demand cannot be
indefinitely met.

WESTERN HEMLOCK

i

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m

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1

Western Hemlock

WESTERN HEMLOCK

{Tsuga Hctcrophylla)

WHEN this wood began to go to market, its promoters found
difficulties in securing a trial for it in eastern states, because of its
name. The eastern hemlock was known to be a substantial wood, but
a rough one with many faults linked with its virtues. It was naturally
supposed that the western hemlock had all the faults of its eastern rela-
tive with possibly some of the good qualities left out; and there was
general hesitancy to put the new comer to a trial. That caused a
movement among western lumbermen to sell their hemlock under some
other name. They were confident the wood had only to be given a trial
and it would win its way, after which the name would make little
difference. Accordingly, it was started to market under the name of
Alaska pine, although Alaska has no pine large enough for good
lumber. Other lumbermen thought it advisable to choose a name less
likely to excite suspicion, and they called it Washington pine. Others
designated it as spruce, and still others as fir. It was more likely to
pass for fir than for pine or spruce.

The lumber is now generally known as western hemlock, but in
California some call it hemlock spruce or California hemlock spruce. In
Idaho, Washington, and Oregon the name hemlock usually suffices;
while western hemlock spruce, and western hemlock fir, and Prince
Albert's fir are names used in speaking of lumber and of the tree in the
forest.

Western hemlock's range extends north and south a thousand
miles, from southern Alaska to California south of San Francisco.
It grows from the Pacific coast eastward to Montana, five hundred miles
or more. It ascends to altitudes of 6,000 feet, but it is not at its
best on high mountains, but in the warm, damp region near the coast
in Washington and Oregon. Trees 200 feet high and eight or ten in
diameter are found, but the average size is much less.

The leaves of western hemlock are dark green and very lustrous
above. The flowers are yellow and purple. Cones are one inch or less
in length, and the small seeds are equipped with wings which carry them
some distance from the base of the parent tree. The seeds will germinate
and develop a root system without touching mineral soil. Their ability
to do so assists them greatly in maintaining the tree's position in the
damp climate where this hemlock reaches its best development. The
ground in the forest, with all objects that lie upon it, is often covered
with wet moss a foot or more thick. The seeds of most trees would

194 American Forest Trees

inevitably perish if they fell upon such a bed of moss; but the seeds of
western hemlock germinate, and the rootlets strike through the moss
until they reach the soil beneath, and seedling trees are soon growing
vigorously. Seeds often germinate in the moss on logs and stumps, but
the roots strike for the ground, and generally reach it. In this habit the
western hemlock resembles the yellow birch of the East whose seeds seem
to germinate best on mossy logs and stumps.

Western hemlock has one of the bad habits of its eastern relative :
it does not prune itself very well, even in dense forests, and the lumber is
apt to be knotty, but the knots are usually sound, though dark in color.

The wood of western hemlock is moderately light, but twenty per
cent heavier than eastern hemlock; stronger than the wood of other
American hemlocks, and nearly twenty-five per cent stronger than the
eastern commercial species, and nearly fifty per cent stiffer. It is
tough and hard, but has little of the flinty texture of other hemlocks.
Its color is pale brown, tinged with yellow, the thin sapwood nearly
white. It is fairly durable in contact with the soil. Its growth is
usually rapid, and trees live to a great age. Some of the largest are
said to reach 800 years. The summerwood often constitutes half of
the yearly ring, and is dark yellow. The medullary rays are num-
erous and rather prominent. When cut radially, the appearance, size,
and arrangement of the exposed medullary rays suggest those of sugar
maple when exposed in the same way.

The annual sawmill output of western hemlock is about 170,000,000
feet. The largest market for it is in the region where it grows, and it is
used as rough lumber for ranch purposes and for buildings in towns; but
a considerable quantity is further manufactured. About one-fourth of
the entire sawmill output goes to the factories of Idaho, Washington, and
Oregon. A list of the wood's principal uses in those states shows its
intrinsic value. The largest quantity is demanded by box factories.
The wood's nail-holding power commends it for that use, but of no less
importance is its strength. Eighty-three per cent of all the wood used
for boxes in Washington is western hemlock. Cooperage calls for much
of this wood also. Fruit and vegetable barrels are made of it. Its
place in furniture manufacture corresponds to that of the other hemlock
in the East. The pulp business is not very extensive on the Pacific coast,
but western hemlock is a respectable contributor. It is suitable for
burial boxes, and probably ranks about third among the woods within
its range, those used in larger amounts being Sitka spruce and western
red cedar. It is coming into use as interior finish, particularly as door
and window frame material. Fixture manufacturers employ it for
drawers and shelves. It is made into flooring, ceiling, molding, and

American Forest Trees 195

wainscoting. Door makers use a little of it as core material over which
to glue veneers. It is made into veneer, but of the cheaper sorts, such as
are suitable for crates and berry boxes.

The Pacific coast is so abundantly supplied with excellent soft-
woods that only those of good quality have any chance in the local
markets. The fact that western hemlock has won and is holding an
important place in active competition with such woods as western red
cedar, yellow cedar, Sitka spruce, and Douglas fir, is proof that it is
valuable material. It is winning its way in the central part of the
United States also, but not as rapidly as it has won in the West.

The bark of western hemlock is rated high as a tanning material.
The bark on young trees is thin, but as the trunks increase in size and age
the bark thickens. It is richer in tannin than the bark of eastern
hemlock, but is not so extensively used because the demand is less on the
Pacific coast.

The future of the western hemlock is fairly well assured. Its
range is extensive and varied, and lumbermen will be a long time in
cutting the last of the present stand. Reproduction is satisfactory.
It will be important in future forestry, when people will grow much of
the timber they need; but this tree will stick pretty close to the range
where nature planted it.

Mountain Hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) is a near relative of
western hemlock, and occupies the same geographical ranges but higher
on the mountains. Near Sitka, Alaska, it occurs at sea level, but
southward it rises higher until on the Sierra Nevada mountains in
California it is 10,000 feet above sea level. It is one of the timber line
trees in many parts of its range, though it is nowhere above all others.
It is a difficult matter to state what its average size is. That depends
upon the particular region considered. At its best it is 100 feet high or
even more ; at its poorest it sprawls on the rocks like a shrub. Specimens
of fair size are from twenty-five to sixty feet high, and ten to twenty
inches in diameter. Cones vary in size fully as much as the trunks.
Some are one-half inch in length, others are three inches. The leaves
vary no less, some being a one-twelfth inch long, others one inch. The
leaves stand out on all sides of the twig, and fall during the third and
fourth years. They are bluish-green. The seeds fall in September and
October, and are provided with large wings. The wood is light in weight,
soft, and pale reddish-brown. The mountain hemlock is nearly always
spoken of as spruce by persons who are not botanists. The arrange-
ment of the leaves on the twigs gives the impression that it is a spruce,
and among the names by which it is known in its native region are
Williamson's spruce, weeping spruce, alpine spruce, hemlock spruce.

196

American Forest Trees

Patton's spruce, and alpine western spruce. There is little prospect that
this tree will ever become important as a source of lumber. It is no-
where very abundant, and what timber there is generally stands so
remote from mills that little of it will ever be taken out. Botanists and
mountain travelers who have made the acquaintance of the mountain
hemlock in the wildness of its natural surroundings have spoken and
written much in its praise. It has been called the loveliest cone-bearing
tree of the American forest. That praise, however, applies only when
the tree is at its best, with its broad, pyramidal crown, balanced and
proportioned with geometrical accuracy, outlined against a background
of rocks, peaks, snow, or sky. Its other form, prostrate and angular
where the tree occurs on cold, bleak mountains, has never inspired praise
from anybody, though its defiance of the elements and its persistence in
spite of adversity, cannot but challenge the admiration of all who like
a fair and square fighter. There are many intermediate forms. On
mountains facing the Pacific, and at altitudes of 6,000 or 7,000 feet, the
young hemlocks are buried under deep snow weeks or months at a time.
They are pressed down by the weight of tons, and it might be supposed
that not a whole branch would be left on them, and that the main stems
would be deformed the rest of their lives. But when the early summer
sun melts the snow, the young trees spring back to their former faultless
forms, without a twig missing or a twisted branch.

WESTERN YEW

WESTERN YEW

(Taxus Brevifolia)

THE Pacific yew is an interesting tree, useful for many minor pur-
poses, but it is not procurable in large quantities. Its north and
south range covers more than 1,000 miles, from Alaska to central
California; while the species occurs from the Pacific coast eastward to
Montana. It approaches sea level on some of the Alaskan islands, and
toward the southern part of its range it reaches an altitude of 8,000 feet.

In Idaho it is called mountain mahogany, but apparently without
good reason. Its color may bear some resemblance to that wood, but it
is different in so many particulars that the name is not appropriate. The
names western yew and Pacific yew are used interchangeably. Some-
times it bears the simple name yew; but since there is a yew in Florida,
and another in Europe, it is well to give the western species a name which
will distinguish it from others. The northwestern Indians called it
"fighting wood," which was the best description possible for them to
give. They made bows of it, and it was superior to any other wood
within their reach for that purpose. In fact, if they could have picked
from all the woods of the United States they could scarcely have found
its equal. It is very strong, though in elasticity its rating is under
many other woods. It is of interest to note that five hundred or more
years ago, the European yew (a closely related but different species) had
nearly the same name in England that the northwestern Indians gave
the western yew. It was called "the shooter yew," because it was the
bow wood of that time, and "bow staves," which were rough pieces to
be worked out by the bow makers, were articles of commerce. The
search for it was so great, and so long-continued, that yew trees were
well-nigh exterminated in the British Isles. It was, next to oak, and
possibly above oak, the most indispensable wood in England at that time.
It is instructive to observe that Indians who used the bow found the
western yew as indispensable in their life as the English armies found the
European yew at a time when the bow was the best weapon.

The northwestern Indians put this remarkable wood to other uses.
They made spears of it, and sometimes employed them as weapons of
war, but generally as implements of the chase, particularly in harpooning
salmon which in summer ascend the northwestern rivers from the Pacific
ocean in immense schools. The Indians whittled fishhooks of yew
before they were able to buy steel hooks from traders. Some of those
unique hooks are still in existence, and speak well of the inventive
genius of the wild fisherman of the wilderness. A proper crook was

200 American Forest Trees

selected where a branch joined the trunk, and serviceable fish hooks
were made without any cross grain. They were strong enough to hold
the largest fish that ascended the rivers. Sometimes a bone barb was
skillfully inserted. The Indians found a further use for this wood as
material for canoe paddles. It is so strong that handles can be made
small and blades thin without passing the limit of safety. The manu-
facture of boat paddles from yew continues.

More is used for fence posts than for any other one purpose. It is
one of the most durable woods known where it must resist conditions
conducive to decay. The name yew is said to be derived from a word
in a north Europe language meaning everlasting. Yew fence posts are
not named in statistics, and it is impossible to quote numbers. Then-
use is confined to the districts where they grow.

The manufacturers of small cabinets draw supplies from this wood,
but the fact is not mentioned in Pacific states wood-using statistics. It
is particularly liked for turner}', such as small spindles used in furniture
and in grill work. It takes an exceptionally fine polish, and the wood's
great strength makes the use of slender pieces practicable. Experi-
ments have shown that this wood may be stained with success, but its
natural color is so attractive that there is little need of staining unless
the purpose is to imitate some more costly wood. If stained black it is
an excellent substitute for ebony.

Western yew figures little in lumber output. It is not listed in the
markets. The few logs which reach sawmills are never again heard of,
but probably most of the lumber is disposed of locally to those who
need it. The tree is not of good form for saw timber. Burls are said
to make beautiful veneer. Trunks are seldom round, but usually grow
lopsided. Most of them are too small for sawlogs. The largest are
seldom two feet in diameter, and generally not half that large. They
are short and branched, the tree often dividing near the ground in
several stems. The average tree is scarcely thirty feet high, but a few
are twice that. Its growth is very slow. A six-inch trunk is seventy-
five or 100 years old, and the largest sizes are from 200 to 350 years.
It is evident, therefore, that efforts to grow western yew for commercial
purposes will be few. Wild trees will be occasionally cut as long as
they last, and they will probably last as long as any of their associates,
for they are scattered sparingly over several hundred thousand square
miles of country, and some of it rough and almost inaccessible. The
best development of the species is in western Oregon, Washington, and
British Columbia.

The leaves of western yew are one-half or five-eighths inch long.
The fruit consists of red pulp enclosing a hard seed. Birds devour it

American Forest Trees 201

eagerly. The fruit is not poisonous, as the yew berries of the Old World
are. It ripens in September and falls in October. The wood is fine
grained, clear rose red, becoming gradually duller on exposure. It
weighs 39. S3 pounds per cubic foot. Its fuel value is high.

Florida Yew (Taxus floridana) is extremely local in its range, and
small in size. Few trees are more than twenty-five feet high and one
foot in diameter. They are bushy and of poor form for manufacturing.
The only reported use is as fence posts. The wood's durability fits it
for that place. The species is found in Gadsden county, Florida. The
leaves are one inch or less in length; flowers appear in March, and the
fruit ripens in October. The wood is moderately heavy, hard, and
narrow-ringed, for the trees grow slowly. Its color is dark, tinged with
red, the thin sapwood being whiter. There is little prospect that the
wood of this yew will ever be more important than it is now. It is
often spoken of locally as savin, which name is likewise given to the red
cedar {Junipcrus virginiana), which is abundant in this yew's range.

California Nutmeg (Tumion californicum) is an interesting tree
which ranges over a considerable portion of California, but is at its best
in Mendocino county and the coast region north of San Francisco. It
occurs also on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, in
central California, at altitudes up to 5,000 feet. It receives its name
from the resemblance of its seeds to nutmegs. Their surface is shriveled,
but they do not have the nutmeg odor. The wood and the leaves, when
bruised, give off an odor not altogether pleasing. On account of this, the
tree has been called stinking cedar. In some localities it is called yew,
and in others California false nutmeg, and coast nutmeg. Trees are
generally small, with trunks of irregular form. The crown is open and
usually extends to the ground ; but in crowded situations, a rather shape-
ly bole is developed, and the crown is small. The usual size of the tree
does not exceed a height of fifty feet and a diameter of twenty inches.
More trees are below than above that size ; but in extreme cases the tree
may reach a height of eighty-five feet and a diameter of four. The
leaves in form and size resemble the foliage of yew, but their points are
stiff and sharp, and if approached carelessly they will wound like cactus
thorns. The fruit is an inch or more in length, a pulpy substance sur-
rounding the seed. The wood possesses properties which ought to make
it valuable, though reported uses are strictly local, such as small cabinet
work and skiff making. It is bright lemon, yellow, rather hard, takes
good polish, is of slow growth, with bands of summerwood thin but
distinct, and medullary rays small, numerous, and obscure. Its weight
is 29.66 pounds per cubic foot; it is not stiff or strong. It cannot attain
high place as a manufacturing material, because it is too scarce, but it

202 American Forest Trees

possesses a beauty which must bring it recognition as a fine furniture,
finish, and novelty wood. A few sawlogs go to mills in the region north
of San Francisco, but the lumber is probably mixed with other kinds
and it goes to market without a name. It ought to be put to a better
use.

Florida Torreya (Tumion taxifolium) is often called Chatta-
hoochee pine in the region where it grows. That name is generally
given to the tree when planted for ornament in yards, parks, and along
streets of towns in northwestern Florida. It is known also as stinking
cedar, stinking savin, and fetid yew. These names are generally
applied to the forest-grown tree, particularly by those who cut it for
fence posts, which is its principal use. Its range is local, being confined
largely, if not wholly, to Gadsden county, Florida, where it grows on
limestone soil. It can never have much importance as a commercial
timber, because it is too scarce. In fact, it is in danger of extermination.
Post cutters never spare it, and its range being so limited, there is not
much hope for it. The interesting and beautiful tree is making a game
fight for life. Many seedlings appear in the vicinity of old trees, while
stumps, and even prostrate trunks, send up sprouts which, if let alone,
grow to tree size. Sprouts on logs and stumps send roots to the ground
as the seedling yellow birch does in damp northern woods. The yew-like
leaves of Florida torreya are one and a half inch or less in length. The
tree blooms in March and April, and the drupe-like fruit, an inch or
more in length, is ripe by midsummer. The tree is from forty to sixty
feet in height, and one to two feet in diameter. It is clothed in whorls
of limbs, beginning near the ground, and tapering to the top. The wood
is clear, bright yellow, the thin sapwood of lighter color; soft, easily
worked, and susceptible of fine polish. It is very durable in contact
with the soil. The green wood, and the bruised leaves and branches
give off an odor suggesting the tomato vine. The texture and color of
the wood indicate that it is well suited for fine cabinet work, but it is
not a figured wood.

WHITE OAK

WHITE OAK

{Quercus Alba)

OAKS belong to the beech family, that is, the "foodtrees,"* though
most acorns are too bitter and contain too much tannin to be
edible ; some may be eaten, and for that reason the ancients classed them
among the food trees. "Quercus," which is the name of the genus,
means oak in the language of northwestern Europe. The name white
oak nearly always suffices, but in Arkansas it is often called stave oak
because it is the best stave timber in that region. It could with equal
reason be called stave oak nearly anywhere, for it is excellent material
for tight cooperage. Formerly it was sometimes called Baltimore oak,
because many of the staves of export were shipped from that city. That
name, however, belonged more to post oak {Quercus minor) than to
white oak, because the fine staves which went out of Chesapeake bay in
the export trade, were largely post oak. It matters little now, for the
name Baltimore oak is not much used, and white oak may be said to
have only one trade name. After the wood is dressed, it has different
names referring to the style of finish and not to the wood itself.

White oak grows in all the states east of the Mississippi river, and
it crosses that stream two or three hundred miles in some places. It

*The oaks of this country, which number more than fifty species, have been
classified in different ways, depending upon the purpose in view. In the present
treatment they will be divided in two general groups, white oaks and black oaks. No
effort will be made to draw hard and fast lines, because it is not necessary. Oaks
which ripen their acorns in one year are listed as white oaks; those with two year
acorns, as black oaks. This is a botanical rather than a lumberman's classification;
yet lumbermen recognize it in a general way. White oak (Quercus alba) is clearly
entitled to head the list of white oaks, and red oak (Quercus rubra) should occupy a
similar position with regard to the black oak group. In numbers, the white oaks and
black oaks are nearly equally divided, one authority giving twenty-seven species of
white oak and twenty-five of black oak in the United States; but botanists differ as to
exact numbers of each. The following species are usually classed as white oaks:
White oak (Quercus alba), valley oak (Quercus lobaia). Brewer oak (Quercus breiveri),
Sadler oak (Quercus sadleri), Pacific post oak (Quercus garryana), Gambel oak
(Quercus gambelii), post oak (Quercus minor), Jhapman oak (Quercus chapman i) , bur
oak (Quercus macrocarpa) overcup oak (Quercus lyrata), swamp white oak {Quercus
platanoides) , cow oak (Quercus michauxii), chestnut oak {Quercus prinus), chinquapin
oak (Quercus acuminata), dwarf chinquapin oak (Quercus prinoides), Durand oak
(Quercus brcviloba), Rocky Mountain oak (Quercus undulata), California blue oak
(Quercus douglasii), Engelmann oak (Quercus engclmanni) , Rocky Mountain blue oak
(Quercus oblongifolia) , Arizona white oak (Quercus arizonica), Toumey oak (Quercus
toumeyi), netleaf oak (Quercus reticulata), California scrub oak (Quercus dumosa),
live oak (Quercus virginiana), Emory oak (Quercus emoryi).

206 American Forest Trees

reaches eastern Nebraska and eastern Kansas, and runs southward
through Oklahoma to the Brazos river, Texas. It is scarce in the northern
parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Its total range covers an
area of more than 1,000,000 square miles. Like all other important
timber trees, it has regions where the species is best developed. The
finest original stands of white oak were found in the upper Ohio valley,
beginning in Indiana. The timber in many other districts was, and in
some still is, very good, such as southern Michigan, eastern Arkansas,
some of the Appalachian valleys and slopes, and in certain places along
the upper tributaries of streams flowing into the Atlantic ocean.

This tree is in the very front rank in economic importance, and it
has held that place since the earliest settlements in this country. No
forest tree was more evenly distributed than white oak over the eastern
half of the United States. It did not form pure forests of large extent,
as some of the pines did, but white oaks were within reach of almost
every part of the country. Conditions have greatly changed. The
establishment of farms where woods originally occupied the whole
country, lessened the abundance of oak long before lumbermen made it
a commodity; and since then, the cutting of billions of feet of it has
depleted or exhausted the supply in many regions. Still, white oak is as
widely dispersed as ever. It has not been completely exterminated in
any extensive region. White oak of as high grade goes to market now
as ever in the past, but in smaller amounts, and the lower grades go in
proportionately larger quantities. In other words, prime white oak
has passed its best day. A hundred years of use and abuse in states
west of the Alleghany mountains, and two hundred years in some of the
regions east, have reduced original forests to remnants. But with all
that, white oak remains undisputed king of American hardwoods.

At its best, white oak attains a height of 125 feet and a diameter of
six, but that size is unusual. A diameter of three feet and a height of
100 is above the average. The leaves are peculiar in that they hang on
the branches until late winter, sometimes dropping only in time to give
place to the new crop. They turn brown after the first hard frost. In
some sections of the Appalachian region white oak coppice (sprout
growth) is known as "red brush," because of the adherence of the brown
leaves during winter. The leaves of some other species have the same
habit.

The wood of white oak is very strong, stiff, heavy, and durable
when exposed in all kinds of weather. Scarcely any other wood which
can be had in merchantable quantities equals white oak in these qualities.
It rates high in fuel value, and 6,000 pounds of dry wood when burned,
leaves about 245 pounds of ashes. The color of the heartwood is light

American Forest Trees 207

brown; the sapwood is thin; medullary rays are numerous and large;
pores large; summerwood broad and dense.

The medullary rays of no wood in this or any other country are
more utilized to commercial advantage than those of white oak.
Quarter-sawing is for the purpose of bringing them out. They are the
bright streaks, clearly visible to the naked eye in the end of an oak log,
radiating from the center outward like the spokes of a wheel. Many
are too thin to be visible without a magnifying glass. By quarter-saw-
ing, the rays are cut edgewise and appear as bright streaks or patches,
often called "mirrors," on the surface of boards. The woodworker
knows how to finish the boards and treat them with fillers to bring out the
figures.

White oak is a porous wood. Some of the pores are large enough to
be visible without a glass, and twenty times as many more can be seen
only when magnified. The direction of the pores is up and down the
trunk of the tree, and they are seen to best advantage in the end of a
stick, although they are always more or less visible on the side of a
board when the cutting is a little across the grain. The pores thus cut
diagonally across are taken advantage of by the finisher who works
stains and fillers into them, and changes their natural color, thereby
accentuating the wood's figure.

The possibilities of white oak are almost infinite. It is good for
nearly anything for which any wood is used. It is not the best for every-
thing, but does well for most. Hickory is more resilient, ironwood is
stronger, locust more durable, white pine warps and checks less; but
white oak has so many good qualities in a fair degree that it can afford
to fall below the highest in some, and still rank above competitors on
general averages. It ranks high in shipbuilding, general construction,
furniture manufacturing, finish and fixtures, the making of agricultural
implements, car building, vehicle stock, cooperage, and many more.

It is one of the most important of American veneer woods. It is
sawed very thin, and is glued upon cores of other wood, thus becoming
the covering or outside part. The purpose of using oak veneer instead of
the solid wood is twofold. First, it goes farther, and second, a well-
built article with veneer outside and a core of other woods which stand
well, is superior to a solid oak article, except in cases where great strength
is the object sought, or where deep carving is desired.

The continued use of white oak is assured. It is not necessary to
seek new uses for it. The demand is as great as the supply can meet, but
the supply is not assured for the distant future. There will always be
some white oak in the country ; but the best has been or is being cut.
The tree grows slowly, and good quarter-sawed white oak cannot be cut

208

American Forest Trees

from young trees. An age of about 150 years is necessary. Most
good white oak lumber today is cut from trees 200 or more years old.
When the present supply of venerable oaks has been exhausted, prime
oak lumber will be largely a thing of the past. Fortunately, that time
has not yet arrived. About eighty years are required to grow a white
oak of crosstie size. Those who will grow oak for market in the future
will probably not wait much longer than eighty years to cut their trees,
and the result will be a scarcity of mature trunks for lumber and veneer.

Durand Oak (Quercus breviloba). In some parts of Alabama, Mississippi, and
Louisiana this tree goes to the lumber yard as white oak, and no one is injured by the
substitution, for it is heavy, hard, and strong, and is of good color. The wood weighs
59.25 pounds per cubic foot, which places it above the average weight of white oak.
It is said to be less tough than white oak. The tree varies greatly in different parts
of its range which extends from central Alabama across Texas and into Mexico. It is
known as white oak, Texas white oak, shin oak, pin oak, and basket oak. Its best
development is in the eastern part of its range where trees eighty or ninety feet high
are common; but in Texas the average is scarcely thirty feet high and one in diameter.
Westward in Texas it becomes shrubby, and forms extensive thickets of brush.

Chapman Oak (Quercus chapmani) is put to little use, because trunks are too
small. They are seldom more than a foot in diameter, and are often little more than
shrubs. The tree grows in the pine barrens near the coast from South Carolina to
Florida, and it is found also in great abundance, but generally of small size, on the
west coast of Florida from Tampa to the Apalachicola river.

BUR ( lAK

BUR OAK

(Quercus Macrocarpa)

THIS splendid oak was named by Michaux, a French traveler and
botanist who visited many parts of eastern and southeastern
United States more than a century ago. The botanical name macro-
carpa, means "large fruit." The bur oak bears small acorns in the
North, and very large ones in the South. They are sometimes two inches
long and one and a half inches wide, and "large-fruit" oak is an appro-
priate name for the tree in the South, but would not be near the northern
limit of its range.

It is known in different regions as bur oak, mossy cup oak, overcup
oak, scrub oak, and mossy cup white oak. Bur oak is a name suggested
by the acorn which has a fringe round the cup like a bur. This is the
oak which gave name to James Fenimore Cooper's book, "Oak Openings"
a romance of early days in Michigan. Oak openings were areas where
fires had killed the old timber, and a young growth had sprouted from
stumps and roots, or had sprung up from seeds buried in the ground
beyond the reach of the fire. Some of those tracts were very large, and
they were not confined to any one state. They existed in Michigan,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, and elsewhere. Bur oak, because it is a
vigorous species, was able to take possession of such burned areas, to the
exclusion of most others.

Few American oaks have a wider range. It extends from Nova
Scotia to Manitoba, and in the United States is found in most states east
of the Rocky Mountains. It extends farther west and northwest than
any other commercial oak of the Atlantic states. In a range of so great
geographical extent the bur oak finds it necessary to adapt itself to many
kinds of land. It prefers low tracts where water is sufficient but not
excessive, but it grows well in more elevated situations, provided the
soil is fertile. It is not a poor-land tree. In the primeval forests it
attained largest size in Indiana and Illinois. The largest trees were from
150 to 170 feet high and four to seven in diameter. Sizes varied from
that extreme down to the other extreme near the outskirts of its range
where the growth was stunted. Large quantities of very fine logs have
been cut from trunks from two to four feet in diameter, and forty to
sixty feet to the limbs.

The leaves of bur oak are from six to twelve inches long, simple and
alternate; the petioles are thick with flattened and enlarged bases; the
leaves are wedge-shaped at the base, and have from five to seven long,
irregular lobes, the terminal one very large and broad. They are dark

212 American Forest Trees

green in color, and are smooth and shiny above, silvery white and pubes-
cent below. The edge of the leaf is notched somewhat like chestnut, but
the teeth or notches are not so sharp.

The twigs are provided with corky wings, or flattened keels of
bark, along their sides. Some of the wings are an inch or more wide.
They are apt to escape notice when the tree is in leaf, but in the winter
the bare twigs look rough and ragged.

The weight of bur oak is approximately the same as white oak, and
the two woods are much the same in strength and elasticity. The
bands of summerwood are broad and dense, and the springwood is filled
with large pores. The medullary rays are broad, but not numerous in
comparison with white oak. They are sufficiently conspicuous to show
well in quarter-sawing.

Bur oak nearly always goes to market as white oak, or simply as
oak, and it is difficult to ascertain all the uses found for it. Some
factories which make furniture, finish, vehicles, and other articles that
figure in the country's trade, attempt to identify the woods they use.
That is done as carefully in Michigan as anywhere else, though com-
paratively few of the factories carry out the plan even in that state
where many of the best wood-using establishments of the country are
located. In a report issued in 1912 which gave statistics collected from
more than eight hundred Michigan factories, bur oak received separate
consideration. The uses there are doubtless representative, and will
hold throughout the country wherever bur oak is fairly abundant. It is
listed as baseboards, billiard table rims, bookcases, clay working machines,
filing cabinets, furniture, hand sleds, hay balers, interior finish, molding,
tinplate boxes, wagon sills, work benches. The amount of wood used
in the state was nearly 900,000 feet, according to the reports; but it
certainly does not include all. What it does show, however, is that bur
oak is one of the substantial woods of that region, and that it possesses
properties which fit it for many important places in the country's
industries.

Bur oak contributes to the output of cooper shops. Slack coopers
class it with many other hardwoods for the manufacture of barrels for
vegetables and various other commodities, while the makers of barrels
for liquids put bur oak in with white oak.

The future of bur oak does not promise much after the trees which
now remain have been cut. That does not mean that the species will
become extinct, for that is improbable; but when the mature trees which
developed during two or three hundred years of forest conditions have
passed away, there is not much prospect of others being left to grow to
the age and size which will make them valuable as lumber. Woodlot

American Forest Trees 213

owners will not wait much longer than the seventy-five or one hundred
years required to grow trees of crosstie size. Railroads pay good prices
for this wood, for it lasts well, holds spikes in a satisfactory manner,
and is strong and hard. As far as can be seen, bur oak will fare in the
future about like white oak ; that is, few trees will be left standing long
enough to attain large size, because it will pay better to cut them while
comparatively small.

California Blue Oak (Quercus douglasii) receives its name from the color of
its foliage in spring and early summer in the valleys and on the rolling foothills of
central California. Later in the summer, when the dry season is on, the leaves lose
some of their blue, on account of age, but more from an accumulation of dust ; but
even then the form of the tree, from its habit of growing in open formation like an old
apple orchard, presents an attractive picture. It is often associated with the valley
oak, which is larger and more stately, but the blue oak loses nothing by the contrast.
It is occasionally called rock oak, but for what reason is not clear. It is known, too,
as mountain white oak, or simply white oak. and as blue oak. Its range covers central
California from Mendocino to the Mojave desert, and from the immediate coast inland
through the valleys to the Sierras, and upward to an altitude of 4,000 feet where the
tree degenerates into a shrub which has neither beauty nor utility. The species
reaches its best development in the Salinas valley from twenty to sixty miles from
the coast. There the largest trees are found, and also some that have assumed pe-
culiar forms. In positions exposed to the never-ceasing sea winds which sweep up
the valleys, the blue oaks lie prone like logs, their tops pointing away from the
wind. They grew in that unnatural position, having been pressed flat by the wind
since they were seedlings. This oak's ashen gray bark harmonizes well with the dry
summer grass and dull sand and gravel which surround it during the hot period. The
branches are often covered with green-gray lichens which somewhat modify the
aspect of the tree under close inspection. The leaves are irregular in form. Some
closely resemble leaves of the eastern white oak, while others are almost or quite
without lobes. During the growing season the acorns are deep green, but when
approaching maturity they change to a chestnut -brown. They vary in shape as
much as the leaves. Some are almost eggshaped, bulging out above the cup which
seems too small; but all of them do not assume that form, but may be short and sym-
metrical, or very long and slender. Woodpeckers store these acorns in large numbers,
and they search out peculiar places for their hoards. A knot hole in the weather-
boarding of an old barn, granary, or school house is considered ideal, though when the
acorns are so disposed of, they are out of reach of the woodpecker forever. Another
method is to peck holes just large enough for an acorn in fence posts or dead tree
trunks, and hammer the acorns tightly in, small end first. The surfaces of dead trees
are sometimes absolutely covered with such holes, each with its acorn. The wood-
pecker's purpose is to wait until the acorns become infested with larva. He has no
intention of eating the acorn itself.

California blue oaks range in height from shrubs to trees of ninety feet, with
diameters of three or four feet. The average height is about forty-five and the
diameter two or less. The trunk frequently divides a few feet from the ground into
large limbs. That form excludes the wood from sawmills, and only in rare cases does
any of it find its way there. The lumber is of poor quality, brittle, black, and other-
wise defective. The sapwood is white and thick. A cubic foot weighs 55.64 pounds,
or nearly ten more than eastern white oak. It is weak, and is low in elasticity. The

214 American Forest Trees

annual rings are often nearly invisible, because the pores are scattered evenly and do
not form bands. The medullary rays are broad, in the heart black, in the sapvvood
white. If the wood were otherwise suitable, pleasing effects might be produced by
quarter-sawing, but as far as known, no attempts have been made to do this. Now
and then a suitable log might be found. The importance of this oak lies in its fuel
value. It rates above white oak in theoretical tests, but it is heavier in ash, and
in practice it hardly measures up to white oak. It grows slowly and is destined to
disappear as a source of fuel supply. Reproduction has nearly ceased in most parts
of its range, due largely to the perseverance of hogs in eating the acorns. Cordwood
cutters have stripped the last tree from large areas where much once grew. This oak
never forms forests. The trees seldom grow as close together as apple trees in an
orchard.

Gambel Oak (Quercus gambelii) was destined by nature to occupy an inferior
place in the country's timber resources. It occupies a region of stunted vegetation
among the dry mountains and plateaus of the Southwest, and except where it grows
in better situations than usual, it is too small to be properly called a tree. It is at its
best among the mountains of southeastern Arizona where it grows in canyons that
can maintain a little damp soil. There it occasionally reaches a height of thirty feet
and a diameter of a foot or less. In most other parts of its range it is simply a
tangled, sprawling thicket of brush, covering the dry, rocky mountain ridges, and
along the bases of cliffs. It is found from Colorado to western Texas, and westward
into Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. The leaves are small, thick, firm, and hairy,
typical of desert foliage which must husband the scant water supply. The acorns are
pretty large for a tree so stunted, and they are tempting bait for birds and rodents of
the region. The acorns are sweet. If this oak's reproduction depended on acorns
alone it is doubtful if it would hold its ground in the face of perpetual adversity; but its
roots send up distorted and stunted sprouts which cover the ground, affording hiding
places for the few acorns which escape their hungry enemies. Man puts this oak to
few uses. It affords a pretty good class of fuel for camp fires, but cordwood cutters
cannot make much out of it. In rare instances frontier ranches use a few of the
unshapely poles for corral fences, but only as a case of last resort. The names
bestowed upon the tree by those who know it best are uncomplimentary. They call
it shin oak, pin oak, scrub oak, mountain oak, and Rocky Mountain oak.

FORKED-LEAF WHITE OAK

FORKED-LEAF WHITE OAK

(Qucrcns Lyrala)

THE leaf gives this tree its name in the best part of its southern
range. The tree bears much resemblance to the bur oak on the
one hand, and swamp white oak on the other. The names by which
it is known in different regions indicate as much.

In North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Missis-
sippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Illinois it is commonly known as
overcup; in Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Mis-
souri it is called the swamp post oak; the name water white oak is
applied to it in Mississippi and parts of South Carolina; swamp white
oak in Texas ; forked-leaf white oak among lumbermen in several of the
southern states. The last name scarcely describes the leaf, for no one is
apt to notice any fork, unless his attention is called to it. The fact is,
the name forked-leaf oak is applied oftener to the turkey oak (Quercus
catesbai) than to this one. However, since the ranges of the two
species are not the same, misunderstandings in practice are not apt to
arise as to which is meant when the forked leaf is referred to. The fact
that turkey oak belongs in the black oak group, ripening its acorns in two
years, and this one is a white oak with one year acorns, is of further
assistance in keeping the species separate.

The range of the forked-leaf white oak is from Maryland, along the
Potomac river near the District of Columbia, southward to parts of
Florida ; westward through the Gulf states to the Trinity river in Texas ;
throughout Arkansas, sections of Missouri, central Tennessee, southern
Illinois and Indiana.

It shows preference for river swamps, and small deep depressions
in rich bottom lands where moisture is always abundant. It has never
amounted to much in the Atlantic states, and its best development is
found in the moist, fertile valley of Red river in Louisiana, and in certain
parts of Arkansas and Texas. Its geographical range is pretty large, but
as a timber tree it is confined to a comparatively restricted region west of
the Mississippi. Good trees are found in other parts of its range.
Lumbermen do not find it in extensive forests or pure stands, but isolat-
ed trees or small groups occur with other hardwoods.

This species of oak grows occasionally to a height of 100 feet,
though its average is about seventy feet. It has a trunk two to three
feet in diameter, which spreads out after attaining a height of fifteen or
twenty feet, into small, often pendulous branches, forming a symmetrical
round top. The branchlets are green, slightly tinged with red; covered

218 American Forest Trees

with short hairs when first appearing, becoming grayish and shiny
during their first winter, eventually turning ashen gray or brown.

The bark is three-quarters or one inch thick, light gray in color,
shedding in thick plates, its surface being divided into thin scales. The
winter buds are about one-eighth of an inch long and have light colored
scales. The staminate flowers grow in long, slender, hairy spikes from
four to six inches long; the calyx is light yellow and hairy. The
pistillate flowers are stalked and are also covered with hairs.

The fruit of forked-leaf white oak is often on slender, fuzzy stems,
sometimes an inch or more in length, but is often closely attached to the
twig that bears it; the acorn is about one inch long, broad at the base,
light brown and covered with short, light hairs, and usually almost
entirely enclosed in the deep, spherical cup, which is bright reddish-
brown on its inside surface, and covered on the outside with scales;
thickened at the base, becoming thinner and forming an irregular edge
at the margin of the cup. The cup often almost completely envelopes
the acorn. The fruit then looks somewhat like a rough, nearly spherical
button.

This oak's leaves are long and slender, and are divided in from five
to nine lobes. When the leaves unfold they are brownish green and
hairy above and below; at maturity they are thin and firm, darker green
and shiny on the upper surface, silvery or light green and hairy below;
from seven to eight inches long, one to four inches broad; in autumn
turning a beautiful bright scarlet or vivid orange.

Commercially this wood is a white oak, and it is seldom or never
sent to market under its own name. There are no statistics of cut at the
mills or of stand in the forests. Lumbermen take the tree when they
come to it in the course of their usual operations, but never go out of
their way to get it. Though rather large stands occur in certain south-
ern regions, and scattering trees are found in large areas, the total
quantity in the country is known to be too small to give this tree an
important place as a source of lumber. Neither is there expectation
that the future has anything in store for this particular member of the
tribe of oaks. The wood rates high in physical properties', is strong as
white oak, if not stronger, tough, stiff, hard, and heavy. In contact
with the ground it is very durable. The heartwood is rich, dark brown,
the sapwood lighter.

It may be said, generally, that since it goes to market as white oak,
and its buyers never object, it possesses the essential properties of that
wood, and is used in the same way as far as it is used at all.

Arizona White Oak (Qucrcus arizonica) is the common and most
generally distributed white oak of southern New Mexico and Arizona

American Forest Trees 219

where it covers the hillsides and occurs in canyons at altitudes from
5,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level. It occasionally ascends nearly or
quite to the summits of the highest peaks. The form of the tree varies
greatly, as might be expected from a range extending from one to two
miles above sea level. On the dry, windswept summits the tree degener-
ates into a shrub, with stiff, harsh branches. Lower down, in canyons
and in other situations where moisture may be had and the soil is fertile,
trunks are fifty or sixty feet high and three or four in diameter; but these
are not the usual sizes even in the best of the tree's range, for it cannot
be classed as a timber tree.

The hardships of the desert have stunted it, and its form is rough.
It is important for fuel, and this has been its chief use. The region
where it occurs is thinly settled, and demand for lumber is small, but
stockmen build corrals and fences to enclose sheep and cattle, and the
Arizona white oak supplies some of the rough poles and posts for that
purpose. The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and the heartwood is almost
black, but the sapwood is lighter. The grain and figure of the wood are
not attractive, and what little may be sawed into lumber in the future
will be rather low-grade. The branches are crooked and when cut into
cordwood the ricks are so open that it is a common saying in the region
that "you can throw a dog through." The wood burns well, and the
demand for fuel is large, in proportion to the population of the country.

The leaves of this oak are sometimes slightly lobed, and are some-
times nearly as smooth as willow leaves. They are light red and covered
with hair when they unfold in the spring, but when mature they are
dark green, and shiny. Acorns are one inch or less in length, and
rather slender. They are very bitter, and wild animals are inclined
to let them alone, unless pressed by hunger, and then eat them sparingly.
This insures good reproduction, provided other conditions are favorable.
Though cordwood cutters may strip the large trees from the hills and
canyons, scrub growth may be expected to continue, particularly on
high mountains, and in ravines where roads cannot be built.

NetlEaf Oak (Que reus reticulata) will never attract lumbermen in this country,
but sometime they may send to the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico to procure it.
In that region it is a tree large enough for lumber; but the portion of its range over-
lapping on the United States lies in southern Arizona and New Mexico among
mountains from 7,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level. Conditions are unfavorable
and the netleaf oak shows it by its stunted size and rough form. The wood is hard,
heavy, dark brown in color, with lighter sapwood. The medullary rays are numerous
and very broad. The tree seldom exceeds forty feet in height and one foot in diam-
eter. The leaf is netted somewhat like that of the elm. The acorn is usually not
more than half an inch in length.

Rocky Mountain Oak (Quercus undulata) bears acorns which may be eaten
like chestnuts, and not much more may be said for the tree in the way of usefulness

220 American Forest Trees

to man, though it is the salvation of some of the small mammals of the bleak Texas
and New Mexico hills where there is little to eat and few places for concealment from
hawks and other enemies. The tree is also called scrub oak and shin oak. It grows
in Colorado, New Mexico, western Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. At its best
it rarely exceeds thirty feet high and a foot in diameter, and it often forms a jungle of
shrubs through which the traveler must wade waist deep or go miles out of his way to
pass round it. Its leaf is one of the smallest of the oaks, and is notched much like
the chestnut leaf.

Alvord Oak (Quercus alvordiona) is little known and will probably never be of
much importance. It grows in the region of Tehachapi mountains, the northern
border of the Mojave desert, in California, and was named for William Alvord of that
state. The leaf is toothed, and the acorn smooth. No record has been found of any
use of the wood, and when Sud worth compiled his book, "Forest Trees of the Pacific
Slope," he was unable to procure enough leaves, flowers, and fruit to enable him to
give a botanical description. It may therefore be regarded as one of the scarcest oaks
in the United States, which fact gives it a certain interest.

Sadler Oak (Quercus sadleriana) is one of the minor oaks of the Pacific coast,
and is popularly and properly called scrub oak by those who encounter it on high,
dry slopes of northern California and southern Oregon mountains, from 4,000 to
9,000 feet above the sea. It forms dense thickets, and passes for an evergreen. Its
leaves remain on the branches only thirteen months. The leaves are toothed like
those of chestnut. The acorns are matured in one season. The name Sadler oak
was given it in honor of a Scottish botanist. Trees are too scarce and too small to
have much value, except as a ground cover.

Brewer Oak (Quercus breweri) grows on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada
mountains in California, from Kaweah river northward to Trinity mountains. It is
often little more than a shrub, and its usefulness to man lies less in the quantity of
wood it produces than in the protection the dense thickets, with their network of
roots, afford steep hillsides. Gullying in time of heavy rain cannot take place where
this oak's matted masses of roots bind the soil. Sprouts rise freely from the roots, and
thickets are reproduced in that way rather than from acorns, although in certain
years crops of acorns are bountiful. The trunks are too small to make any kind of
lumber, but are capable of supplying considerable quantities of fuel.

POST OAK

POST OAK

{Quercus Minor)

POST oak is the most common name for this tree but various sec-
tions of its range have given it their own names which probably
have local significance. The following names are in use in the localities
denoted : post oak in the eastern and Gulf states, Connecticut to Texas,
and in Arkansas and West Virginia; box white oak in Rhode Island;
iron oak in Delaware, Mississippi and Nebraska; chene etoile in Quebec;
overcup oak in Florida ; white oak in Kentucky and Indiana ; box oak
and brash oak in Maryland.

Toward the northern portion of the range of this tree it is small,
and in early times it was little used except for fence posts. Its
durability fitted it for that use, and it is said the common name was
due to that circumstance. The name iron oak was used by shipbuild-
ers who sometimes bought small knees made of this wood. Baltimore
oak was an early name which is not now in use. It was generally
applied to white oak, but it included some post oak shipped from the
Chesapeake bay region.

Post oak is botanically and commercially a white oak and is seldom
distinguished from the true white oak, Quercus alba, in commerce. It is
seen at its best in the uplands of the Mississippi basin and in the Gulf
states west of the Mississippi, where it attains a considerable size. In
the northeastern states and in Florida it is small, becoming shrubby in
some localities, and more or less of local growth. Limestone uplands or
dry, sandy or gravelly soils seem to offer the best conditions for its
existence, where it grows in company with black jack, red and white
oak, sassafras, dogwood, gums, and red cedar.

The range of growth of post oak extends from New Brunswick
south through the Atlantic states into Florida; west through the Gulf
states and throughout the Mississippi river system, growing west
brokenly to Montana. It is the common oak of central Texas but in the
North it is rather scarce, becoming more plentiful in the lower Appa-
lachians.

The broad, dense, round-topped crown of the post oak with its
peculiar foliage make it very noticeable in the woods, even to the casual
observer. Its dark green looks almost black at a distance. The tree
has an average height of sixty or eighty feet and is about two feet in
diameter, but in exceptional cases it reaches one hundred feet in height
and has a diameter of three feet. It has a moderately thick, dark
brown bark with a reddish tinge and deep fissures, the broad ridges being

223

224 American Forest Trees

covered with thin scales. On the branches it becomes much thinner, and
lighter in color, the branchlets being unfissured and glabrous in the
second year, although fuzzy at first. They are rather heavy and
rounded and terminate in short round buds with conspicuous scales.
A noticeable feature of the tree is the peculiar branching. The limbs
are heavy and crooked, separating often, with wide angles, forming
knees which when big enough, have a commercial value.

When the tree is in foliage the tufted appearance of the leaves
grouped on the ends of the twigs gives it a distinctive look. They bear
some resemblance to a star, and for that reason some botanists have
named the species stellala. The leaves are five or seven inches long
usually, but in some cases, especially on young specimens, they are ten
or more inches long. They are dark, shiny-green and on a short petiole,
the veins and midrib being heavy and conspicuous. The identification
of these leaves is easy as they are heavy in texture, are bilaterally
developed with a large, obtuse lobe on each side about in the middle,
giving them a maltese cross effect. They are very persistent, staying on
the tree until the new leaves push them off in the spring.

The form of post oak is not ideal from the lumberman's viewpoint.
The tree does not prune itself well. Straggling limbs adhere to the trunk
and prevent the clean bole which often makes white oak so attractive.
The wood weighs 52.14 pounds per cubic foot. The name iron
oak referred to the weight as well as the strength of the wood. It is
rather difficult to season, and is inclined to check badly. The medullary
rays are broad and numerous, and checking is apt to develop along the
rays. The summerwood occupies about half of the annual ring, and is
dense and dark colored. Large pores are abundant in the springwood,
and smaller ones in the summerwood.

Formerly this tree was known in some sections as turkey oak,
though the name is no longer heard, but is now applied to another oak
in the South. The acorns are small enough to be eaten by turkeys,
and when those game birds were wild in the woods they frequented
parts of the forests where post oaks grew, and hunters knew where to
find them. The uses of post oak for building and manufacturing pur-
poses are the same as for white oak as far as they go, but post oak is not
so extensively employed.

The earliest railroads in America were built in the region where
post oak of excellent quality grew, and it saw service from the first as
crossties, and car and bridge timbers. It is still used for those purposes.
Its other important uses are as furniture material, both as solid stock
and veneer; interior finish and fixtures for offices, banks, and stores;
musical instruments, including frames, braces, and veneers; baskets,

American Forest Trees 225

crates, and shipping boxes; vehicles, particularly tongues, axles, and
hounds of heavy wagons; flooring, stair work, balusters.

Post oak will do well on land too gravelly and thin to sustain good
white oak growth. To that extent the two species are not competitors
for ground, and post oak is assured a place in future woodlots, but it
cannot be expected ever to equal white oak in commercial importance,
while as an ornamental tree it is not usually favored because the shape
of its crown is not altogether pleasing. Its very dark foliage, however,
is admired by many and gives the tree an individuality.

Swamp White Oak (Ouercus platanoidcs). This tree's botanical
name means "broadleaf oak," and that is a good description as far as it
goes, but it does not apply solely to this species. The characteristic
which fixes it best in the minds of most people is its preference for low,
wet soil. Its two common names are swamp oak and swamp white oak,
yet it is not really a swamp tree, such as the northern white cedar,
southern white cedar, cypress, and tupelo are. It does not associate
with any of those trees. It prefers river banks, and does not object to a
good deal of water about its roots, though it grows nicely in situations
out of reach of all overflow, and often side by side with silver maple,
hickory, ash, and several other oaks. The leaf resembles that of chest-
nut oak, and the bark is somewhat like chestnut oak, but the wood
passes in market for white oak, and is a good substitute for it, though
the resemblance is not so close that one need be mistaken for the other.
The tree averages about seventy feet high with a diameter of two feet,
but much larger trunks are common. The famous "Wadsworth oak,"
which stood on the bank of the Genesee river in western New York,
about a mile from the village of Geneseo, was a swamp white oak. It
had a trunk diameter of nine feet, but it was not tall in proportion. It
met its overthrow by the undermining of the river bank in time of flood.
That is a common fate for this tree, because of its preference for river
banks. Its range is from Maine to Wisconsin and Iowa. It follows the
mountains to northern Georgia ; and west of the Mississippi it grows as
far south as Arkansas. The species is best developed in western New
York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and along the southern shores of
Lakes Erie and Michigan.

Trees do not clear themselves of branches on their lower trunks
very early in life, and lumber more or less knotty results. It is possible,
however, to cut a fairly large proportion of clear boards. The wood is
of about the same weight as white oak, and is hard, strong, and tough.
Its color is light brown, and the thin sapwood is hardly distinguishable
from the heart. The medullary rays are as large as those of white oak,
but are few. For that reason, swamp white oak does not give very

226 American Forest Trees

satisfactory results when quarter-sawed. The bright patches are too
scarce. Neither does it show as many of these rays as chestnut oak.
The wood is very porous, but the large pores are confined to the spring-
wood, while the broad bands of summerwood are dense. The contrast
between the two parts of annual rings forms a strong, but not particular-
ly handsome figure when the lumber is sawed tangentially— that is,
from the side of the log. The wood finisher can improve this oak's
natural appearance by employing fillers and stains to lighten shades or
deepen tints. The uses of this oak are numerous. It is excellent fuel,
and is rather low in ash; it is weaker and more brittle than white
oak; but it is quite satisfactory for railroad ties, car building, house
finish, furniture, some parts of heavy vehicles, certain kinds of cooperage,
and for farm implements.

Rocky Mountain Blue Oak (Quercus oblongifolia) is named from the blue
color of its foliage, though what little lumber is cut from it, is bought and sold as
white oak. It is of little importance, yet in the almost timberless mountains of west-
ern Texas it supplies some of the urgent wants of a scattered population. It bears
willow-like leaves one or two inches long, and less than an inch wide; but on vigorous
shoots they are larger. The acorns are very small. Trees seldom exceed thirty feet
in height, and a diameter of twenty inches; and often the trunk is divided near the
ground in three or four stout, crooked forks. Ordinarily, it is an impossible tree to
lumber, but sometimes a few logs find their way to sawmills and a little passable
lumber is produced. The wood weighs 58 pounds per cubic foot. It is strong, but
when it breaks, it snaps short. The heartwood is darker than in most oaks, and the
sapwood is brown. The tree is useful for fuel. Charcoal for local blacksmith shops
is manufactured from the wood. It is abundant on many of the sterile slopes and
mesas of New Mexico and Arizona, but usually in the form of brush about the heads
of canyons.

COW OAK

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Cow Oak

COW OAK

(Oucrcus Mickauxii)

THIS oak's acorns are remarkably free from the bitterness due to
tannin and are therefore pleasant to the taste. Herbivorous
animals eat them when they are to be had, and the eagerness with which
cattle gather them in the fall is doubtless the reason for calling the tree
cow oak. Hogs and sheep are as eager hunters for the acorns as cattle
are, and the half-wild swine in the southern forests become marketable
during the two months of the acorn season. Children know the excel-
lency of the cow oak acorns, and gather them in large quantities during
the early weeks of autumn in the South. The tree is widely known as
basket oak, and the name refers to a prevailing use for the wood in early
times, and a rather common use yet. Long before anyone had made a
study of the structure of this wood, it was learned that it splits nicely
into long, slender bands, and these were employed by basket weavers
for all sorts of wares in that line. Tens of thousands of baskets were in
use before the war in the southern cottonfields, and they have not gone
out of use there yet. It is safe to say that millions of dollars worth of
cotton has been picked and "toted" in baskets made of this oak. It was
natural, therefore, that the name basket oak should be given it. Large,
coarse baskets are still made of splits of this wood, and china and
other merchandise are packed in them ; while baskets of finer pattern
and workmanship are doing service about the farms and homes of
thousands of people.

When the structure of wood became a subject of study among
dendrologists, the secret of the cow oak's adaptability to basket making
was discovered. The annual rings of growth are broad, and the bands of
springwood and summerwood are distinct. The springwood is so
perforated with large pores that it contains comparatively little real
wood substance. The early basket maker did not notice that but he
found by experimenting that the wood split along the rings of growth
into fine ribbons. The splitting occurs along the springwood. Ribbons
may be pulled off as thin as the rings of annual growth, that is, from an
eighth to a sixteenth of an inch thick. These are the "splits" of which
baskets are made. When subjected to rough usage, such as being
dragged and hauled about cornfields and cotton plantations, such a
basket will outlast two or three of willow.

The tree is sometimes called swamp white oak, and swamp chestnut
oak. It bears some resemblance to the swamp white oak (Oucrcus
platanoidcs) and some people believe that both are of one species, but of

230 American Forest Trees

slightly different forms. It is not surprising that there should be a
conflict of names and confusion in identification. The leaf resembles
that of the chestnut oak, and to that fact is due the belief which some
hold that the chief difference between the trees is that the chestnut oak
(Quercus prinus) grows on dry land and cow oak in damp situations.
Botanists make a clear distinction between cow oak and all other species,
though it closely resembles some of them in several particulars.

From the northern limits of its growth in Delaware, where it is not
of any considerable size, it extends south through the Atlantic states
and into Florida, west in the Gulf states to the Trinity river in Texas,
and up the Mississippi valley, including in its range Arkansas, eastern
Missouri, southern Indiana and Illinois and western Kentucky and
Tennessee. It is distinctly of the South and may be considered the best
southern representative of the white oak group. It does best in swampy
localities where it is found in company with water hickory, sweet
magnolia, planer tree, water oak, willow oak, red maple, and red and
black gum.

In general appearance the tree gives the impression of massiveness
and strength, offset by the delicate, silvery effect of the bark and the
lining of the foliage. The usual height is sixty or eighty feet, but it
often exceeds a hundred feet, the bole attaining a diameter of as high as
seven feet and showing three log lengths clear. The characteristic light
gray, scaly, white oak bark covers trunk and heavy limbs, which rise
at narrow angles, forming a rounded head and dividing into stout
branches and twigs. The winter buds are not characteristic of white
oak, being long and pointed rather than rounded. They are about
a half inch in length, scaly, with red hairs and usually in threes on the
ends of the twigs. The general texture of the leaves is thick and heavy,
their upper surfaces being dark, lustrous green and the lower white and
covered with hairs. They are from five to seven inches long with
petioles an inch in length and of the general outline of the chestnut
leaf. Their rich crimson color is conspicuous in the fall after turning.

The wood of cow oak is hard, heavy, very tough, strong, and
durable. The heartwood is light brown, the sapwood darker colored.
It weighs 50.10 pounds per cubic foot, and is not quite up to white oak
in strength and elasticity. In quarter-sawing it does not equal white
oak, because the medullary rays, though broad, are not regularly
distributed, and the surface of the quarter-sawed board has a splotchy
appearance, and it is not as easy to match figures as with white oak.

Cow oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the South. Its
uses are much the same as those for white oak farther north. The
custom of calling it white oak when it goes to market renders the collec-

American Forest Trees 231

tion of statistics of uses difficult. Sawmills seldom or never list cow
oak in making reports of cut. Factories which further manufacture
lumber, after it leaves the mill, sometimes distinguish between cow oak
and other oaks. It has been found suitable material in the South for
canthook handles where it takes the place of hickory which is more
expensive. It is reported for that use in considerable quantity in
Louisiana. The handles are subjected to great strain and violent
shocks. The billets are split to the proper size, because if they are
sawed they are liable to contain cross grain which is a fatal defect. The
wood is cut in dimensions for chair stock and furniture, the better grades
usually going to furniture factories. Defective logs, short lengths, and
odds and ends may be worked into chair stock which contains a large pro-
portion of small pieces. The making of large plantation baskets of this
wood is still a fairly large business in Louisiana and Mississippi. Braided
bottoms of cheap chairs are of the same workmanship as baskets.

Vehicle makers in the South are large users of this wood. It is
employed in heavy wagons chiefly, and is worked into many parts,
including axles, bolsters, felloes, hubs, hounds, tongues, reaches, spokes,
and bedbottoms.

This tree is classed as white oak by coopers who accept it as stave
material. The amount used is much less than of the true white oak, but
the exact quantity taken yearly by barrel makers is not known because
statistics do not list the different white oaks separately. Cow oak
rives well when a trunk is found clear of knots. The trees are usually
smaller and less perfect than true white oak in the North.

Railroads accept crossties of this species and they give as long
service as white oak, are as hard, and hold spikes as well. The wood is
accepted by car shops for use in repairs and in new work. Trunks are
split or sawed into fence posts and are used in probably larger numbers
than any other southern oak.

This tree's future seems fairly well assured. It will further decline
in available supply, because it is cut faster than it is growing. That is
the status of all the timber oaks of this country. This one has advantage
over some of the others in that it occupies wet land which will not soon
be in demand for agricultural purposes, and young growth will be left
to develop.

Engelman'N Oak (Quercus engclmanni) occupies a restricted range in south-
western California where it is generally spoken of as a desert tree; but its rate of
growth appears to be much more rapid than is usual with trees in arid situations. It
occupies a narrow belt in San Diego county and its range extends into Lower Cali-
fornia. It forms about one-third of the stand in Palomar mountains, and is much
scarcer in the Cuyamaca mountains. The tree seldom attains a height greater than

232 American Forest Trees

forty or fifty feet, or a diameter more than twenty or thirty inches. The largest
trees are of small value for lumber and in rare instances only, if at all, do they go to
sawmills. The trunks fork and each branch forks, until a fairly large bole near the
ground is divided among numerous limbs. The tree's chief value is as fuel. It rates
high as such. The leaves are bluish-green and are thick with sharp points on their
margins. The leaves vary greatly in size, and are largest on young shoots. They
remain a year on the tree, and are classed as evergreen. The acorns ripen in one
year. This interesting species was named for Dr. George Engelmann, whose name
is borne also by Engelmann spruce. The wood is among the heaviest of the oaks,
exceeding white oak by more than twelve pounds per cubic foot. It is brittle and
weak, and very dark brown. The green wood checks and warps badly in seasoning.
The medullary rays are numerous and large, but are so irregularly dispersed that
quarter-sawing promises no satisfactory results, even if logs of suitable size could be
found. The annual rings are indistinct, owing to no clear line of separation between
springwood and summerwood. Pores are numerous, diffuse, and some of them large.
The species is entitled to recognition only because it is found in a region where forests
are scarce and scrubby, and every trunk has value as fuel, if for nothing else. It
affords a cover for hills which otherwise would be barren, and it frequently occurs in
fairly dense thickets.

PACIFIC POST OAK

PACIFIC POST OAK

(Quercus Garry ana)

DAVID Douglas named this tree the Garry oak, in honor of Nicholas
Garry of the Hudson Bay Company, who furnished valuable
assistance to botanists and other explorers of early times in the north-
western parts of America. This tree is best developed in the neighbor-
hood of Puget Sound, the present state of Washington, and at the period
of explorations in that region by Douglas, who was a Scotchman, the
country was a sort of "no man's land." It was claimed by both England
and the United States, and Russia had cast covetous eyes on it as a
southern extension of her Alaska holdings. England at that time put a
good deal of dependence in the Hudson Bay Company to get possession
of and to hold as much country as possible, and Garry's help given to
explorers was part of a well-laid plan to possess as much of the north-
western country as possible. Douglas doubtless had that in mind when
he named the oak in honor of Garry. It was a witness and perpetual
reminder that the Hudson Bay Company's strong arms had been
stretched in that direction.

The people in California and Oregon often speak of the tree simply
as white oak, but it is sometimes called Oregon white oak, and more
often Oregon oak without a qualifying word. When it is spoken of as
western white oak, which frequently is the case, it is compared with the
well-known eastern white oak. It bears more resemblance to the eastern
post oak (Querais minor) and for that reason it has been named Pacific
post oak. The leaves and twigs, particularly when they are young,
resemble post oak.

The northern limit of the tree's range crosses southern British
Columbia. It is found in the lower valley of Frazer river and on Van-
couver island. It is the only oak tree of British Columbia. Its range
extends southward to the Santa Cruz mountains in California, but near
the southern limit of its range it is found chiefly in valleys near the coast.
It is best developed in western Washington and Oregon. It occurs of
good size on dry gravelly slopes of low hills; and it ascends the Cascade
mountains to considerable elevations, but becomes stunted and shrubby.
It is abundant in northwestern California.

The tree has a height from sixty to a hundred feet; sometimes it
attains a diameter of three and one-half feet. It carries a broad and
compact crown, especially when the tree is surrounded by young
coniferous growth as is the case in its best habitat where natural pruning
gets rid of the lower limbs and causes an outward and later a pendulous

235

236 American Forest Trees

growth of the upper part. The limbs are strong and heavy as are the
branches and twigs. The bark is a grayish-brown with shallow fissures,
the broad ridges being sometimes broken across forming square plates
which are covered with the grayish flakes or scales. The buds are long
and acute, and are coated with a red fuzz. The leaves are from four
to six inches long and are bilaterally developed, having seven or nine
coarse round lobes; the sinuses being rounded or rather shallow. The
color is a dark lustrous green and the texture leathery.

The acorn is rather large being about an inch and a quarter in
length and usually about half as broad as long ; has a shallow' cup covered
with pointed sometimes elongated scales.

This oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the far North-
west. It is often compared with the eastern white oak, but its physical
properties fall below that species in some important particulars. The
two woods weigh about the same, but the eastern species is stronger and
more elastic, and is of better color and figure. All oaks season some-
what slowly, but the Pacific post oak is hardly up to the average. It is
a common saying that it must remain two years on the sticks to fit it for
the shop, but that time may be shortened in many instances. Checking
must be carefully guarded against.

Some of this oak is exceedingly tough, and when carefully sorted
and prepared it is excellent material for heavy wagons; but the best
comes from young and comparatively small trees. When they attain
large size they are apt to become brash. The tree usually grows rapidly,
and is not old in proportion to the size of its trunk. An examination of
the wood shows broad bands of summerwood and narrow, very porous
.springwood. The medullary rays are broad and numerous, and ought to
show well in quarter-sawed stock; but it does not appear that much
quarter-sawing has been done.

Practically all of this species cut in the United States is credited to
Oregon in the census of sawmill output in 1910. The cut was 2,S87,000
feet, and was produced by fourteen sawmills, while in Washington only
one mill reported any oak, and the quantity was only 4,000 feet. On the
northwest Pacific coast it comes in competition with eastern oak and
also with Siberian or Japanese oak.

Basket makers put this wood to considerable use. Young trees
are selected on account of their toughness. The wood is either split in
long, thin ribbons for basket weaving, or it is first made into veneer and
then cut in ribbons of required width. The largest users are furniture
makers, but boat yards find it convenient material and it takes the place
of imported oak for frames, keels, ribs, sills, and interior finish. It is
durable, and it may be depended upon for long service in any part of boat

American' Forest Trees 237

construction. Its toughness fits it for ax, hammer, and other handles.
It is far inferior to hickory, but on the Pacific coast it can be had much
cheaper. Its strength and durability make it one of the best western
woods for insulator pins for telephone and telegraph lines. It is
worked into saddle trees and stirrups.

The scarcity of woods on the Pacific coast suitable for tight cooper-
age gives this oak a rather important place, because barrels and casks
made of it hold alcoholic liquors. Available statistics do not show the
quantity of staves produced from this wood, but it is known to be used
for staves in Oregon.

Much Pacific post oak is employed as rough lumber for various
purposes. Railroads buy crossties, hewed or sawed from small trunks,
and country bridges are occasionally floored with thick planks which
wear well and offer great resistance to decay.

The quantity of this oak growing in the Northwest is not known.
It falls far below some of the softwoods of the same region, and the area
on which it is found in commercial amounts is not large. It is holding its
ground fairly well. Trees bear full crops of acorns frequently, and if
they fall on damp humus they germinate and grow. The seedlings
imitate the eastern white oak, and send tap roots deep into the ground,
and are then prepared for fortune or adversity. It happens, however,
that trees which bear the most bountiful crops of acorns do not stand in
forests where the ground is damp and humus abundant, but on more
open ground on grass covered slopes. Acorns which fall on sod seldom
germinate, and consequently few seedlings are to be seen in such situa-
tions. Open-grown trees are poorly suited for lumber, on account of
many limbs low on the trunks, but they growT large amounts of cordwood.

California Scrub Oak (Ouercus dumosa) has been a puzzle to botanists, and
a hopeless enigma to laymen. Some would split the species into no fewer than three
species and three varieties, basing distinctions on forms of leaves and acorns and other
botanical differences; but Sudworth, after a prolonged study of this matter, recognized
only one species and one variety, but admitted that "California scrub oak unquestion-
ably varies more than all other oaks in the form and size of its leaves and acorns."
He thought it might possibly be equalled in that respect by Ouercus undulata of the
Rocky Mountains. Some of the leaves of California scrub oak are three-fourths of an
inch long and half an inch wide, while others may be four inches long. The edges of
some leaves are as briery as the leaves of holly, others are comparatively smooth.
The shapes and sizes of acorns vary as much as the leaves. Some are long and slender,
others short and stocky. This peculiar oak is found only in California, but it shows
a disposition to advance as far as possible into the sea, for it has gained a foothold on
islands lying off the California coast, and it there finds its most acceptable habitat.
It reaches its largest size in sheltered canyons on the islands, and attains a height of
twenty or twenty-five feet, and a diameter of a foot or less. It is not large enough
to win favor with lumbermen but in its scrubby form it is abundant in manv localities.
It is scattered over several thousand square miles, from nearly sea level up to 7,000

238

American* Forest Trees

feet in the mountains of southern California. It is found scattered through the coast
range and the Sierra Kevadas from Mendocino county to Lower California, 700 miles
or more. It grows from sprouts and from acorns. The leaves adhere to the twigs
thirteen months, and fall after the new crop has appeared. The wood is light brown,
hard, and brittle. No use is made of it, except to a small extent for fuel. On the
mountains it grows in thickets scarcely five feet high, but they cover the ground in
dense jungles, and the roots go deep in the ground. The species is valuable chiefly
for protection to steep slopes which would otherwise be without much growth of any
kind. Being low on the ground, forest fires are particularly destructive to this oak;
but its ability to send up sprouts repairs the damage to some extent.

Emory Oak (Quercus emoryi) grows among the mountains of western Texas,
New Mexico, and Arizona, attains a height from thirty to seventy feet, and a diam-
eter from one to four. The largest size is found only in sheltered canyons, while on high
mountains and in exposed situations the tree degenerates to a shrub. It always has
a crop of leaves. The old do not fall until the new appear. In shape, the leaves
somewhat resemble those of box elder. The acorns ripen from June to September,
the exact time depending upon the tree's situation. Trunks large enough for use are
not scarce, but the wood is not of high class. Stair railing and balusters have been
made of it in Texas, but the appearance is rather poor. The grain is coarse, the figure
common, the color unsatisfactory. The heart is very dark, but the tones are not
uniform, and fiat surfaces, such as boards and panels, show streaks which are not
sufficiently attractive to be taken for figure. Trunks are apt to be full of black knots
which mar the appearance of the lumber. The medullary rays are numerous and
broad, and in quarter-sawing, the size and arrangement of the "mirrors" are all that
could be desired, but they have a decidedly pink color which does not contrast very
well with the rest of the wood. The weight of this oak exceeds per cubic foot white
oak, by more than ten pounds; but it has scarcely half the strength or half the
elasticity of white oak. The springwood is filled with large pores, the summerwood
with smaller ones. It rates high as fuel, and that is its chief value. Large quantities
are cut for cordwood. Railroad ties are made of it, and more or less goes into mines
as props and lagging. Stock ranches make fences, sheds, and corrals of this oak, and
live stock eats the acorns. The human inhabitants likewise find the Emory oak acorn
crop a source of food. Mexicans gather them in large quantities and sell what they
can spare. The market for the acorns is found in towns in northwestern Mexico.

CHESTNUT OAK

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CHESTNUT OAK

(Quercus Prinus)

THIS tree is known as rock oak in New York; as rock chestnut oa1.
in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ; as rock oak and rock chestnut
oak in Pennsylvania and Delaware; as tanbark oak and swampy chest-
nut oak in North Carolina and as rock chestnut oak and mountain oak
in Alabama.

There is a pretty general disposition to call this tree rock oak.
The name refers to the hardness of the wood, and is not confined to this
species. Other oaks are also given that name, and the adjective "rock"
is applied to two or three species of elm which possess wood remarkable
for its hardness. Cedar and pine are likewise in the class. In all of
these classes "rock" is employed to denote hardness of wood. Iron as an
adjective or ironwood as a noun is used in the same way for a number of
trees. The name swampy chestnut oak as applied in some parts of the
South to this tree, is hardly descriptive, for it is less a swamp tree
than most of the oaks, though it does often grow along the banks of
streams.

Its distribution ranges from the coast of southern Maine and the
Blue Hills of eastern Massachusetts southward to Delaware and the
District of Columbia; along the Appalachian mountains to northern
Georgia and Alabama; westward to the shores of Lake Champlain and
the valley of the Genesee river, New York ; along the northern shores of
Lake Erie and to central Kentucky and Tennessee. It is rare and local
in New England and Ontario, but plentiful on the banks of the lower
Hudson river and on the Appalachian mountains from southern New
York to Alabama. It reaches its best development in the region from
West Virginia to North Carolina, pretty high on the ridges flanking the
mountain ranges.

Leaves are alternate, from five to nine inches long, with coarse teeth
rounded at the top. At maturity, they are thick and firm, yellow-
green and rather lustrous on the upper surface, paler and usually hairy
beneath. In the autumn before falling, they turn a dull orange color or
rusty-brown.

The flowers appear in May and are solitary or paired on short spurs.
The fruit or acorn is solitary or in pairs, one or two and one-half inches
long, very lustrous and of a bright chestnut-brown color. The acorn
cup is thin, downy-lined and covered with small scales. The kernel is
sweet and edible. The bark of the chestnut oak is thin, smooth, purplish-
brown and often lustrous on young stems and small branches, becoming

241

242 American Forest Trees

a thick, dark, reddish-brown, or nearly black on old trunks, and divided
into broad rounded ridges, separating on the surface into small, closely
appressed scales. The bark of the tree is so dark in color and so deeply
furrowed that it has often been mistaken for one of the black oak group,
although its wavy leaf margins and annual fruit clearly differentiate it
from those species. The bark of the chestnut oak is thicker and rougher
on old trunks than on any other oak.

The bark of chestnut oak has long been valuable for tanning.
There is tannin in the bark of all oaks, and several of them contain it in
paying quantities, but chestnut oak is more important to the leather
industry than any other oak. In richness of tannin the tanbark oak of
California occupies as high a place, but it is not supplying as much
material as the eastern tree. Statistics showing the annual consumption
of tanbark and tanning extracts in the United States, do not list the oaks
separately, but it is well known that chestnut oak far surpasses all
others in output. Hemlock bark is peeled in large quantities, but tan-
neries occasionally mix chestnut oak bark with it to lighten the deep
red color imparted to leather when hemlock bark is the sole material
employed.

Large quantities of chestnut oak timber have been destroyed to
procure the bark. Fortunately, it is a practice not much indulged in at
present, because the wood now has value, but it formerly had little.
It was then abandoned in the forest after the bark was peeled and hauled
away. The same practice obtained with hemlock years ago. Much
chestnut oak is still cut primarily for the bark, but the logs are worth
hauling to sawmills, unless in remote districts.

The chestnut oak is a vigorous tree and grows rapidly in dry soil,
where it often forms a great part of the forest. It is not as large
as the white oak or red oak, but is a splendid tree, its bole being very
symmetrical and holding its size well. It grows usually to a height of
from sixty to seventy feet and sometimes 100 feet, with a diameter of
from two to five feet and occasionally as large as seven feet.

The form of the tree shows great variation, depending upon the
situation in which it grows. Trees in open ground often divide into
forks or large limbs, and the trunks are short and of poor form. Open-
grown trees show a decided tendency to develop crooked boles, and
unduly large branches. No such objection can be urged against it
when it grows under forest conditions. Trunks are straight and are
otherwise of good form.

The wood of chestnut oak differs little from that of white oak in
weight, strength, and stiffness. It is hard, rather tough, durable in
contact with the soil, and is darker in color than white oak. It has few

American Forest Trees 243

large, open pores, and requires less filler in finishing than most oaks.
There are many pores, however, and those in the springwood are
arranged in bands. The summerwood is broad and distinct, usually
constituting three-fourths of the annual ring. The medullary rays are
as broad and numerous as in the best furniture oaks. They are regularly
arranged, and spaces between them do not vary much in width. The
wood quarter-saws well.

The wood has the fault of checking badly in seasoning, unless
carefully attended to. In recent years, these difficulties have been
largely overcome, both in air seasoning and in the drykiln.

Chestnut oak has a wide range of uses. It is classed as white oak
in many markets, but few users buy it believing it to be true white oak.
It is coming year by year to stand more on its own merits. Some
sawmills which formerly piled it and sold it with other oaks, now keep it
separate, and some factories which once took it only because it came
mixed with other oaks, now buy it for special uses, and make high-class
commodities of it. One of these is mission furniture, which has become
fashionable in recent years. Chestnut oak possesses good fuming
properties, and this constitutes much of its value as furniture material.

The wood is found in factories where general furniture is made.
It is largely frame material for furniture though some of it is for outside
finish. It is employed as frames in Maryland in the construction of
canal boats, and the annual demand for that purpose is about a quarter
of a million feet in that state.

One of the most important places for chestnut oak is in the shop
which makes vehicles. It goes into sills for both heavy and light bodies,
bolsters, and wagon bottoms. It has become a favorite wagon wood in
England and in continental Europe, and there passes as white oak,
though dealers well know that it is not the true white oak. There is no
indication that demand for it will lessen, for it possesses many characters
which fit it for vehicle making.

In Michigan more chestnut oak is reported by car builders than by
any other class of manufacturers, though wagon makers buy it. Car
shops use about 220,000 feet a year, and work it into hand cars, push
cars, track-laying cars, and cattle guards.

The large remaining area of timber growth in which chestnut oak
appears is the Appalachian range through eastern Tennessee and western
North Carolina, and the fact that it is comparatively plentiful in the
forests of the Appalachian range will tend to bring it more and
more into prominence as a factor in the making of wagons, cars, boats,
staves, and furniture as the other oaks become scarcer.

The probable future of chestnut oak is an interesting problem for

244

American Forest Trees

study. Few steps have yet been taken looking toward providing for
generations to come. Chestnut oak has been left to take care of itself.
The trees, produced in nature's way, have been ample to supply all
needs in the past, and they will be for the near future. Chestnut oak
possesses some advantages over most of the other oaks. Large trees
will grow on very poor soil, where most other oaks are little more than
shrubs. Trees so grown are little more susceptible to disease than if
produced in good soil, though they develop more slowly and are smaller.
There are many poor flats and sterile ridges in the chestnut oak's range,
and they will produce timber of fairly good kind, if the chestnut oaks are
permitted to have them. Nature gave this tree facilities for taking
possession. Its acorns wTill grow without being buried. They do not
depend on blue jays to carry them to sunny openings or squirrels to
plant them; but they will sprout where they fall, whether on hard gravel-
ly soil or dry leaves ; and they at once set about getting the tap roots of
the future trees into the ground. In many instances the chestnut oak's
acorns do not wait to fall from the tree before they sprout. Like the
seed of the Florida mangrove, they are often ready to take root the
day they touch the ground. The large acorn is stored with plantfood
which sustains the growing germ for some time, and the ground must be
very hard and exceedingly dry if a young chestnut oak is not soon
firmly established, and good for two or three hundred years, if let alone.
The forester who may undertake to grow chestnut oaks must
exercise great care in transplanting the seedlings, or the tap roots will be
broken and the young trees will die. The best plan is to drop acorns on
the ground where trees are expected to grow, and nature will do the rest,
provided birds and beasts leave the acorns alone.

CHINQUAPIN OAK

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CHINQUAPIN OAK

(Ouercus Acuminata)

THIS tree is known as yellow chestnut oak, chinquapin oak, chest-
nut oak, pin oak, yellow oak, scrub oak, dwarf chestnut oak, shrub
oak, and rock oak. It should not be confused with Quercus prinus, the
true chestnut oak, although it is commonly known in so many sections
of the country by the latter name; the names yellow oak, pin oak,
and scrub oak are likewise applied to many species, so that the only
way to accurately designate members of this great family is to
employ their botanical names. However, this species should always
be known as the chinquapin oak, which is a distinctive term, and not
applied to any other.

The bark of this tree is light gray and is broken into thin flakes,
silvery- white, sometimes slightly tinted with brown, rarely half an inch
thick. The branchlets are marked with pale lenticels.

The leaves of the chinquapin oak are from five to seven inches long,
simple and alternate ; they have a taper-pointed apex and blunt, wedge-
shaped or pointed base; are sharply toothed. When unfolding they
show bright bronze-green above, tinged with purple, and are covered
underneath with light silvery down; at maturity they become thick and
firm, showing greenish-yellow on the upper surface and silvery-white
below. The midrib is conspicuous and the veins extending outward to
the points of the teeth are well-defined. In autumn the leaves turn
orange and scarlet and are very showy. The leaves are narrow, hardly
two inches wide, and more nearly resemble those of the chestnut than
do any other oak leaves. In their broadest forms they are also similar
to those of the true chestnut oak, although the difference in the quality
and color of the bark, and of the leaves, would prevent either tree from
being mistaken for the other. They are crowded at the ends of the
branches and hang in such a manner as to show their under surfaces
with every touch of breeze. This characteristic gives the chinquapin
oak a peculiar effect of constantly shifting color which is one of its most
attractive features and which puts the observer in mind of the trembling
aspen, although the shading and coloring of the oak is much more
striking.

This tree's range extends from northern New York, along Lake
Champlain and the Hudson river westward through southern Ontario,
and southward into parts of Nebraska and Kansas ; on its eastern bound-
ary it extends as far south as the District of Columbia and along the
upper Potomac; the growth west of the Alleghany mountains reaches

248 American Forest Trees

into central Alabama and Mississippi, through Arkansas and the north-
ern portion of Louisiana to the eastern part of Oklahoma and parts
of Texas even to the canyons of the Guadaloupe mountains, in the ex-
treme western part of that state. It is a timber tree of much importance
in Texas, and in 1910 manufacturers reported the use of 1,152,000 feet
in that state, largely for making furniture and vegetable crates.

The chinquapin oak is named from the form of its leaf. Its
acorn bears no resemblance to the nut of chinquapin. Trees average
smaller in size than white oak, but when all circumstances are favorable
they compare well with any of the other oaks. In the lower Wabash
valley, trees of this species were found in the original forests 160 feet
high and four or five in diameter. When it grows in crowded stands it
develops a tall, symmetrical trunk, clear of limbs; but it is shorter in
open growth. The base is often much buttressed.

The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, stiff, and durable. In
color the heartwood is dark, the sapwood lighter. The springwood is
narrow and filled with large pores, the summerwood broad and dense.
Medullary rays are less numerous and scarcely as broad as in chestnut
oak, which this wood resembles. It checks badly in drying, both by
kiln and in the open air; but when properly seasoned it is an excellent
wood for most purposes for which white oak is used. It shows fewer
figures when quarter-sawed than white oak shows, but it is satisfactory
for many kinds of furniture, particularly when finished in mission style.

Railroads throughout the region where this species is found have
laid chinquapin oak ties in their tracks for many years and they give long
service, because they resist decay and are hard enough to stand the
wear of the rails. In early times in the Ohio valley it helped to fence
many a farm when the material for such fences was the old style fence
rail, eleven feet long, mauled from the straightest, clearest timber
afforded by the primeval forest. It had for companions many other
oaks which were abundant there, and it was on a par with the best
of them. In the first years of steamboating on the Ohio river, when
the engines used wood for fuel, they provided a market for many an
old rail fence. The rails were the best obtainable fuel, and the chin-
quapin oak rails in the heaps were carefully looked for by the pur-
chasers, because they were rated high in fuel value. It is now known
that chinquapin oak in combustion develops considerably more heat
than an equal quantity of white oak.

When southern Indiana and Illinois were furnishing coopers with
their best staves, chinquapin oak was ricked with white oak, and no
barrel maker ever complained. The pores in the wood seem large, but
in old timber which is largely heartwood, the pores become clogged by

American Forest Trees 249

the processes of nature, and the wood is made proof against leakage.
That is what gives white oak its superiority as stave timber. It has as
many pores as red oak, but upon close examination under a magnifying
glass, they are found to be plugged, while red oak's pores are wide open.
The result is that red oak barrels leak through the wood ; those made of
white oak do not. Chinquapin oak possesses the same properties, which
account for its reputation as stave material.

The future for chinquapin oak is not quite as promising as that of
chestnut oak. The former's choice growing place is on rich soil and in
damp situations. These happen to be what the farmer wants, and he
will not leave the chinquapin oak alone to grow in nature's method, nor
will he plant its acorns in places where the trees will interfere with his
cornfields and meadows. Consequently, the tree is apt to receive scant
consideration after the original forests have disappeared ; while its poor
cousin, the chestnut oak, will be left to make its way on sterile ridges,
and may even receive some help from the forester and woodlot owner.

Valley Oak (Quercus lobaia) is often considered to be the largest hardwood of
the Pacific coast. Trunk diameters of ten feet have been recorded, and heights
more than 100; but such measurements belong only to rare and extraordinary indi-
viduals. The average size of the tree is less than half of that. The most famous
tree of this species is the Sir Joseph Hooker oak, near Chico, California, though it is
not the largest. It is seven feet in diameter and 100 high. It was named by the
botanist Asa Gray in 1877. This species is commonly called California white oak,
which name would be unobjectionable if it were the only white oak in California.
A more distinctive name is weeping oak, which refers to the appearance of the outer
branches. It is called swamp oak, but without good reason, though the ground on
which it grows is often swampy during the rainy season. The name valley oak is
specially appropriate, since its favorite habitat is in the broad valleys of central
California. Its range does not go outside that state, neither does the tree grow
very high on the mountains. Its range begins in the upper Sacramento valley and
extends to Tejon, south of Lake Tulare, a distance north and south of about five
hundred miles, while east and west the tree is found from the Sierra foothills to the
sea. 150 or 200 miles. Its characteristic growth is in scattered stands. It does not
form forests in the ordinary sense. Two or three large trees to the acre are an average ,
and often many acres are wholly missed. The form of trees, and the wide spaces
between them, resemble an old apple orchard, though few apple trees live to attain
the dimensions of the valley oak of ordinary size. The best stands were originally in
the Santa Clara valley and in the central part of the San Joaquin valley in the salt
grass region north of Lake Tulare in Kings and Fresno counties. Most of the largest
trees were cut long ago.

The leaves are lobed like white oak (Quercus alba) but are smaller, seldom more
than four inches long and two wide. The acorns are uncommonly long, some of
them being two and a half inches, sharp pointed, with shallow cups. The wood ot
this oak is brash and breaks easily. It is far below good eastern oak in strength and
elasticity. It weighs 46.17 pounds per cubic foot. The tree grows rapidly, and its
wide, clearly defined annual rings are largely dense summerwood. The springwood
is perforated with large pores. The color of the wood is light brown, the sapwood

250 American Forest Trees

lighter. Except as fuel, the uses found for valley oak hardly come up to what might
be expected of a tree so large. It is not difficult, or at least was not difficult once, to
cut logs sixteen feet long and from three to five in diameter. Such logs ought to
make good lumber. The medullary rays indicate that the wood can be quarter-
sawed to advantage; yet there is no account that any serious attempt was ever made
to convert the valley oak into lumber. The wood has some objectionable properties,
but it has escaped the sawmill chiefly because hardwood mills have never been numer-
ous in California, and they have been especially few in the regions where the best
valley oaks grow. The tree has been a great source of fuel. It usually divides
twenty or thirty feet from the ground into large, wide-spreading branches, tempting
to the woodchopper. In central California, twenty or thirty years ago, it was not
unusual to haul this cordwood twenty-five miles to market. Stockmen employed
posts and rails split from valley oak to enclose corrals and pens on the open plains for
holding cattle, sheep, and horses. The acorns are edible, and were formerly an
article of food for Indians who gathered them in considerable quantities in the fall
and stored them for winter in large baskets which were secured high in the forks of
trees to be out of reach of all ordinary marauders. The baskets were made rain proof
by roofing and wrapping them with grass. When the time came for eating the
acorns, they were prepared for use by hulling them and then pounding them into
meal in stone mortars. The hulling was done with the teeth, and was the work of
squaws. The custom of eating the acorns has largely ceased with the passing of the
wild Indians from their former camping places; but the stone mortars by hundreds
remain in the vicinity of former stands of valley oak.

This splendid tree is highly ornamental, but it has not been planted, and per-
haps it will not become popular. Nature seems to have confined it to a certain climate,
and it is not known that it will thrive outside of it. It will certainly disappear from
many of the valleys where the largest trees once grew. The land is being taken for
fields and vineyards, and the oaks are removed. Some will remain in canyons and
rough places where the land is not wanted, and one of the finest species of the United
States will cease to pass entirely from earth. The largest of these oaks have a spread
of branches covering more than one-third of an acre.

LIVE OAK

LIVE OAK

(Quercus Virginiana)

THE history of this live oak is a reversal of the history of almost
every other important forest tree of the United States. It seems
to be the lone exception to the rule that the use of a certain wood never
decreases until forced by scarcity. There was a time when hardly any
wood in this country was in greater demand than this, and now there is
hardly one in less demand. The decline has not been the result of scar-
city, for there has never been a time when plenty was not in sight. A
few years ago, several fine live oaks were cut in making street changes in
New Orleans, and a number of sound logs, over three feet in diameter,
were rolled aside, and it was publicly announced that anyone who would
take them away could have them. No one took them. It is doubtful
if that could happen with timber of any other kind.

The situation was different 120 years ago. At that time live oak
was in such demand that the government, soon after the adoption of the
constitution, became anxious lest enough could not be had to meet the
requirements of the navy department. The keels of the first war vessels
built by this government were about to be laid, and the most necessary
material for their construction was live oak. The vessels were to be of
wood, of course; and their strength and reliability depended upon the
size and quality of the heavy braces used in the lower framework. These
braces were called knees and were crooked at right angles. They
were hewed in solid pieces, and the largest weighed nearly 1,000 pounds.
No other wood was as suitable as live oak, which is very strong, and it
grows knees in the form desired. The crooks produced by the junction of
large roots with the base of the trunk were selected, and shipbuilders
with saws, broadaxes, and adzes cut them in the desired sizes and shapes.

When the building of the first ships of the navy was undertaken,
the alarm was sounded that live oak was scarce, and that speculators
were buying it to sell to European governments. Congress appropriated
large sums of money and bought islands and other lands along the south
Atlantic and Gulf coast, where the best live oak grew. In Louisiana
alone the government bought 37,000 live oak trees, as well as large
numbers in Florida and Georgia. In some instances the land on which
the trees stood was bought.

Ship carpenters were sent from New England to hew knees for the
first vessels of the navy. The story of the troubles and triumphs of the
contractors and knee cutters is an interesting one, but too long for even a
summary here; suffice it that in due time the vessels were finished. The

254 American- Forest Trees

history of those vessels is almost a history of the early United States
navy. Among their first duties when they put to sea was to fight
French warships, when this country was about to get into trouble with
Napoleon. They then fought the pirates of North Africa, and there one
of the ships was burned by its own men to prevent its falling into the
hands of the enemy. "Old Ironsides," another of the live oak vessels,
fought fourteen ships, one at a time, during the war of 1S12, and
whipped them all. Another of the vessels was less fortunate. It
was lost in battle, in which its commander, Lawrence, was killed,
whose last words have become historic: "Don't give up the ship."
Another came down to the Civil war and was sunk in Chesapeake bay.

The invention of iron vessels ended the demand for live oak knees.
The government held its land where this timber grew for a long time,
but finally disposed of most of it. Part of that owned in Florida was
recently incorporated in one of the National Forests of that state.

Live oak is a tree of striking appearance. It prefers the open, and
when of large size its spread of branches often is twice the height of the
tree. Its trunk is short, but massy, and of enormous strength; otherwise
it could not sustain the great weight of its heavy branches. Some of the
largest limbs are nearly two feet in diameter where they leave the trunk,
and are fifty feet long, and some are seventy-five feet in length. Proba-
bly the only tree in this country with a wider spread of branches is the
valley oak of California. The live oak's trunk is too short for more than
one sawlog, and that of moderate length. The largest specimens may
be seventy feet high and six or seven feet in diameter, and yet not good
for a sixteen-foot log. The enormous roots are of no use now. When
land is cleared of this oak, the stumps are left to rot.

The range of live oak extends 4,000 miles or more northeast and
southwest. It begins on the coast of Virginia and ends in Central
America. It is found in Lower California and in Cuba. In southern
United States it sticks pretty closely to the coastal plains, though large
trees grow 200 or 300 feet above tide level. In Texas it is inclined
to rise higher on the mountains, but live oak in Texas seldom meas-
ures up to that which grows further east. In southern Texas, where
the land is poor and dry, live oak degenerates into a shrub. Trees
only a foot high sometimes bear acorns. In all its range in this coun-
try, it is known by but one English name, given it because it is ever-
green. The leaves remain on the tree about thirteen months, follow-
ing the habit of a number of other oaks. When new leaves appear,
the old ones get out of the way.

The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, and tough. In strength and
stiffness it rates higher than white oak, and it is twelve pounds a cubic

American Forest Trees 255

foot heavier. The sapwood is light in color, the heartwood brown,
sometimes quite dark. The pores in the sapwood are open, but many
of them are closed in heartwood. The annual rings are moderately-
well defined. The large pores are in the springwood, and those of the
summerwood are smaller, but numerous. The medullary rays are nu-
merous and dark. Measured radially, they are shorter than those of
many other oaks. They show well in quarter-sawed lumber, but are
arranged peculiarly, and do not form large groups of figures; but the
wocd presents a rather flecked or wavy appearance. The general tone
is dark brown and very rich. It takes a smooth polish. When the
wood is worked into spindles and small articles, and brightly polished, its
appearance suggests dark polished granite, but the similitude is not
sustained under close examination. Grills composed of small spindles
and scrollwork are strikingly beautiful if displayed in light which does
the wood justice. Composite panels are manufactured by joining
narrow strips edge to edge. Selected pieces of dressed live oak suggest
Circassian walnut, but would not pass as an imitation on close inspection.
It may be stated generally that live oak is far from being a dead, flat
wood, but is capable of being worked for various effects. Its value as a
cabinet material has not been appreciated in the past, nor have its
possibilities been suspected. It dropped out of notice when shipbuilders
dispensed with it, and people seem to have taken for granted that it had
no value for anything else. The form of the trunks makes possible the
cutting of short stock only; but there is abundance of it. It fringes a
thousand miles of coast. Many a trunk, short though it is, will cut
easily a thousand feet of lumber. Working the large roots in veneer has
not been undertaken, but good judges of veneers, who know what the
stumps and roots contain, have expressed the opinion that a field is there
awaiting development.

Published reports of the uses of woods of various states seldom
mention live oak. In Texas some of it is employed in the manufacture
of parquet flooring. It is dark and contrasts with the blocks or strips of
maple or some other light wood. It is turned in the lathe for newel
posts for stairs, and contributes to other parts of stair work. In Louisi-
ana it is occasionally found in shops where vehicles are made. It meets
requirements as axles for heavy wagons. Stone masons' mauls are maae
of live oak knots. They stand nearly as much pounding as lignum-
vitae. More live oak is cut for fuel than for all other purposes. It
develops much heat, but a large quantity of ashes remains.

The live oak is the most highly valued ornamental tree of the South,
though it has seldom been planted. Nature placed these oaks where
they are growing. Many an old southern homestead sits well back in

256 American Forest Trees

groves of live oak. Parks and plazas in towns have them, and would
not part with them on any terms. Tallahassee, Florida, is almost
buried under live oaks which in earlier years sheltered the wigwams of
an Indian town. Villages near the coasts of both the Gulf and the
Atlantic in several southern states have their venerable trees large
enough for half the people to find shade beneath the branches at one
time. Many fine stands have been cut in recent years to make room
for corn, cane, and rice.

Many persons associate the live oak with Spanish moss which
festoons its branches in the Gulf region. The moss is no part of the tree,
and apparently draws no substance from it, though it may smother the
leaves by accumulation, or break the branches by its weight. Strictly
speaking, the beard-like growth is not moss at all, but a sort of pine
apple (Detidropogon usenoides) which simply hangs on the limbs and
draws its sustenance from water and air. It is found on other trees,
besides live oak, and dealers in Louisiana alone sell half a million dollars
worth of it a year to upholsterers in all the principal countries of the
world.

RED OAK

RED OAK*

(Quercus Rubra)

WHEN a lumberman speaks of red oak he may mean any one of a
good many kinds of trees, but when a botanist or forester uses
that name he means one particular species and no other. For that
reason there is much uncertainty as to what species is in the lumber-
man's mind when he speaks of red oak. It means more to him than a
single species, depending to a considerable extent upon the part of the
country where he is doing business. If he is in the Gulf states, and has
in mind a tree which grows there, he does not refer to the tree known to
botanists as red oak. He may mean the Texan or southern red oak
(Quercus texana), or the willow oak {Quercus phellos), or the yellow oak
(Quercus velutina), or any one of several others which grow in that
region; but the typical red oak does not grow farther south than the
mountains of northern Georgia; and any one who is cutting oak south or
southwest of there, is cutting other than the true red oak. That does
not imply that he is handling something inferior, for very fine oak grows
there ; but in an effort to separate the commercial black oaks into respec-
tive species, it is necessary to define them by metes and bounds of ranges
as well as to describe them by characteristics of leaves, acorns, and wood.
The time will probably never come in this country when the sawmill
man will pile each species of oak separately in his yard, and sell separate-
ly; but the tendency is in that direction. The twenty-five or more
black oaks in this country all have some characteristics in common ; but
they are by no means all valuable alike, or all useful for the same
purposes. For that reason, the demands of trade require, and will
require more and more as higher utilization is reached, that certain
kinds of red oak or black oak be sold separately.

What lumbermen call red oaks, speaking in the plural, botanists

♦Red oak belongs to the black oak group. Other species usually listed as
black oaks are Pin oak (Quercus palustris), Georgia oak (Quercus georgiana), Texan
red oak (Quercus texana), Scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea), Yellow oak (Quercus
velutina), California black oak (Quercus californica), Turkey oak (Quercus catesbcei),
Spanish oak (Quercus digitata). Black Jack oak (Quercus marilandica), Water oak
(Quercus nigra). Willow oak (Quercus phellos). Laurel oak (Quercus laurifolia), Blue
Jack oak (Quercus brevifolia), Shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria) , Whiteleaf oak
(Quercus hvpoleuca), Highland oak (Quercus wislizeni), Myrtle oak (Quercus myrti-
folia), California live oak (Quercus agri/olia — sometimes classed with white oaks),
Canyon live oak (Quercus chry sole pis), an evergreen oak with no English name,
(Quercus tomentella). Price oak (Quercus pricei), Morehus oak (Quercus morchus),
Tanbark oak (Quercus densiflora), Barren oak (Quercus pumila).

260 American Forest Trees

prefer to call black oaks. The difference is only a difference in name
for the same group of trees. The general dark color of the bark suggests
the name to botanists, while the red tint of the wood appeals more to the
lumberman, and he prefers the general name red oaks for the group.
They mature their acorns the second year, while the trees belonging to
the white oak group ripen theirs the first year. There are other differ-
ences, some of which are apparent to the casual observer, and others are
seen only by the trained eye — often aided by the microscope — of the
dendrologist. Several of the black oaks have leaves with sharp pointed
lobes, ending in bristles. This helps to separate them from the white
oaks, but not from one another, for the true red oak, the scarlet oak, the
yellow oak, the pin oak, and others, have the sharp-pointed lobes on
their leaves; while the willow oaks have no lobes or bristles on theirs,
yet are as truly in the black oak group as any of the others. The identi-
fication of tree species, particularly when they are as much alike as
some of the oaks are, is too difficult for the layman if he undertakes to
carry it along the whole line ; but it is comparatively easy if confined to
the leading woods only. An understanding of the geographical range
of a certain tree often helps to separate it from others. The knowledge
that a tree does not grow in a particular part of the country, is proof at
once that a tree in that region resembling it must be something else.
If that principal is borne in mind it will greatly lessen mistakes in identi-
fying trees. In accounts of the black oaks in the following pages, a
careful delimiting of ranges will be attempted in the case of each.

The range of red oak extends from Nova Scotia and southern New
Brunswick through Quebec and along the northern shore of Lake Huron,
west to Nebraska. It covers the Ohio valley and reaches as far south as
middle Tennessee. It runs south through the Atlantic states to Virginia,
while among the Appalachian mountains the range is prolonged south-
ward into northern Georgia. That is the tree's extreme southern limit.
It reaches its largest size in the region north of the Ohio river, and
among the mountain valleys of West Virginia, and southward to
Tennessee and North Carolina. It is a northern species. Toward its
southern limit it meets the northern part of the Texan red oak's range
(Quercus texana). There is some overlapping, and in many localities
the two species grow side by side.

The red oak is known by that name in all parts of its range, but in
some regions it is called black oak, and in others Spanish oak. The
latter name properly belongs to another oak {Quercus digitata) which
touches it along the southern border of its range.

The average size of red oak in the best part of its range is a little
under that of white oak, but some specimens are 150 feet high and six

American Forest Trees 261

feet in diameter. Heights of seventy and eighty feet are usual, and
diameters of three and four are frequent. The forest grown tree disposes
of its lower limbs early in life, and develops a long, smooth trunk, with a
narrow crown. The bark on young stems and on the upper parts of
limbs of old trees is smooth and light gray. All leaves do not have the
same number of lobes, and they are sharp pointed, and fall early in
autumn.

The acorns are bitter, and are regarded as poor mast. Hogs will
leave them alone if they can find white oak acorns, and squirrels will do
likewise. The best red oak timber grows from acorns, though stumps
will send up sprouts. The sprout growth may become trees of fairly
large size, but they are apt to decay at the butt. The acorn-grown tree
is as free from defects as the average forest tree. Cracks sometimes
develop in the trunk, extending up and down many feet. Unless the
logs are carefully sawed, a considerable loss occurs where these cracks
cross the boards. Trunks are occasionally bored by worms, as all other
oaks may be.

Red oak grows rapidly. It will produce small sawlogs in the life-
time of a man. It is a favorite tree for crossties, and railroads have made
large plantings for that purpose. The ties do not last well in then-
natural state, but they are easy to treat with preservatives by which
several years are added to their period of service. It has been a favorite
tree with European planters for the past two hundred years; but the
most of the plantings beyond the sea have been for ornament in parks
and private grounds.

The principal interest in red oak in this country is due to its value
for lumber. That interest is of comparatively recent date. Some red
oak has always been used for rails, clapboards, slack cooperage, and
rough lumber; but while white oak was cheap and plentiful, sawmill men
usually let red oak alone. It had a poor reputation, which is now known
to have been undeserved.

Red oak is lighter than white oak, and it is generally regarded as
possessing less strength and stiffness. The wide rings of annual growth,
and the distinct layers of springwood and summerwood, give the basis
for good figure. To this may be added broad and regular medullary
rays which are nicely brought out by quarter-sawing. The tone of the
wood is red, to which fact the name red oak is due. It has large, open
pores. A magnifying glass is not required to see them in the end of a
stick. It is said that smoke may be blown through a piece of red oak a
foot in length. These open pores disqualify the wood for use in tight
cooperage. Liquids will leak through the pores. Statistics of sawmill
output in this country do not separate the white and black oaks, and the

262

American Forest Trees

quantity of lumber sawed from any one species is not known. Manu-
facturers are disposed to separate them. Some furniture makers use
red oak exclusively for certain purposes, and the same rule is followed
by makers of other commodities.

TEXAN RED OAK

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TEXAN RED OAK

(Quercus Tcxana)

THE line between red oak (Quercus rubra) and Texan red oak is
closely drawn by botanists, but lumbermen do not recognize
much difference except toward the extreme ranges of each. Some call
one simply red oak and the other southern red oak, but that leaves
doubtful the timber on a large area occupied by both species. Their
ranges overlap two or three hundred miles in the Ohio valley and on the
southern tributaries of the Ohio river in Kentucky and Tennessee. A
large amount of red oak from that region goes to market, and no one
knows, and few care, whether it is of the northern or southern species.
It is usually a mixture of both. But outside of the common zone where
both trees grow, the woods of the two are kept fairly well separate.
Thirty years ago Texan red oak received slight recognition from
botanists. When Charles S. Sargent compiled in 1S80 a volume of over
600 pages, "Forest Trees of North America," for the United States
government, and which was published as volume 9 of the Tenth Census,
he did not so much as accord this tree the dignity of a species, but
called it a variety of the common red oak. Its range and its great
importance were little understood at that time. Sargent thus described
its range: "Western Texas, valley of the Colorado river with the species
and replacing it south and west, extending to the valley of the Neuces
river and the Limpia mountains."

Compare that restricted range with that given by the same
author twenty-five years later in his "Manual of the Trees of North
America." He gives it thus: "Northeastern Iowa and central Illinois,
through southern Illinois and Indiana and western Kentucky and
Tennessee, to tha valley of the Apalachicola river, Florida, northern
Georgia, central South Carolina, and the coast plains of North Carolina,
and through southern Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana to the moun-
tains of western Texas; most abundant and of its largest size on the
low bottom lands of the Mississippi basin, often forming a considerable
part of lowland forests; less abundant in the eastern Gulf states; in
western Texas on low limestone hills and on bottom lands in the neigh-
borhood of streams."

This quotation is given in full because it shows how scientific men
change their opinions to conform to new evidence. The range of that
particular species was as wide in 1880 as in 1905, but botanists had not
yet worked it out. Thus knowledge increases constantly, and year by
year the resources of American forests are better understood. In this

266 American Forest Irees

instance, what in 1880 was supposed to be a rather insignificant variety,
occupying a restricted area in Texas, was found by 1905 to be a separate
species, covering sixteen states in whole or in part. Similar progress
concerning the forests has been made all over the country, not only by
botanists but by lumbermen. Trees which were formerly considered so
nearlv alike that no distinctions were made, are now recognized to be
quite different.

The Texan red oak is frequently called spotted oak. The appear-
ance of the bark suggests the name. Large, irregular, whitish patches
cover the trunks. That peculiarity is not noticeable everywhere and on
all trees, but is common west of the Mississippi river. The tree is some-
times known as Spanish oak in the southwestern part of its range, but
the name is ill-advised, for the true Spanish oak (Qucrcus digitata) occurs
in the same region. The most usual name for this species, in nearly all
parts of its range, is simply red oak.

The Texan red oak varies greatly in size of trees, as is natural in so
wide a geographical range. Trees have been reported 200 feet high and
eight feet in diameter ; but sizes like that are extraordinary and attempts
to locate anything approaching them at this day have not been success-
ful. The average in the lower Mississippi valley is eighty or ninety feet
in height, and two or three in diameter. In Texas this size is seldom
reached, the average not much exceeding half of it.

The leaves of Texan red oak are about half the size of those of the
northern species. That alone will not serve to separate them, because
of such great variation. It applies only to averages. The southern
trees' leaves are from three to six inches long, two to five wide; the
northern species bears leaves from five to nine inches long and four to six
wide. The acorns of the two species do not show so much difference in
size. The states which use Texan red oak in largest amounts are
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, though some of
this wood finds its way to northern markets where it passes as red oak
without any questions. That condition renders very difficult the task of
separating the woods. It is not so difficult further south where the true
red oak is seldom seen. Shipments go north, not south. The two red
oaks mingle in the lumber yards north of the Ohio river, but seldom
south of the Tennessee river.

Investigations made by the Forest Service of the utilization of
woods in various states show that factories report the annual use of
Texan red oak as follows : Louisiana 1,777,000 feet, Mississippi 2,400,000,
Texas 2,814,000, Alabama 5,500,000, and Arkansas 39,301,000. This
does not include lumber or other forest products used in the rough, or
lumber shipped out of the respective states.

American Forest Trees 267

Texan red oak is heavier than its northern relative, hard, light,
reddish-brown, much of it of rapid growth, with wide, clearly defined
annual rings. The medullary rays are prominent, and show well in
quarter-sawing. The best of the wood is as strong as red oak, and com-
pares favorably with it in physical properties.

One of the most exacting uses of wood is for fixtures, such as
counters in stores, bars in saloons, partitions in banks and counting
rooms, and standing desks in offices. Extra wide and long pieces are
required, and they must show satisfactory figure, and be finished to
harmonize with the interior of the room where they are placed. Texan
red oak is selected by builders in many southern cities for that class of
fixtures, and it meets the requirements. It is used also for interior
finish and furniture, and stair work.

Like most members of the black oak group, the wood is inclined
to rot quickly in damp situations, but it measures well up to the average
of the group to which it belongs. It is often employed in the South as
bridge material, particularly as flooring for wagon bridges, where the
wood's hardness is its chief recommendation. Much is converted into
flooring for halls, houses, and factories.

The available supply of this valuable wood in the forests of the
South is not known, but there is little doubt that it exists in larger
quantities than any other species of oak within its range. Perhaps in
total quantity it exceeds red oak (Qiiercus rubra) in the whole United
States. It is quite generally distributed over an area exceeding 300,000
square miles, and toward the western part, it is the prevailing oak. The
future of this oak is assured. It is now cut at a rapid rate, and doubtless
the annual growth falls short of the yearly demand; but it occurs in a
range so extensive that scarcity will not come for a long period. If the
time ever comes in the South when planted timber must be depended
upon to meet the needs of the people, this oak will fill an important place
in woodlots. It does not grow as rapidly as willow oak, but its range is
more extensive, and it possesses certain desirable properties not found
in willow oak. The acorns are rather poor mast, and this is in the tree's
favor, for the seed will be left to grow instead of being devoured by hogs
and small animals of the woods. In that respect it has an advantage
over cow oak and the other white oaks which occupy parts of its
range. Their acorns are sought as food by domestic and wild animals.
Texan red oak prunes itself well when it grows in close stands, but is low
and limby when it occupies open ground. The trunks vary in form, but
are inclined to enlarge at the base, particularly when they grow in low,
damp situations, as many of the best do in the South.

Georgia Oak (Quercus georgiana) is one of the minor oaks of the South and

268

American Forest Trees

has not been found outside of Georgia. It grows in the central part of the state on
Stone mountain and on a few other granite hills. Whether the species originated
there and was never able to work its way down to the more congenial valleys below, or
whether it once grew lower down and was crowded to its last retreat by other species,
is not known. But an interest attaches to it from the very fact that its range is so
restricted and that its habitat is on the sterile summits. Lumbermen care nothing
about this tree. Few of them ever saw it or heard of it. The trunk is small, the
acorns only from one-third to half an inch long, and the leaves are of a form midway
between those of pin oak and turkey oak. The characters of the wood have not been
reported, but since there is not enough of it to have any commercial value, the matter
is not very important.

YELLOW OAK

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YELLOW OAK

(Quercus Vclutina)

THIS tree is known as black oak in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia,
West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas,
Nebraska, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario; quercitron oak
in Delaware, South Carolina, Louisiana, Kansas and Minnesota; yellow
oak in Rhode Island, New York, Illinois, Texas, Kansas and Minnesota;
tanbark oak in Illinois; yellow-bark oak in Minnesota and Rhode
Island ; spotted oak in Missouri ; dyer's oak in Texas ; and yellow butt oak
in Mississippi.

Those who call this tree black oak have in mind the bark which is
usually quite dark, though all members of this species do not present the
same appearance in that respect. Some trunks are gray, and in color do
not greatly differ from white oaks, but would hardly be mistaken for
them. Tanbark oak, a name occasionally given to this tree, is not
applied in the region where chestnut oak grows, because it is much
inferior to chestnut oak as tanning material. It is not only poorer in
tannin, but the coloring matter associated with the inner bark is trouble-
some to the tanner who is compelled to remove it or neutralize it unless
he wants his leather given a yellow tone. Dyer's oak is a name which
refers to the value of the bark for coloring purposes. The botanical
name velutina refers to the velvety texture of the inner bark.

This oak is one of the easiest to identify. The inner layer of the
bark is yellow. The point of a knife easily reaches it ; cutting through a
deep crack in the bark, and no mistake is possible, for no other oak has
the yellow layer of bark. The tree may be identified by leaves, flowers,
and fruit, but the process is not always easy, for other members of the
black oak group bear more or less resemblance to this one.

The yellow oak's range extends over nearly or quite a million square
miles. It exceeds the limits of most oaks in its geographical extension.
It endures severe winters and hot summers. The northern limit of its
range lies in Maine ; it grows westward across southern Canada to Minne-
sota; it extends two hundred miles west of the Mississippi into eastern
Nebraska and Kansas, and follows that meridian south into Texas.
It reaches the Gulf of Mexico east of the Mississippi, and is found in
many localities in all the southern states, and along the foothills of the
Appalachian ranges. It attains its largest size in the lower Ohio valley.
The average height is seventy or eighty feet, and its diameter two or

272 American Forest Trees

three feet. In some localities the trees are scrubby and produce little
merchantable timber.

The growth rings are only moderately wide in the typical yellow
oak ; the ring is divided nearly evenly between springwood and summer-
wood. The former contains two or three rows of large, open pores.
The medullary rays are fewer and smaller than those commonly found in
oaks. A general average of the properties of the wood is somewhat
difficult to give, because of remarkable variation in trees which grow
under different conditions. In some instances, where the soil is fertile
and climate favorable, the yellow oak produces a large, clear trunk,
with sound wood, of good color, and equal to that of red oak; but the
reverse is often the case — -trunks are small and rough, wood hard and
brittle, color not satisfactory, and strength not up to standard. Some-
times first class yellow oak passes without question as good red oak
in the finish and furniture business, but that is not its usual course.
Well developed wood is heavy, hard, strong, bright brown, tinged
with red, with thin, lighter colored sapwood. Its weight is 43.9 pounds
per cubic foot.

The uses of yellow oak follow red oak pretty closely, but are not so
extensive. Figures cannot be given to show the total annual cut of
yellow oak, but the output is likely much below red oak, though it is
found over a wider area, and some of it gets into the lumber yards in all
regions where it grows. It is made into furniture from Maine to
Louisiana. In cheaper grades of furniture, it may be the outside ma-
terial, but its place is usually as frame stock, to give strength, but is not
visible in the finished article. An exception to this is found in chairs
where yellow oak is one of several species which go regularly to the saw-
mills which cut chair stock. Massachusetts snow plow makers use it,
but of course it fills no such place in the South. In Mississippi, Louisiana,
and Texas it is bought by manufacturers of agricultural machinery. It
is worked into cotton gins in Mississippi. Some extra fine stands of this
oak occur in the Delta region of Mississippi. Frames of freight cars are
made of it in Louisiana and Texas, and warehouse and depot floors are
occasionally laid of this lumber. It is floor material in Michigan also,
but that is of a better class than is required for warehouses. It is not
infrequently sold as red oak for flooring and interior finish. Throughout
the whole extent of yellow oak's range it finds its way to wagon shops.
It is less tough than white oak, but in many places, such as bolsters,
sandboards, and hounds, it serves as well. Warehouse trucks and push
cars are of this wood in many instances.

Slack coopers convert this wood into their wares in many regions.
The pores are too open to permit its use as tight cooperage, where

American Forest Trees 27:)

liquids are to be contained, but for barrels and kegs of many kinds, as
well as for boxes, baskets, and crates, it meets all requirements. It is
good fuel. Many burners of brick and pottery show it preference, and
charcoal burners make a clean sweep of it when it occurs in the course
of their operations ; though when it is desirable to save the by-products
of charcoal kilns or retorts, yellow oak is considered less valuable than
birch, beech, and maple.

The bark of this tree is employed less now than formerly for dyeing
purposes. Aniline dyes have taken its place. In pioneer times the
bark was one of the best coloring materials the people had, and every
family looked after its own supply as carefully as it provided sassafras
bark for tea, slippery elm bark for poultices, and witch hazel for gargles.
The oak bark was peeled, dried, and pounded to a powder. The mass
was sifted, and the yellow particles, being finer than the black bark,
passed through the screen, and were set apart for the dye kettle, while
the screenings were rejected. Various arts and sciences were called
into requisition to add to or take from the natural color which the bark
gave the cloth. Salts of iron were commonly employed to modify the
deepness of the yellow.

The acorns of this oak are bitter, and escape the mast hunters.
Old stumps have little need to send up sprouts, for acorns keep the
species alive. Yellow oaks are in no immediate danger of extermination.
Nature plants generously, and the tree can get along on poor soil where
the farm hunter is not apt to molest it. It has a fairly thick bark, and is
able to take care of itself in a moderate fire, except when the seedlings
are quite small. The young tree's tap root is much developed, and goes
deep for moisture, and the growing sappling flourishes on ground where
some other species would suffer for water.

Whiteueap Oak (Querents hypoleuca). The beauty of this small evergreen
oak of the mountains of western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, is in its foliage
rather than its wood. Large trunks — that is, those twenty inches or more in diameter
— are apt to be hollow, but the sound wood is employed in repairing wagons in local
shops, and in rough ranch timbers. Its importance will never extend beyond the
region where it grows, but in that region it will continue to be used where nothing
better can be obtained. The largest trees are sixty feel high, and two in diameter,
but few reach those dimensions. It is an arid land oak. It grows at from 4,000 to
6,000 feet elevations on mountains and plateaus. The leaves remain thirteen months
on the twigs. They are of the willow form, ranging from two to four inches in length
and one-half to one in width. The acorns are small and bitter. The strength of this
oak is remarkable, if it may be judged by the figures given by Sargent. Two samples
of wood procured by himself and Dr. Engelmann on a dry, gravelly ground among
the Santa Rita i.iountains in Arizona, showed breaking strength sixty-one per cent
greater than the average given by the same author for white oak. The stiffness of tin
specimens was a little above white oak, and the weight three pounds more per cubic

274

American Forest Trees

foot. It should be borne in mind, however, that results derived from a test of only
two samples are not a safe basis for concluding that the wood generally will average of
so great strength. The annual rings of growth are not clearly marked. The wood is
porous, but the pores are not generally arranged in bands, although they occasionally
follow that arrangement. The medullary rays are broad and abundant, but are
rather short, measured along the radial lines. They are of pink color, a characteristic
not unusual with oaks in semi-arid regions. The foliage is doubtless the most valu-
able characteristic of whiteleaf oak. The leaves are silver white below, and dark
green above. When they are agitated by wind the flashing of the different tones and
tints in the sunshine presents an attractive picture. It belongs to the willow oak
branch of the red oak group, and bears two-year acorns.

SCARLET OAK

SCARLET OAK

(Quercus Coccinea)

THE name of scarlet oak is in use in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, North Carolina, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minne-
sota, Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, and Ontario; red oak is the name in
North Carolina, Alabama, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Minnesota ; black
oak in Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and Spanish oak in
North Carolina.

The name is descriptive of the autumn leaves. Artists dispute
among themselves whether the leaves are scarlet, red, or crimson. In
their opinion a good deal of difference exists between these colors, ren-
dering it quite incorrect to give one color the name of another. As for
the artists, they are probably correct in their analysis of colors, but the
general public knows the tree as scarlet oak, and it will doubtless be
called by that name by most people who speak of the tree in the woods,
while those who refer to the wood after it is sawed will speak of it as
red oak.

The leaves of scarlet oak are rather persistent, and remain on the
twigs late in the season. The brilliancy of this tree is rendered doubly
conspicuous, when it is contrasted with the surrounding sombre, winter
colors.

In appearance the tree is striking for its delicacy of foliage and
twigs. The crown is always narrow and open, and in forest growth is
compressed. The height, in good specimens, is about one hundred feet,
but it often exceeds that size. In diameter it grows as large as four feet.
The mature bark is dark in color and broken into broad, smooth ridges
and plates, edged with red. It shows a reddish inner bark when cut and
this may be relied upon to identify the tree. The leaves are four or five
inches long; deeply sinused, three or four on a side; long, bristle-toothed
lobes, broad at the base; acorns bitter, mature in two years; sessile,
brown; cup closely drawn in at the edge.

Its range comprises the northeastern quarter of the United
States. Beginning in southern Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, it
grows through middle New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa to
eastern Nebraska. Southward it extends along the coast through
Virginia and inland along the mountains to South Carolina and Georgia.
The growth is abundant over most of the range, the favorite habitat
being dry, gravelly uplands. It seems to be most abundant along the
northern part of the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to New Jersey,

278 American Forest Trees

and is less common in the interior, and on the prairies skirting the west-
ern margins of the eastern forests. The average size of the tree is from
seventy to eighty feet high and two or three in diameter. In many
regions it is much smaller, while no very large trees have been reported.

The wood is heavy, strong, hard; the layers of annual growth are
strongly marked by several rows of large, open ducts ; the summerwood
is dense and occupies half the yearly ring; the medullary rays are much
like those of red oak, though scarcely as broad. They run in straight
lines radially, and show well in quarter-sawing. The color of the wood
is light brown or red, the thin sapwood rather darker.

This wood is practically of the same weight as white oak ; but it is
rated considerably stronger and stiffer. A number of writers have listed
scarlet oak low in fuel value. Theoretically, the fuel values of woods
are proportionate to their weights, except that resinous woods must be
compared with resinous, and non-resinous with non-resinous. In
practice, however, every fireman who feeds a furnace with wood knows
that different woods develop different degrees of heat, though they may
weigh the same. Results are modified by various circumstances and
conditions, and for that reason theory and practice are often far apart
in determining how much heat a given quantity of wood is good for.

It is difficult to procure exact information regarding the uses of
scarlet oak. It never goes to market under its own name. An examina-
tion of wood-using reports from a dozen states within scarlet oak's
range does not reveal a single mention of this wood for any purpose. It
is certain, nevertheless, that much goes to market and that it has many
important uses. It loses its identity and is bought and sold as red oak.
Under the name of that wood it is manufactured into furniture, finish,
agricultural implements, cars, boats, wagons and other vehicles, and
many other articles. One of the most important markets for scarlet oak
is in chair factories. Its grain is attractive enough to give it place as
outside material, and its strength fits it for frames and other parts which
must bear strain. Chair stock mills which clean up woodlots and
patches of forest where scarlet oak grows in mixture with other species of
oak, take all that comes, without being particular as to the exact
kind of oak. Slack coopers follow much the same course. A wood
strong enough to meet requirements, is generally acceptable. Scarlet
oak is usually considered unsuitable for tight cooperage, on account of
the large open pores of the wood, which permit leakage of liquids. It
meets considerable demand in the manufacture of boxes and crates,
particularly the latter.

The size and quality of logs which a tree may furnish to a sawmill
is no measure of its full value. Scarlet oak is far better known as an

American Forest Trees 279

ornamental tree than for its wood. It has been planted in this country
and in Europe. Its brilliant foliage is greatly admired. No other oak
equals it, and it compares favorably with sugar maple, black gum, and
dogwood. It is an ornament to parks and private grounds, though the
brilliancy of its foliage is seldom exhibited to as good advantage in
cultivation as in the native forest where contrasts are more numerous,
and nature does its work unhindered by man. The scarlet oak is not a
rapid grower, and the form of the tree is not perfectly symmetrical.
The spring leaves are red, the summer foliage bright, rich green, the
autumn scarlet — a variety not equalled by many forest trees.

Willow Oak (Quercus phellos) is named for its leaves which look
like those of willow. There is a group of such oaks with leaves similar,
and they are known collectively as willow oaks. The one here described
may be considered typical of the group.

This oak is apt to present rather a surprising appearance to those
who have seen nothing but those oaks whose leaves are lobed or cleft.
It belongs to the red oaks. Like others of this division it has a tendency
to hybridize, several varieties being known. Willow oak is a denizen of
the southern Atlantic and southeastern states and favors rich, moist
soil, either on uplands or on bottoms, along the margins of streams or
swamps. It does not go inland as far as the foothills of the ranges and is
found most abundantly in the basin of the lower Mississippi. Beginning
in New York, the range extends southward into Florida, along the Gulf
states, touching Texas, up through Arkansas, touching Missouri and
Kentucky, down through western Tennessee and southern Georgia
rounding the southern end of the Appalachians.

Young trees have a slender delicate pendant appearance of twigs
and foliage more typical of the willow than of oak; but in time they
become more rugged, although the branching and foliage are always
more delicate than is usual with oaks. The tree attains a height of
eighty feet and a diameter up to four feet, but usually is about half of
this. It is clothed in a smooth, brown bark, ridged only in older trees.
The leaves are about five inches long and narrow in proportion, are of
shiny, leathery texture, dark above and pale below. The acorns are
on short stalks, solitary or in pairs, and ripen in two years, are short
and rounded and in shallow cups.

The weight of willow oak is approximately the same as white oak.
It is slightly stronger but less elastic. Its annual rings contain broad
bands of small open ducts parallel to the thin, dark, medullary rays.
The wood is reddish-brown in color, the thick sapwood darker brown.
The fuel value is rated the same as white oak, but the wood contains
more ash.

280 American Forest Trees

Willow oak is much used in the South, but usually under the name
red oak. Lumbermen seldom speak of it as willow oak. The species is
as highly developed in Louisiana as anywhere else, and the uses found
for the wood in that state will probably be found for it wherever the
tree grows in commercial quantities. A report on the manufacture of
wooden commodities in Louisiana, published in 1912, listed the following
uses for willow oak: Agricultural implements, balustrades, bar tops,
bedsteads, bottoms for wagon beds, bridge approaches and floors, chairs,
ehurch pews, cot frames, doors, floors, frames, interior finish, molding,
newel posts, pulpits, railing, screens, slack cooperage, stairwork, store
fixtures, wagon axles, and other vehicle parts.

These uses coincide nearly with those of red oak, and indicate the
important position occupied by willow oak in the country's industries.
Those who handle the wood complain that its seasoning qualities are
poor, and that care is necessary to bring satisfactory results. It works
nicely and stands well after the seasoning is accomplished.

Willow oak grows rapidly. It is doubtful if any oak in this country
surpasses it. It wants damp, rich soil and a warm climate, to do its
best. Some of the bottom lands in the lower Mississippi valley have
produced splendid stands of willow oak, the trunks being tall and clear
of limbs, and the wood sound.

The willow oak is much planted for ornamental purposes in the
southern states. It manages to keep alive when planted as far north as
Massachusetts, but the grace of its form is not fully developed much
north of the Potomac river. It is a common street tree in the South, and
its airy foliage forms a pleasing contrast with the heavy, dark-green of
the magnolia.

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Turkey Oak

TURKEY OAK

(Quercus Catesbmi)

THE claim that this tree is called turkey oak because turkeys feed
on the acorns, is not well founded. In common with nearly all
members of the black oak group, to which this species belongs, the acorns
of turkey oak are bitter, and unless animals are pressed by hunger they
do not eat them. It is evident that the shape of the leaves gives this tree
its name. They bear considerable resemblance to the foot of a turkey.
There is at least enough similitude to suggest the name, and it is not
inappropriate. Many people now use the term without thinking of its
origin, and if asked their opinion say that fondness of turkeys for the
acorns led to the name.

The tree has other names in different regions. In North
Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida it is known as
scrub oak. The name fits it well in certain places, for when it grows
on poor soil and in adversity, it degenerates into a low, straggling thicket,
frequently not trees at all, but shrubs. It is called black jack in South
Carolina but the name belongs to another species {Quercus marilandica) .
In the same state it is known as barren scrub oak, because it is very small
and is found on poor lands popularly known as barrens. Some call it
forked-leaf black jack, but the name is usually shorter, and forked-leaf,
or forked-leaf oak, is a name well understood among lumbermen, and the
people generally over much of the tree's range. Some of the leaves show
clearly-defined three forks, the middle one longer than the others; but
in other leaves, often from the same tree, the forks are not so regularly
outlined. This tree, like many other oaks, exhibits considerable
variation in the forms of leaves.

There is nothing peculiar in the form and appearance of the acorns.
They average about one inch long and three-quarters of an inch wide,
and sit in shallow cups. They mature the second year. The bark of
old trees is black near the ground, rather rough, and an inch or more
thick.

It is difficult to name an average size for turkey oak. The largest
trunks are three or four feet in diameter and eighty feet high, but the
trees cut for sawlogs are only fifty or sixty feet high and two in diameter,
in most of the regions. As previously stated, much of the stand is
stunted and some of it is only brush. All sizes are found, from large,
first rate trunks down to shrubs. Large trees which grow in forests,
prune themselves well and their trunks compare favorably with red oaks.

The tree's range has its northeastern limit in North Carolina, and

283

284 American Forest Trees

extends to Peace Creek, Florida. It is found westward to Louisiana
where fair-sized timber grows, but in small quantities. It is usually
considered that its best development is in South Carolina and Georgia,
but good trees are likely to be found in any part of its range. It is
distinctly a tree of the South. It was named by Michaux, the well-
known French botanist who visited the southern states early in the nine-
teenth century, and he named it in honor of Mark Catesby who explored
the region much earlier and wrote concerning its trees and other natural
history.

Turkey oak is one of the little-known trees of the South, as far as
lumbermen are concerned. They know it well enough in the woods, but
not at sawmills. When cut into logs it ceases to be turkey oak and
becomes red oak, and under that name it goes to the lumber yard, and
later to market. Users of red oak lumber do not object to the occasional
piece of turkey oak mixed with it— if they ever find it out, which few of
them do. Nevertheless, the consensus of opinion among sawmill men is
that turkey oak ought to rate below red oak.

Tests of the wood to determine its character and qualities do not
justify so low an estimate of turkey oak. Sargent found it stronger and
more elastic than white oak, while a little lighter in weight. It is nearly
equal to white oak in fuel value. It is hard, compact, and the rings of
annual growth are marked by several rows of large, open ducts. The
medullary rays are broad and conspicuous. The color is light brown,
tinged with red, the sapwood somewhat lighter.

A special investigation of the uses of turkey oak in one of the
southern states brought out the fact that it meets requirements well and
fills a place in several wool-using industries in that region. Vehicle
makers find it satisfactory in a number of places. It is made into
bottoms of wagon beds, felloes, bolsters, axles, hubs, hounds, tongues,
spokes, standards, sandboards, and reaches. These constitute nearly all
parts of heavy vehicles. The wood is made into telegraph brackets, but
apparently not in large quantities. Car builders employ it for frames
and floors. It is made into ordinary matched flooring and goes in with
other oaks. It is used as a general furniture wood, both as outside
material, and inside frames. It may be quarter-sawed to advantage.
It is employed also as interior finish, which demands lumber of practical-
ly the same grades as go into furniture. Mantels of this wood compare
favorably with those of red oak. Chair makers cut stock from turkey
oak. It is not abundant anywhere, otherwise it would be of much im-
portance.

The forests of the United States contain so many valuable oaks that
a scarce and geographically restricted species like turkey oak cannot be

American Forest Trees 285

expected to attract much attention in the future. Nevertheless, it is a
strong, interesting tree. It takes advantage of every opportunity to
develop. When an acorn germinates in good soil, and receives sufficient
light and moisture, it produces a merchantable tree; but in poor soil and
under unfavorable circumstances it becomes a stunted bush only.
Woodlots of turkey oak planted in fertile land would probably do as well
as most of the southern red oaks under like conditions. The tree is not
apt to get justice, because of the prejudice against it.

California Black Oak (Quercus californica) ranges from central
Oregon southward through the coast region of California nearly to the
Mexican boundary. It occurs also on the western slope of the Sierra
Nevadas in California. It is not found on the plains or near the sea, but
occurs on mountain slopes, low summits, elevated valleys, and in can-
yons. In the North, it ranges from 1,500 to 3,000 feet and in the South
it ascends to 9,000 feet. This far western oak bears more resemblance to
the yellow oak (Quercus velutina) of the East than to any other. Trees
have been reported 100 feet high and four in diameter, but they are
scarce. Seventy-five feet high and two or three feet in diameter are
usual dimensions of mature timber. The trees are inclined to be angular
in the outlines of their crowns. The leaves fall in autumn, but the acorns
persist two years. They sit deep in their rough cups. The trunk is
habitually crooked. It leans out of plumb, and lacks the nicely balanced
poise which adds to the attractiveness of some oaks. The large boles are
usually hollow, dead at the tops, or otherwise defective. That con-
dition is apparently due to old age. Trees stand long after they pass
maturity and start on their decline. They die by inches, and not in-
frequently they decay and crumble by piecemeal both at the bottom and
at the top. At best the trunk of this oak is of poor form for saw timber.
It divides into large limbs ten or twenty feet from the ground. It is
of slow growth, and it reaches old age— possibly as much as 350 years in
extreme cases. The wood is very porous, but the pores are not in rows.
The medullary rays are thin and distinct. It is not known that any
quarter-sawing has been attempted, and it would hardly be profitable.
The wood is pale red, exceedingly brittle, firm, light for oak, and it has a
distinct odor of tannin with which both the wood and the bark are
heavily charged. The principal uses to which this oak is put in Cali-
fornia and Oregon are as fuel and ranch timbers, the latter being of the
simplest and roughest sort. Its fuel value is high, compared with other
woods of the region. Some use was made of the bark for tanning pur-
poses years ago on the Pacific slope, but it does not appear to go to
market now.

Blue Jack Oak (Quercus brevifolia) bears several names, upland willow oak,

286

American Forest Trees

to distinguish it from other willow oaks which grow in swamps, sand jack, referring to
the land on which it grows, high-ground willow oak, turkey oak, shin oak and cinna-
mon oak. No reason is known for the last name which is not used outside of Florida.
The tree grows in a narrow strip along the coast from North Carolina to Texas,
crossing northern Florida. The blue jack oak sometimes attains a height of fifty
feet and a diameter of twenty inches; but that is its best. It is usually fifteen or
twenty feet high and a few inches in diameter. The leaves are from two to five
inches long and quite narrow, closely resembling those of willow. The acorns are
abundant, but small. The tree is of so little value that it does not interest the
lumberman. It occupies waste land, and may produce a little fuel without crowding
more valuable trees, but is in every way inferior to the black jack oak (Quercus
marilandica) , which overlaps its range a little, but is a northern species. The wood
of blue jack oak is hard, strong, light brown in color, with darker-colored sapwood.

SPANISH OAK

SPANISH OAK

(Quercus Digitata)

ONE of the first difficulties in an attempt to clear up the misunder-
standings regarding Spanish oak is to confine the name to the
species to which it belongs. That is no easy task, because the name has
been applied to numerous oaks in various parts of the country, and
without any apparent reason. Some of these bear little resemblance to
Spanish oak and grow almost wholly outside its range. It is not a case
of mistaking one for the other, for there is no mistake. Some speak of
the common red oak as Spanish oak, others bestow that name on yellow
oak, others on black jack oak, or scarlet oak, or anyone of several others.
It appears, however, that the name is not applied to any member of the
white oak group.

It is said that Spanish oak and Norway pine were named by the
same process. Each got its name because it was supposed to be similar
to a species in the old country — the pine like an evergreen of north
Europe, and the oak like a broadleaf tree of Spain. It was learned later
that both the American species were different from those of Europe which
they resembled.

The peculiar drooping foliage of Spanish oak gives the tree a char-
acter which impresses a person who sees the full-leafed crown for the
first time. The leaves are six or seven inches long and four or five
wide. Their forms vary within wide limits, and' their shapes change
from week to week while growing. Some have no lobes or sinuses, others
have them in rudimentary form only, while in still others they are well
developed.

The tree is often called red oak, particularly by lumbermen who
cut it and send it to market with red oak. In Louisiana it is known as
Spanish water oak, there being much resemblance between it and water
oak {Quercus nigra) with which it is associated. Its range covers more
than 200,000 square miles, beginning at the north in New Jersey and
following down the coast regions to central Florida. It extends west-
ward into Texas to the valley of the Brazos river; northward to Missouri
and southern Indiana and Illinois. It does not grow far inland from the
coast in the north Atlantic states, but further south it is common on the
coast plain between the sea and the base of the mountains. It is often
found on dry sand hills in that region. The largest Spanish oaks on
record grew in the lower Ohio valley, particularly along the Wabash
river. It is usually of medium size and large trunks are seldom seen.
The average height is seventy or eighty feet, diameter two or three. In

290 American Forest Trees

the open, the crown is broad and low, but in forests the trunk prunes
itself fairly well, and makes good saw timber, as far as form and size are
concerned. The acorns ripen in two years, and are bitter. The bark is
rich in tannin, but tanneries do not use much of it.

The tree is not generally abundant. Some large areas within its
range have little, and thick stands are unusual anywhere. It is one of the
oaks which lumbermen neither reject nor seek. They cut it in course of
operations, and saw it and sell it under the common name, red oak.

The wood is heavy, very hard, and strong. It is reputed to decay
more rapidly than most oaks, and it checks badly in seasoning. The
annual rings of growth are broad, and the springwood is marked by
several rows of large open pores. The medullary rays are few but
conspicuous; color light red, the sap wood lighter. The wood weighs
about three pounds less than white oak per cubic foot, and its fuel value
is less.

It is not easy to compile an account of the uses of Spanish oak by
the various industries of this country, for the reason that other oaks pass
by its name and it is known by names which should not be applied to it.
It is shown, however, where special studies of its utilization have been
made that it is a useful wood for many purposes. It is a useful furniture
material, and though statistics do not give separate figures for it, evi-
dently the total quantity consumed yearly runs into many millions of
feet. It is much employed in the manufacture of tables, chiefly for
frames, but occasionally as the outside material. It may be quarter-
sawed, if good logs are selected. The chair factories in North Carolina
use about 44,000,000 feet of oak yearly, and Spanish oak supplies a
rather large share of the material. It is employed as interior finish in
that state, and also for mission furniture, brackets for telegraph and
telephone poles, refrigerators, and kitchen safes. Slack coopers and
manufacturers of boxes and crates find the wood suitable for their wares ;
but its open pores stand in the way of its use for tight cooperage.

Similar uses of the wood occur in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas,
and it may be assumed that they occur also in all other portions of Span-
ish oak's range. It goes to wagon shops in Texas where it is substituted
for red oak. It is employed also in the manufacture of rice hullers and
cotton gins. Lumbermen in northern Louisiana use log trucks with
axles, felloes, and other heavy parts of Spanish oak, and it is frequently
preferred for stone wagons.

In practically all large shipments of southern red oak to the North,
some Spanish oak is mixed. It could not be otherwise, since this wood
is cut in the forest with other red oaks, is sawed and stocked with them,
and goes with them to market.

American Forest Trees 291

Black Jack Oak (Onerous marilandica) is one of the scrub trees of
this country, and few good words are ever heard for it; yet it has redeem-
ing qualities. Lumbermen have not paid much attention to it and never
will, for only when at its best is the trunk large enough for any kind of
sawlog, and there has been little inclination to use it for anything else.
It attains size fitting it for fence posts, and sometimes it performs
service along that line; but the small trunks are nearly all sapwood, and
decay strikes them quickly. The bark is black, hence the name, and it
is exceedingly rough, and is broken in squares. The leaves are large
and pear-shaped, with the broad end opposite the stem. Some are
slightly lobed. A vigorous black jack oak, standing in open ground,
presents a fine appearance. The crown is wide and is frequently conical,
the limbs small, and are set in the trunk on nearly horizontal lines.
The range of this unloved species covers 600,000 or more square miles,
beginning in New York, running west to central Nebraska, south through
Texas nearly to the Rio Grande, and in Florida to Tampa. It is not an
aggressive tree and has permitted itself to be crowded off the good land
until it has formed the habit of occupying geographical left-overs in the
form of sand banks and wornout fields. In the northeastern part of its
range it is often associated with scrub pine (Pinusvirginiana), because
the two have similar habits and are content to live in perpetual poverty
on dry gravel or thin sand. Large trunks are not possible under such
circumstances, and first-class wood is unusual. Black jack oak at its
best may attain a height of fifty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches,
but it is oftener twenty feet high and six inches through. It grows with
moderate rapidity and does not live long.

The annual rings are often indistinct. The wood is hard, heavy,
and strong, and checks badly in seasoning. The medullary rays are
broad and conspicuous, the wood dark brown in color, the sapwood
lighter. This oak is very high in ash contents, more than one per cent
of the dry weight of wood going to ashes when burned. The tree reaches
its best development in the lower Mississippi valley, and in eastern
Texas. Comparatively few uses for it have been found. Cordwood
cutters find it valuable where it abounds in sufficient quantity, and it
has been burned for charcoal for iron foundries and blacksmith shops.
Small amounts are occasionally found in wood-using factories in Texas,
but only when logs with considerable heartwood can be procured. The
sap is characterless and seems to be utterly rejected at the factory.
Sometimes the rich brown of the heartwood is attractive, but more
frequently the wood is ringed and splotched with different colors, not
distributed in a way to give any artistic effect. When a satisfactory
stick is found, it can be worked into balusters and small spindles which

292

American Forest Trees

show grain well. It is also worked into broad panels made up of narrow,
quarter-sawed strips, which exhibit the dark flecks of the wood to good
advantage.

Trident Oak (Quercus tridentata) is remarkable for its extreme scarcity, and is
of no commercial importance. It was formerly found in Missouri — a single tree — -
which was afterwards destroyed. It occurs in Washtenaw county, Michigan. It
appears that no report showing the character of the wood has been made.

Lea Oak (Quercus leana), which is believed to be a hybrid between yellow
oak (Quercus velutina) and shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria) , is interesting but not
important. Trees are apt to stand alone, and far apart. They occur from District
of Columbia to Missouri, and south to North Carolina. The range is imperfectly
known.

LAUREL OAK

Laurel < »ak

LAUREL OAK

(Quercus Laurifolia)

THIS representative of the black oak group is found nowhere except
in the southeastern states, and only in their borders. It never
ranges far inland, but sticks to wet localities and the margins of swamps
where its associates are tupelo, southern white cedar, cypress, magnolias,
and, near its southern limit, myrtle and other semi-tropical trees and
shrubs. It is sometimes utilized as an ornament, but that is not its
usual function. It is not a successful competitor as a shade tree with
willow oak and water oak.

Beginning at the border of the Dismal Swamp in Virginia as the
northern limit of growth, this interesting tree ranges southward along
the coast to Cape Romano in Florida and westward in the lower Gulf
states to southeastern Louisiana. It is seen at its best in eastern Florida.
It puts forth a vigorous growth on the hummock land in the southern
part of that state, where it develops a shapely trunk when in crowded
stands. It grows well in very rocky ground.

Although the common name laurel oak is prompted by its foliage,
the tree bears various other sectional names. It is known as laurel oak
in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida; Darlington
oak in South Carolina ; willow oak in Florida and South Carolina ; water
oak in Georgia. The latter name has a tendency to confuse it with
another species which is properly called water oak {Quercus nigra).

The ornamental qualities of this tree are due to the tall stately
bole, its shapely and symmetrical round-topped head and slender
branches and twigs. It sometimes attains the dignity of one hundred
feet in height with a proportionate diameter of three or four feet. The
bark is firm, of dark, reddish-brown color, and usually is not fissured but
finely broken into small close, scale-like plates. On old trees, especially
at the butt, deep fissures divide it into broad ridges. The buds are shiny
brown, and they narrow abruptly to an acute point. The acorns arc
either sessile or have short stalks, and they usually grow alone. They
are short and broad, and are incased in shallow, thin cups. In the flower-
ing season hairy aments add to the attractiveness of the tree. The
leaves are dark green above and lighter on the lower surface and are
grouped rather closely on the twigs. They attain a length of four inches
or less, and fall gradually after turning yellow.

Laurel oak seems to be little used. It is occasionally referred to as
rather inferior to other members of the black oak group, but it is not
apparent why it bears that reputation. It may be on account of its

295

296 American Forest Trees

poor seasoning qualities. Like other southern oaks, it is very heavy
when green, and it is inclined to shrink and warp while in the process
of parting with its moisture. If this can be successfully overcome, the
wood ought to be valuable. Tests made on four samples cut on St.
John's river, Florida, recorded in Sargent's tables, show remarkable
results. The wood is 34 per cent stronger and 37 per cent stiffer than
white oak, and is only one pound heavier per cubic foot of dry wood.
If these values are fairly representative of the wood of laurel oak, it
should be exceptionally valuable in vehicle making. It would fall
considerably below hickory, but would stand very high among other
woods, and could be recommended for wagon axles, tongues, and other
parts of heavy vehicles.

It should be borne in mind, however, that tests alone, and par-
ticularly when the number of samples is small, are not sufficient to decide
a wood's place as a manufacturing material. It must be tried in actual
practice, and that has not yet been done in the case of laurel oak as a
wagon wood. When tried out it may exhibit defects, or undesirable
qualities, which are not apparent in samples employed in laboratory
tests.

There is little exact information available in regard to the supply of
laurel oak in the South. It is not abundant in the sense that willow oak
and Texan red oak are. Neither are the trees generally of good form for
lumber. Little has ever been cut, because the land where it grows is not
demanded for agriculture. It occupies out-of-the-way places, and the
hunter and fisherman are better acquainted with it than the lumberman.

Highland Oak (Quercus wislizeni) is a California evergreen with
leaves commonly shaped like holly, but sometimes their edges are
smooth with no sign of teeth. The foliage remains longer on this tree
than is usual with evergreen oaks. Old leaves generally fall within a
month after the new crop appears; but those of highland oak remain
several months longer, gradually falling during the second summer.
When the tree is at its best it is a splendid representative of the vegetable
kingdom. Its form does not please lumbermen, for the trunk is short
and rough ; but the crown rises seventy or eighty feet, is symmetrical,
the foliage dark green, and the general appearance is that of an enor-
mous holly tree. Trunks are sometimes five or six feet in diameter.
The name highland oak is somewhat misleading, though the species
ascends to an altitude of 6,000 feet or more. It is described as a high-
land tree to distinguish it from the California live oak (Quercus agrifolia)
which grows in the vicinity of the sea in California. The highland oak
ranges from northern California to the international boundary, following
the foothills of the mountain ranges. It occurs in dry river bottoms and

American Forest Trees 297

washes and in desert mountain canyons. It is not choice as to soil but
will grow in loam, sand, gravel, or among rocks. It is not abundant.

When it gruwc near the sea it is apt to lose its tree form and become
a shrub. It assumes that form on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands off
the coast o.~ southern California. It grows slowly and is tenacious of
life. When it has once secured a foothold it hangs on with determina-
tion, though exposed to severe storms and inhospitable conditions. The
acorns do not mature until late in the autumn of their second year. They
are sometimes an inch and a half long, and scarcely a third of an inch
thick. The wood of this oak possesses some good qualities which are
locally appreciated by wagon makers who use it for repair work. It is
extensively cut for fuel, and it burns about like eastern white oak, but
leaves more ashes. The dry wood weighs 49 pounds per cubic foot. It
is considerably weaker than white oak and is less elastic. The summer-
wood constitutes a large part of the annual growth ring. It is very
porous, the rows of pores running parallel with the medullary rays. This
part of the wood structure is midway between that of deciduous and the
evergreen oaks. The medullary rays are broad but short. When exposed
on a tangential surface, they are from one-fourth to one-half inch long,
and give the wood a flecked appearance. Exposed in cross section, they
are from one inch to four inches in length. This applies, of course, only
to large rays, easily seen with the naked eye. In quarter-sawed lumber,
the rays have a pinkish color and glossy luster which are not pleasing.
This tree belongs in the class with those which are in no danger of being
extirpated by human agencies. It occupies land which man does not
need and will never want.

Myrtle Oak (Quercus myrtifolia) associates with the laurel oak in some parts
of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and closely resembles it, though it is smaller,
and gives little promise of ever becoming important in a commercial way. It is
clearly in the scrub oak class, and does not approach the dignity of even a small tree
in most of its range. Few specimens can be found exceeding a height of twenty feet
and a diameter of five or six inches. Trees approaching that size grow in western
Florida in the region of the Apalachicola river. Generally this oak covers dry, sandy
ridges and islands, and is shrubby. It forms thickets on some of the islands off
the coast of Alabama and Mississippi, and extends its range westward to the low,
southern parts of Louisiana where the dwarf trees are almost hidden by tall reeds and
grass. Its name refers to the leaf it bears. It is impossible that man can ever make
much use of this tree.

MorEhus Oak (Quercus morehus) can never be important in the lumber
industry, but it fills a few places in California where the ground needs a cover. Its
range is in the northern coast range and the Sierra foothills, extending as far south as
Kings river. The edges of the leaves bear bent hooks like saw teeth. The foliage
falls in late winter. Trees are occasionally a foot or more in diameter. The wood
has not the appearance of possessing much value, and is too scarce to be important.
The most interesting thing connected with this tree is that it is supposed to be a

298

American Forest Trees

hybrid — a cross between highland oak and California black oak. It was first found
in 1863, and a considerable range has since been established for it.

It is the opinion of some investigators that new tree species have their ori-
gin in crosses between existing species. Of the countless thousands of such
crosses a few, at long intervals of time, may develop characteristics which enable
them to maintain their existence and to spread into new territory. If that occurs,
a new kind of tree has appeared on earth and is ready to take its place among
the established forests of the region. Cross-fertilization among trees and plants
is very common, but so many adverse conditions are encountered, that few hy-
brids ever amount to anything,

PIX OAK

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Pin Oak

PIN OAK

(Quercus Palustris)

PN oak ranges from certain sections of Massachusetts, notably the
Connecticut river valley, and near Amherst, westward as far as the
southeastern part of Missouri; on the south it is found along the lower
Potomac river in Virginia, in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

It is known as pin oak in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, Arkan-
sas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas ; in Arkansas and
Kansas it is called swamp Spanish oak; in Rhode Island and Illinois
it is often known as water oak; in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kansas as
6wamp oak; in Arkansas as water Spanish oak.

The name pin oak is said to belong to this tree because of a peculiar-
ity of its branches. They leave the trunk and the larger limbs at nearly
right angles, and criss-cross in all directions, resembling pins thrust into
the wood, and bristling outward at every angle. The crowding to which
they are subjected kills many of them as the tree reaches middle age,
but the stubs do not drop quickly, and as many of the characteristic
pins appear to be present as ever. Such is the usual explanation given
to account for the name, and the facts fit the theory ; but the fact that
several other species are called pin oaks is not accounted for. The
habit of the branches of all of them is not the same. The Gambel oak in
its Arizona range has that name. So has the chinquapin oak in Arkansas
and Texas, but that is apparently a shortening of its true name, the last
syllable only being used. They call the Durand oak pin oak in Texas,
but without any known reason.

The botanical name palustris, belonging to this species, refers to the
tree's habit of growing in swamps and damp land along river bottoms.
It is not a swamp tree as cypress is, but is more like swamp white oak,
and finds its most congenial surroundings on the borders of streams and
on fairly well drained lowland where roots readily reach water.

The leaves are three or five inches long, are simple, and alternate.
They are broad, and have from five to nine lobes which are toothed, and
bristle-tipped on the ends. The sinuses are broad and rounded, and ex-
tend well toward the midrib, which is stout, and from which the veins
branch off conspicuously. In color the leaves are bright green above
and lighter below when young, becoming thin, firm and darker green at
maturity; late in autumn they turn a rich, deep scarlet. They are
coated below with pubescense, and have large tufts of pale hairs in the
axils of the veins.

302 American1 Forest Trees

The fruit of pin oak is a small acorn which grows either sessile or on
a very short stem; sometimes in clusters, and sometimes singly. In
shape the acorns are nearly hemispherical, and measure about a half inch
in diameter ; they are enclosed only at the base, in a thin, saucer-shaped
cup, dark brown, and scaly.

The bark of a mature tree is dark gray or brownish-green; it is
rough, being full of small furrows, and frequently cracks open and shows
the reddish inner layer of bark. On small branches and young trunks, it
is smoother, lighter, and more lustrous.

Pin oak is smaller than red oak. Average trees are seventy or
eighty feet high and two or three in diameter. Specimens 120 feet high
and four feet in diameter are heard of but are seldom seen. Near the
northern limit of pin oak's range large trees are not found, nor are small
trees plentiful. This holds true in all parts of New England and
northern New York where the species is found growing naturally. South
of Pennsylvania, along the flood plains of rivers which flow to Chesapeake
bay, a better class of timber is found. The best development of the
species is in the lower Ohio valley.

It grows rapidly, but falls a little short of the red oak. When
young growth is cut, sprouts will rise from the stumps and flourish for a
time, but merchantable trees are seldom or never produced that way.
The acorn must be depended on. It has been remarked that pin oak
does not prune itself well, but it does better in dense stands than in
open ground. In the latter case the limbs are late in dying and falling.

Pin oak has proved to be a valuable street and park tree. It
possesses several characteristics which recommend it for that use. It
grows rapidly, and it quickly attains a size which lessens its liability to
injur}- by accidents. Its shade is tolerably dense; the crown is shapely
and attractive; the leaves fall late; and it seems to stand the smoke and
dust of cities better than many other trees. It is easily and successfully
transplanted if taken when small. Many towns and cities from Long
Island to Washington, D. C, have planted the pin oak along streets,
avenues, and in parks. Several thoroughfares in Washington are shaded
by them.

Considerable planting of pin oak has been done by railroads which
expect to grow ties. Trees of this species when cut in forests and made
into crossties do not all show similar resistance to decay. Some ties
are perishable in a short time, while others give satisfactory service.
The best endure well without preservative treatment, but all are
benefited by it. If the experimental plantings turn out well, it may be
expected that pin oak will fill an important place in the crosstie business.

Because of numerous limbs, lumber cut from pin oak is apt to be

American Forest Trees 303

knotty, and the percentage of good grades small. The annual rings are
wide, and are about evenly divided between spring and summerwood,
though the latter often exceeds the former. Its general appearance
suggests red oak, but it is more porous in trunks of thrifty growth.
The springwood is largely made up of pores. The medullary rays are
hardly as prominent as those of red oak, but in other ways resemble
them. The wood weighs 43.24 pounds per cubic foot, which is a little
above red oak. It is hard and strong, dark brown with thin sapwood of
darker color. The lumber checks and warps badly in seasoning.

The uses to which pin oak is put must be considered in a general
way because of the absence of exact statistics. The wood is not listed
by the lumber trade under its own name, but goes along with others of
the black oak group. Its uses, however, are known along a number of
lines. Lumbermen cut it wherever it is found mixed with other hard-
woods. Sometimes vehicle manufacturers make a point of securing a
supply of this wood. That occurs oftener with small concerns than
large. It is made into felloes, reaches, and bolsters. Furniture
makers use it, and well selected, quarter-sawed stock is occasionally
reduced to veneer. The articles produced pass for red oak, and it would
be very difficult to detect the difference between pin oak and true red
oak when finished as veneer. Some highly attractive mission furniture
is said to be of pin oak.

More goes to chair stock mills than to factories which produce
higher classes of furniture. Chairs utilize very small pieces, and that
gives the stock cutter a chance to trim out the knots and produce the
maximum amount of clear stuff. Chair makers in Michigan reported the
use of 60,000 feet of pin oak in 1910. Slack coopers work in much the
same way as chair mills, and pin oak is acceptable material for many
classes of barrels and other containers. Small tight knots are frequently
not defects sufficient to cause the rejection of staves. Tight coopers
do not find pin oak suitable, because the wood is too porous to hold
liquids, particularly liquors containing alcohol. The wood is mixed
at mills with red oak and other similar species and is manufactured into
picture frames, boxes, crates, interior finish for houses, and manv other
commodities requiring strength or handsome finish. In early years
when the people manufactured by hand what they needed, and obtained
their timber from the nearest forest or woodlot, they split fence rails,
pickets, clapboards, and shingles of pin oak.

Oak-apples or galls are the round excrescences formed on the limbs
by gallflies and their eggs. They seem particularly fond of this species
and specimens are often seen which are literally covered with them.
The worms which live inside seem to flourish particularly well on the

304

American Forest Trees

food they imbibe from pin oak. The primitive school teachers three or
four generations ago turned these oak galls to account. They are rich
in tannin, and were employed in manufacturing the local ink supply.
The teachers were the ink makers as well as the pen cutters when the
pens were whittled from quills. The process of making the ink was
simple. The galls were soaked in a kettle of water and nails. The iron
acted on the tannin and produced the desired blackness, but if special
luster was desired, it was furnished by adding the fruit of the wild green-
brier (Smilax rotundifolia), which grew abundantly in the woods.
It was well that steel pens were not then in use. for the school-
master's oak ink would have eaten up such a pen in a single day.

CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK

CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK

(Quercus A gr if olid)

THIS fine western tree belongs to the black oak group, yet its acorns
mature in one year, like those of white oaks. It is the only known
black oak with that habit. It is properly classed with canyon live oak
which has many characteristics of white oak, yet matures its acorns the
second year. The two oaks with freakish fruit belong in California, and
to some extent occupy the same range. California live oak is apparently
making an effort to conform to the habit of other black oaks by produc-
ing two year acorns. It has not yet succeeded in doing so, but flowers
occasionally appear in the fall, and young acorns set on the twigs. They
drop during the winter, and it is not believed that any of them hang till
the second season.

The range of this tree covers most of the California coast region
but does not reach the great interior valleys. The tree is very common
in the southwestern part of the state. It is called an evergreen, and
some individuals deserve that reputation, but the leaves never remain
long after the new crop appears. Frequently the old leaves do not wait
for the new, and when they drop, the branches remain bare for a few
weeks. The form of the leaf is not constant. Some have smooth
margins, but the typical leaf is toothed like holly. One of the early
names by which the tree was known was holly-leaved oak. The bark
looks much like the bark of chestnut oak. It is bought for tanning
purposes, but its principal use is to adulterate the bark of another oak
{Quercus densiflora). Trees range in height from twenty-five to
seventy-five feet, and from one foot to four in diameter. The trunks
are very short, and seldom afford clear lengths exceeding eight feet,
and often not more than four. Trees generally grow in the open, but
when in thickets, the boles lengthen somewhat. They are of slow growth
and live to old age.

The wood is hard and brittle. A cubic foot weighs 51.43 pounds
when thoroughly dry. The wood of mature trees is reddish- brown;
but young and middle aged trunks are all sapwood, and are white from
bark to center. When sapwood is exposed to the air a considerable
time it changes color and becomes very dark brown. The medullary
rays of this oak are broad, fairly numerous, and are darker than the
surrounding wood. When the log is quarter-sawed, the exposed flecks
of bright surface are the darkest parts. To that extent, it resembles
quarter-sawed sycamore, but the woods do not look alike in any other
particular. This oak is very porous, and the pores — as is usual with live

307

308 American Forest Trees

oaks — are arranged in rows running from bark to center rather than
parallel with the annual rings. No clear line is distinguishable between
spring and summerwood.

Cordwood constitutes the most important use for California live
oak. It rates high in fuel value, and the many large and crooked limbs
make the tree an ideal one, from the cordwood cutter's viewpoint. By
carefully ricking the wood, with the crooks and elbows in every possible
direction — at which some cordwood cutters are very proficient — a cord
of wood may be constructed in the forest, which, when sold and
delivered in the buyer's shed, contracts like an accordion.

Canyon Live Oak (Quercus chrysolepis). This splendid California oak bears
many names. It is an evergreen, and therefore is called live oak. It is hard when
thoroughly seasoned, and this has won for it the name iron oak. Wagon makers
often so designate it. It is called Valparaiso oak, but for what reason is not apparent.
Black live oak doubtless refers to the dark color of the foliage. The most shapely
trees grow in the bottoms of canyons, and the name, canyon live oak, refers to that
circumstance. Hickory oak is not an appropriate name, though it doubtless im-
plies that the wood possesses the toughness of hickory. It is about as tough as white
oak. The name golden cup oak is a translation of its botanical name which, in
Greek, means "golden scale," a reference to a yellow tomentum or wool which covers
the cups of the acorns. The wood's hardness qualifies it to serve as mauls, hence the
name maul oak.

The northern limit of its growth is in southern Oregon. It goes south from there
on the coast ranges of California and the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas to the
highlands of southern California. Its growth on the mountains of southern Arizona
and New Mexico is always shrubby. The lowest limit of its range is about 1,000 feet
above sea level, the best specimens occurring at low altitudes in the sheltered canyons
of the coast ranges of California. Gradually diminishing in size, it grows to the very
tops of many of the high mountains, sometimes reaching 9,000 feet, being not more
than a foot high at the upper limits of its range. In appearance this tree resembles
the eastern live oak (Quercus virginiana), having the same majestic wide-spreading
crown, except in the high altitudes where it forms dense thickets covering large areas.

When in its favorite habitat, the massive proportions and majestic appearance
of this tree are imposing, the crown sometimes being 150 feet across, the bole short
and thick, and the great branches long and horizontal. It is not clothed in the somber
Spanish moss that is often present on the great live oaks of the southeastern states,
but there is a similarity of appearance in the drooping slender twigs. One hundred
and fifty feet across is cited as an unusual width of crown, one hundred feet being a
good average size, and forty or fifty feet the usual height, although it sometimes
reaches 100. The bole is vested in a gray-brown, reddish-tinged bark, about an inch
thick, and broken into numerous scales which in old age become flaky and pliable
and fall off.

The bark is light colored, and has the stringy character of white oak. The
tree would readily pass for a white oak were it not for its two-year acorns which class it
in the black oak group. The wood resembles white oak, and weighs 52.93 pounds
per cubic foot.

Few oaks, if any, retain their leaves a longer time than this. They remain on
the branches three or four years. Most evergreen oaks shed theirs at the beginning

American Forest Trees 309

of the second year. The leaves of this tree are peculiar in another way. They
assume various forms. That in itself is not unusual and occurs with many species;
but the canyon live oak has one pattern of leaf for the young tree, another for the old.
One form has a margin with sharp, hooked teeth; another has smooth-margined
leaves, and there are various intermediate forms. Sizes vary no less than shapes of
both acorns and leaves. Some acorns are half an inch in length, others two inches.

The canyon live oak is believed to be long-lived, but further information is
desirable. The massive trunks represent centuries. They usually occur in sheltered
places which are measurably secure from the ordinary perils which beset trees, notably
the woodsman's ax and the periodic forest fire. The bottoms of canyons where this
uak makes choice of situation do not usually burn fiercely, and trees sheltered there
escape. Cordwood cutters are the most constant peril to good fuel trees in California;
but many a canyon is safe from their invasions, because of lack of roads. There the
most magnificent oaks rear their crowns in security, while trees of inferior size and
character, which grow on exposed slopes and flats, fall before the cordwood cutter,
and go to the ricks in village woodyards.

The wood of canyon live oak is superior to that of any other oak in its range.
It is of light brown color, and is tough, strong, stiff, and heavy. The trunks are
generally unsuitable for sawlogs, being too short, but when a chance tree is found that
may be cut into lumber, it is considered a prize. Trunks are seldom good for more
than one sawlog. In that respect this oak may be compared with the southern live
oak. The scarcity of good hardwoods on the Pacific coast adds to the value of what
may be found there. If the canyon live oak grew in the East, and developed a trunk
of the same size and shape as it has in its present home, it would attract no more
attention from the users of hardwoods than the live oak in the South attracts now.
But place makes great difference.

Factories in California do not report the use of much of this oak, yet consider-
able quantities of it are in service. The most important place found for it is in
country and village blacksmith shops, where wagons are repaired. Nearly every
piece of wood which goes into a wagon, except the bed, may be this oak. Many
persons consider it the best wagon timber on the Pacific coast, and it is particularly
valued for tongues, not only for wagons, but for heavy log trucks which are operated
by several yoke of oxen. The wood is likewise made into singletrees. It has always
been in use in California for pack saddles. That article is small, but many saddles
were formerly made, and the pack saddle is still an important article in the mountains.
Trains of mules, horses, and burros thread the narrow paths, where wheeled vehicles
cannot go, and deliver supplies to camps and mines in remote districts. The pack
saddle's strength is frequently all that intervenes between the load and destruction;
for the snapping of a piece of wood may let the pack go over a precipice beyond
recovery. The pack trains are slowly passing out of use in the West, as they long ago
disappeared from the "bridle paths" of eastern mountains and forests; but they are
still to be seen among the fastnesses of the Sierra Nevadas, as in the days when a
western poet burst into inspired song of the long pack trains going
"Up and down o'er the mountain trail
With one horse tied to another's tail."

Huckleberry Oak (Quercus chrysolepis vaccinifolia) is a variety of canyon
live oak, and is never large enough to supply wood for any purpose, bul is valuable as
a covering to the ground on exposed mountains. It is usually a shrub, and specimens
no more than a foot high are mature and bear acorns enormously out of proportion to
the size of the tree. If the canyon live oak of largest size in the low hills bore acorns

310

American Forest Trees

proportionately as large, they would be the size of barrels. The huckleberry oak's
acorns are set in their golden cups. The name huckleberry is applied because of a
fancied resemblance of the leaves to those of huckleberries. They are generally less
than one inch in length, sometimes not half an inch. This unique variety of oak
ranges on elevated slopes and ridges of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the traveler
in climbing to the peaks is often grateful for the privilege of pulling himself up the
steep slopes by grasping in his hands the tops of full grown trees.

Palmer Oak (Ouercus chrysolepis palmeri) is considered a variety of canyon
live oak by some, but Sudworth believes it is a distinct species, and draws his con-
clusion from forms of leaves, flowers, and fruit. It forms large thickets on foothills
and plateaus near the southern boundary of California, eighty miles or more east of
San Diego. The trees do not attain sufficient size to give them commercial im-
portance.

CALIFORNIA TANBARK OAK

California Tanbark < »ak

CALIFORNIA TANBARK OAK

(Qucrcus Dcnsiflora)

BOTANISTS dispute the right of this tree to the name of oak, and
some of them refuse to call it an oak. It is admitted that it possesses
characters not found in any other oak, but these are important to the
botanist only, while laymen have never considered the tree anything but
an oak. It has been variously called tanbark oak, chestnut oak, Cali-
fornia chestnut oak, live oak, and peach oak. The trunk, branches,
and foliage look much like chestnut. The leaf is like the chestnut's, but
it is evergreen. There are three or four crops on the tree at one time,
and none fall until they are three or four years old. Young leaves are
remarkably woolly, but late in their first summer they get rid of most
of the fuzz, and become thick in texture.

Tanbark oaks are of all sizes, from mere shrubs on high mountains
in the northern Sierra Nevadas to fine and symmetrical timber in the
damp climate of the fog belt between San Francisco and the Oregon line.
The average height of mature trees is from seventy to 100 feet, with
diameters up to six feet in rare cases, though more trunks are under than
over two feet in diameter.

The range of this oak reaches southern Oregon on the north, and
runs southward three or four hundred miles along the Sierra Nevada
mountains, to Mariposa county, and six hundred miles through the
Coast range to Santa Barbara county. The tree is affected by climatic
conditions, and where surroundings do not suit, it is small and shrubby,
often less than ten feet high. It does best in the redwood belt where
fogs from the Pacific ocean keep the air moist and the ground damp.
It sometimes associates with Douglas fir, and at other times with
California live oak. If it grows in dense side shade it loses its lower
branches and develops a long, clean trunk ; but in open ground it keeps its
limbs until late in life.

This is the most important source of tanbark on the Pacific coast,
and up to the present it has been procurable in large quantities. The
annual output is nearly 40,000 tons, and it commands a higher price
than the bark of any other oak or of hemlock. The absence of other
adequate tanning materials on the Pacific coast gives this tree much
importance. Its range covers several thousand square miles, and the
stand is fairly good on much of it. But on the other hand, the destruc-
tion of timber to secure the bark has been excessive. What occurred
with chestnut oak and hemlock in the East, is occurring with tanbark
oak in the West. Trees are cut and peeled, and are left by thousands

313

314 American Forest Trees

to rot in the woods, or to feed fires and make them more destructive.
The bark peelers do their principal work in the California redwood
region, because there the oak is at its best. Economic conditions make
the salvage of the trunks impossible. The bark can be hauled to market,
but the wood is unsalable at living prices, after the long haul. It has,
therefore, been usually abandoned, and becomes a total loss. It cannot
even be sold for fuel, because the country within reach of it is thinly
settled, and wood is plentiful on every side.

Large oaks are felled, because the bark can not be stripped from
the trunks in any other way, and small trees are not spared. The
peelers often do not take the trouble to cut them down, but strip off the
bark as high as a man can reach, and leave them standing. A future
tree is thus destroyed for the sake of a strip of bark a few feet long.
Such trees live a year or two, sometimes several years, before yielding
to the inevitable. Usually, as a last expiring effort, they bear an
abnormally large crop of acorns. That performance, in the language of
the bark peelers, is "the last kick." A tanbark slashing, when the
peelers are ready to abandon it, is a sorry spectacle. The barkless and
sun-cracked trunks strew the ground, the tops and limbs are piled in
windrows, the small peeled trees stand dying, and the last ricks of bark
have been sledded down the tote roads, marking the close of operations in
that district. A few months later, when fire runs through, the end of
the tanbark oak on that tract is accomplished.

Within recent years commendable efforts have been made to use
the wood as well as the bark. One of the first steps in that direction
was to overcome the prejudice against the wood. It was long considered
to be valueless. That belief was founded on the single fact that this oak
is difficult to season. Few woods in this country check as badly as this,
when it is left exposed to sun and wind after the bark has been removed.
It checks both radially and along the annual rings. The medullary
rays are broad and extend much of the distance from the center to the
outside. These are natural lines of cleavage when the log begins to
season and the internal stresses develop. It must be admitted that the
prospect of making anything out of timber of that character is discourag-
ing; but it has been accomplished, and tanbark oak is now a material of
considerable value.

The wood has about the strength and stiffness of white oak, while
it is four pounds lighter per cubic foot. The structure is similar to that
of California live oak, but the pores of tanbark oak are smaller. They
run in rows from center to circumference. The medullary rays are
broad enough to show well in quarter-sawing, but the wood's appearance
when so worked is not wholly satisfactory. The exposed flat surfaces

American Forest Trees .'515

of the rays show a faint purplish or violet tinge which is considered
objectionable. But when the wood is worked plain it is dependable
and substantial. It makes good flooring, fairly good furniture, finish,
vehicles, and agricultural implements. It is perishable when placed in
damp situations, and this detracts somewhat from its value as railway
ties; but the wood's porous nature indicates that it will readily yield to
preservative treatment.

Since the value of the wood is coming to be understood it is to be
expected that less of it will be destroyed than formerly, and that second
growth will be given opportunity to hold the ground when old stands are
cut. The tree is a prolific seeder, but not every year, and seedlings come
up abundantly in sheltered places. Sprouts rise from stumps and grow
to vigorous trees. It would seem, therefore, that the tanbark oak will
hold at least part of the ground where nature planted it.

Toumey Oak (Quercus tourney i). No oak in this country has
smaller leaves than this. They are usually less than three-fourths of an
inch long and half an inch wide, and they hang on petioles one-sixteenth
inch long. The leaves have no lobes or notches. They remain all winter
and fall in the spring in time to make room for the new crop. The acorns
are nearly as long as the leaves and ripen in June of the first year. Few
persons ever see this oak, for its known range is restricted to Mule
mountain, in Cochise county, southeastern Arizona. It attains a height
of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of six or eight inches. The
trunk is not only small, but is of form so poor that it can never be of
value for anything but fuel. It divides near the ground into crooked
branches. The heart of the tree is light brown, the thick sapwood is
lighter.

Woolly Oak (Quercus lomentella) has apparently been crowded off the American
continent and has taken refuge on islands off the southern California coast. As far
as known, not a single tree stands on the mainland, but several groves, with a few
isolated specimens, are found on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Catalina islands, where
they are huddled together in the bottoms of sheltered canyons. The leaves are thick,
leathery, and are toothed like holly. The trees are evergreen. The acorns do not
mature until the second season. They are generally more than an inch long. The
scarcity of this oak relegates it to an unimportant place among commercial woods.
This seems unfortunate, for the appearance of the wood indicates that it possesses
excellent properties. No other oak looks like this wood. It is decidedly yellow . and
is dense and firm. The medullary rays are different from those of any other oak.
When seen in cross section they are arranged in short, wavy lines, broadest in the
middle and tapering toward both ends. The pores are arranged between the rays,
and follow wavy lines also. Trees grow with fair rapidity, and the largest on the
islands are seventy-five feet high and two in diameter.

Barren Oak (Quercus pumila) is called dwarf black oak, or simply scrub oak.
Its habit of growing on barren land is responsible for its common name which s >me
people shorten to "bear" oak. It is one of the poorest oaks of the East, and it seldom

316

American Forest Trees

grows more than twenty-five feet high and a few inches in diameter. Its range follows
the Atlantic coast southward from Mount Desert Island, Maine, to North Carolina.
It is probably more abundant on the pine barrens of New Jersey than elsewhere.
The trunks are too small to be of use for anything but fuel.

Price Oak (Ouercus pricei) is a California tree, supposed to be very local in its
range, since it has not been found outside the drainage basin of a small stream in
Monterey county. That locality on the coast of California appears to be the starting
place or principal abiding place of several tree species, among which are Monterey
cypress and Monterey pine. The Price oak attains a height of twenty-five or thirty
feet, and a diameter of twelve inches or less; consequently it is too small to be of
value to lumbermen, even if it were abundant. The leaves resemble those of Cali-
fornia live oak, and are believed to remain two summers on the tree. The acorns
mature the second season.

SHINGLE OAK

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SHINGLE OAK

(Qucrcus hnbricaria)

THE origin of this tree's name has been the subject of considerable
controversy. According to one account the name was first used
by the French colonists at Kaskaskia, Illinois, nearly 150 years ago.
They found that the wood rived well and it was abundant in the vicinity
of their settlement. They split it for shingles and covered their cabins.
It was the best wood obtainable for the purpose in that region, and they
designated the tree shingle oak, a name translated into Latin by the
botanist Michaux and still retained as the tree's botanical name. The
story of the name appears to be well authenticated, but the fact cannot
be denied that as much reason exists for another theory. A person who
sees a shingle oak tree in full leaf, particularly if it stands in open ground
where its foliage has had opportunity to develop along natural lines, will
at once notice the peculiar and characteristic overlapping of the leaves.
They suggest the courses of shingles nailed on a roof. No other oak has
that arrangement. The similitude is so striking that it would be sur-
prising if the name shingle oak were not applied.

It is not a one-name tree, but following the fashion, it carries
several names. It is called laurel oak in some regions. The form and
appearance of the leaf give the name. The oak looks like a mammoth
laurel tree more than like its own species. The shingle oak is known as
jack oak in some parts of Illinois. That is a name liable to be applied to
any tree when its real name is not known. In North Carolina they call
the tree water oak, which name, like jack oak, is often used to conceal
ignorance of the true name. Another southern species (Quercus nigra)
is properly named water oak.

Shingle oak requires good soil for growth but is not partial either
to uplands or bottoms. It is found at its best in the lower Ohio river
basin and in Missouri, but is comparatively rare in the East. From
middle Pennsylvania its range extends southward along the Alleghanies
to northern Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and west Arkansas. It is
found in Michigan, Wisconsin, and westward to Kansas.

It manifests a strong tendency to hybridize with other oaks, and it
readily crosses with black jack oak, pin oak, and yellow oak. It is
believed that a cross between yellow oak and shingle oak produced the
species known as lea oak.

A mature tree may be one hundred feet high and three or four feet
in diameter. It has a round or pyramidal attractive crown composed
of many slender branches and twigs. The foliage is distinctively

320 American Forest Trees

grouped at the ends of the twigs in star-like clusters. The leaves are
four or six inches long, with wedge-shaped or rounded bases, and are
deep green and shiny on the upper side, but lighter below. The acorns
are short, stubby, and rounded, covered one-third of the way with thin
shallow cups.

Shingle oak grows rapidly, and it is often sold by nurseries which
deal in ornamental forest trees. It is hardy as far north as Massachu-
setts. Although it bears great abundance of leaves, they are so arranged
that the crown seems open. One may see through the branches of a large
shingle oak, and it suggests an airiness not common with oaks.

Differences of opinion exist concerning the value of shingle oak for
commercial purposes. It belongs in the black oak group, and its wood
goes to market as red oak, and apparently is never listed as anything else.
It is never named in market reports; shops and factories never report it,
and it has been pronounced inferior to red oak in strength and seasoning
properties. Tests have been made of some of its physical properties,
and the results do not indicate that the wood belongs with inferior tim-
bers. Its breaking strength is given at 39 per cent greater than white
oak, and its stiffness at 28 per cent greater. However, these values,
which are calculated from Sargent's tables, are based on tests of only a
few specimens of the wood, and fuller investigation might make revision
necessary. ,

The wood is heavy, hard, and is said to check badly in drying. The
pores are large and are arranged in rows ; medullary rays are broad and
conspicuous. The wood is light brown, tinged with red, the sapwood
much lighter. The broad medullar}' rays, running radially, give the
wood its good splitting qualities.

The tree is fairly abundant in different parts of its range, and is cut
and manufactured with other oaks and hardwoods. Slack coopers use
it for barrels ; box makers employ it for crates ; chair mills saw dimension
stock and ship it to factories to be finished; some goes to furniture
factories; some is turned for spindles for grills, and for balusters for
stairs ; other fills various places as interior finish and molding. But it all
goes to market and passes through factories under names other than
its own.

Water Oak (Quercus nigra) has several names, some of them
bestowed with little apparent reason. It is called possum oak and duck
oak, but these names are neither descriptive nor definitive. Punk oak is
another name. It may refer to a decayed condition of the wood, but
this tree is no more affected by decay than others of the same region.
In Texas it is sometimes known as spotted oak. It thrives in wet
situations though not actually in swamps. It prefers margins of ponds,

American Forest Trees 321

banks of rivers, and low swales where the ground water is just below the
surface, but it is not confined to such situations. It does well, within
its range, wherever willow oak flourishes, but willow oak has a wider
range. The leaves take on various forms, and they change shape as
they increase in size. Some have smooth margins, others are lobed.
Some are wedge-shaped, others coffin-shaped. Their typical form, if it
may be said of them that they have a typical form, is narrow at the stem
end and wide at the other. To this is usually added rudimentary lobes,
which are sometimes nearly as well developed as in any other oak.
Their typical form is like the leaf of the black jack oak ; but they are not
half as large, and are thin and delicate, while the black jack's leaf is thick
and leathery.

The range of water oak begins in Delaware and follows the Atlantic
coastal plain south to central Florida, and through the Gulf States to
Texas. It grows as far north as Kentucky and Missouri. It keeps clear
of the Appalachian mountain region, and other hilly districts. It is
plentiful in some parts of its range, and trunks three feet in diameter
and long enough for two or three logs are not unusual, yet large numbers
of water oaks may be seen in the South which are not fit for sawlogs
because they stand in open ground and are limby down to ten feet of the
ground. Many have been planted for shade trees in streets and in parks,
and are justly admired. They grow rapidly and are extremely graceful.
Their leaves are deciduous, but adhere to the branches most of the year.
South of the belt of severe frost, the old leaves frequently hang until the
buds for the new crop are opening. The acorns are bitter, and even the
southern pine hog passes them by until the pinch of famine edges up his
appetite.

Water oak possesses value as a source of lumber, but it belongs
with the large class of oaks which lose their names and their identity
when they pass the threshold of the sawmill. They come out red
oak. Only in rare instances is water oak called by its own name in
the factory and lumber yard. Wagon makers employ it for bolsters,
axles, spokes, tongues, sandboards, hounds, felloes and reaches.
Entire dump carts, except the iron, are constructed of this wood.
Furniture manufacturers use it as frame material, but seldom
as the outside visible parts, though no reason for not doing so is
offered. Objection is made to its seasoning qualities, but the same
objection applies to most red oaks. A considerable amount of water
oak is cut in the South into thick planks for bridge floors. It is strong
and hard, and satisfactorily resists decay in that place; though, in com-
mon with the black oaks generally, it is liable to decay when exposed to
dampness. The wood weighs a little less than white oak, and is not

322 American Forest Trees

quite as strong or as stiff. It is porous, but the pores are small, except
one or two rows in the springwood. The medullary rays are thin and
not numerous, but they are conspicuous, and the wood may be success-
fully quarter-sawed. The lumber has the appearance of red oak,
though the reddish color is not so pronounced.

Bartram Oak (Quercus heterophylla). This interesting but commercially
unimportant oak was named by Michaux from a single tree found in a field belonging
to John Bartram near Philadelphia more than a century ago. A few trees have since
been found in widely scattered districts as far south as North Carolina and as far
west as Texas. Botanists believe it is a hybrid, one parent being the willow oak
(Quercus pheltos) and the other yellow oak (Quercus velutina). It is probable that
here may be witnessed the origin of a tree species. The leaves seem to be a compro-
mise between the deeply cut foliage of yellow oak and the entire leaf of willow oak.
The new species is so scarce that few people have ever seen it.

RED GUM

RED GUM

(Liquidambar Styraciflua)

THIS tree does not belong to the same group as black gum and
tupelo, which are in the dogwood family, while red gum is of the
witch hazel family. If a tree is to be judged and named by its character,
red gum is more entitled to the name "gum" than any other tree of this
country, because it exudes a yellow resin from wounds in the bark.
The botanical name recognizes that fact. Storax is procured from a
closely related tree is Asia, and has been known in commerce for many
centuries. The other popular names of red gum are sweet gum, liquid-
amber, gum, gum tree, alligator wood, bilsted, starleaved gum, and
satin walnut.

The last name originated in England where it was desirable to
avoid the name gum when applied to the wood of this tree. Though
botanically it is about as distantly related to walnut as any tree can be,
the figure of the wood often suggests walnut. The name sweet gum
refers to the pleasant odor of the resin which is sometimes used in
France, and probably elsewhere, to perfume gloves. Alligator wood
is descriptive of warty excrescences on the bark of some trees, but
they are not common to all. Starleaved gum relates to the leaf. It is
a lopsided star — a six point star with one point missing.

This tree's range in the United States extends from Connecticut to
Texas and as far northwest of the Alleghanies as Missouri and Illinois.
It reaches its greatest size in the lower Mississippi valley in rich bottom
land which is subject to repeated inundation. It is not, however, as
purely a swamp tree as tupelo and cypress. It grows well on land which
is never inundated, but it needs plenty of moisture. The largest speci-
mens exceed a height of 120 feet and a diameter of four; but logs from
eighteen inches to three feet are the usual sizes. The tree's range extends
southward through Mexico into Central America.

The rise of red gum lumber into prominence forms an interesting
chapter in the industry. It was formerly considered so difficult to
season that few mills cared to deal with it, but that difficulty has been
largely overcome. In the past, gum, having no market value, was left
standing after logging; or, where the land was cleared for farming, was
girdled and allowed to rot, and then felled and burned. Not only
were the trees a total loss to the farmer, but, from their great size and the
labor required to handle them, they were so serious an obstruction as
often to preclude the clearing of valuable land. Now that there is a
market for the timber, it is profitable to cut gum with other hardwoods.

326 American Forest Trees

and land can be cleared more cheaply. This increase in the value of
gum timber will be of great benefit to the South in many ways.

Throughout its entire life red gum is intolerant of shade. As a
rule seedlings appear only in clearings or in open spots in the forest. It
is seldom that an overtopped tree is found, for the gum dies quickly if
suppressed, and is consequently nearly always a dominant or inter-
mediate tree. In a hardwood bottom forest, the timber trees are all of
nearly the same age over considerable areas, and there is little young
growth to be found in the older stands. The reason for this is the in-
tolerance of most of the swamp species.

Red gum reproduces both by seed and by sprouts, fairly abun-
dantly every year, but about once in three years there is a heavy pro-
duction. In the Mississippi valley the abandoned fields on which
young stands of red gum have sprung up are, for the most part, being
rapidly cleared again. The second growth here is considered of little
worth in comparison with the value of the land for agricultural
purposes.

A large amount of red gum growing in the South can be economi-
cally transported from the forests to the mills only by means of the
streams, owing to the expense of putting in railroads solely for handling
the timber. Green red gum, however, is so heavy that it scarcely floats
and, to overcome this difficulty, various methods of driving out the sap
before the logs are thrown into the river have been tried. One method
is to girdle the trees and leave them standing a year. That partly
seasons them, but does not give time for the sapwood to decay. The
logs from such trees float readily, and the swamps and streams are
utilized to carry the logs to the mills.

Some years ago that method of seasoning red gum was extensively
advertised in England by contractors who sold paving blocks of this
wood. It was claimed that the common defects of red gum were thus
overcome. Large sales of paving material were made, particularly in
London, and red gum was popular for a time, but it finally lost its hold
as a paving wood in competition with certain Australian woods. The
theory that by girdling a tree and allowing it to die, the amount of heart-
wood will be increased has been abandoned. In selecting trees for
cutting, those with doty tops, rotten stumps, and heavy bark, indi-
cations of an old tree which contains a very small proportion of sapwood,
are now chosen. These are found mainly in the drier localities. In low,
wet places the trees have more sapwood and are smaller. The heart-
wood forms while the tree is living, not after it dies.

The rapidity with which red gum has come into use in this country
and elsewhere is the best evidence of the wood's real value. Its range

American Forest Trees 327

of uses extends from the most common articles, such as boxes and crates,
to those of highest class, like furniture and interior finish. It is only
moderately strong and stiff, and is not a competitor of hickory, ash,
maple, and oak in vehicle manufacturing and other lines where strength
or elasticity is demanded; but in nearly all other classes of wood uses,
red gum has made itself a place. It has pushed to the front in spite of
prejudice. As soon as the difficulties of seasoning were mastered, its
victory was won. Its annual use in Michigan, the home and center of
hardwood supply, exceeds 20,000,000 feet in manufactured articles, ex-
clusive of what is employed in rough form. In Illinois, the most
extensive wood-manufacturing state in the Union, red gum stands
second in amount among the hardwoods, the only one above it being
white oak. In Kentucky, only white oak and hickory are more im-
portant among the factory woods, while in Arkansas, where the annual
amount of this wood in factories exceeds 100,000,000 feet, it heads the
list of hardwoods.

As a veneer material, it is demanded in four times the quantity of
any other species. The veneer is nearly all rotary cut, and it goes into
cheap and expensive commodities, from berry crates to pianos.

The wood weighs 36. S3 pounds per cubic foot. It is straight-
grained, the medullary rays are numerous but not prominent, the pores
diffuse but small, and the summerwood forms only a narrow band, like
a line. The annual rings do not produce much figure, but wood has
another kind of figure, the kind that characterizes English and Cir-
cassian walnuts, smoky, cloudy, shaded series of rings, independent of
the growth rings. They have no definite width or constant color, but
the color is usually deeper than the body of the wood. This figure is
one of the most prized properties of red gum. It is that which makes
the wood the closest known imitator of Circassian walnut.

All red gum is not figured, and that which is figured may be worked
in a way to conceal or make little use of the figure. It shows best in
rotary cut veneer and tangentially sawed lumber. Various woods are
imitated with red gum. It is stained or painted to look like oak, cherry,
mahogany, and even maple.

Some trees have thin sapwood, and others are all sapwood. This
peculiarity sometimes leads to misunderstandings in lumber transactions.
A buyer specifies red gum, expecting to get red heartwood, but the seller
delivers lumber cut from the red gum tree, though light colored sapwood
may predominate. Properly speaking, the name is applied to the tree
as a whole and does not refer to any particular color of wood in the tree.
The term "red" is said to have referred originally to the color of autumn
leaves, and not to the wood.

328

American Forest Trees

The fruit of red gum is a bur, midway in appearance and size
between the sycamore ball and the chestnut bur. It hangs on the tree
until late in winter. The resin which exudes from wounds in the bark is
of much commercial importance and is shipped from New Orleans and
Mexican ports. Near the northern limit of the species' range the trees
yield little resin, but it is abundant farther south. In the southern
states it is used locally as chewing gum. It is known commercially as
copalm balm.

Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiand) is a cousin to red gum, but there is
small resemblance. It is known as winter bloom, snapping hazel, and spotted alder.
Its range extends from Nova Scotia to Nebraska, Texas, and Florida. It reaches its
largest size among the southern Appalachian mountains where the extreme height is
sometimes forty feet, with a diameter of eighteen inches; but few people have ever
seen a witch hazel that large. It is usually fifteen or twenty feet high and three or
four inches in diameter. The wood is much like that of red gum, being diffuse-
porous with obscure medullary rays, and a thin line of summerwood. It is of little
commercial use; in fact, no report has been found that a single foot of it has ever been
used for any purpose. Yet it is a most interesting little tree. It blooms in the fall,
sometimes as late as the middle of November. Its rusty summer foliage turns yellow
in autumn, and as the leaves begin to fall, the tree bursts into delicately-scented
golden flowers, the most visible part of each consisting of four petals which float out
like streamers. At the same time that flowers are scenting the air, the seeds are
discharging. A full year is required to ripen them; and when dry, cold weather comes,
the contraction of their envelopes shoots them with sufficient force to send them
fifteen or twenty feet. They depend on neither wings, birds, nor squirrels to scatter
them. The origin of the name witch hazel is disputed; but the person who examines
the open-topped button which holds the black seeds, and notes the fantastic resem-
blance to a Nveasen face, will feel satisfied that he can guess the origin of the name.
The tree's bark is used for medicine, in extracts and gargles.

BLACK GUM

BLACK GUM

(Nyssa Syl-vatica)

BLACK gum grows from the Kennebec river in Maine to Tampa bay,
Florida; westward to southern Ontario and southern Michigan;
southward through Missouri, as far as the Brazos river in Texas. The
names by which it is known in different regions are black gum,
Bour gum, tupelo, pepperidge, wild pear tree, gum, and yellow gum.

The leaves of black gum are simple and alternate; not serrate.
They are attached by very short petioles, which are fuzzy when young;
they are a rich, brilliant green above and lighter below; rather thick,
with prominent midrib. As early as the latter part of August the leaves
commence to turn a gorgeous red. The flowers are greenish and
inconspicuous, growing in thick clusters, the staminate ones small and
plentiful, the pistillate ones larger. They bloom in April, May or June.
The fruit of black gum is a drupe about one and a half inches long;
inside of it is a rough, oval pit ; the pulp is acrid until mellowed by frost.

The bad name given to black gum by early settlers of this country
has stayed with it, though the faults found with it then, should hold no
longer. The pioneers were nearly all clearers of farms. They went into
the woods with ax, maul, mattock, wedges and gluts, and made fields
and fenced them. The fencing was as important as the clearing, for the
woods were alive with hogs, cattle, and horses, and the crop was safe
nowhere except behind an eight-rail staked and ridered fence. The
farmer mauled the rails from timber which he cut in the clearing,
and there it was that he and black gum got acquainted. The oak,
chestnut, walnut, cherry, yellow poplar, and red cedar were split into
rails and built into fences ; but black gum never made a fence rail. No
combination of maul, wedge, glut, determination, and elbow grease ever
split a black gum log within the borders of the American continent. An
iron wedge, driven to its head in the end of a rail cut, will not open a
crack large enough to insert the point of a pocket knife. In fact, it is
as easy to split the log crosswise as endwise. Consequently, the early
farmers heaped their anathemas and maranathas on black gum and
passed it by.

Nevertheless, the tree had its virtues even in the eyes of the rail-
splitters; for, though it was unwedgeable, it helped along the fence rail
industry in a very substantial way by furnishing the material of which
mauls were made. It drove the wedges and gluts which opened other
timbers. About the only maul that would beat out more rails than one
of black gum was that made of a chestnut oak knot. The oak beetle's

332 American Forest Trees

only advantage over gum was that it was harder and wore longer. So .
involved and interlaced are the fibers of black gum, that they cross one
another not only at right angles, but at every conceivable angle. This
can be seen in examining very thin pieces with a magnifying glass.

The wood is not hard, but is moderately strong, and stiff. It has
been compared with hickory, but it is so inferior in almost every essen-
tial that no comparison is justified.

Black gum weighs 39.61 pounds per cubic foot. It is very porous,
but the pores are too small to be seen by the naked eye, and are diffused
through the wood and form no distinct lines or groups. The summer-
wood is a thin dark line, not prominent enough to clearly delimit the
yearly rings of growth. The medullary rays are numerous, but very thin.
In quarter-sawed wood they produce a luster, but the individual rays
are practically invisible. The wood is not durable in contact with the
soil.

The standing tree is apt to fall a victim to the agencies of decay.
Hollow trunks, mere shells, are not uncommon. The entire heartwood
is liable to fall away. The pioneers cut these hollow trees, and sawing
them in lengths of about two feet, made beehives of them. They called
them gums because they were cut from gum trees. Larger sizes, used
in place of barrels, were also called gums, but these were usually made
from sycamores. The black gum is not usually large. Individuals
have been measured that were five feet in diameter and more than a
hundred in height, but an average of sixty feet high and two in diameter
is probably too much, except in the southern Appalachian mountains
where the species attains its largest size.

It is a tree which will always be easily recognized after it has been
seen and identified once. Its general outline, particularly when leaves
are off, is different from other trees associated with it. It might possibly
be mistaken for persimmon unless looked at closely; but there are
easily-recognized points of difference. Its branches are very small,
slender, and short. Its bark is rougher than that of any other gum, and is
much darker in color. It is the bark's color that gives the tree its name.
The leaves have smooth edges. In the fall they change to gorgeous
red, and one of their peculiarities is that half a leaf may be red while
the other half remains green. Toward the end of the season, the green
disappears. The dark blue drupes ripen in October. They do not seem
to be food for any living creature.

Sawmills include black gum with tupelo in reporting lumber cut,
and generally call both of them gum without distinction. The woods are
quite different, and neither the standing tree nor the lumber of one need
be mistaken for the other. The range of black gum is much more

American Forest Trees 333

.extensive than that of tupelo. Gum lumber cut north of the Ohio
and Potomac rivers may be safely classed as black gum, though a little
of both red and tupelo gum is found north of those streams. In the
South, the species cannot be Separated by regions, for all the gums grow
from Texas to Virginia. The total annual output of black gum is not
known, but some operators estimate it at about 20,000,000 feet a year, or
nearly one-fourth as much as tupelo.

The bulk of black gum lumber is used in the rough, for floors,
sheathing, frames, and scaffolds; but a considerable portion is further
manufactured. The amounts thus used annually have been ascertained
for a few states, and furnish a basis for estimates for the whole country :
Mississippi, 7,000 feet; Maryland, 85,000; Illinois, 120,000; Louisiana,
120,000; Missouri, 190,000; Texas, 360,000; Massachusetts, 475,000;
Alabama, 486,000.

The uses are general, except that the wood is not employed where
attractive figure is required, for black gum is as plain as cottonwood. It
is not displeasing in its plainness, for the surface finishes nicely with a
soft gloss which, except that it lacks figure, suggests the sap of red gum.
It is specially useful in situations where noncleavability is required.
Black gum mallets for stone masons and woodworkers are in the market.
Mine rollers require a much larger amount. The entire 85,000 feet
reported in Maryland was made into such rollers. They furnish the
bearing for the rope that hauls the car up the incline out of the coal pit.
Its toughness qualifies it for wagon hubs, but it is sometimes objected to
because its softness causes the mortises to wear larger where the spokes
are inserted, and the wheel does not stand as well as when the hubs are
of good oak. Early farmers and lumbermen preferred black gum for
ox yokes, and some are still seen where oxen are used; but many other
woods are as strong and equally as serviceable for yokes. Rollers of this
wood for glass factories are common. It is made into hatters' blocks
where a wood is wanted which, when thoroughly seasoned, will hold its
shape. It is less popular for this purpose than yellow poplar. One of
the best places for black gum is in the manufacture of bored water pipe.
The wood's interlaced fiber prevents splitting under the internal stress
due to hydrostatic pressure. The shell of such pipes can be thinner
than with most woods. A drawback is found in the non-durable qual-
ities of black gum. However, the internal pressure of water keeps the
wood thoroughly saturated, and prolongs its life when used as pipes.

The makers of firearms employ black gum as gunstocks and pistol
grips. The wood is stained to make it darker. It is cut by the rotary
process into cheap veneer and is made into baskets and berry crates.
Less trouble with the veneer, on account of breaking, is experienced

334

American Forest Trees

than might be expected of a wood so cross-grained. It is sawed into
thin lumber for boxes for shipping coffee and other groceries. It is a
substitute for cottonwood and yellow poplar in the manufacture of
certain lines of woodenware, notably, ironing.boards, rolling pins, potato
mashers, and chopping bowls. It is made into interior finish for houses;
and furniture manufacturers find many places where it is a serviceable
material. Musical instrument makers employ it, particularly as trusses
for pianos, and in frames of pipe organs. In Louisiana it is converted
into excelsior, and in Mississippi into broom handles, and parts of
agricultural implements, particularly hoppers and seedboxes.

All gums are hard to season, and this one is no exception. It
checks badly, but the checks are usually very small.

TUPELO

TUPELO

(Nyssa Aquatica)

TUPELO is said to be an Indian name. White men have applied it
to three species of gum, all of the same genus, namely, black gum
(Nyssa sylvatica) , sour tupelo (Nyssa ogcchc), and tupelo (Nyssa aquatica).
Probably, the name tupelo applies as well to one as to the other, for it is
said to refer to the drupe-like fruit ; but custom confines the name to the
species now under consideration. It is largest of the three species, most
abundant, and most important. Sour gum is heard in Arkansas and Mis-
souri, swamp tupelo in South Carolina and Louisiana, cotton gum in the
two Carolinas and Florida, wild olive tree in Louisiana, and olive tree in
Mississippi.

The range of tupelo extends from Virginia along the coast to
Florida, northward in the Mississippi valley to southern Illinois, and
westward to Arkansas and Texas. It prefers swamps and attains largest
size in low ground which is subject to frequent overflow. The tree will
stand in several feet of water the greater part of the year without
injury. It is closely associated with cypress, the planer tree, and other
species which grow in deep swamps.

Tupelo has not figured much in tree literature outside the books
of botanists. Travelers and local writers have paid it little attention.
It has not been remarkable for anything in the past, and has escaped
observation to a large extent because it grows in swamps and along
bayous, remote from the usual routes of travel. Its flowers attracted no
attention, its fruit was worthless, and the early settlers did not put them-
selves to trouble to procure the wood for any purpose. That was the
situation from the early settlement of the country where this species is
found up to a very recent period when economic conditions began to
bring tupelo into notice.

It first attracted attention in the markets as a substitute for yellow
poplar. That was brought about by an attempt to pass it as poplar.
The growing scarcity of that wood in the region about Chesapeake bay
led to the trial of tupelo. It was sold as bay poplar, and the purchaser
was left to infer that it was poplar cut in the region tributary to Chesa-
peake bay. Probably few buyers were deceived, but they found the
wood a fair substitute for the yellow poplar which they had been pur-
chasing in the Baltimore and Norfolk markets. It is known as bay
poplar yet in many localities. It goes to England as such. One of its
most important uses in that country is as casing for electric wire fittings.
It has, however, many other important uses in England and on the

338 American Forest Trees

continent. It is claimed that it may be stained to imitate Circassian
walnut in the manufacture of furniture. This is possible, but most
probably tupelo has been confused with red gum which is a well-known
substitute for Circassian walnut.

Tupelo trees attain a height from seventy to a hundred feet, and a
diameter of two to four feet above the swelled base. The general appear-
ance of the bark suggests both yellow poplar and red gum. Trees
have a habit of forking near the tops. The leaves are five or seven
inches long, sometimes with smooth margins, and often with a few
sharp points. Flowers appear in March and April, and fruit ripens
early in Autumn. It is a dark purple, tough-skinned drupe, about
an inch long.

The wood weighs 32.37 pounds per cubic foot. It is soft, and has
about three-fourths the strength and little more than half the stiffness of
white oak. It is not well suited to places where strength and rigidity are
required. The fibers are interwoven, making the wood difficult to split.
The heart is brown, often nearly white; the sapwood is very thick; and
the annual rings are not clearly defined, because of the similarity be-
tween the springwood and summerwood. The pores are small but
numerous, and are scattered evenly through the whole annual ring.
The wood of roots differs from that of the trunk more than is usual with
hardwoods. It is very light, and has been long employed in the South
as a substitute for cork as floats for fish nets.

Tupelo is often logged with cypress. The two trees grow in close
association in deep swamps. The butt cuts of tupelo are so heavy that
they float deep, or even go to the bottom. It was formerly customary,
and still is to some extent, to girdle trees whose trunks were to be
floated to the mills. In the course of one season the standing trees dry
sufficiently for the logs to float. At other times, trees are cut green, the
logs are skidded and allowed to dry some months before they are rafted
or floated to the mills. The sapwood is liable to decay, even in the brief
period while the logs are on the skids. The wood may be protected
against decay to some extent by smearing the ends of the logs with tar
or some other substance which prevents the spores of decay-producing
fungus from entering.

The seasoning of tupelo was formerly a problem exceedingly
vexatious to the lumberman. The wood is full of water, and warping
was one of the troubles which was constantly encountered. Finally ex-
perience gained the mastery, and seasoning troubles are fewer now.
Shrinkage of four or five per cent is not unusual in passing lumber from
the green to dry state.

Tupelo is like hickory in one respect — factories use more wood

American Forest Trees 339

than the sawmills cut. The shops and manufacturing plants of ten
states use as much tupelo as is cut by all the sawmills in the United
States. These states are Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Mary-
land, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas.
The reason for factory use exceeding the sawmill cut is that much reaches
factories, in the form of veneer, which does not pass through a sawmill.
The lumber output of most of the timber trees of this country is from
one-third to one-half greater than the factory use. The difference
represents the rough lumber used, and which never goes to a factory.

Tupelo lately entered the general market, but the yearly demand
now exceeds 100,000,000 feet. Its uses range from boxes and cheap
handles to interior finish and material for musical instruments. It is
particularly liked for containers for berries and small fruits, on their way
to market. Its whiteness and clean appearance fit it for that use.

Higher grades of shipping boxes are also made. Wholesale grocers
order largely of this wood for spice, coffee, and tea boxes. These
commodities are exacting in their requirements because their odor,
which is often regarded as the criterion of their value, must not be
impaired. A wood with an odor of its own is immediately ruled out.
Cigar box makers use tupelo, sometimes as thin lumber for the whole
box, but usually as backing over which to lay a thin veneer of
Spanish cedar. Plug tobacco boxes are also made of tupelo.

In Illinois and Michigan tupelo is listed among woods manufac-
tured into pianos, organs, mandolins, and guitars. In Maryland they
make scows and barges of it. In Arkansas and Louisiana it is worked
into excelsior and slack cooperage stock. It is a favorite wood in Miss-
issippi for pumplogs and broom handles. Its leading reported use in
Texas is for porch columns. In Missouri it is manufactured into laundry
appliances, such as washboards, clothes racks, and ironing boards. In
nearly all manufacturing centers of the country it is made into furniture
and interior finish. It is frequently substituted for yellow poplar in
panels, not only in furniture and cabinet work, but in carriage bodies.

The supply of tupelo in southern forests is fairly large, and will
meet demand for some years, but it is a tree of slow growth, and when
present stands are cut, a new supply will probably never come.

Sour Tupelo (Xyssa ogeche) appears to be the only member of the gum group
whose fruit is of any value to man, and it is not very important. The large, dull red
drupes ripen in July and August, and sometimes hang on the trees until late fall,
allowing ample time for gathering them. They are very sour, for which reason the
tree is called sour gum. The fruit is put through a pickling process which renders it
palatable and it is not an infrequent article on southern pantry shelves. The range
of the tree is confined to the region near the coast from the southern border of South
Carolina, through the Ogeechee river valley in Georgia, to northern and western

340

American Forest Trees

Florida. The botanical name refers to the river along whose course the trees are
most abundant. Local names are gopher plum, Ogeechee lime, and wild lime. The
tree is sixty or seventy feet high,one or two in diameter, and is often divided in several
steins. Its wood is lightest of the gums, weighing only 2S.75 pounds per cubic foot.
It is diffuse-porous, and the springwood is scarcely distinguishable from the summer-
wood. The annual rings of growth are indistinct, and the medullary rays are thin
and inconspicuous. The wood is weak, soft, tough, and white, and little difference is
apparent between heart and sapwood. The flowers are rich in honey and are valuable
to bee keepers. It appears that no reports exist of the use of this wood for any
purpose. It is not abundant anywhere.

Water Gum (Nyssa biflora) is a member of the gum group, and is of small
importance. Trees above thirty feet high are unusual, and the trunk is of poor form,
owing to its greatly enlarged base. This gum is found on the margins of small ponds
in the pine barrens from North Carolina to the Gulf coast. The leaves turn purple
and red in the fall, and are then conspicuous objects. The fruit is a blue drupe about
a third of an inch long. The wood is light, tough, and difficult to split.

BLACK WALNUT

BLACK WALNUT

(Juglans Nigra)

THIS tree has few names. It is called walnut, black walnut, and
walnut-tree. The color of the wood and bark is responsible for
the word black in the name, though some people use the adjective to
distinguish the tree from butternut which is often known as white
walnut. The natural range of black walnut covers 600,000 or 700,000
square miles, and it has been extended by planting. Its northern limit
stretches from New York to Minnesota, its southern from Florida to
Texas. It is difficult to say where the species found its highest develop-
ment in the primeval forests, for very large trees were reported in New
York, among the southern Appalachian mountains, in the Ohio valley,
and beyond the Mississippi in Arkansas.Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas.
The wood cut in Ohio and Indiana has been of greater commercial im-
portance than that from any other portion of its range, but that has been
due, in part, to the fact that it came into market before the best of the
forest growth had been destroyed in those states, and instead of burning
it or mauling it into rails, as eastern farmers did in early times, the
farmers of the Ohio valley sold their walnut. Early in the history of
black walnut lumbering, Indiana and Ohio came to the front as the most
important sources of supply, and they still hold that position, not-
withstanding the original forests of those states were supposed to be
nearly exhausted long ago. The states cutting most black walnut in
1910, in the order named, were Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Missouri, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Iowa.
During the period from 1860 to 1880 black walnut was in much
demand for furniture, and the largest yearly cut was 125,000,000 feet.
It was during that period of twenty years that operators pushed into all
of the out-of-the-way places in search of the timber. Logs were hauled
on wagons long distances to bring them out of remote valleys and slopes
where no timber buyer had ever gone before. The walnut buyers made
such a thorough canvas of the country that it was generally supposed
no merchantable tree from Kansas to Virginia would escape. Many a
dooryard giant whose wide branches had shaded the family roof for
generations, fell before the ax of the contractor who was willing to pay
fifty dollars for a single trunk, though it might be twenty miles from the
nearest railroad or navigable stream. In spite of the thoroughness of
the search, many a walnut tree was spared. Logs have been going ti>
market ever since, and still they go. They will continue to go for years,
generations, and centuries; for walnut trees grow with rapidity.

344 American Forest Trees

The trunk's value increases with age. The dark colored heartwood
only is merchantable, and young trees have little heartwood. The
thick, white sap constitutes most of the trunk until long after the tree
has reached small sawlog size. Then the transformation to the dark,
valuable heartwood goes on with fair rapidity, and the outer shell of
sapwood becomes thinner as the heart increases, and in time a trunk is
produced which is fit for good logs. Value comes only with age. The
quarter or half a century which has passed since the country was so
diligently ransacked for merchantable walnut, has been sufficient to
develop many a tree which was then rejected by the purchasers. Many
a tree now a foot in diameter had scarcely sprouted then. In a region of
700,000 square miles, walnut trees do not need to grow very close to-
gether to produce a yearly cut of 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 feet.

Black walnut is valuable for its color, figure, and the fine polish it
takes. It is stronger than white oak, weight for weight, but it is eight
pounds lighter per cubic foot. The figure of the wood is due wholly
to the annual rings, as its medullary rays are invisible to the naked eye.
The wood is very porous, and the pores are diffused in all parts of the
annual rings, except in the thin, pencil-like mark representing the out-
ward boundary of the summerwood. When sapwood changes to heart-
wood, some of the pores disappear, but those which remain are abun-
dantly sufficient to absorb any stains or fillers which the wood finisher
may wish to apply.

The annual sawmill cut of black walnut in the United States is
from 35,000,000 to 40,000,000 feet, but much goes to foreign countries
in the log, and a considerable quantity goes to veneer mills — about
2,500,000 feet a year — and a quantity finds its way to various factories
where it is worked up without any statistical record being made of it.

Black walnut is never used as rough lumber. It all goes to factor-
ies of some kind to be converted into finished commodities. It is not
possible to say where it all goes, for statistics of manufacture are frag-
mentary in this country. It may be of interest to know that demand for
walnut by factories in the following states was 11,641,137 feet in 1910:
Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas. The wood served so many pur-
poses that a list of them would be monotonous. In Illinois the largest
users are the sewing machine and the musical instrument industries;
in Michigan the makers of automobiles and of musical instruments; in
Kentucky the manufacturers of coffins, furniture, and musical instru-
ments; in Massachusetts, the makers of furniture and of firearms.
These uses probably afford a fairly accurate index for the whole country.
During the Civil war the largest demand for walnut came from gunstock

American Forest Trees 345

makers. Doubtless the largest use from 1S65 to 1885 was for furniture.

Much of the best black walnut is exported. The logs are flattened
on the four sides to make them fit better in ships and cars, and also to be
rid of most of the sapwood which is valueless. The ends are painted
with red lead or some other substance to lessen liability to check.
Sometimes export walnut is sawed in thick planks.

Large quantities of old-time walnut furniture have been resurrected
in recent years from granary and garret where it was stored long ago to
have it out of the way. Some of the old beds, lounges, cupboards, and
chairs were of heavy, solid walnut, the kind not made now. Some of it
has been furbished, re-upholstered, and set among the heirlooms; other
pieces have been sold to furniture makers who saw the solid wood in
veneers, and use it again.

The search for old walnut did not stop with dragging antique furni-
ture from cubbyholes and attics, but two-inch lumber has been pulled
from floors of old barns, and mills. Many old fence rails were made into
gun stocks during the Civil war. Later, walnut stumps were pulled from
field and wayside, and went to veneer mills. Some finely figured wood
comes from stumps where roots and trunk join.

An occasional walnut tree develops a large burl which is valued for
its figured wood. Sometimes the burl is the form of a door knob, with the
tree trunk growing through the center. The burl sometimes has a
diameter three or four times as great as the trunk. The origin of such
burls is supposed to be a mass of buds which fail to break through the
bark.

Black walnut has a compound leaf from one to two feet long, with
from fifteen to twenty-three leaflets, each about three inches long and an
inch or two wide. The nuts ripen in the fall, and are valuable. They
are borne chiefly by trees growing in open ground; forest trees do not
bear until old, and then only a few nuts. The walnuts which germinate
are usually those buried by squirrels, and forgotten.

Within the past twenty or thirty years plantations have been made
in states of the Middle West. Many young planted trees have been cut
for fence posts, with disappointing results. It was known that old
walnut is durable, and it was supposed young trunks would be, when
used for posts; but young trees are nearly all sapwood which rots
quickly.

Forest grown walnut trees vary in size from a diameter of two feet
and a height of fifty, to a diameter of six or more and a height of 100 or
120. Trunks which grow in the shade are tall, clear, and symmetrical;
those in the open are shorter, with more taper.

PalE-LEaf Hickory (Hicoria villosa) is a small tree but large enough to be

346

American Forest Trees

useful wherever it exists in sufficient quantity. The largest specimens attain a height
of fifty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches. The tree bears nuts when very small,
and the kernel is sweet. The bark of this hickory is rough but not shaggy. The
range extends from New Jersey to Florida and west to Missouri and Texas. It is
most abundant in the lower Appalachian ranges. The wood possesses the common
characteristics of the hickories, and it is cut with them wherever it is found, but is
seldom or never reported separately in lumber operations.

Small Pigni'T Hickory (Hicoria odorala) is considered a species by some
botanists while others regard it as a variety. It is called small pignut in Maryland,
and occasionally little shagbark. This last name refers to the roughness of the bark
which resembles the bark of elm. The range of the tree extends from Massachusetts
to Missouri and south to the Ohio and the Potomac rivers. The wood differs little
from that of pignut hickory, and the uses are the same. No distinction is made
between them at the shop and factory. This tree is by some botanists believed to be
a hybrid between shagbark and pignut. It is sometimes called false shagbark. The
nut is edible.

BUTTERNUT

BUTTERNUT

(Juglans Cinerea)

THIS tree is known as butternut or as white walnut in all parts of its
range. Butternut is in reference to the oily kernel of the nuts, and
white walnut is the name given by those who would distinguish the tree
from black walnut. Persons acquainted with one of the species in its
native woods are usually sure to be acquainted with the other, for their
ranges are practically co-extensive, except that black walnut extends
farther southwest, butternut farther northeast. Butternut grows from
New Brunswick to South Dakota, from Delaware to Arkansas, and along
the Appalachian highlands to northern Georgia and Alabama.

Butternut resembles black walnut in a good many ways and differs
from it in several. They are very closely related botanically — as closely
as are brothers in the same household. Black walnut is larger, stronger,
better known, and has always dominated and eclipsed the other in use-
fulness and public esteem; yet butternut is a tree both useful and
interesting. No person acquainted with both would ever mistake one
for the other, winter or summer. Botanists tell how to distinguish
butternut from black walnut by noting minor differences. The person
who is not a botanist needs no such help. He knows them at sight, and
there is no possibility of mistaking them.

Butternut in the forest may attain a height of eighty or 100 feet,
and a diameter of three, but few persons ever see a specimen of that size,
and never in open ground. In shade, the butternut does its best to get
its crown up to light and sunshine, but it is weak. It often gives up the
struggle and remains in the shade of trees which overtop it. In that
situation its crown is small, thin, and appears to rest lightly in the form
of a small bunch of yellowish-green leaves on the top of a tall, spindling
bole, which is seldom straight, but is made up of slight, undulating
curves. The pale, yellowish tinge of the bark suggests a plant deprived
of sunshine.

When butternut grows in open ground where light falls upon its
crown and on all sides, it assumes a different form and presents another
figure. The trunk is nearly as short as that of an apple tree. It divides
in large branches and limbs, and these spread wide; leaves are healthy,
yet the crown of a butternut always looks thin compared with that of the
black walnut. Tests show that butternut wood, when thoroughly dry,
is somewhat stiller than black walnut; but it is light and weak. It is
about two-thirds as heavy and two-thirds as strong as black walnut.
The growing tree betrays the wood's weakness. Large limbs snap in

350 American Forest Trees

storms. Trees become lopsided, and a symmetrical, well-proportioned
butternut crown is an exception. The broken branches leave openings
for the entrance of decay, and butternuts nearly always die of disease
rather than of old age.

Leaves are compound, and from fifteen to thirty inches in length.
Few trees of this country have larger leaves. There are from eleven to
seventeen leaflets. They are hairy and sticky. Hands that handle
them are covered with mucilage-like substance. The nuts, which grow
in clusters of three or five, are of the same color as the leaves and
covered with the same sticky fuzz. The nuts are two inches or more in
length, and are borne abundantly when trees stand in open ground.
Size rather than age appears to determine the period when trees com-
mence to bear. Those of extra vigor produce when ten or twelve years
old. The nuts are salable in the market. They fall with the leaves,
immediately after the first sharp frost, and all come down together. A
single day frequently suffices to strip the last leaf from a tree, though
some of the nuts may hang a little longer. The kernels are very rich,
when the nuts are dry, and are apt to cloy the appetite; but they are
improved by freezing where they lie on the ground among the leaves;
but they must be used quickly after they thaw, or they will spoil. Nuts
nearly full-grown but not yet hard are made into pickles, but the fuzz
must first be washed off with hot water.

Butternut bark has played a rather important role in the country's
affairs. Doctors in the Revolutionary war made much of their medicine
of the roots and bark of this tree. Drugs were unattainable, and phy-
sicians were forced to betake themselves to the woods for substitutes,
and their pharmacopoeias were enriched by the butternut tree. House-
wives dyed cloth a brown color with this bark long before aniline dyes
found their way into this country. Whole companies of Confederate
soldiers from the mountain regions in the Civil war wore clothes dyed in
decoctions of butternut bark, and popularly known as "butternut
jeans."

The annual output of butternut lumber is placed at a little more
than 1,000,000 feet a year. It is widely used, but in small amounts.
In Maryland it is made into ceiling and flooring; in North Carolina into
cabinet work, fixtures for stores and offices, and into furniture; in Mich-
igan its reported uses are boat finish, interior finish for houses, molding,
and screen frames. In Illinois it is used for all the purposes listed
above and also for church altars and car finish. These uses are doubtless
typical, and hold good in all parts of the country where any use is made
of butternut.

The wood has figure similar to that of black walnut, but the color

American Forest Trees 351

is lighter. It is nearer brown than black. The pores are diffused through
the annual ring, but are more numerous and of larger size in the inner
than in the outer part. The springwood blends gradually with the wood
of the latter part of the season, without sharp distinction, but the ring
terminates in a black line which is the chief element of contrast in the
wood's figure.

The future value of butternut will be less in the lumber than in the
nuts. The tendency in that direction is now apparent. When land is
cleared, the trees which would formerly have gone to the sawmill, are
now left to bear nuts. The averaged price paid by factories in North
Carolina for butternut is $40 a thousand feet. It is cheaper in the Lake
States.

Mexican Walnut (Juglans rupcslris) will never amount to much as a timber
tree, though it is by no means useless. It is known by several names, among them
being western walnut, dwarf walnut, little walnut, and California walnut. The last
name is applied in Arizona through a misunderstanding of the tree's identity. It is
there confused with the California walnut which is a different species. The Mexican
walnut's range extends from central Texas, through New Mexico to Arizona, and
southward into Mexico. It prefers the limestone banks of streams in Texas where it
is usually shrubby, seldom attaining a height above thirty feet. It reaches its largest
size in canyons among the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona where it reaches a
height of sixty feet. Trunks are sometimes five feet in diameter. The wood weighs
40.85 pounds per cubic foot, is dark in color, but the tone is not as regular as that of
black walnut; neither is it as strong and stiff. It polishes well, and is said to be dur-
able in contact with the soil. It finds its way in small amounts to local mills, shops,
and factories where it is made into various commodities. It is particularly liked for
the lathe, and is suited better for turnery than for any other purpose. It is made
into gavels, cups, spindles, parts of grills; and it is also worked into picture frames,
handles, and small pieces of furniture. It does not appear that lumber sawed from
this walnut ever gets into the general market, but the whole output, which is small, is
consumed locally. Trees do not occur in pure stands and the whole supply consists of
isolated trees or small groups, with few trunks large enough for sawlogs. The nuts
are dwarfs. All are not the same size, but none are as large as a hickory nut. Many
that grow on the diminutive trees along the water courses in western Texas are not as
large, husks and all, as a nutmeg, and the nut itself is about half the size of a nutmeg,
and not dissimilar in appearance. The kernels of such a nut are too small to have any
commercial value, but they are rare morsels for the native Mexicans and Indians who
pick them by pocketfuls. Trees in the stony canyon of Devil's river, in Texas, are
in full bearing when so small that a man can stand on the ground and pick walnuts
from their highest branches. The Mexican walnut is occasionally cultivated in the
eastern part of the United States and in Europe. It is hardy as far north as Massa-
chusetts.

California Walnut (Juglans californica) is a small tree confined to California,
and pretty close to the coast, though it grows in Eldorado county. It is most
abundant within twenty or thirty miles of tidewater. In the southern part of the
state it ascends to an elevation of 4,000 feet. It prefers the banks of streams and the
bottoms of canyons where the soil is moist, but it will grow in dry situations. Trees
occur singly or in small groups. Their average size is fifteen or twenty feet high, and

352

American Forest Trees

eight or ten inches in diameter ; but trees occasionally are sixty feet high and eighteen
inches through. The leaves are small, measuring from six to nine inches in length,
with from nine to seventeen leaflets. Nuts are about half the size of eastern black
walnuts. The kernel is edible. The wood is heavier than black walnut, and some-
what lighter in color. Otherwise the two woods are much alike, except in strength
and stiffness. In these the California wood is inferior. It has not been reported for
any use, but it is suitable for a number of purposes, provided logs of sufficient size
could be had. The trunk, in addition to being small, is usually short. The tree is
intolerant of shade, and is not often found in forests. It grows rapidly and will
attain a diameter of fifteen inches in twenty years or less; but it apparently does not
live long. Its principal usefulness in California is as a shade tree, and as a stock in
nurseries on which to graft English walnut.

SHAGBARK HICKORY

SHAGBARK HICKORY

(Hicoria Ovata)

TWELVE species of hickory grow in the United States, all east of
the Rocky Mountains. None grow anywhere else in the world,
as far as known. They were widely dispersed over the northern hemis-
phere in prehistoric times. The records of geology, written by leaf prints
in the rocks, tell of forests of hickory in Europe, and even in Greenland,
probably a hundred thousand or more years ago, and certainly not in
times that can be called recent. No records there later than the ice
age have been found. This leads to the presumption that the sheet of
ice which pushed down from the North and covered the larger portions
of Europe and North America, overwhelmed the hickory forests, and all
others, as far as the southern limit of the ice's advance.

In Europe the hickory was utterly destroyed, and it never returned
after the close of the reign of ice ; but America was more fortunate. The
ice sheet pushed little farther in its southward course than the Ohio and
Missouri rivers, and forests south of there held their ground, and they
slowly worked their way back north as the ice withdrew. Hickory
recovered part but not all of its lost ground in America, for it is now
found no farther north than southern Canada, which is more than a
thousand miles from its old range in Greenland.

The early settlers in New England and in the South at once came
into contact with hickory. It was one of the first woods named in this
country, and the name is of Indian origin, and is spelled in no fewer than
seventeen ways in early literature relating to the settlements. It is
probable that John Smith, a prominent man in early Virginia and New
England, was the first man who ever wrote the name. He spelled it as
the Indians pronounced it, "powcohiscora," and it has been trimmed
down to our word hickory. The Indian word was the name of a salad or
soup made of pounded hickory nuts and water, and was only indirectly
applied to the tree itself.

The first settlers along the Atlantic coast nearly always called this
tree a walnut, and the name white walnut was common. They were
unacquainted with any similar nut-bearing tree in Europe, except the
walnut, and most people preferred applying a name with which they were
already familiar. Hickories and walnuts belong to the same family, and
have many points in common.

Although there are twelve hickories in the United States, and in
many respects they are similar, all are not of equal value. Some are
very scarce, and the wood of others is not up to standard. From a

356 American Forest Trees

commercial standpoint, four surpass the others. These are shagbark
(Hicoria ovata), shellbark (Hicoria laciniosa), pignut (Hicoria glabra),
and mockernut (Hicoria alba). The wood of some of the others is as
good, but is scarce; and still others, particularly the pecans, are abun-
dant enough, but the wood is inferior. It is impossible in business to
separate the hickories. Lumbermen do not do it , manufacturers cannot
do it. In some regions one is more abundant than the others, and conse-
quently is used in larger quantities, but in some other region a different
species may predominate in the forest and in the factory. It cannot be
truthfully asserted that one hickory is always as good as another, or
even that a certain species in one region is as good as the same species
in another region. All parts of the same tree do not produce wood of
equal value.

Along certain general lines, hickories have many properties in
common. The wood is ring-porous, that is, the inner edge of the yearly
growth ring has a row of large pores. Others are scattered toward the
outer part of the ring, generally decreasing in number and size outward.
There is no distinct division between spring and summerwood. The
medullary rays are thin and obscure. The unaided eye seldom notices
them. The sapwood is white in all species of hickory, and is usually
very thick. The heartwood is reddish. Common opinion has long held
that sapwood is tougher and more elastic than heartwood, and therefore
to be preferred for most purposes. Tests made a few years ago by the
United States Forest Service ran counter to the long-established
opinion of users, by showing that in most respects the redwood of the
heart was as good as the white sapwood. However, where resiliency
is the chief requisite, as in slender handles, many manufacturers still
prefer sapwood.

Hickory is very . strong, probably the strongest wood in common
use in this country. The statement that one wood is stronger than all
others is hardly justified because averages of strength should be taken,
and not isolated instances. Satisfactory averages have not yet been
worked out for a large number of our woods ; but, as far as existing figures
may be accepted, hickory is at the head of the list for strength, toughness,
and resiliency. Choice samples of certain woods may exceed the
average of hickory in some of these particulars. Sugar maple, horn-
beam, and locust occasionally show greater strength than hickory, but
they lack in toughness and resiliency — the very properties which give
hickory its chief value for many purposes.

Considerable misunderstanding exists as to second growth hickory.
Some suppose it consists of trees of commercial size developed from
sprouts where old trees have been cut. That is not generally correct.

American Forest Trees 357

When small hickory trees are cut, the stumps often sprout, but hoop
poles are about the only commodity made from that kind of hickory.
If sprouts are left to grow large, the trees produced are generally de-
fective. Good hickory grows from the nut. The term "second growth"
means little, unless it is explained in each instance just what conditions
are included. In one sense, all young, vigorous trees are second growth,
and that is often the idea in the mind of the speaker. Some would
restrict it to trees which have come up in old fields or partial clearings,
where they have plenty of light, and have grown rapidly. Their trunks
are short, the wood is tough, and there is little red heartwood. The
larger a pine, oak, or poplar, provided it is sound, the better the wood;
but not so with hickory. Great age and large size add no desirable
qualities to this wood.

Shagbark is largest of the true hickories. The pecans are not
usually regarded as true hickories from the wood-user's viewpoint.
Some shagbarks are 120 feet high and four feet in diameter, but the
average size is about seventy-five tall, two in diameter. There is con-
fusion of names among all the hickories, and shagbark is misnamed and
over-named as often as any of the others. Many persons do not know
shagbark and shellbark apart, though the ranges of the two species lie
only partly in the same territory. Shagbark is known as shellbark
hickory, shagbark hickory, shellbark, upland hickory, hickory, scaly
bark hickory, white walnut, walnut, white hickory, and red heart
hickory. Most of the names refer to the bark, which separates into thin
strips, often a foot or more long, and six inches or more wide; and this
remains more or less closely attached to the trunk by the middle, giving
the shaggy appearance to which the tree owes its common name.

The leaf-buds are large and ovate, with yellowish-green and brown
scales. The leaves are compound and alternate ; they have rough stalks
containing five or seven leaflets; they are sessile, tapering to a point and
having a rounded base. The lower pair of leaflets is markedly different
from the rest in shape ; sharply serrate and thin ; dark green and glabrous
above; lighter below. The flowers do not appear until the leaves have
fully matured. They grow in catkins; the stamina te ones are light
green, slender, and grow in groups of three on long peduncles; the
pistillate ones grow in spikes of from two to five flowers. The fruit
grows within a dense, green husk, shiny and smooth on the outside,
opening in four parts. The nut is nearly white, four-angled, and flat-
tened at the sides. The kernel is sweet and of a strong flavor.

This tree's range is not much short of 1,000,000 square miles, but it
is not equally abundant in all parts. It grows from southern Maine to
western Florida; is found in Minnesota and Nebraska, and southward

358

American Forest Trees

beyond the Mississippi. It is most common and of largest size on the
western slopes of the southern Appalachian mountains and in the basin
of the lower Ohio river. Its favorite habitat is on low hills, or near
streams and swamps, in rich and moderately well drained soil.

The hickories have long tap roots, and they do best in soils which
the tap roots can penetrate, going down like a radish. The root system
makes most hickories difficult trees to transplant. Early in life they do
a large part of their growing under ground, and when that growth is
interrupted, as it must be in transplanting, the young tree seldom re-
covers. Those who would grow hickories for timber, nuts, or as orna-
ments, should plant the seed where the tree is expected to remain. Most
of the planting of hickory in the forest is done by squirrels which bury
nuts, with the apparent expectation of digging them up later. Occasion-
ally one is missed, and a young tree starts.

The uses of this wood are typical of all the other hickories. Han-
dles and light vehicles consume most of it. The markets are in all parts
of this country, and in manufacturing centers in many foreign lands.

BITTERXUT HICKORY

BITTERNUT HICKORY

(Hicoria Minima)

THE tannin in the thin shelled nuts which grow abundantly on this
tree gives the name bitternut. The name is truly descriptive.
Gall itself scarcely exceeds the intense bitterness of the kernel, when
crushed between the teeth. The sense of taste does not immediately
detect the bitterness in its full intensity. A little time seems to be
necessary to dissolve the astringent principal and distribute it to the
nerves of taste. When this has been accomplished, the bitterness
remains a long time, seeming to persist after the last vestige of the cause
has been removed. In that respect it may be likened to the resin of the
incense cedar of California which is among tastes what musk is among
odors, nearly everlasting. The bitterness of this hickory nut has much
to do with the perpetuation of the species. No wild or tame animal will
eat the fruit unless forced by famine. Consequently, the nuts are left
to grow, provided they can get themselves planted. That is not always
easy, for small quadrupeds which bury edible nuts for food, and then
occasionally forget them, show no interest whatever in the unpalatable
bitternut. It is left where it falls, unless running water, or some other
method of locomotion, transports it to another locality. This happens
with sufficient frequency to plant the nuts as widely as those of any other
hickory. It is believed that this is the most abundant of the hickories.

The tree bears names other than bitternut. It is called swamp
hickory, though that name is more applicable to a different species, the
water hickory. Pig hickory or pignut are names used in several states,
but without good reason. Hogs may sometimes eat the nuts, but never
when anything better can be found. Besides, pignut is the accepted
name of another species (Hicoria glabra). In Louisiana they call it the
bitter pecan tree. Bitter hickory is a common name in many localities.
In New Hampshire it is known as pig walnut, in Vermont as bitter
walnut, and in Texas as white hickory. The names are so many, and so
often apply as well to other hickories as to this, that the name alone is
seldom a safe guide to identification. It has two or three characters
which will help to pick it out from among others. Its leaves and bark
bear considerable resemblance to ash. The leaves are the smallest
among the hickories, and the bark is never shaggy. The small branches
always carry yellow buds, no matter what the season of the year. The
compound leaves are from six to ten inches long, and consist of from five
to nine leaflets, always an odd number.

Bitternut hickory's range covers pretty generally the eastern part

361

362 American Forest Trees

of the United States. It is one of the largest and commonest hickories of
New England, and is likewise the common hickory of Kansas, Nebraska,
and Iowa. It grows from Maine through southern Canada to Minnesota,
follows down the western side of the Mississippi valley to Texas, and
extends into western Florida.

Hickory is often lumbered in ways not common with other hard-
woods. It is not generally found in ordinary lumber yards, and is not
cut into lumber as most other woods are. It is in a class by itself. The
person who would consult statistics of lumber cut in the United States to
ascertain the quantity of hickory going to market, would utterly fail to
obtain the desired information. The statistics of lumber cut in the
United States for the year 1910 listed the total for hickory at 272,252,000
feet, distributed among 33 states, and cut by 6,349 mills. Reports by
users of this wood in a number of states show that probably twice as
much goes to factories to be manufactured into finished commodities,
as all the sawmills cut. This means that much hickory goes to factories
without having passed through sawmills to be first converted into lumber.
It goes as bolts and billets, and as logs of various lengths. Some saw-
mills in the hickory region cut dimension stock and sell it to factories to
be further worked up; but that is a comparatively small part of the
hickory that finds its way to factories of various kinds. Many sawmills
refuse to cut hickory, claiming that it does not pay them to specialize on
a scarce wood. Scattered trees occur among other timber, but these are
left when the other logging is done. Special operators go after the hick-
ory, and distribute it among various industries which are in the market
for it. That method often results in much waste, because the man who
is specializing in one commodity, such as wagon poles, ax handles,
sucker-rods, wheel stock, or the like, is apt to cut out only what meets his
requirements, and abandon the rest. Some of the hickory camps where
such stock is roughed out are spectacles of carelessness and waste, with
heaps of rejected hickory which, though not meeting requirements for
the special articles in view, are valuable for many other things. Few
woods contribute to the trash heap more in proportion to the total cut
than hickory ; but the waste nearly all occurs before the factories which
finally work up the products are reached. These factories are often
hundreds of miles from the forests where the hickory grows.

Hickory was not a useful farm timber in early times, as oak and
chestnut were. It decayed quickly when exposed to weather, and was
not suitable for fence rails, posts, house logs, or general lumber. It was
sometimes used for barn floors, but when seasoned it was so hard to nail
that it was not well liked. The pioneers were not able to use this wood
to advantage, because it is a manufacturer's material, not a farmer's or

American Forest Trees 363

a villager's standby. It can be said to the credit of the pioneers, how-
ever, that they knew its value for certain purposes, and employed as
much of it as they needed.

Fuel was the most important place for hickory on the farm. All
things considered, it is probably the best firewood of the American
forest. The yawning fireplaces called for cords of wood every month of
winter in the northern states. Enough to make a modern buggy would
go up the chimney in a rich red blaze in an hour, and no one thought
that it was waste; and it was not waste then, because farms had to be
cleared, and firewood was the best use possible for the hickory at that
time. Every cord burned in the chimney was that much less to be
rolled into logheaps and consumed in the clearing for the new cornfield.

Hickory has always been considered the best material for smoking
meat. More than 30,000 cords a year are now used that way. It was so
used in early times, when every fanner smoked and packed his own meat.
Hickory smoke was supposed to give bacon a flavor equalled by no other
wood; and in addition to that it was believed to keep the skippers out.

The nuts were made into oil which was thought to be efficacious as a
liniment employed as a remedy against rheumatism to which pioneers
were susceptible because their moccasins were porous and their feet
were often wet. The oil was used also for illuminating purposes. It
fed the flame of a crude lamp.

No other wood equalled hickory for "split brooms," the kind that
swept the cabins before broom corn was known or carpet sweepers and
vacuum cleaners were invented. The toughness, smoothness, and
strength of hickory made it the best oxbow wood, and the same property
fitted it for barrel hoops. Thousands of fish casks in New England and
tobacco hogshead in Maryland and Virginia were hooped with hickory
before George Washington was born. The wood's value for ax handles
was learned early. The Indians used it for the long, slender handles of
their stone hammers with which they barked trees in their clearings, and
broke the skulls of enemies in war.

Bitternut hickory has about ninety-two per cent of the strength
of shagbark, and seventv-three per cent of its stiffness. It yields con-
siderably more ash when burned, and is rated a little lower in fuel value.

Mocker Nut Hickory {Hicoria alba) has man}' names. It is called mocker
nut in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas; white heart
hickory, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, Texas,
Illinois, Ontario, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Nebraska; black hickory, Texas,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri; big bud and red hickory, Florida; hardback hickory,
Illinois; white hickory, Pennsylvania, South Carolina; big hickory nut, West Virginia;
hognut, Delaware. The name mocker nut is supposed to refer to the thick shell and

364 American Forest Trees

disappointingly small kernel within. The range is not as extensive as some of the
other hickories. Beginning in southern Ontario, it extends westward and southward
to eastern Kansas and the eastern half of Texas. The region of its most abundant
growth is in the basin of the lower Ohio and in Arkansas, the best specimens appear-
ing in fertile uplands. This is said to be the only hickory that invades the southern
maritime pinebelt, growing on the low country along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in
abundance. The leaves are fragrant with a powerful, resinous odor; they have five
or seven leaflets with hairy petioles or stems. The bark resembles that of bitternut,
and is not scaly like that of shagbark. The wood weighs 51.21 pounds per cubic
foot. It is hard, strong, tough, flexible. It has about ninety-four per cent of the
strength of shagbark, and eighty per cent of its stiffness. Certain selected specimens
of this species are probably as strong as any hickory; but, as is the case with all
woods, there is great difference between specimens, and general averages only are
to be relied upon. G. W. Letterman, who collected woods for Sargents' tests, pro-
cured a sample of this hickory near Allenton, Missouri, which showed strength suffi-
cient to sustain 20,000 pounds per square inch, and its measure of stiffness was the
enormous figure of 2.20S.0O0 pounds per square inch.

The uses of mocker nut hickory do not differ from those of other hickories.
The tree is ferquently nearly all sapwood, to which the name white hickory is due.
Some persons suppose that the heartwood is white, but that misconception is due to
the fact that some pretty large trees have no heartwood, but are sap clear through.

The term "black hickory" is sometimes applied to three species with dark-
colored bark which bears some resemblance to the bark of ash. They are bitternut
( Hicoria minima), pignut (Hicoria glabra), and mocker nut (Hicoria alba). When the
word black is thus used, it refers to the bark and the general outward appearance of
the tree, and not to the wood, which is as white as that of any other hickory.

PIGNUT HICKORY

PIGNUT HICKORY

(Hicoria Glabra)

THE name of this tree is unfortunate, although so far as the nuts are
concerned, no injustice is done. It is one of the best hickories in
the quality of its wood, and also as an ornamental tree. It is likewise
abundant in many parts of its range, which extends from Maine to
Kansas, Texas, Florida, and throughout most of the territory enclosed
by the boundary lines thus delimited.

The name pignut is common in New England, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas,
Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska,
and Minnesota; bitternut in Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin;
black hickory in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa,
and Indiana; broom hickory in Missouri; brown hickory in Miss-
issippi, Delaware, Texas, Tennessee, Minnesota; hardshell in West
Virginia; red hickory in Delaware; switch bud hickory in Alabama;
and white hickory in New Hampshire and Iowa.

The nuts are generally bitter, but some trees bear fruit which is
not very offensive to the taste. The avidity with which swine feed upon
it gives the common name. This tree is doubtless confused many times
with bitternut, though their differences are enough to distinguish them
readily if they grow side by side. As far as the woods of the two species
are concerned, there is little occasion to keep them separate. The
pignut is a forked tree more frequently than any other species of hickory;
and the nuts vary in shape and size more than those of any other. The
tree is more remarkable for its variations than for its regularity. In one
thing, however, it is pretty constant : the limbs and branches are smooth
and clean, hence the botanical name glabra. As a name for this tree,
smooth hickory would be preferable to pignut. Trunks attain a height
of eighty or ninety feet and a diameter of three or four, but the extreme
sizes are rare. The largest specimens are found in the lower Ohio valley,
and the species is most common in Missouri and Arkansas. It grows
farther south and farther west than any other hickory except pecan. Its
southern limit is in Florida and its western in Texas.

The uses of hickory fall into general classes. More is manufactured
into vehicles than into any other single class of commodities, but not
more than into all other articles combined. The second largest users of
hickory are the manufacturers of handles. The third largest demand
comes from makers of agricultural implements and farm tools. Large

368 American Forest Trees

amounts are required for athletic goods, meat smoking, and various
miscellaneous purposes. The total amount used yearly in this country,
and exported to foreign countries, is not accurately known, but it
probably exceeds 500,000,000 feet, board measure. About half of this
passes through sawmills in the usual manner, and the other half goes
directly from the forest to the factory or to the consumer.

The superiority of American buggies, sulkies, and other light
vehicles is due to the hickory in their construction. No other wood
equals this in combination of desirable physical properties. Though
heavy, it is so strong, tough, and resilient that small amounts suffice, and
the weight of the vehicle can be reduced to a lower point, without
sacrificing efficiency, than when any other wood is employed. It is
preeminently a wood for light vehicles. Oak, ash, maple, and elm
answer well enough for heavy wagons where strength is more essential
than toughness and elasticity. Hickory is suitable for practically all
wooden parts of light vehicles except the body. The slender spokes
look like frail dowels, and seem unable to maintain the load, but appear-
ances are deceptive. The bent rims are likewise very slender, but they
last better than steel. The shafts and poles with which carriages and
carts are equipped will stand severe strains and twists without starting
a splinter. The manufacturing of the stock is little less than a fine art.
In scarcely any other wood-using industry — probably excepting the
making of handles — is the grain so closely watched. Hickory users
generally speak of the annual growth rings as the grain. The grain
must run straight in spokes, rims, shafts, and poles. If the grain crosses
the stick, a break may occur by the simple process of splitting, and the
hickory in that case is no more dependable than many other woods.

Handle makers observe the same rule, and must have straight
grain. The more slender the handle, the more strictly the rule must be
followed. A cross grained golf club handle would fail at the first stroke.
An ax handle, if it has cross grain, will last a little longer, but it will
speedily split. Many of the best slender handles are of split hickory.
The line of cleavage follows the grain, but a saw does not always do so.
Heavy handles, like those for picks and sledges, are not so strictly
straight grained, because they are made strong enough to stand much
more strain than is ever likely to be put on them. Red heartwood is
frequently used in handles of that kind. Peavey and canthook handles
are generally split from billets, because the grain must be straight.
Though they are among the largest and heaviest of handles, breakage
must be guarded against with extra care, for the snap of a peavey handle
at a critical moment might cost the operator his life by precipitating
a skidway of logs upon him.

American Forest Trees 369

The hickory which goes into agricultural implements fills many
places, among the most important being connecting rods. It is often
made into springs to take up or check oscillation. It is used for that
purpose as picker sticks in textile mills.

Furniture makers could get along without hickory, and they do not
need much. It is oftenest seen in dowels, slender spindles, and the
rungs of chairs. The makers of sporting and athletic goods bend it for
rackets, hoops, and rims, or make vaulting poles, bats, or trapezes.

Shellbark Hickory (Hicoria laciniosa) is often mistaken for
shagbark. The ranges of the two species coincide in part only. Shag-
bark grows farther east, north and south than shellbark. The latter
occupies an island, as it were, inside the shagbark's range. Shellbark is
found from central New York and eastern Pennsylvania, westward to
Kansas, and southward to North Carolina and middle Tennessee. The
species is at its best in the lower Ohio valley and in Missouri. The
largest trees are 120 feet high and three in diameter, and are often free
from branches half or two-thirds of the length. The species prefers rich,
deep bottom lands, and does not suffer from occasional inundation
from overflowing rivers. The average tree is not quite as large as shag-
bark. The leaves are larger than those of any other hickory, ranging in
length from fifteen to twenty-two inches. There are from five to nine
leaflets, usually seven. The upper ones are largest, and may be eight
or nine inches long and four or five wide. In the autumn the leaflets
drop from the petioles which adhere to the branches and furnish means
of identifying the tree in winter. The nuts including the hulls are as
large as small apples. When ripe, the hulls open and the nuts fall out;
but the hulls fall also. The nuts are as large as shagbark nuts, but the
two are seldom distinguished in market, though the shagbark's are a
little richer in flavor. The bark's roughness gives the tree its name.
Strips three or four feet long and five or six inches wide curl up at the
lower ends — sometimes at both ends — and adhere to the trunk several
years. The species has other names. It is known as big shellbark
in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri,
Illinois, and Kansas ; bottom shellbark in Illinois ; western shellbark or
simply shellbark in Rhode Island and Kentucky; thick shellbark in
South Carolina, Indiana, and Tennessee; kingnut in Tennessee.

The wood weighs 50.53 pounds per cubic foot, and is very hard,
strong, tough, and flexible. The heartwood is dark brown, the sapwood
nearly white. This hickory usually has less sapwood in proportion to
heart than other members of the species; but the wood is not kept
separate from the others when it goes to market, and its uses arc as
extensive as the other hickories'. It is believed by some foresters that

370

American Forest Trees

shellbark hickory is worth cultivating for its nuts, as it is a vigorous
bearer; but little planting has been done. East of the Alleghanies,
particularly in Virginia, some planting has been carried out on old
plantations for ornamental purposes. On account of its long taproot,
the tree is difficult to transplant, and the nuts should be planted where
the trees are expected to remain.

PECAN

PECAN

(Hicoria Pecan)

THE name is pecan in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana,
Iowa, and Kansas; pecan nut and pecan tree in Louisiana. The name
is of Indian origin, and means walnut. The tree's natural range is
smaller than the present area in which the tree is found, for it has been
extensively planted in recent years. It is found as far north as Iowa,
south to Texas, and east to Alabama and Kentucky. The highest
development of the wild tree is in the lower Ohio valley. Forest trees
were once found there which were said to be six feet in diameter and 170
high. Specimens that large would be hard to find now.

The pecan is a hickory. As to wood, it is the poorest of the hickor-
ies, and as to nuts it is the best. Its compound leaves are from twelve
to twenty inches long with from nine to seventeen leaflets. The latter
are from four to eight inches in length, and from one to three wide. The
first pairs on the petiole are smallest. The fruit grows in clusters of
from three to eleven, the number exceeding any other hickory. The nuts
are four-angled, and long for their width.

The wood of pecan has disappointed those who have attempted
to use it like other hickories. It does not differ much from them in
appearance, but it falls low in mechanical tests. In strength, toughness,
and stiffness it is inferior to the poorest of the other hickories. It has
less than half the strength and half the stiffness of shagbark hickory.
It is a fairly good fuel, but is high in ash.

The inferior quality of the wood has saved many a pecan tree from
the sawmill and the wagon shop. Fine trunks stand near public high-
ways, along river banks, and in fields, while all merchantable hickories
of other species have been sent to market. The uses of the wood are
few. If some of it goes to wagon shops or to factories where agricultural
vehicles are made, it is employed for parts which are not required to
endure strain or sustain sudden jars.

Fortunately it is a tree with a value of another kind. It is the
most important nut tree of the United States at this time, and it promises
to remain so. The forest-grown pecans were an article of food for
Indians who once lived in the region, and though white settlers who
succeeded the Indians as occupants of the land, depended less upon forest
fruits than the red men had done, yet the pecan was often of supreme
importance in the early years of settlement. The nuts have constituted
an article of commerce ever since the region had markets.

374 American Forest Trees

Nurserymen were not slow to recognize the value of the pecan tree
for planting purposes, and nursery grown stock has been on the market
many years. Extensive orchards have been planted in Texas, Louisiana,
Florida, and other southern states, and some of the earliest of these
orchards are now in bearing. However, by far the largest part of pecans
on the market is wild fruit from the forests. Many are shipped in from
Mexico, but most grow in the rich woods of southern states. They are
gathered like chestnuts in northern woods. The people who pick them
sell to local stores at low prices, often taking pay in merchandise.
Buyers collect the stock from country and village merchants, and put it
on the general market, often at three or four times the price paid to the
gatherers of the nuts.

One of the most important matters connected with pecan is the
large number of horticultural varieties which have been produced by
cultivation and selection. More than seventy have been listed in nur-
sery catalogues and special reports. Some of the nuts are twice the size
of those of the forest, and shells have been reduced in thinness until
some of them are really thinner than they should be to stand the rough
usage which comes to them in reaching markets.

Dealers occasionally polish pecans to impart the rich, brown
color which is supposed to give them the appearance of being fresh and of
high grade. The polishing is produced by friction, when the nuts in
bulk are shaken violently. Last year's stock takes on as bright a polish
as fresh stock, and the color and smoothness alone are not sufficient to
prove that pecans are fresh from the trees.

The planted pecan tree grows rapidly and is as easily raised as fruit
trees. The wild tree is long-lived, and the cultivated varieties will
probably be like it.

Nutmeg Hickory (Hicoria myrisiicceformis) is so named because the nut has
the size and the wrinkled surface of a nutmeg, though the shape is different. The
husk enclosing the nut is almost as thin as paper. The only other name by which it is
known is bitter waternut, in Louisiana. The name scarcely applies, for the kernel is
said not to be bitter. The range of nutmeg hickory extends from the coast of South
Carolina to Arkansas. It is rather abundant in Arkansas, but scarce in most other
parts of its range. The tree has several interesting features. It was partly discover-
ed a long time before the discovery was complete. In 1S02 Andre F. Michaux saw
the nut and to that extent the species was discovered, but many years passed before
a full description was given to the world by a competent botanist. The wood rates
among the strongest and stiffest of all the hickories, according to present information;
but the calculations were based on too few tests to be considered final. Two samples
of wood procured near Bonneau's depot, South Carolina, by W. H. Revenel, showed
the remarkable breaking strength of 19,822 pounds per square inch, and the measure
of stiffness exceeded 2,000,000 pounds to the square inch. That strength is sixteen
per cent above shagbark. The weight of nutmeg hickory is 46.96 pounds to the
cubic foot. The wood is hard, tough, and compact. The structure, including pores,

American Forest Trees 375

medullary rays, annual rings, springwood and summenvood, is similar to the wood of
other hickories. Trees grow best in sandy soil but near swamps and rivers where
there is plenty of water. The largest trunks are eighty or one hundred feet in height
and two in diameter. When use is made of this hickory it serves the same purposes
as the wood of other trees of the group. It is never reported separately in statistics
of wood utilization. It is too scarce to be important as a timber tree. It apparently
has a future as an ornament, though it has not yet been widely planted. It has
proved a success in the Carolinas and it thrives in the climate of Washington, D. C.
The luster of its foliage makes it the most beautiful of the hickories. In common with
other members of the genus, its long taproot renders the transplanting of nursery
stock difficult.

Water Hickory (Hicoria aquatica) is known as swamp hickory in South
Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana ; bitter pecan in Mississippi and Louisiana,
and water bitternut in Tennessee and South Carolina. The northern limit of this
species is in Virginia near Mobjack bay, the southern limit in the Caloosa valley,
Florida, west to the Brazos river, Texas, and north to southern Illinois. The wood is
hard, heavy, strong, but rather brittle; the sapwood is thick and often is nearly white,
while the heartwood is dark brown. It is the most porous of the hickories, and the
pores are distributed generally through the annual rings of growth. In other hickor-
ies they are largely restricted to the inner part of each ring, though a few are dispersed
through all parts. In swamp hickory there is little difference in appearance between
the wood grown early in the season and that produced later. The tree is a rapid
grower. It is an inhabitant of deep swamps, and if the land is inundated a consider-
able part of the year, the tree seems to grow all the better. At its best it may attain
a height of 100 feet, and a diameter of two, but that size is unusual. The nut is
small and wrinkled, and when broken open, pockets of red bitter powder are frequent-
ly found inside the shell. Usually the nuts are too bitter to be eaten, but it is said
that near the western limit of the tree's range, nuts are sometimes edible.

The only reported uses for the wood are fuel and fencing. It is poor fence
material, because, like other hickories, it decays in a short time when exposed to
weather. The wood of this genus is rich in foods on which decay-producing fungi
feed. Fungus is a low order of plant life which sends its hair-like threads into the
wood cells and consumes the material found there; but numerous insects bore into
wood to procure food. Few woods suffer from such attacks more than hickory.
Even after it is seasoned and manufactured into commodities, it is frequently attack-
ed by various species of powder post beetles, and much injury results. Water hickory
while yet standing is often greatly damaged by the larva of certain moths which find
their way into the soft wood just under the bark and tunnel minute galleries which
subsequently fill with brown substance. According to R. B. Hough, these brown
streaks in water hickory are hard enough to turn the edge of steel tools. They not
only damage the structure of the wood but spoil its appearance.

Bitter Pecan" (Hicoria lexana) is a Texas species which has not been reported
elsewhere. The average size of the tree is from fifteen to twenty-five feet in height
and eight to ten inches in diameter; but in rich bottom land, particularly along the
Brazos river, specimens sometimes attain a diameter of three feet and a height of 100.
The leaves are from ten to twelve inches in length, with from seven to eleven leaflets.
The nuts are very bitter, but are of approximately the same size and shape as edible
pecans. The shells are thin and very brittle. The tree's range extends inland 100
or 150 miles from the Texas coast.

376

American Forest Trees

Xorth Carolina Shagbark Hickory (Hicoria caroliruB-seplenlrionalis) is
found in the neighboring parts of the four states: North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee;
and Alabama. In the best land this tree is occasionally eighty feet high and two or
three in diameter, but when it occurs on dry hillsides its average height is twenty or
thirty feet, and its diameter about a foot. The compound leaves are from four to
eight inches long, with usually three, but occasionally five leaflets. The sweet nuts
are small and brown. The bark separates into thick strips a foot or more in length
and three or four inches wide. The rough trunk resembles the northern shagbark
hickory. The wood is very tough, strong, and hard, the heart light reddish-brown,
the thin sapwood nearly white. It is not distinguished from the other hickories in
commerce, and it has the same uses when any use is made of it.

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White Elm

WHITE ELM

(Limits Americana)

SIX species of elm occur in the United States, not counting the planer
tree as an elm, though lumbermen usually consider it as such.* The
white elm is the most common, is distributed most widely, and is com-
mercially the most important. More of it is used as lumber, slack coop-
erage, and other forms of forest products, than all other elms of this
country combined. The statistics of sawmill output collected annually
by the United States census are not compiled in a way to show the elms
separately. All go in as one. The annual lumber cut of elm in the whole
country is about 265,000,000 feet, distributed over thirty-four states,
with Wisconsin leading, followed in the order named by Michigan, Ind-
iana, Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, New York, and Minnesota. In addition
to lumber, elm furnishes about 130,000,000 slack cooperage staves
yearly.

The elms, taken as a class, are much alike. There is more resem-
blance between the species than between species of oaks or pines, yet
some difference exists between elms. This holds not only between
different species, but between individuals of the same species. Climate,
situation, and soil have much to do with the character of the wood of
the same species. So great is the difference at times that fairly good
judges of timber are deceived as to the species. A tree growing on dry,
rocky soil produces wood quite different from one on rich, deep, well-
watered soil. Not only is the wood of one different from that of the
other, but the appearances of the standing trees are not alike. The
differences may not show in leaves, flowers, and fruit as much as in the
shapes and sizes of trees, and the habit of the branches.

White elm is by common consent the type of the genus, the stand-
ard by which the other species are measured. It is proper to compare
certain properties and characters of other elms with white elm, in order
that a general view of all may be had. The dry weights, per cubic foot,
of wood are as follows: White elm 40.54 pounds, slippery elm li. .!.">,
cedar elm 45.15, cork elm 45.26, and wing elm 46.69. Figures which
show the weight of the southern red elm (Ulmus scrotina) are not avail-
able. White elm is thus shown to be lightest of the group.

Its breaking strength averages 12.15S pounds per cubic inch, under

*The elms are white elm (I'lmus amcricana), cork elm (Ulmus racemosa),
slippery elm (Ulmus pubescetis), cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia), wing elm (i'lmus
alata), and red elm (Ulmus serotina). They are all confined to the region east of the
Rocky Mountains.

380 American Forest Trees

the usual tests by which the strength of woods is determined. Reduced
to everyday language that means that 12,158 pounds would just break
a white elm stick, 2| inches square, and resting on supports twelve inches
apart. That is the meaning of "breaking strength," or "modulus of
rupture," as the term is used in engineering text books relating to woods.
The following figures for the breaking strength of other elms make
comparisons with white elm easy: Cedar elm 11,000; wing elm 11,162;
slippery elm 12,342; cork elm (often called rock elm) 15,172. It is
shown that two elms are stronger and two weaker than white elm. This
wood rates very little below white oak in strength.

The different species of elms vary considerably in stiffness, or the
ability to spring back when bent. This factor is expressed by engineers
in high figures, is purely technical, and is based on a wood's ability to
stretch and regain its former position. The only service which the
figures can render to the layman is to furnish a basis for comparing one
wood with another. The stiffer a wood, the greater its resistance to an
effort to stretch it lengthwise. White elm's measure of stiffness
(modulus of elasticity) is 1,070,000 pounds per square inch; wing elm
853,000; cedar elm 981,000; slippery elm 1,318,000; cork elm 1,512,000.
It is shown here, as was shown in the figures representing the strength of
the elms, that two species rate above and two below white elm in
stiffness.

White elm is known by several names. The color of the bark is
responsible for the name gray elm among lumbermen and woodworkers
of the Lake States. American elm is a translation of its botanical name,
and is neither descriptive nor definitive, because there are other elms as
truly American as this one. White elm distinguishes its wood from the
redder wood of slippery elm, but it would often be difficult if not im-
possible to identify the elms, or any one of them, by the color of the
wood alone. Some persons who call this elm white doubtless refer to the
color of the bark, as is the case with those who speak of it as gray elm.
It is known as water elm in several states, but that name is applied
indiscriminately to any elm that frequents river banks, as most of them
do in some part of their range. It is called rock elm when it is found on
stony uplands, and swamp elm on low wet ground. In some parts of the
Appalachian mountain ranges it is called astringent elm to distinguish
it from slippery elm.

White elm surpasses the others in extent of range. Its northern
boundary stretches from Newfoundland, across Canada to the eastern
base of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles. It runs
south through the Atlantic states to Florida, a distance of 1,200 miles or
more. Its southwestern limit is in Texas. The area thus bounded is

American Forest Trees 381

about 2,500,000 square miles. A few other trees have ranges as large,
but none much exceed it. It covers so much of America, and is so
important in many parts of its range, that it is clearly the leading elm in
this country. It is entitled to first place among elms for other reasons.

It is not easy to give any sure features or characteristics by which
the layman may always distinguish this elm from others with which it is
associated ; however, by carefully observing certain features, the identity
of white elm is generally easy to establish.

The leaves have teeth along the margins like beech and birch.
They have straight primary veins running from the midrib to the points
of the teeth. Before falling fn autumn the leaves turn yellow. The
foliage is not very thick, and most of it is near the ends of the limbs.
The bloom comes early in the spring, ahead of the leaves, and the seeds
are ripe and ready for flight before the leaves are grown. Sometimes
the seeds are ripe almost before the leaves are out of the buds. The
seeds are oblong, and about the size of a small lentil. The wing entirely
surrounds the seed, and is about half an inch long. The flight of elm
seeds is an interesting phenomenon. The individual seeds are so small
that they are not easily seen as they sail away from the tall tree top but
when they go in swarms, in fitful puffs of wind, they are not hard to see.
It is chiefly by their fruits that they are known, that is, by the multi-
tudes of seedlings that appear a few weeks later. If one seedling elm in
a thousand should reach maturity, there would be little besides elms in
the whole country. They spring up by highways and hedges, in gutters,
fields, and even between cobbles and bricks of paved streets ; but in a
few days they have crowded one another to death, or have perished from
other causes, and those which manage to live to maturity do not much
more than make up for old trees which perish from natural causes.

The botanist Michaux pronounced the white elm "the most magni-
ficent vegetable of the temperate zone." A number of trees are larger,
though this reaches great size. Sargent sets the limit of the tree at 120
feet high and eleven feet in trunk diameter. That size is, of course,
unusual, but it has been surpassed at least in height. A tree in Jefferson
county, Pennsylvania, was 140 feet high, and although forest grown, it
had a spread of crown of seventy-six feet. It was sent to the sawmill
where it made S,820 feet of lumber. That trunk was only five feet in
diameter.

Some of the finest forest grown elms in this country have been cut
in Michigan. Their trunks were as tall, straight, and shapely as yellow
poplars, and their crowns surpassed those of poplars. It was formerly
not unusual for sawlogs to be cut from elm limbs which branched from
the trunk fifty or more feet from the ground. The best of the forest

382 American* Forest Trees

grown elm of this country has been cut; but it is still lumbered through-
out the whole eastern half of the United States.

The finest elms of this country, and doubtless the finest in the
world, are the planted trees in some of the New England villages.
The largest of them have been growing for two hundred years, and in
many instances they still show the vigor of youth. Trunks six or seven
feet through are not uncommon, but the glory of the trees is not alone in
the trunks. Their spread and form of crown are magnificent. The
largest are 150 feet across, and some of the splendid branches, rising in
parabolic curves, are fully 100 feet long, from the junction with the tree
to the tips of the twigs. The most apt comparison for that form of elm
is the spray of a fountain. The upward jet of water corresponds to the
trunk of the tree; the upward, outward, and downward curves of the
spray represent the crown of the elm. Trees which take that form are
grown in open ground where sunlight and air reach every side. Forest
grown trees are less symmetrical, but even in dense woods, the elm
frequently rises clear above the canopy of other trees, and develops the
fountain form of crown. The new England street and park elms surpass
those farther west only because they are older. The splendid trunks
and crowns are the work of centuries.

CORK ELM

Cork Elm

CORK ELM

(Ulmus Raccmosa)

THIS tree is called cork elm in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri,
Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Ohio; rock elm in Rhode Island, Ken-
tucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan,
Nebraska; hickory elm in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana; white elm
in Ontario; Thomas elm in Tennessee; northern cork-barked elm in
Tennessee; corkbark elm, New York; northern cork elm, Vermont;
wahoo, Ohio ; cliff elm in Wisconsin.

Cork elm is the natural name. It is a descriptive term which a
stranger would be apt to apply on seeing the tree for the first time.
The bark of the branches, after it has attained an age of three or four
years, becomes rough by the growth of ridges and protuberances. This
feature is sometimes so prominent that it at once attracts attention,
particularly when the branches are bare of leaves ; hence the name cork
elm.

Lumbermen insist on naming the tree rock elm. They refer to the
hardness of the wood, or they may have in mind the dry, stony situations
where tough, strong elm grows. The latter is often the case, because the
name is applied also to slippery elm and white elm if they grow on stony
ground. A wide-spread opinion prevails that wood which grows among
rocks is harder, tougher, stronger, and more durable than that produced
by deep, fertile soil. It is possible to cite much evidence to support that
view, and the case might be considered proved, but for the fact that an
equal, or greater amount of evidence, in every way as trustworthy,
may be cited on the other side. The strongest hickory, ash, and oak do
not come from stony land. It sometimes happens that a species with
tough, strong wood, is found on rocks, but it is not tough because it is
there, but in spite of being there.

The name cliff elm which this tree bears in Wisconsin is but another
form of the name rock elm, and clearly has reference to the situation
where the tree grows in that part of the country. Hickory elm, on the
other hand, a name applied to this tree much farther south, is a recog-
nition of the woods toughness.

In some particulars it does not fall much below hickory in tough-
ness, but is not as strong, elastic, or capable of as smooth polish. The
latter property is one of the recommendations of hickory when used for
handles. It is very smooth to the touch; cork elm is less so. In the
northern woods, elm ax handles are in use, and some axmcn prefer them

386 American Forest Trees

to hickory. Such is probably the case when the best cork elm and a
medium or poor quality of hickory are in competition.

The fibers of cork elm are interlaced, rendering the splitting of the
wood difficult. For uses in which that is a desirable property, it is
preferable to hickory. It is better for hubs for large wagons, and that is
a very important use for this elm.

The wood of all the elms is ring-porous; that is, the springwood, or
inner part of the annual ring, consists of one or more rows of large ducts.
The summerwood contains pores in large numbers, but they are small,
and are usually arranged in short curved lines. The medullary rays are
not prominent in the wood of any of the elms, and quarter-sawing adds
no beauty to the lumber. The wood is practically without figure, on
account of either annual rings or medullar}' rays ; but it may be stained,
polished, and made very attractive. That is done oftener with white
elm than with any other.

The strength of cork elm created demand for it in boat building at
an early day. The tree is and always was scarce in the vicinity of the
Atlantic sea board, and the earliest boat builders seem not to have been
acquainted with the wood. It was most abundant in the forests of
Michigan, though it extended westward to Nebraska. It was plentiful
in the province of Ontario, and the timbers from that region acquainted
English shipbuilders with the merits of the wood. They sent contractors
into Michigan to buy cork elm, long before the other hardwoods of that
region had attracted the attention of the outside world. The most
convenient supplies of cork elm on the Lower Michigan peninsula thus
passed through Canada to ship yards on the other side of the sea. The
wood is reputed to be more durable than any of the other elms.

It is generally understood that the country's supply of cork elm is
running short, but there are no statistics which show how much is left
or how much has been cut. It is doubtful if the original forests, includ-
ing the whole country, had one tree of cork elm to twenty of white elm.
The average size of cork elm is sixty feet high and two in diameter. The
trunks are well shaped, if forest grown. They develop small crowns in
proportion to the size of trunks; and the crowns are less graceful than
those of white elm — lacking the long, sweeping curves of the latter.
The general contour of the tree has been compared to white oak.

Cork elm grows well when planted on the Pacific coast, in environ-
ments quite different from its native habitat. In the forest it increases
in size slowly ; when planted it makes much better headway. It has a
disagreeable habit of sprouting which puts it out of favor as a park tree.

The wood of the different elms is largely used for manufacturing
purposes. They are sometimes kept separate, but generally not. The

American Forest Trees 387

particular place where cork elm is preferred is in the manufacture of
vehicles and boats, but it is by no means confined to those commodities.

The state of Michigan alone sends 50,000,000 feet of elm a year to its
factories to be converted into articles of general utility. Furniture
makers take over 2,000,000 feet of it, though elm is not classed as a
furniture wood. In certain places it is superior to almost every
other wood. No matter how discolored it becomes by weathering and
the accumulation of foreign substances, a vigorous application of soap,
water, and a scrubbing brush will whiten it. It is liked in certain parts
of refrigerators which need constant scrubbing. Elm to the extent of
8,000,000 feet goes into refrigerators in Michigan alone.

The strength and toughness of elm make it suitable for frames of
tables. When thus used, it is generally out of sight, but not infrequently
it is made into table legs as well as frames. Statistics show that more
than a million feet are manufactured yearly into handles in Michigan
alone. All three of the northern elms — white, cork, and slippery — are
listed in the handle industry.

Many millions of feet of elm are yearly converted into automobile
stock — 3,000,000 in Michigan. Horse-drawn vehicles take more.
The most common place for it is the hub, but it serves also as shafts,
poles, reaches, and even as spokes for wagons of the largest size.

The important place in the slack cooperage industry held by elm is
well known. It is a flour barrel wood, but is employed for barrels of
many other kinds. It stands high as veneer, not the kind of which the
visible parts of furniture are made, but the invisible interior, built up of
veneer sheets glued together. A similar kind of veneer forms the boxes
or frames of trunks — the part to be covered by metal, leather, or cloth.
The slats which strengthen the outside of trunks are frequently of elm.

This wood is not in favor for one important purpose, hardwood
distillation. It has escaped pretty generally also from being employed
as a farm material, on account of its poor lasting qualities. Some slip-
pery elm was mauled into fence rails in the pioneer days of Ohio, Indiana,
and southern Michigan, but that was only because it was plentiful and
convenient. Cork elm probably never made a fence rail, because it is
so unwedgeable that no rail splitter would have anything to do with it.
At the best, it is but a temporary makeshift as fence posts, but by apply-
ing creosote and other preservative treatments to lessen decay, it mea-
sures up with most other post woods.

The elms are not indispensable woods in this country, but their
exhaustion, should it ever come, will leave many places hard to fill. As
far as known, no woodlots of any species of elm have been planted in this
country, and there is litde prospect that any will be planted, because

388

American Forest Trees

the slow growth of the trees discourages foresters. A century or two is
a long look ahead.

However, the exhaustion of no species of the elms in this country
need be expected soon. The most apparent peril lies ahead of cork elm,
because it never was abundant, and demand, which has been large for
a long time, is still strong. The species is scattered over more than 200,-
000 square miles, and a long time must elapse before the last cork elm
finds its way to the sawmill. The situation of white elm is more
promising. It may be among the last trees of the American forests to
take its final departure. Its wide range and its bounteous seed crops
insure a supply, though not necessarily a large one, for a long time. The
greatest peril to elms, as well as to many other forest trees, is that, when
weakened by depletion, some disease will attack them and destroy the
remnants. Experience in Xew England and elsewhere has shown that
elm has no great resisting power when a strong attack is made upon it.

SLIPPERY ELM

SLIPPERY ELM

(L'/»uts Pubescens)

THIS tree is known as slippery elm in every state where it grows,
thirty or more; but in some localities it has other names also. It
is doubtful if any person who is acquainted with the tree would fail to
recognize it by the name slippery elm, though some who are acquainted
with the lumber only might not know it by that name. Those who call
it red elm have in mind the color of the heartwood which is of deeper red
than the wood of any other elm, or they may refer to the tawny pubes-
cence on the young shoots in winter. The botanical name describes
that characteristic.

In the North, the slippery elm is sometimes known as moose elm.
It furnishes forage in winter for the moose and other herbivorous ani-
mals when ground plants are covered with snow. The moose is able to
eat branches as thick as a man's thumb. The principal food element in
the twigs is the mucilaginous inner bark. It is this which gives the tree
its name slippery elm. The value of the bark as a food has been ques-
tioned. It is agreeable to the taste of both man and beast, but it is
claimed that a human being will starve to death on it, though it wjll
prolong life several days. The lower animals, however, seem able to
derive more benefit from eating the bark. An incident of the War of
1812 appears to prove this. The army under General Harrison, operat-
ing in the vicinity of Lake Erie, kept the horses of the expedition alive
by feeding them on slippery elm bark, stripped from the trees and chop-
ped in small bits.

The inner bark has long been used for medicinal purposes. It is
now ground fine and is kept for sale in drug stores, but formerly it was a
household remedy which most families in the country provided and kept
in store along with catnip, mandrake, sage, dogwood blossoms, and other
rural remedies which were depended upon to rout diseases in the davs
when physicians were few. The slippery elm bark was peeled from the
tree in long strips, the rough outer layers were shaved off, leaving the
mucilaginous inner layer. That was from an eighth to a quarter of an
inch thick. It was dried and put away for use. When needed it was
pounded to a pulp, moistened with water, and applied as a poultice, if
an external remedy was wanted. If a medicine was needed, a decoction
was drunk as tea. There is no question that the remedy often produced
good results when no doctor was within reach. A well-known medical
writer said three-quarters of a century ago that the slippery elm tree
was worth its weight in gold.

391

392 American Forest Trees

The range of slippery elm extends from the lower St. Lawrence
river through Canada to North Dakota. It is found in Texas as far west
as the San Antonio river, and its western limit is generally from 200
to 300 miles west of the Mississippi river. Its range extends south
nearly to the Gulf of Mexico. It is not this tree's habit to grow in thick
stands, but it occurs singly or in small groups on the banks of streams
or on rich hillsides.

The average size is scarcely half that of white elm. Few trees
exceed a height of seventy feet and a diameter of two. It grows rapidly
at first, but does not live to old age. The crown lacks the symmetry
and beauty so conspicuous in white elm. The limbs follow no law
of regularity, but leave the trunk at haphazard. The fruit is mature
before the leaves are half grown. The seeds have more wing area than
those of white elm; and, like those of white elm, the wing surrounds the
flat seed on all its edges. The leaves are rough to the touch, and when
crumpled in the hand, the crunching sensation is unpleasant.

Next to white elm, slippery elm appears to be more abundant than
any other member of the group; but statistics do not give the basis for
close estimates. The factories of Michigan use 3,700,000 feet of slippery
elm a year, and 44,000,000 of white elm. The proportion of slippery
to white is larger in the factories of Illinois.

The uses are the same as for other elms. The wood is rated more
durable than the others, but it is not in much demand for outdoor work
where resistance to decay is an important consideration. It is some-
times set for fence posts, but the results are scarcely satisfactory,
particularly for round posts which are largely sapwood. Posts sawed
from the heartwood of large trees would do better. The deeper red of
the heartwood gives it an advantage over the other elms for furniture
and finish where natural colors are shown; but this is not important
because no elm's natural color stands for much in the estimation of users
of fine woods. The more common use of slippery elm is for boxes and
cooperage. Next to red gum, it is employed in larger quantities for
cooperage in Illinois than any other wood.

The supply is rapidly decreasing. The cut for lumber is the
chief drain, but a not inconsiderable one is the peeling of trees for bark.
This goes on all over the species' range and much of it is done by boys
with knives and hatchets. It is often hard to find slippery elms within
miles of a town, because all have succumbed to bark hunters.

CBDAB Bui [Ulmus crassifolia) appears to bear this name because it is often
found associated with red cedars on the dry limestone hills of Texas. There is little
in the form and appearance of the tree to suggest the tall, tapering conical crown of
cedar. There is still less in the wood. In some parts of Texas the species is called
red elm, on account of the color of the wood, while in Arkansas, which is near the

American Forest Trees 393

northern boundary of its range, it is locally known as basket elm, because basket
makers find desirable qualities in its wood. It is a species of rather limited range, but
it is abundant in certain regions. It is found as far east as Sunflower river, Mississ-
ippi, north into Arkansas, west to Pecos river, Texas, and south into Mexico. It is
confined to three states, this side the Rio Grande. Trees on dry hills are inclined to
be shrubby, but in damp valleys where soil is fertile, specimens attain a height of
eighty feet and a diameter of three, but the average is not nearlv so large. The
leaves are small but numerous. The flowering habits of this elm are somewhat
erratic. The usual time for bloom to appear is August, and a month or six weeks
afterwards the small seeds are ready for flight ; but occasionally, as if not satisfied
with its first effort, the tree blooms again in October, and ripens a second crop late in
the fall. The seeds are poorly supplied with wings, which are reduced to narrow
margins surrounding the seed. It does not appear, however, that the species is in
any way handicapped in securing reproduction. The small shoots are equipped with
flat, corky keels, similar to but much smaller than those of the wing elm.

This tree is important for the lumber it produces. It is the common and most
abundant elm of Texas, and it is found in a large part of that state. The wood is the
weakest of the elms, and is likewise quite brittle, but in the region where it is most
abundant it compares favorably with any other. The best is cut from the largest
trees, which grow in valleys where moisture is abundant. The growth found on the
dry hills is of poor quality, and is worth little, even for fuel. The highest develop-
ment in Texas, and also the highest in the species' range, is in the valleys of Trinity
and Guadalupe rivers. In Texas this wood is employed in furniture factories as inside
frames, to be covered by other woods, but it is not employed as outside parts of
furniture, unless in very cheap kinds. It is suitable for drain boards and floors of
refrigerators where it is wet much of the time. Under such circumstances it is
more easily kept clean than most other woods. It whitens with repeated scrubbings.
One of its most common uses in Texas is for wagon hubs. Some wheelwrights pro-
nounce it next to the best native wood for that purpose, the first place being accorded
Osage orange. The tree is often planted for shade along the streets of Texas towns,
and develops thick crowns and satisfactory forms.

Red Elm (Ulmus seroiina) is a lately discovered member of the elm family. It
so closely resembles the cork elm that it was supposed to be of the same species, and
the close scrutiny of a botanist was required to discover that it was a separate species.
Sargent observed the flowers opening in September while those of cork elm appear in
early spring. The seeds ripen in November, while cork elm's are ripe early in the
summer. The tree was named red elm, the wood being reddish-brown. That name
is widely applied to slippery elm, but it is improbable that much confusion will result.
The red elm's range is quite restricted and in that area the slippery elm is not im-
portant. Red elm occurs on limestone hills and river banks from central Kentucky to
northern Georgia and Alabama. It attains a height of fifty or sixty feet and a diam-
eter of two or three. The leaves are from two to four inches in length, and one or two
wide, with margins toothed like the other elms. The midrib is yellow, and in the
autumn the leaves change to an orange yellow before falling. Branches which are
two or three years old develop corky wings, two or three in number.

It is not known that mechanical tests of the wood have been made in a regu-
lar way to determine its physical properties, but superficial examination indicates
that it is hard, tough, and strong, apparently about the same as cork elm. Special
lists of uses for this wood have not been compiled for the reason that lumbermen
and operators of sawmills have never distinguished it from other elms of the

394

American Forest Trees

region. Since it has never been left standing in districts where other elms are
cut, it is evident that it has been regularly put to use for vehicles, agricultural
implements, boxes, crates, and slack cooperage, because such articles have been
manufactured in the region. The red elm has been occasionally planted as a
shade tree along streets of towns in northern Georgia and Alabama.

PLANERTREE

PLANERTREE

(Planera Aquatica)

THIS tree is a first cousin of the elms, but it is no more an elm than
a haekberry is an elm. It is a member of the family but is of a
different genus, and it is the sole representative of its genus in the known
world. There is only one kind of planertree, with no nearer relatives
than the elms on one side and haekberry, sugarberry, and palo bianco on
the other. Except those kinsfolk, it is alone on earth. The name is in
honor of Johann Jacob Planer, a Herman botanist whose efforts did
much for science nearly two hundred years ago. The name of the species
aquatica, recognizes the tree's habit of growing where water is abundant.
It is a swamp species, or rather, it prefers situations subject to periodic
overflow. It looks like an elm, and that has led people to call it water
elm. That is the name by which it is usually known in Florida. In
Alabama it is called the American planertree, which is an unnecessary
restriction, since there is no planertree except this one. The Louisiana
French gave it the name plene, and the abridgement of its name is yet
heard in that state. In North Carolina it has acquired the name syca-
more, but without good reason. It does not look in the least like
sycamore.

It has the leaf of an elm, and it resembles that tree in bark, and
somewhat in general form. The layman detects the first important
difference when he examines the seeds. Those of the elms have wings,
but the planertree 's are without those appendages, and they would be
useless if it had them, unless they were as large as the parachute of the
basswood seed. The planertree bears a sort of nut, a third of an inch
long, and too heavy to be transported far on the ordinary membranous
wings of tree seeds. Water is doubtless the principal agent in carrying
the seeds from place to place. Probably few of them are transported far,
because the water about the trees is generally stagnant; and, besides,
the species does not seem to be extending its range or increasing in num-
bers.

The planertree has a history. If the terms which the Roman
historian Tacitus applied to people, could be applied to trees, it might
be said of this species, as he said of certain tribes: "The cowards liy the
farthest and are the last survivors." The planertree is now found only
in certain southern swamps, from North Carolina to Florida, and west to
Missouri and Texas. In former periods, as is shown by the records of
geology, there were several species, and they had a wide range over
portions of the northern hemisphere. They appear to have been a strong

397

398 American Forest Trees

group of trees, able to hold their ground with the best inhabitants of
the forest. They were in the Rocky Mountains, and far north in
Alaska. They were in Europe also, or were represented there by some
very similar species.

For some reason which is not definitely known, they lost out when
competition with other trees became keen, and in the course of long
periods of time they disappeared from their former ranges in the North
and West. They took to the swamps, just as the tribes of which Tacitus
spoke, took to the morasses when they could no longer face their enemies
on open ground. It was a far cry from Alaska to the Chattahoochee
swamps in Florida, yet that was where A. H. Curtis and Charles Mohr
went to procure typical planertree specimens for the tests which
Sargent made of American woods.

It has been suggested that tree species which have lost out in
competition for ground, have been those which were at some decided
disadvantage in the matter of getting their seeds properly scattered and
planted. The case has not been proved, because there are as many facts
and as much argument against that hypothesis as for it. The bigtrees
of California are a noted example of a species which lost out and retreated
to a corner, yet their seeds fly like birds. Plainly, something besides
winged seeds is needed to keep the species in the fight. However, it is
not difficult to see that the planertree, with wingless seeds and cf so
little use as food that no bird or rodent will carry them or bury them, has
been much handicapped in the long contest which has crowded it from
the arctic circle to the cotton belt.

It has the habits of the subdued and conquered tree. It has adapt-
ed itself to swamps where few species can grow, and where competition
for light and room is reduced to a minimum. Yet, even there, it is con-
tent to take the leavings of more ambitious species. The crowns make
little effort to rise up to the light, for which many other trees battle
during their whole existence. The planertree's low, broad top of con-
torted branches places it perpetually in the shade of any other trees
which overtop it.

The wood of the planertree is lighter in weight, poorer in fuel value,
weaker, and more brittle than the poorest of the elms. The annual ring
lacks the rows of large open pores common in all the elms, but it has
many small pores scattered through the whole year's growth. It is not
easy to note a difference between the springwood and that which grows
later. The wood is soft, light brown in color, and the nearly white sap-
wood is thick. It is often, perhaps generally, a tree of fairly rapid
growth, and since it does not reach large size, it is probably short-lived,
but exact information along that line is lacking .

American Forest Trees 399

The tallest trees seldom exceed a height of forty feet and a diameter
of two. It is evident that a tree of that size and form does not tempt the
lumberman to much exertion to procure it. An examination of reports
of sawmill operations and of the utilization of woods by shops and
factories in the southern states has failed to find a single instance where
the planertree has been reported in use for any purpose whatever.
Doubtless, trees are sometimes cut and the lumber gets into the market,
but not under its own name. The species is interesting for reasons other
than that it ever has had or ever can have a place in the country's
lumber industry.

Wing Elm {Ulmus alala), which is the smallest of the elms, is plentifully
supplied with names, but in most parts of its range it is known as wing or winged elm.
It is also called wahoo or wahoo elm. and the West Vriginians have named it witch
elm; the North Carolinans refer to it often as simply elm; from Florida to Texas some
call it cork elm; in Alabama it is water elm; in Arkansas mountain elm; while in
other regions it is corky elm, small-leaf elm, and red elm. Some of these names
are self-explanatory. Wing elm does not relate to a winged seed, but to winged
twigs. That characteristic of the tree is very prominent. The wings consist of
flattened keels along opposite sides of the branches. A twig no more than a
quarter of an inch in diameter may be decorated with wings half an inch or
more wide, making the twig four or five times as wide as it is thick. As the twig
enlarges, the wings do not broaden in proportion. The lowest branches and those
nearest the trunk are most generously furnished with wings. They appear to be
entirely ornamental, for it is not known that they serve any useful purpose. The
growth is different from those which give cork elm its name. The latter occur on
the large branches, often in the form of isolated protuberances, but the wings are
fairly continuous for a foot or more, except that they terminate abruptly at the
nodes, but recommence immediately after. Branches less than a year old seldom
have wings. The name wahoo appears to have lost its etymology if it ever
had any. Dictionaries tell what it means, but they shy at its origin. It is a
southern word which is applied to this elm, and also to other trees, and occasionally it
means a fish instead of a tree. Some would trace it to the cry of an owl, others to a
name in Gulliver's Travels, with a slight change in spelling.

Wing elm at its best is about fifty feet high and two in diameter; but much of
the stand is small. The best occurs west of the Mississippi river. The range extends
from Texas to Virginia, south to Florida, and north to Illinois. In Texas it is a fairly-
important wood in furniture factories, the annual supply being about a million feet.
It is used by turners for table legs. In an investigation of the uses of the wood, the
same difficulty is encountered that makes difficult a study of the uses of all the elms —
conflict and uncertainty of names. There are few regions in the hardwood areas of
this country which produce one elm and no more; and after all practical means of
identification are resorted to, there is often doubt and uncertainty concerning the
exact species of elm lumber found in use. Fortunately, it generally makes little
difference, because anyone of them is good enough for ordinary use. Wing elm is
extensively planted for shade along the streets of towns in the lower Mississippi
valley, but more frequently on the west side of the valley. When the trev-
the open they develop broad crowns, and the branches, even of comparatively small
trees, are long enough to reach well over the sidewalks, and cast satisfactory shade.

400

American- Forest Trees

The dark-colored winged twigs add much to the ornamental value of the street trees.

Fremoxtia a ' nmoniodendron calif or nicum) is not botanically in the elm
family, but it is popularly known as slipper)' elm in the region where it occurs, and for
that reason it is here given place among the elms. It is known also as leatherwood.
It is a California species, ranging among the lower mountains and higher foothills in
dry, gravelly soils, from the Mexican boundary five hundred miles northward in the
state. The mucilaginous inner bark tastes like that of the true slippery elm. The
shape of the leaf much more resembles sycamore than elm; and it is an evergreen. It
bears a bright yellow, roselike flower, and the seeds are small, reddish-brown. The
wood is fine grained, clear reddish-brown, with thick, whitish sapwood. It is very
soft. The tree attains its largest size among the foothills of the Sierra Nevada
mountains, but even there it is too small to have much economic value, seldom
exceeding thirty feet in height and a foot in diameter. Its most important use is as
a forage plant for cattle and sheep. In that particular it resembles slippery elm in
northern woods. The tree is occasionally planted in the eastern states and in
Europe for ornament. In its native range it grows slowly.

HACKBERRY

HACKBERRY

(Celtis Occidcnialis)

HACKBERRY is a common name for this tree in nearly all parts of
its range, but it has other names. It is sometimes confused with
sugarberry (Celtis mississippiensis) . They call it nettle tree in Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, and Michigan, and in Tennessee it is
known as American nettle-tree. In Vermont it is hoop ash ; in Rhode
Island one-berry; hack- tree in Minnesota, and juniper tree in New
Jersey.

The name hackberry is not of American origin. It dates far back
in the languages of western Europe and is believed to have the same
origin as the word haw, which, in its turn meant hedge. If that
etymology is correct, the word really means hedge berry, which is not an
inappropriate name for the tree. The name is sometimes applied to a
small bird cherry in Europe. The new Jersey name juniper-tree is in
recognition of the resemblance of the berries to those of red cedar or red
juniper. No reason has been assigned for the name nettle-tree.

Its range covers about 2,000,000 square miles in the United
States besides part of Canada. It grows from the Atlantic on the coast
of New England to the tide water of the Pacific on Puget sound; in
southern Florida and in Texas. It is not found in pure stands, but
often as single trees far apart. This is the case in the northeastern part
of the United States in particular where probably not more than one
tree might be found in a whole county. Frequently the people in the
neighborhood do not know what the tree is, and suppose it is the last
representative on earth of some disappearing species.

It is far from being a disappearing tree. Not only is it widely
dispersed over the United States, but related species are scattered
through many countries of the old world, from Denmark to India.
There are said to be between fifty and sixty species, only two of which
are in the United States.

It has been claimed by scholars that the lotus referred to by ancient
writers was the hackberry. It was reputed to cause forgetfulness when
eaten, but the claim was fictitious, for the fruit does not produce that
effect. It is not now regarded as human food. Tennyson deals with
the fiction very beautifully in the poem "Lotus Eaters," but he took
liberties with botany when he represented fruit and flowers on the same
branch; for, though the berries hang several months, they drop before
the next season's flowers appear.

The hackberry belongs to the elm iamily, being of the same relation

403

404 American Forest Trees

as the planertree. The leaves resemble those of the elm, but are more
sharply pointed. The fruit is usually classed as a berry. It ripens in
September and October, but remains on the tree several months, becom-
ing dry. It is about one-fourth inch long, dark purple, with a tough,
thick skin, and with flesh dark orange. Most of the pale brown seeds are
eaten by birds.

The tree varies greatly in size. In some remote corners of its
immense range it is little more than a shrub, while at its best it may
attain a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three or four. Its average
size is about that of slippery elm. The bark varies as much in appear-
ance as the tree in size. Sometimes it has the smooth surface and pale
bluish-green appearance that suggest the bark of beech; again it is
darker and rougher, like the elm. It frequently exhibits the harsh
warty bark which is peculiar to the hackberry, and when present it is a
pretty safe means of identification. The warts may be conical, oblong,
or sharp-pointed, and probably an inch in height. When closely
examined, most of them are found to consist of parallel strata of bark
which may usually be pulled off without much difficulty. The warts
are a decided disadvantage to the tree in some of the low swampy
districts of Louisiana where Spanish moss is a pest. This moss (which is
not a true moss), is propagated principally by tufts and strands which
are carried by wind until they find anchorage among the branches of
trees where they increase and multiply at a rapid rate until they finally
smother or break down the unfortunate tree which supplied a lodging
place. The hackberry's warts catch and hold every flying strand of
moss that touches them, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of pounds of
it may accumulate on a single tree. The grayish-green color of the moss
often exactly matches the hue of the tree's bark.

The reported annual cut of hackberry lumber in the United States
is less than 5,000,000 feet. That can be only a fraction of the total out-
put. Few mills report it separately, but list it as ash. The wood
looks more like ash than elm. It is heavy, but only moderately hard
and strong. Its color is more yellowish than ash, but the annual rings
of growth resemble that wood. The sapwood is thick, and growth is
rapid where conditions are favorable.

It is doubltess used by industries in thirty states or more, but
comparatively few factories report it. In Texas it is listed in the box
and crate industry. In Louisiana it rises to more importance, for that
is the region where the tree attains its best. Slack coopers make kegs,
tubs, and barrels of it; vehicle manufacturers convert it into parts of
buggy tops and the running gears of wagons; it serves for furniture and
interior finish; and it takes the place of ash for hoe handles and parts of

American Forest Trees 405

agricultural implements. The uses are nearly the same in Mississippi,
but it is used there for rustic seats and other outdoor furniture. In
Missouri it is found suitable for cart axles, saddle trees, stitching horse
jaws, and wagon beds. In Arkansas it goes with ash into flooring, and
interior finish for houses. Illinois builders work it into fixtures for stores.
In Michigan it serves the same purposes as in Texas, baskets, boxes, and
crates. These examples doubtless are representative of its uses wher-
ever the tree is found in commercial quantities. The word is not
durable in contact with the soil. It is also liable to attack by boring
insects if logs are allowed to retain their bark.

The hackberry has been planted to a small extent as a street tree
in the southern towns, but it is not as popular as the elms and oaks. It
will never occupy a more important position in the country's lumber
industry than it holds at present. It is a tree which, for some reason,
inspires little enthusiasm in anybody ; but nature takes care of it fairly
well, and the small sweet drupes which it bears are a guarantee that the
species will not want for seed carriers as long as birds continue to have
access to its branches in winter.

Sugarberry (Celtis mississippiensis) is frequently mistaken for
hackberry even by persons who ought to be able to distinguish them.
Botanists formerly confused the two, and probably some insist still that
sugarberry is only a variety of hackberry. The leaves generally have
smooth margins, and that would differentiate the tree from the hack-
berry were it not that sometimes the sugarberry has serrate leaves. The
drupes are bright orange red and are usually smaller than the purple
fruit of hackberry. As for the wood of the two species, it is not easy
to tell one from the other. The sugarberry's range is not one-third as
extensive as hackberry's, but covers some hundreds of thousands of
square miles in the southeastern quarter of the United States.
Its northern limit is in Illinois and Indiana where it occupies rich
bottom lands and the banks of streams. It reaches its largest size in
the lower Ohio river basin, grows southward into Florida and west
into Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. It crosses the Rio Grande
into Mexico, appearing to outstrip the hackberry in that direction.
It outstrips it in another direction also, for it is found in the Ber-
muda islands. The French of Louisiana called it bois inconnu, or the
unknown wood.

This tree shows a marked tendency to run into varieties, and
cultivation would probably develop the tendency. The differences
between the species and the varieties are plain enough to the systematic
botanist, but are such that the lumberman or other ordinary observer
would scarcely notice them. The variety which has been named

406

American Forest Trees

Celtis mississippiensis reticulata, but without any English name except
sugarberry, is a tree forty or fifty feet high, covered with blue-gray
bark, very rough. It ranges from Dallas, Texas, to the Rio Grande and
westward into New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and into southern
California and Lower California. In eastern Texas it is found on dry
limestone hills, but westward only in mountain canyons in the vicinity of
water. In the southern part of Texas this tree is usually known as palo
bianco, but those who apply that name have no idea that it is a variety
of sugarberry but suppose it is a tree peculiar to their region. In
Cameron and Hidalgo counties, Texas, either because an extra good
quality grows there, or because some opinion exists in its favor, it is
liked for wagon material, and occasionally is tinned for table legs and
other parts of furniture. It is quite common in that part of Texas as
an ornamental tree in yards and along streets of small towns. The white-
ness of the bark is the most striking feature.

WHITE ASH

WHITE ASH

(Fraxinus Americana)

THIS tree is generally called white or gray ash, or simply ash.
American ash is a translation of its botanical name and is not often
used in business transactions in this country. In some parts of the
South the term cane ash is occasionally employed, but there seems to be
no agreement among those who use the name as to what it means. This
is the common ash in the lumber trade. There are more than a dozen
species in the United States, but white ash goes to market in larger
amounts than all others together. This is known in a general way, but
exact figures cannot be given, because statistics of the cut of different
species of ash are not kept separate.

The range of this tree covers at least a million square miles, and all
or part of every state east of the Mississippi river and west of it from
Nebraska to Texas. It is reported cut for lumber in thirty states. The
various ashes are lumbered in thirty-nine states. Ash does not occur in
pure stands but is scattered in forests of other species, sometimes
growing in small clumps. It is difficult to name an average size for
the tree, because climate and soil control the growth over a large area
where conditions vary. Trees 120 feet high and six feet in diameter are
said to have stood in the primeval forests in the lower Ohio valley ; but
logs four feet through are seldom seen now. Trees seventy or eighty
feet high and three in diameter are above the average in any region
where this tree is now lumbered. Some of the old planted trees of New
England are five or six feet through, and are finely proportioned, but
growing as they do in the open, they have larger crowns than are found
in forest trees.

All species of ash have compound leaves, and those of white ash are
from eight to twelve inches long. The under sides of the leaflets are
white, and some persons have this fact in mind when they call the species
white ash, while others refer to the bark, and still others to the wood. It
is a characteristic of the tree that most of the leaves grow near the ends
of the limbs. For that reason the crown appears open when viewed from
below, and the larger limbs and branches are naked. The leaves demand
light, and they arrange themselves on the extremities of the limbs to get
it. When the tree is crowded, it sheds its lower limbs and its crown rises
rapidly until it reaches abundance of light. This produces long trunks in
forests.

The boles are often not quite straight, but have several slight
crooks, yet keep close to a general perpendicular line. That form is due

409

410 American Forest Trees

to a peculiarity of growth. The leading shoot of a growing ash has more
than one terminal bud. If a side bud pushes ahead, the stem leans a
little in that direction; next, a bud on the other side may gain the as-
cendancy, producing a slight lean for a few years in that direction ; or two
side buds may develop simultaneously, causing a forked trunk. Ma-
ture trees often carry the history of these peculiarities of growth.

The seeds of white ash are equipped for moderate flight. The
wing is large, but the seed attached to the end of it is heavy enough
to give it a sharp tilt downward when it begins its flight through the air,
and it generally shoots at a steep angle toward the ground. It is not
apt to whirl through the air with a gliding motion like a maple seed.
Consequently, ash seeds are not great travelers. They are dispersed
with economy, however, for all do not come down at once, but many
hang on the tree for months, and a few go with every strong wind, thus
getting themselves scattered in every direction. Their power of germi-
nation is low, and only about forty per cent of seeds are fertile. This
is due to the fact that pistillate and staminate flowers do not grow on the
same tree, and fertilization is imperfect.

The importance of ash in the industries of the country- does not
depend on the quantity but the quality of the wood. Although the
various species are produced in thirty-nine states, as shown by mill
statistics, the total yield is less than 250,000,000 feet a year. That is
exceeded by several woods, among them hickory, elm, beech, basswood,
chestnut, and even larch.

The wood of ash which has grown rapidly is generally considered
superior to that of slow growth. The reason is found in the fact that
trees of slow growth do most of their growing early in the season, and the
wood is porous; but trees of rapid growth lay summerwood on abundant-
ly, and it is dense. Few species show a sharper line between spring and
summerwood than ash, for which reason the annual rings are clear-cut
and distinct. What figure ash has is produced by the growth rings, and
not by medullary rays. Quarter-sawing brings out no additional beauty.
Slight crooks in many logs produce a moderate cross grain in lumber,
which gives to finished ash its characteristic figure or grain. When
straight-grained wood is wanted, as when it is for tool handles and oars,
logs without crooks are selected.

The wood of white ash is heavy, hard, strong, elastic, but rather
brittle. It lacks the toughness of hickory. The medullar}- rays are
numerous, but small and obscure. The color is brown, the sapwood
much lighter, often nearly white. It is not durable in contact with the
soil. Notwithstanding its name, the wood rates low in ash, and its fuel
value is under that of white oak. The states which produce the largest

American Forest Trees 411

yearly cut of this species are, ranging downward in the order named:
Arkansas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and Tennessee.

The uses of white ash are so numerous that they can be presented
tally in classes. It goes into almost every wood-using industry, but in
different sections of country certain uses lead. Thus in Illinois the mak-
ers of butter tabs take more of it than any other industry; in Michigan
automobiles lead, and in Arkansas the handle factories are largest
buyers; in Louisiana boat oars consume most; in Alabama and Missouri
car construction is in the lead; in Texas boxes and crates; in North
Carolina wagons; in Kentucky handles; in Maryland musical instru-
ments; and in Massachusetts furniture. The utilization of ash in these
states, scattered over the eastern half of the United States, indicates
fairly well the wood's most important lines of usefulness. A con-
siderable quantity is made into flooring and interior finish. It is
classed among sanitary woods, that is, it does not stain or taint food
products by contact.

The total quantity of merchantable white ash in the country is
not known, but there is still enough to meet demand, and the
extent of the tree's range makes supplies convenient in nearly all manu-
facturing states. The species grows rather rapidly, and trees a hundred
or a hundred and fifty years old yield logs of good size.

Texas Ash (Fraxinus texensis) has been regarded by some as a
variety of white ash, while others, including Sudworth and Sargent,
consider it a distinct species. It is often called mountain ash where it
occurs among the mountains of western Texas. Its range lies wholly in
that state, and extends from the vicinity of Dallas to the valley of Devil's
river. The compound leaves are smaller than those of white ash, and
are usually composed of five leaflets. The winged seeds ripen in May,
and are an inch or less in length. The largest trees are fifty feet high
and two or three in diameter ; but generally the trees are much smaller.
The wood is strong, heavy, and hard. The annual rings are marked by
one or more rows of open ducts, and the medullary rays are inconspicu-
ous. The heartwood is light brown, the sapwood lighter. This ash is
employed within its range for various purposes, but it is not of sufficient
abundance to constitute an important commodity. In market it is not
distinguished from white ash.

Gregg Ash {Fraxinus greggii) has some peculiarities which make
it worthy of mention as one of the minor species. Its range is in the
dry mountains of western Texas where a number of ashes seem to have
put in an appearance as members of the thinly-peopled vegetable king-
dom of that region. The compound leaves of Gregg ash arc seldom
three inches long, and the leaflets arc often half an inch long and less

412

American Forest Trees

than a quarter of an inch wide. The petioles are winged like the twigs
of wing elm. The undersides of the leaves have small black dots. The
winged seeds are as proportionately small as the leaves. The flowers
have not been described by botanists, for the species is not well known.
The largest trees are scarcely twenty-five feet high and eight inches in
diameter. More frequently they are shrubs from four to twelve feet tall.
The wood is heavy, hard, brown in color and of slow growth.

Dwarf Ash (Fraxinus anomala) might be mistaken for some other
species were its telltale winged seeds missing. It has lost the leaflets
from its compound leaf, and a single one remains. Occasionally, how-
ever, a stem bearing three leaflets is found. The seeds are equipped
with wide, oblong wings. It is a desert species, and the desolate sur-
roundings of its habitat explain why nature has dispensed with as much
foliage as possible. It is found in southwestern Colorado, in southern
Utah, and on the western slopes of the Charleston mountains in southern
Nevada. Trees are small and the wood is not of much use for other than
fuel, but a few small ranch timbers are made of it where other kinds are
scarce. Trunks are usually not more than six or seven inches in diam-
eter. The wood is heavy, hard, and light brown in color.

Fringe Ash (Fraxinus cttspidata) has some difficulty in proving that it is
entitled to be called a tree in the United States, though southward in Mexico its right
to that title is unquestioned. It is very small where its range extends over the dry
ridges and rocky slopes of southwestern Texas and southern Xew Mexico and Arizona.
Its compound leaves are five or seven inches long, and the leaflets which number from
three to seven have long, slender tips. The trowel-shaped fruit is about one inch long.
The wood resembles white ash. but trunks of considerable size are not found. The
name refers to the flowers, and they give this small tree its value for ornamental
purposes. The flowers appear in April and are extremely fragrant.

BLACK ASH

BLACK ASH

(Fraxinus Xigra)

WHEN George Washington was a surveyor locating land on the
upper waters of the Potomac river, and westward on the Kanawha
and Ohio rivers, he always spoke of this ash as "hoop tree" when he
marked it with two or with three "hacks," depending upon whether
it designated a "corner" or a "line," or a "pointer" in the system of
surveying then in use. Trees were used then as landmarks, and were
duly recorded in the surveyor's field notes, and were described in the
deeds when the title to the land passed from one party to another. It
was not unusual, if subsequent litigation came up, to cut blocks from
marked trees to prove that such a corner was at such a place. The
"hacks" or ax marks, were sometimes healed over and invisible at the
bark, but were found deep in the wood. The rings of growth covering
the ax marks afforded an admissible record of the years that had passed
since the survey was made. The selection of the black ash as a land-
mark was one of the few instances in which Washington showed poor
judgment; because it is a tree of short life, and might be expected to die
before a great many years.

The name hoop ash is applied to this tree yet. It has always been
good material for barrel hoops, because it splits into thin pieces, and is
sufficiently tough. It is known as basket ash for the same reason. The
New England Indians were making fish baskets of it when the first
white people landed on those shores, and settlers speedily learned the
art from the children of the wilderness. Those untutored savages
knew little of wood technology, but they were able to take advantage of a
peculiarity in the structure of black ash wood, which the white man's
microscope has revealed to him. The Indians doubtless discovered it
accidentally. The springwood in the annual ring of black ash is made
up of large pores, crowded so closely together that there is really very
little actual wood substance there. In other woods, the springwood is
chiefly air spaces. The result is, that billets of black ash are easily
separated into thin strips, the cleavage following the weak lines of spring-
wood. A little beating and bending causes the animal rings to fall apart
In some way the Indians found that out, and utilized their knowledge in
manufacturing baskets in which to carry fish, acorns, hickory nuts, and
other forest and water commodities.

The white people extended the scope of application to include
chairs and other furniture in which splits are manipulated. It is worthy
of note that Indians made a similar discovery with northern white cedar

416 American Forest Trees

or arborvitae, which separates into thin pieces by beating and bending.
Barrel makers took advantage of the splitting properties of black ash to
make hoops of it, hence the name hoop ash, or hoop tree as Washington
called it. The name basket ash has a similar origin.

The names swamp ash and water ash refer to situations in which the
tree grows best. It is one of the thirstiest inhabitants of the forest. Its
aggressive roots ramify through the soil and drink up the moisture so
voraciously that if water is not abundant, neighboring trees and plants
may find their roots robbed, and the functions of healthy growth will
be interfered with. This has led to a general belief that black ash poisons
trees that it touches. It simply robs their roots. Carolina and Lom-
bardy poplars will sometimes do the same thing.

The name black ash by which this tree is now known in most regions
where it grows refers to the color of the large, prominent, shiny, blue-
black buds in late winter and early spring; to the very dark green leaves
in summer — which at a distance resemble the foliage of post oak — and,
to some extent, to the dark brown color of the heartwood, though the
wood is not always a safe means of identification if judged from super-
ficial appearance only. The form of the tree assists in identifying it;
for it is the slimmest of the ashes, in proportion to its height. Trunks
three feet through are heard of, but few persons have ever seen one much
over twenty inches, and many are about done growing when they are one
foot in diameter. Yet the trunks of such are very tall, perhaps seventy
or eighty feet. Their appearance has been likened to tall, slender
columns of dark gray granite. They often stand so straight that a
plummet line will not reveal a deviation from the perpendicular.

The tree has been called elder-leaved ash. The form of the foliage
has something to do with that name, but the odor more. Crush the
leaves, and they smell like elder. The compound leaves are from twelve
to sixteen inches long; the leaflets range from seven to eleven in num-
ber, and the side leaflets have no stalks. The leaves appear late in
spring, and they fall early in autumn. They drop with the butternut
leaves, and like them, all at once. The seed is winged, and the wing
forms a margin entirely round the seed.

The wood of black ash is rather soft, moderately heavy, tough, but
only moderately strong, not durable in contact with the soil, dark brown
in color with sapwood whiter. The species ranges farther north than
any other ash, and grows in cold swamps and on the low banks of streams
and lakes from Newfoundland to Winnipeg, and southward to Virginia,
southern Illinois, southern Missouri, and Arkansas.

Black ash fills many important places in the country's wood-using
industries, but the total quantity is not large. In 1910 Michigan manu-

American Forest Trees 417

facturers reported the annual quantity in that state at 9,110,432 feet,
and in Illinois the total was 9,936,000 feet. The uses for the wood in
Michigan may be regarded as typical of the whole country. The re-
ported uses were, auto seats, baskets, boat finish, butter tubs, candy
pails, carriage seats, crating, church pews, fish nets, office fixtures,
flooring, furniture, ice chests, interior finish, jelly buckets, kitchen cabi-
nets, lard tubs, piano frames, putty kegs, racked hoops, spice kegs, tin
plate boxes, veneer, washboards, and woven splint boxes.

Black ash burls are characteristic excrescences on the trunk. They
begin as small lumps or knobs under the bark, and never cease growing
while the tree lives. They may reach the dimensions of wash tubs,
but most do not exceed the size of a gallon measure. The grain of the
wood is exceedingly distorted and involved. The burls are sliced or
sawed in veneers which are much prized by cabinet makers. Early
New Englanders made bowls of them, which seldom checked or split
during generations of service. The burls are believed to be due to ad-
ventitious buds; that is, buds which originate deep in the wood, but are
never able to force their way through the bark. The internal structure
of the ash burl indicates that the buried bud grows, branches, and sends
shoots in various directions, but all of them are hopelessly enmeshed in
the wood substance, and never are able to free themselves and burst
through the bark. A constantly enlarging excrescence is the result.

Blue Ash (Fraxinus quadrangulata) is named from a blue dye
procured from the inner bark. The botanical name relates to the square
shape of the young twigs, particularly the twigs of young trees, and was
given by A. F. Michaux who found the species growing in the South. It
reaches its best development on the lower Wabash river in Indiana and
Illinois and on the Big Smoky mountains in Tennessee. Its northern
limit reaches southern Michigan, its western is in Missouri. It is not
abundant, if found at all, east of the Appalachian mountains. Trees may
reach a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three, but about seventy is
the average height, with a diameter of two feet or less. The leaves
resemble those of black ash in form, but the foliage when seen in mass is
yellow-green instead of dark green like that of black ash. The seeds
look like those of black ash. The tree bears perfect flowers, and in that
respect differs from most other species of ash.

The wood is heavier than that of any other member of the ash
group, except Texas ash. It weighs about the same as white oak, which
is six pounds per cubic foot more than white ash weighs. In general
appearance the wood resembles white ash, but it is usually considered
stronger and more springy. The trunks of young trees arc largely or
entirely sapwood. Sometimes no heart wood is formed until an age of

418

American Forest Trees

seventy or eighty years is reached. Many manufacturers of ash tool
handles prefer this species to any other ash, because of its thick, white
sapvvood. It is often made into handles for hoes, rakes, shovels, pitch-
forks, spades, and snaths for scythes. Makers of vehicles draw liberally
upon this wood within its range, as do furniture makers and the manu-
facturers of flooring. It is regarded as harder than white ash, and
consequently better flooring material.

Leathekleaf Ash (Fraxinus velutina) changes its velvety leaves to a leathery
condition, hence the conflict in the meanings of its two names. I elutina means velvet-
like. The compound leaves are seldom six inches long, often not three, and they
are made up of from three to nine leaflets. The small seeds are equipped with wings.
The tree is small and would be without any commercial importance except that it
grows in an arid region where any wood is welcome. It is made into ax, hammer,
and pick handles, and wagon makers are often glad to get it. It is found among the
mountains and canyons of western Texas, in New Mexico, Arizona, southern Nevada,
and southeastern California, near the shores of Owen's lake. The largest trees are
scarcely forty feet high and eight inches in diameter. The wood is not hard or
strong, and is of slow growth. The largest trunks are apt to be hollow. Sapwood
is comparatively thick.

Berlandier Ash (Fraxinus bcrlandicriana) may not be entitled to a place
among native species of the United States. Some suppose it was introduced from
Mexico by early Spanish settlers in western Texas. It now grows wild there along
Nueces and Blanco rivers where specimens thirty feet high and a foot in diameter are
found. Southward in Mexico it is a popular street tree, and trunks reach six or eight
feet in diameter. The wood is soft and is used only locally and in very small quan-
tities.

OREGOX ASH

OREGON ASH

(Fraxinus Oregona)

THIS tree is unusual in that it has only one common name, and that
is a translation of its botanical name which was given it by Nuttall
who visited the Pacific coast several years before the discovery of gold.

The moist bottom lands of southwestern Oregon are best suited to
its growth, and here the best individuals and most abundant stands are
found. Moist soil and climate are essential to proper development of
this tree, and in such* environment it is found from Puget Sound south-
ward along the coast to San Francisco. A little further from the coast it
grows along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, to the low
mountains in San Diego and San Bernardino counties, California, in the
southern extension of its range occupying a rather dry region.

The trunk grows to a height of eighty or 100 feet, and is often three
feet in diameter. It is covered with a gray-brown bark, exfoliating in
flaky scales. The leaves are from five to fourteen inches long, and
have five or seven firm, light-green leaflets, finely toothed and bluntly
pointed. The flowers appear in April and May and are in compact
panicles; the fruit in clusters, broadly winged and round pointed, and
from one to two inches long.

The scarcity of good hardwoods on the Pacific coast gives this ash
more importance than it otherwise would have, and the importance
which it possesses has been frequently overstated. It is not abundant
of form and size fitting it for lumber. It has long been cut in small
quantities, but never in large. The census returns for 1910 show that
less than 400,000 feet per year are reported in its entire range. Three-
fourths of this is sawed in Oregon, the remainder in Washington.
Though the species has a range of 800 miles north and south through
California, no sawmill reported a foot of it. However, it is probable that
census returns fail to do this wood full justice ; for it is well known that
considerable quantities are manufactured into articles without passing
through sawmills. Chief among such commodities is slack cooperage.
Butter tubs of Oregon ash are common. Much goes to wagon shops, and
some of it without aid of sawmills.

Little or none of this wood is shipped outside its range, and its use
is local. Boat builders work it into finish for cabins and upper parts,
and some serves as ribs. It is often seen as handles for picks, shovels,
spades, pitchforks, and rakes. A little finds place, combined with other
woods, in office and store fixtures. Its grain resembles that of white
ash. It is not as heavy, and it is not believed to be as strong. It is

421

422 American Forest Trees

hard, brittle, brown in color, with thick, lighter-colored sapwood.
Furniture makers list it as shop material, and such is its largest reported
use in Washington. A moderate amount is made into saddletrees and
stirrups, and much is used as fuel.

Oregon ash has been planted for shade and ornament in both this
country and Europe. It grows rapidly and develops a symmetrical
crown. The habit it has of coming into leaf late in the spring and throw-
ing its foliage down early in autumn is held by some as a serious objection
to it as an ornamental tree; but it has compensating habits. It is
remarkably free from disease, and, though leaves come late and go early,
while its foliage is on, it is healthy and vigorous. Reproduction is
satisfactory in the tree's wild state, and there is no danger that the
species will disappear. No movement has yet been made to plant this
ash for commercial timber growing.

Green1 Ash (Fraxinus lanceolata) has been given that name on
account of the bright color of its foliage. It has other names, however,
which indicate that its greenness is not always preeminently prominent.
In Iowa and Arkansas they call it blue ash; in Kansas and Nebraska
white ash; in some regions it is known as water ash, and elsewhere
swamp ash. Some botanists do not regard it as a separate species but
call it a variety of red ash, but the concensus of opinion is that it is a
distinct species, though there appear to be connecting forms grading
from red ash into green ash. Certain it is that the two are distinct
enough in certain parts of the country. The range of green ash is more
extensive than that of any other ash in this country. Beginning in
Vermont it passes southward to Florida ; northwestward to the Saskatch-
ewan river several hundred miles north of the international boundary
line; along the base of the Rocky Mountains and over the ranges to
Arizona, and through Texas. This includes more than half of the area
of the United States. Notwithstanding a range so extensive, the total
quantity of green ash timber in the country is not large. No pure forests
or extensive stands exist. Trees are widely dispersed, and when lum-
bermen cut them, the wood is sold as some other, usually as white ash.
The wood has the general characters of red ash. It weighs about forty-
four pounds per cubic foot of dry wood; is moderately strong, fairly
stiff and elastic, and, like other species of ash, it is not durable in contact
with the soil.

Green ash is more planted than any other in the cold and dry
regions of the West and Northwest. It is a prairie tree and is found along
highways and in door yards from Kansas northward into British
America. It stands drought better than any other ash, and resists cold
fully as well, and yet it endures the warm weather and the rains of the

American Forest Trees 423

South and flourishes there. It is not a large tree, but of sufficient size
for use as furniture, finish, and vehicle making. It is seldom listed in
statistics of woods which go to sawmills, yet it is known that a good
many logs find their way to mills, while wagon makers and slack coopers
employ it in producing their commodities. The tree is an abundant
seeder, and the seeds continue to fall during most of the winter.

RED Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) is neither a large tree nor very abundant,
yet it has a wide range and is put to use wherever lumbermen find it convenient.
The lumber generally passes in the market as white ash, and for most purposes it is
as good, but is rated lower than that wood in elasticity. It is called brown ash in
Maine, black ash in New Jersey, river ash in Rhode Island. The last name is be-
stowed because the tree prefers moist land near rivers and ponds, and largest speci-
mens are found in such situations, where it is often an associate of black ash and is
frequently mistaken for it, though it should not be difficult to tell the species apart.
A slight reddish tinge sometimes shows on the outer bark; the inner layer of bark is
reddish ; the small twigs and the under sides of leaves are clothed with hairs which
sometimes suggest redness; and the heartwood is reddish-brown. Persons who speak
of the tree as red ash probably have one or more of those characteristics in mind. As
a tree it has no striking peculiarities. Its usual height is forty or sixty feet; its
diameter from fifteen to twenty inches ; its compound leaves ten or twelve inches long,
with seven or nine leaflets; its seeds one or two inches in length, narrow, and sharply
pointed, with slender, graceful wing.

The range of red ash is from New Brunswick to Dakota, and from Florida to
Alabama, with all of the included region of a million square miles. It attains its best
development in the north Atlantic states, while it is usually inferior west of the
Alleghany mountains. It develops a broad crown in open ground, but even there its
lower limbs die and drop, while in forests the trunk grows tall and the crown is re-
duced. It is planted for shade and ornament, but it seems to have no superiority
over white ash for that purpose. Some of the Michigan manufacturers list red ash
separately in their factories, and apparently this is not done elsewhere in the country.
About three-quarters of a million feet a year are used in that state, and since uses
there are doubtless typical of uses in the country generally, the list possesses im-
portance: Automobile frames, boxes, butter tubs, crates, eveners, flooring, furniture,
interior finish, neck yokes, singletrees, wagon poles. Farther east in early times red
ash was occasionally split for fence rails, but that use is important now only as history.

Pumpkin Ash (Fraxinus profunda) is a tree of peculiar interest. It was
unknown before 1S93, though the region had been settled over a hundred years. It
has the largest leaves, largest fruit, and largest swelled base of all American ashes.
Notwithstanding that, it remained so deeply hidden in swamps that it escaped dis-
covery. The botanical name refers to the deep swamps in which the tree chooses its
habitation. Its great, swelled base enables it to stand on the soft mud of lagoon
bottoms, and the abnormal swelling is ribbed like a pumpkin, hence the only English
name the tree has ever had. These are not the only remarkable things connected
with this ash. Its range includes three or four deep swamps, far apart. One is in
southern Missouri, New Madrid country, another near Yarney, Arkansas, and a third.
in a vast morass on the Apalachicola river, Florida. It is believed to have been
originally a Florida species, and by some freak of nature it reached the Missouri and
Arkansas swamps. Certain other Florida plants accompanied it, one of which was
corkwood (Lcilneria floridana). It is expected that pumpkin ash will be found else-

424 American Forest Trees

where in deep swamps intermediate between the extremes of its range. The uses of
this wood are few, because it is scarce, and the trees are difficult of access on account
of being nearly always surrounded by water. Lumbermen who operate in swamps
occasionally bring out a few ash logs with cypress and tupelo. No tests seem to
have been made of the wood. Trees are sometimes 120 feet high and three in diam-
eter above the swelled bases.

Water Ash (Fraxinus caroliniana) is much lighter in weight than any other
American ash, and the wood is also lighter in color. It is weaker and less elastic
than any other, and is lower in fuel value. It weighs less than white pine. It grows
in deep swamps from southern Virginia to Florida and westward in swamps to Texas.
Some have confused it with pumpkin ash, but the two are quite distinct. This tree
is also called poppy ash. The leaves are from seven to twelve inches long, with five or
seven leaflets which are much blunter than most other ash leaves. The seeds are
nearly in the center of the broad, long wing, and are better flyers than most ash seeds.
The tree seldom exceeds forty feet in height, or twelve inches in diameter. It is not
known that the wood is ever used. Its scarcity will keep it from becoming important,
though its uncommon lightness may lead to its employment for certain purposes.

Bii/tmorE Ash (Fraxinus biltmoreana) is named from Biltmore, N. C, where
the tree attains its best development, a height of forty or fifty feet and a foot or less in
diameter. Its range extends from northern West Virginia southward along the foot-
hills of the Appalachian mountains to Georgia, Alabama, and middle Tennessee. The
seed wings are slender, and only slightly narrowed at the end. The leaf is ten or
twelve inches long, with seven or nine leaflets. The twigs of young trees are hairy.
An occasional log doubtless goes to sawmills, but no report has been made of uses of
the wood.

Florida Ash (Fraxinus floridana) is a deep swamp tree, thirty or forty feet
high, and a few inches in diameter. It is found in the valley of St. Mary's river,
southern Georgia, and along the lower Apalachicola river, Florida. The compound
leaves are five or more inches long with three or five leaflets. The seeds are small but
their wings are wide and long. No report has been made concerning the quality
of the wood, nor has it been used, as far as known. The supply is very small.

SUGAR MAPLE

SUGAR MAPLE

(Acer Saccharum)

THE makers of sugar in the North call this tree sugar maple, but
lumbermen and users of wood nearly always speak of it as hard
maple. All maples — and there are nearly a dozen — are tolerably hard,
and sugar may be obtained from most of them ; but this species is hardest
of all, and the most prolific sugar maker, hence the two names are
appropriate. It is often called rock maple, which name refers to its
hard wood. In some regions the name most heard is sugar tree.

Its range extends from Newfoundland through Canada to Lake
of the Woods, southward through Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and
Arkansas to Texas. It is found in every state east of the Mississippi,
but it is not abundant in the South. Its best development is found from
New England across the northern states to Michigan. Some very fine
sugar maple is found in fertile valleys and on slopes among the Appa-
lachian ranges from Pennsylvania southward. The largest lumber cut
of maple is in the following states, ranging in the order given: Michigan,
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and
Vermont. Since the different species of maple are not reported separate-
ly in statistics, there is no way of determining how much each of the
maples supplies. It is well known that sugar maple greatlv exceeds all
others.

At its best this tree may exceed a height of 100 feet and a diameter
of three ; but the average for mature timber in the best part of its range is
sixty or eighty feet in height, and two in diameter. The flowers appear
with the leaves in early spring, but the seeds do not ripen until autumn,
when they are bright red. They are winged, and usually two grow
together, but they sometimes become detached, in which case each is
capable of flight with its single wing. It is characteristic of maple seeds
to whirl rapidly while falling, and if a moderate wind is blowing, they
glide considerable distances. They usually fly farther than the seeds of
ash although their wings are no larger. The immense numbers of seeds
borne by the sugar maple insure abundant reproduction in the vicinity
of parent trees. The seeds sprout readily, but often so closely crowded
together that most of them die the first few weeks. Not one in ten
thousand can even become a large tree, and yet large trees are exceed-
ingly abundant in extensive regions. They often form nearly pure
stands, crowding to death all rivals that try to obtain a foothold. On
the other hand, this maple often contents itself with a place among
other forest trees.

428 American Forest Trees

It is one of the most vigorous and dependable of trees. It does
not grow fast, but it keeps steadily at it a long time, and enjoys unusually
good health. Its worst enemy is coal smoke, but fortunately, most
sugar maple forests are out of reach of that disturber, though shade
trees near factory towns and in the vicinity of coke ovens often suffer.
Woodlots of sugar maple, occupying corners of farms in the northern
states from Minnesota to Maine, present pictures of health, vigor, cleanli-
ness, and beauty which no forest tree surpasses. The intense green and
the density of the crowns in summer make the trees conspicuous in any
landscape where they occur, while their brilliant colors in autumn are
the chief glory of the forest where they abound.

The wood of this tree is hard, strong, and dense. It is three
pounds lighter per cubic foot than white oak, and theoretically it rates a
little lower in fuel value, but those who use both woods as fuel consider
maple worth more. It is thirty per cent stronger than white oak, and
fifty-three per cent stiffer. The wood is diffuse-porous, that is, the
pores are not arranged in bands or rows, as they usually are in oaks, but
are scattered in all parts. They are too small to be seen with the naked
eye, but under a magnifying glass they are visible in large numbers.
The yearly ring is not very distinct, because of the slight contrast
between spring and summerwood. The medullar)' rays are numerous
but small. In wood sawed along radial lines, from heart to sap, small
silvery flecks are numerous. These are the medullary rays. The}- add
something to the appearance of quarter-sawed maple, but not enough
to induce mills to turn out much of it.

Such figures as maple has are brought out best in tangential sawing
— that is, cut like a slab off the side of the log. Three distinct figures are
recognized in sugar maple, and to some extent they belong to other
maples. These forms of wood are known as birdseye, curly, and blister
maple. They are accidental forms and exist in certain trees only.
Students of wood structure are not wholly agreed as to the cause of these
forms, but one of them, the birdseye effect, is believed to be due to
adventitious buds which distort the wood in their vicinity. These buds
start near the center of the tree when it is small, but never succeed in
forcing their way out. They remain just beneath the bark during most
or the whole of the tree's life. A pin-like core, resembling a fine
thread, connects the birdseye with the tree's pith. This thread is the
pith of the embryonic branch formed by the bud which never breaks
through the bark. When the wood is sawed tangentially, small, dark-
brown points or dots show the center of the buds, or the pith line con-
necting it with the tree's center. Curly maple and blister maple are
not believed to be formed in the same way as birdseye.

American Forest Trees 429

The uses of sugar maple are nearly universal, where a hard, white
wood is wanted. Many large trees contain little colored heart, and trees
are generally fifty years old before they have any. More maple is worked
into flooring than into any other one commodity. Mills in Michigan
alone, in 1910, made 1S5, 6 11,662 feet of maple flooring. It was shipped
to practically every civilized country in the world. Many builders
consider it the best wooden floor that can be laid. In a test made in a
large store in Philadelphia some years ago, a marble floor wore through
sooner than maple, when the same wear was on both.

Nearly all kinds and classes of furniture have places for maple,
either as outside material or inside frames, drawer bottoms, or partitions.
Vehicle manufacturers employ it for heavy axles, running gear, parts of
automobiles, sleigh runners and frames, and hand sleds. It is made into
handles from gimlet sizes to cant hooks. Gymnasium apparatus owes
much to the whiteness, smoothness, and strength of maple. Wooden-
ware from toothpicks to ironing boards; from butcher blocks to butter
molds ; from door knobs to die blocks, is dependent on maple for some of
its best material. It is largely used for boxes, in both solid and veneer
form. Only two woods are now employed in larger amounts for veneers
in the United States than maple. They are red gum and yellow pine.

Maple is one of the three woods most largely employed in hard-
wood distillation in this country; beech and birch are the others.
Maple sugar is a product of this tree almost exclusively, and the business
is large. In some parts of New England it is claimed that a grove is
worth more for sugar than the land is worth for agriculture.

Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) is generally called soft maple by lumber-
men. It is known also as white maple, river maple, silver-leaved maple, swamp
maple, and water maple. The sinuouses of the leaves are very deep. The lighter
colorof its bark and the pale green of the leaves distinguish soft maple at a glance from
sugar maple when both are in full leaf. The greenish-yellow flowers open in early
spring, and the seeds are ripe in April or May, depending on the season and region.
The seeds have large wings and fly well. They germinate in a few days after tiny
find suitable soil, and before the end of the summer the seedlings have grown several
leaves. The vigor thus displayed continues until the tree is large. It is a fast grower,
and for that reason has been extensively planted as a street and park tree. The
wisdom of doing so is doubtful, for this maple throws out long limbs which ar< ofti a
broken by wind. The trunk is subject to disease, and a row of old soft maples nearly
always presents a ragged, unkept, neglected appearance. As to beauty of form and
crown, there is little comparison between it and the planted sugar maple. Soft
maples in forests range from seventy-five to 120 feet in height, and two to four in
diameter; that is, they attain about the same size as sugar maples. The species
covers a million square miles, practically the whole country east of the Mississippi,
some west of that river, and most of eastern Canada.

Ii: is a useful wood for many purposes. The custom of mixing this with
maple makes it impossible to clearly separate the two woods afterwards. Ii is the

430

American- Forest Trees

opinion of some well-informed manufacturers that about five per cent of the total
maple cut in the United States is soft maple. The ratio is less in the North and more
in the South. The wood is hard, strong, rather brittle, easily worked, pale brown
with thick, white sap wood. Some rather large trunks have no sapwood. It is in
general use, but not for as many purposes as sugar maple. The largest places found
for it are as flooring and woodenware, though furniture and boxes, particularly veneer
boxes, consume much Its weight is three-fourths that of sugar maple. The largest
trees and the best wood grow in the lower Ohio vallev.

RED MAPLE

RED MAPLE

(.4<vr Rubriau)

THIS tree's names describe it. Some refer to color of leaves, flowers,
and fruit, others to situation where it grows best. It is known as
red maple and swamp maple; also as water maple, white maple, scarlet
maple, and shoepeg maple. New York Indianas called it ah-we-hot-
kwah, which meant red flower. Most trees looked alike to Indians, and
when they gave a name, it was descriptive.

The redness of this maple is so marked that it cannot escape notice.
The flowers, fruit, twigs, and leaves all possess the property at one time
or another during the season. The flower comes before the leaf, during
the first warm days of spring. That is pretty early in the South, and
later in the North. The flowers are bright scarlet, and very conspicuous,
growing in umbel-like, drooping clusters. The staminate and pistillate
ones frequently grow on different trees, and always in separate clusters.

The fruit ripens quickly, and is sometimes almost mature before
the haves appear. The date of ripening depends upon latitude. The
tree's range north and south exceeds a thousand miles and that makes
much difference in climate. In the South the fruit outstrips the leaves
and has about reached maturity before the unfolding leaves are large
enough to hide it ; but in New England and New York the leaves are large
before the fruit is mature. The seed is the characteristic maple key,
with a wing to carry it. The fruit — and by that term the seed with its
attached wing is meant — is bright red, and a tree loaded with the vivid
clusters is a beautiful spectacle. Two seeds are generally fast together,
and they make surprising flights in that condition, passing with whirling
motion through the air. Gravity spins them, but wind carries them for-
ward, and the random of their flight depends on the strength of the wind,
which happens to be blowing when they sever their connection with the
tree.

The seeds germinate quickly when they light on damp soil. If
they do not find such situations, the)' soon perish; because thev do not
retain their vitality long. By the middle of summer the young trees
have several leaves, and from that time on the struggle is mainlv among
themselves for space and moisture, because they stand so thick thai it is
a survival of the fittest

The young twigs are generally red in spring, but they do not present
as conspicuous a mass as the flowers and fruit do. The leaves are simple,
with long reddish petioles. They have three or five lobes, the lower pair
often entirely missing, and small if present. Each lobe has a pointed

434 American" Forest Trees

apex, and is irregularly serrate. The base of the leaf is rounded; also
the sinuses, which extend far into the body of the leaf. The upper
surface of the leaf is bright green, the lower a silvery- white. In the fall
this tree is entitled to the name scarlet ; for then the brilliant hues of the
leaves are remarkably fine.

The range of red maple covers more than a million square miles, and
touches every state east of the Mississippi river, and west of that stream
it extends from South Dakota to Texas. It prefers rather swampy
ground, but wants fertile soil. It is frequently found on the banks of
creeks and rivers, and rarely on hillsides. It is most abundant in the
South, particularly in the lower Mississippi valley, while trees of larger
size are found in the valley of the lower Ohio. In the North it takes
more to low wet swamps where it sometimes grows in such thickets as
almost to exclude other species.

The best red maple trees attain a height of 100 feet or more, and a
diameter of four feet or less. The average size is seventy feet high and
two in diameter. The form of the tree, like that of all other maples,
depends much upon the situation in which it grows. Good saw timber
is not often cut from this species near the outer borders of its range.

The wood is about three-fourths as strong as hard maple, and is
five pounds lighter per cubic foot, but is about six pounds heavier than
soft or silver maple. It may, therefore, be considered that in some
important points red maple is midway between hard and soft maple. In
color it is light brown, slightly tinged with red. The sapwood is thick
and lighter in color than the heart. The tree is usually not of rapid
growth. The contrast between the springwood and summerwood is not
strong. The wood is very porous, but the pores are so small that the
unaided eye cannot discern them. The medullary rays are numerous,
but thin, and are seldom considered in working the lumber.

Mills which saw this maple do not separate the lumber from other
maples. The woodsman knows the difference, but the lumberman does
not consider it worth while to pile the sawed stock separately. It
sometimes goes to market as hard maple, sometimes as soft, but never
under its own name. Consequently, it has no uses which are not also
common to other maples. Lumbermen cut it when they find it mixed
with other hardwoods where they are carrying on logging operations.

Red maple is made into flooring, interior finish, and veneer box
material. Veneers are also made for furniture. These are the most
important uses for the wood, but the manufacturers of woodenware
employ it for numerous commodities, such as trays, bowls, ironing boards,
grain scoops, snow shovels, clothes racks, garment hangers, and clothes
pins. This species shows birdseye effect similar to that of sugar maple,

American' Forest Trees 43-3

but less of the stock goes to market. Logs with birdseye wood are
generally reduced to veneer by the rotary process. Curly and wavy
grains also occur in this maple. The wavy grain was much sought after
by the early hunters who equipped their long rifles with stocks. Having
found a piece of timber with the desired wavy grain, the hunter pro-
ceeded to shave and whittie until the stock was fitted to the barrel, and
the gun was complete. Some of the stocks made with no tools but an
ax, drawing knife, and a pocket knife, were works of art which are
worthy of preservation in museums.

Occasionally some unknown rural Stradivari made a violin and
selected the curly wood of red maple for the neck and sides. A few of
these instruments are floating about the country, but an age of fifty or
a hundred years has not yet imparted classic value to them, but the wood
is unsurpassed in delicacy of grain and figure.

Sugar may be manufactured from red maple, but in smaller quan-
tity than from sugar maple. In the days when every frontier settle-
ment did its own manufacturing, inks and dyes were made from the bark
of this tree. The tannin boiled from the bark was treated with sulphate
of iron, and it became ink; when alum was added it became black dye;
when the sulphate of iron was omitted, and alum alone was put in, a
cinnamon-colored dye resulted.

Red maple is one of the most desirable trees for planting in parks
and by roadsides. Nurserymen complain that seedlings are more
difficult to manage than silver maples; nor do they grow as rapidly, but
the trees are worth much more when once established. They have
shorter and stronger branches than silver maple; are less liable to be
attacked by disease ; are more handsome in every way ; but they demand
damper soil, and succeed poorly in any other. That drawback tends to
restrict the artificial planting of this tree.

Mountain Maple (Acer spkatum) is known also as moose maple, low maple,
and water maple. It is a small tree at its best, seldom more than twenty-five feet
high and eight inches in diameter, while in most parts of its range it is only a shrub.
Its best growth is on mountain slopes of eastern Tennessee and western North Caro-
lina. It likes moist, rich hillsides, and does not object to shade. The flowers come
late, but within a month or six weeks after the bloom appears, the fruit is full grown,
but it remains on the tree till autumn. The tree's bark is smooth and very thin.
The absence of stripes distinguishes this tree from striped maple, which has nearly the
same range. Mountain maple grows from Maine to Minnesota, southward to Mich
igan, and along the mountains to Georgia. The wood is light, soft, brown tinged « ith
red. The small size of the trunk forbids its conversion into ordinary lumber. The
only commercial use reported for it is in Pennsylvania where it is cut along with
other hardwoods for destructive distillation.

Florida Maple (Acer floridanum) is a species according to some, and according
to others is a variety of the hard maple. Its range is limited, and the available

436

American Forest Trees

quantity of the wood is small. It is found in the swamps of southern Georgia and
western Florida, and westward to Texas, Louisiana, and southern Arkansas. Near
the southwestern limits of its range in Texas and Mexico, it is often a shrub; but
in the best part of its range it becomes a tree fifty or sixty feet high and two or three
in diameter. The wood passes for hard maple when sawed into lumber, but it is not
often sent to sawmills. The makers of bent wood rustic furniture in some of the
southern towns, particularly in Louisiana, have found the slender branches of
Florida maple well suited to that purpose.

Drummond Mapue [Acer rubrum drummondii) is a variety of red maple, not a
separate species. Its range lies in the coastal plain of Alabama and Georgia, western
Louisiana, eastern Texas, southwestern Tennessee, and southern Arkansas. It
grows in deep swamps, and has three-lobed leaves, and large-winged fruit, ripening in
April and May. The wood is too scarce to be important in the lumber trade, but
where it can be had it is used. Violin makers have procured some finely curled wood
of this maple in Union Parish, Louisiana. Some of the wood from that district has
been made into gunstocks also.

Whitebark Maple (Acer leucoderme) has been classed as a variety of sugar
maple, and also as a separate species. It is named from the light gray color of the
oark of young stems; but the color turns dark with age. The tree is usually twenty
or thirty feet high with a diameter of a foot or more. The wood is of good quality,
but no uses, except fuel, have been reported. Trees are not abundant, but the range
covers parts of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Ar-
kansas. It is occasionally planted as a shade tree along the streets of towns of
Georgia and Alabama.

OREGON MAPLE

OREGON MAPLE

(Acer Macrophyllum)

BOTANISTS prefer to call this tree broadleaf maple. The name is
not inappropriate, as its extraordinarily broad leaves constitute the
most striking feature of the tree where it stands in the woods. The
leaf is usually wider than it is long. Some exceed a foot in both measure-
ments. Bigleaf maple is not an uncommon name for the tree in Oregon,
where it attains its highest development in damp valleys where the soil
is good. The name white maple is not particularly descriptive of any
feature of the tree, though the name is applied in both Oregon and
Washington. In California it is known simply as maple. There is
small likelihood in that region that it will be confused with any other
member of the maple household ; nor is there much danger of such a thing
in any part of the Pacific coast, for, though four species of maple occur
there, no one of them bears close enough resemblance to this one to be
mistaken for it.

The Oregon maple's range north and south covers twenty degrees of
latitude. In that particular it is not much surpassed, if surpassed at
all, by any maple of this country. Its northern limit lies in Alaska, its
southern close to the Mexican boundary, in San Diego county, Cali-
fornia. Its range east and west is restricted. It has a width of about
one hundred and fifty miles in California, where it grows from the coast
to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. An altitude of 5,600
feet appears to be the limit of its range upward. It attains altitudes
above 5,000 feet at several points in the Sierra Nevada range. It
descends nearly to sea level. Its geographical range is similar to the
ranges of several other Pacific coast species which occupy long ribbons
of territory stretching north and south parallel with the coast of the
Pacific ocean.

This maple's leaves change to a clear reddish-yellow before falling.
Flowers appear after the leaves are grown, and the seeds ripen late in
autumn. Some of them hang until late in winter, but the habit varies in
different parts of the range, as is natural in view of its great extension
north and south. The trees which stand in open ground are very abun-
dant seeders, but those in dense stands produce sparingly, in that par-
ticular following the habit of most trees. This maple often grows in
dense, nearly pure stands in Oregon and Washington where soil and
other conditions are favorable.

The sizes and forms of Oregon maple vary greatly. John Muir
spoke of forests whose trees were eighty or one hundred feet high, so

440 American Forest Trees

dense with leaves and so abundantly supplied with branches that moss
and ferns formed a canopy with foliage and limbs high over head, like an
aerial garden; while George B. Sud worth described it in certain situa-
tions as a short-stemmed, crooked tree from twenty-five to thirty feet
high and under a foot in diameter.

This maple has been called the most valuable hardwood of the
Pacific coast, but that claim is made also for other trees. Some persons
rate it with the hard maple of the East, in properties which commend it
for use. It is doubtful if the claim can be substantiated. According to
Sargent's figures for strength, stiffness, weight, and fuel value, it lacks
much of equalling the eastern tree. It is twelve pounds per cubic foot
lighter; has not three-fourths the fuel value; and is little more than half
as strong or as stiff. The comparison is more in favor of the western
tree when color of wood and appearance of grain are considered. The
wood is light brown with pale tint of red. The rings of annual growth
are tolerably distinct, with a thin, dark line separating the summerwood
of one year from the springwood of the next. The pores are scattered
with fair evenness in all parts of the ring. They are small and numerous.
The medullary rays are thin and abundant. In quarter-sawed wood
they show much the same as in hard maple, but are rather darker in
color. The mirrors are decidedly tinged with brown. The wood is
reported poor in resisting decay when in contact with the soil.

The largest use of Oregon maple appears to be for furniture, second,
for interior finish, and following these are numerous miscellaneous
uses. Statistics of the cut of this wood, as shown by sawmill reports,
are unsatisfactory. Census returns include it with all other maples of
the country, without figures for species. The cut of maple for all the
western states seems too small to give this wood justice. The amount
reported used in Washington, Oregon, and California exceeds the total
reported sawmill cut in the West.

Oregon maple is an important handlewood. The smooth grain
appeals to broom makers. The wood is made into ax handles, but for
that use it is much below hickory, or even hard maple or white oak. It
is converted into pulleys in Washington, also into saddle trees, and tent
toggles. Boat makers employ it for finish material, in which capacity it
fills the same place, and must meet the same requirements as in interior
finish for houses. Curly or wavy wood is occasionally found and this is
worked into finish and also into furniture. The figure is as handsome
as in eastern maple, but birdseye is less frequent. Counter tops for
stores and bar tops for saloons are sometimes made of figured maple. It
is seen also in grill work and show cases, but in order to show the figured
wood to the best advantage it should be worked in flat surfaces.

American Forest Trees 441

Oregon maple is converted into flooring of the ordinary tongued
and grooved kind, and also into parquet flooring. Rotary veneers are
made into boxes and baskets. Solid logs are turned for rollers of various
sizes and kinds. Mill yards use them for offbearing lumber, and house
movers find them about the best local material to be had. This maple
has been successfully stained in imitation of mahogany, and is said to
pass satisfactory tests where the color is the principal consideration

The amount of this species available in the Northwest is not defi-
nitely known, but it is a relatively scarce wood. No attention has ever
been given to planting it as a commercial proposition. It is not of very
rapid growth, and unless it is in dense stands, it develops a short trunk
and large crown. It is better suited for shade and ornament, and is to be
seen as a street tree in some western towns. It does not flourish in the
eastern states, but has found the climate of western Europe more con-
genial and is occasionally found as an ornamental tree there.

The relative importance of this maple in the state of Washington is
indicated by the amount used annually compared with certain other
hardwoods. In 1911 the consumption of willow was 2,000 feet, vine
maple 10,000, Oregon ash 58,000, Oregon oak 197,000, western birch
315,000, Oregon maple 932,500, red alder 1,881,500, and black cotton-
wood 32,572,200.

Vine Maple (Acer circinatum) is sometimes called mountain
maple, though the name is misleading. It may grow among mountains,
but always near streams. It is found at various altitudes from near sea
level to 5,000 feet above. It ranges from the coast region of British
Columbia southward through Washington and Oregon to Mendocino
county, California. This tree is more useful than might be inferred from
its name, or even from a study of it in its usual form. Only an occasional
tree is good for the wood user. A height of twenty feet and a diameter
of six inches are above the average. It is called vine maple because of
its habit of sprawling on the ground like a vine. The trunk lacks
sufficient stiffness to hold it erect. It grows upward to a certain point,
then leans over and the branches lie on the ground. Some of them take
root and in course of time what was first a single stem becomes a thicket
of branches and stems. The winter snow often has much to do with
bending the trunk, which appears to have no power to get back to the
perpendicular when once bowed down. The damp situation where this
tree thrives best, induces a luxuriant growth of moss and mold which
help to bury the branches that lie on the ground.

The tree prospers in deep shade. The young leaves are rose red,
and in the fall become yellow or scarlet. The fruit is the characteristic
maple key. The wing becomes rose-red before falling in autumn.

442 American Forest Trees

Though this tree is more a curiosity than a lumberman's asset, it is not
without value. Handle makers use 10,000 feet of it a year in the
state of Washington. It is shaved and turned for ax and shovel
handles. It has two-thirds the strength and less than half the stiffness
of eastern hard maple. The tree grows slowly and the annual rings are
very narrow and indistinct. Seventy or eighty years are required to
produce a trunk five inches in diameter. The wood is hard, and checks
badly in seasoning. The bark is very pale brown — suggesting the color
of a potato sprout that has grown in a dark cellar. The Indians liked
the wood for fish net bows, though there appears to have been no very
good reason why they preferred it to other woods of the region. Its
most extensive use at present is as fuel, but it is not particularly sought
after. The tree's future is not promising. Under domestication it does
not take on its fantastic, moldy, moss-grown form, and its forest growth
will never be encouraged by lumbermen.

Dwarf Maple (Acer glabrum) is one of the smallest of the maples,
but in a north and south direction its range is equal to that of any other.
Its southern limit is among the canyons of Arizona, and its northern on
the coast of Alaska within six or seven degrees of the Arctic circle. It
extends to Nebraska, and is found east of the continental divide far
north in British America. It reaches its largest size on Vancouver
island and on the Blue mountains in Oregon. It here is large enough to
make small sawlogs, but it is usually shrubby in other parts of its range.
It grows from sea level in Alaska to 9,000 feet altitude among the Sierra
Nevada mountains of California. Two forms of leaf occur. One is
three-lobed; the other is a compound leaf, the lobes having formed
separate leaves. The bright upper surface of the leaf gives the species
its botanical name. The seeds have large, wide wings. It cannot be
ascertained that the wood of this maple has ever been used for anything.

BOX ELDER

BOX ELDER

{Acer Negundo)

ATTEMPTS to ascertain the meaning of the word negundo which
botanists apply to this species have not been crowned with entire
success. It is known to be a word in the Malayalam language of the
Malabar coast of India, and is there applied to a tree, apparently refer-
ring to a peculiar form of leaf. The name was transferred to the box
elder by Moench, and has been generally adopted by botanists, although
at least seven other scientific names have been given the tree. It bears
ten or more English names in different regions. Among these names are
ash-leaved maple, known from Massachusetts to Montana and Texas;
cut-leaved maple in Colorado; three-leaved maple in Pennsylvania;
black ash in Tennessee; stinking ash in South Carolina; sugar ash in
Florida; water ash in the Dakotas; and box elder wherever it grows.

The tree's geographical range does not fall much short of 3,000,000
square miles, and is equalled by few species of this country. It extends
from New England across Canada to Alberta, thence to Arizona, and
includes practically all the United States east and south of those lines.
It thrives in hot and cold climates, and high and low elevations; in regions
(jf much rain, and in those with little. That fact has been turned to
account by tree planters, particularly in the years when the western
plains were being settled by homesteaders. The box elder was the
chief tree on many a timber claim where the letter of the law rather than
the spirit was carried out. It afforded the earliest protection against
scorching summer sun and the keen winds of winter about many a
frontiersman's cabin on the plains. It was the earliest street tree in
many western towns. The people planted it because they knew it
would grow, and they were not so sure of a good many other trees.
Green ash was often its companion in pioneer plantings on the plains.
Many towns which set box elders along the streets when they did not
know of anything better, still have the trees, though they would willingly
exchange them for something else. They are not ideal street and park
trees; do not produce shapely trunks and crowns; and drop leaves all
summer and seeds all winter. The tree is reputed to be short lived, yet
some of those planted a generation or two ago show no symptoms of
decline.

There is no good reason why this tree should be called an elder,
or an ash, except that its leaves are compound. If that is a reason, it
might be called a hickory or a walnut, since they bear compound leaves.
It is clearly a maple. Its fruit shows il to be so, and Indians of the far

446 American Forest Trees

Northwest who had no other maple, formerly manufactured sugar from
this tree, collecting the sap in wood or bark troughs and boiling it with
hot stones.

The compound leaf does not necessarily take it out of the maple
group. It requires no great exercise of imagination to understand how
a lobed leaf, by deepening the sinuses between the lobes, might become
a compound leaf in the process of evolution. There may be no visible
evidence that the box elder's leaf reached its present form by that
process, but there is another maple which is at the present time develop-
ing a compound leaf in that way, or seems to be doing so. It is the
dwarf maple (Acer glabrum) of the Northwest coast. Lobed leaves
and compound leaves may occur on the same tree.

The seeds of box elder resemble those of other maples. They ripen
in the fall, and are blown off by wind, few at a time, during several
months. The trees are from fifty to seventy feet high, and from one
and a half to three feet in diameter. The trunk is apt to divide near the
ground in several large branches, and is not of good form for sawlogs,
being often crooked as well as short. The small branches, particularly
those less than a year old, are usually nearly as green as the leaves.
This fact may assist in identifying the tree when the leaves are off. The
bark bears more resemblance to ash and basswood than to maple.

The wood is lightest of the maples. It weighs less than twenty-
seven pounds to the cubic foot; has less than half the strength and about
forty per cent of the stiffness of sugar maple ; and is much inferior to it in
most mechanical properties. It is equal, if not superior to most maples
in whiteness. The pores are small, numerous, and scattered through
all parts of the growth ring, as is characteristic of maple wood. The
tree grows rapidly. The summerwood is a thin, dark line, separating
one annual ring from another. The medullary rays are many and
obscure, but when wood is sawed or split along a radial line, they are
easily seen, and show the true maple luster.

The uses of box elder are similar to those of soft maple. The wood
is seldom reported under its own name. In fact, an examination of wood-
using reports of various states, shows that in only two states, Michigan
and Texas, has box elder been listed separately. Its uses in the former
state were for boxes, crates, flooring, handles, woodenware, and interior
finish, while in Texas it was made into lurniture. The tree is of com-
mercial size in at least thirty states, and is cut and marketed in all of
them. Tests of the wood for pulp are said to be satisfactory, and it finds
its way in rather large amounts to cooper shops where it is made into
slack barrels. It is cut as acid wood along with other maples, beech, and
birch, and is converted into charcoal and other products of distillation.

American Forest Trees 447

It may be expected that box elder will exist in the United States as
long as any other forest tree remains. It is willing to be crowded off
good land into low places, which are almost swamps, and there it grows
free from disturbance; but if given the opportunity it will appropriate
the most fertile soil within reach of it; and by scattering seeds during
four or five months of the year, it manages to do much effective planting.

California Box Elder (Acer negundo californicum) is a variety of box elder,
and not a separate species. As the name implies, it is a California tree, and it occurs
in the valleys and among the Coast Range mountains from the lower Sacramento
valley to the western slopes of the San Bernardino mountains. The tree is from
twenty to fifty feet high and from ten to thirty inches in diameter. The leaves and
young twigs are hairy, in that respect differing from the eastern box elder. The seeds
are scattered during winter. The wood is very pale lemon-yellow or creamy-white,
the heart and sapwood hardly distinguishable. The wood is soft and brittle, but is
suited to the same purposes as the eastern box elder. No reports of its uses appear to
have been made. It is found on the borders of streams and in the bottoms of
moist canyons. It is believed to be a short-lived tree.

Striped Maple (Acer pennsylvanicum) is usually thirty or forty feet high, and
eight or ten inches in diameter. Its range extends from Quebec to northern Georgia,
westward to Minnesota, and is of largest size on the slopes of Big Smoky mountains
of Tennessee, and the Blue Ridge in North and South Carolina. It grows best in
shade, but maintains itself in open ground, is generally shrubby in the northern part
of its range. The name refers to the bark. The stripes are longitudinal and are
caused by the parting of the outer bark and the exposure to view of the lighter colored
inner layers. The bark of small trees is greenish, but later in life the color is darker,
and the stripes largely disappear. Among its names are moosewood, so called be-
cause it is good browse for moose and other deer; goosefoot maple, a reference to the
form of the leaf; whistlewood, an allusion to the ease with which the bark slips from
young branches in spring when boys with jack-knives are on the search for whistle
material. The names mountain alder and striped dogwood are based on misunder-
standing of the tree's family relations.

The young leaves are rose colored when they unfold, and when full grown are
six inches wide. The wood is light and soft, and light brown in color, the thick sap-
wood lighter. The wood is liable to contain small brown pith flecks, which in longi-
tudinal sections appear as brown streaks an inch or less in length and as thick as a pin,
and in cross section they are brown dots. They are not natural to the wood but are
caused by the larvae of certain moths which burrow into the cambium layer, or soft
inner bark, and excavate narrow galleries up and down the trunk. The galleries
afterwards fill with dark material. The insects sometimes attack other maples, the
birches, service, and other trees. The wood of striped maple is little used, because of
the small size of the trees. The species is planted for ornament in this country and
Europe.

Black Maple (Acer nigrum) has been by some considered a variety of sugar or
hard maple, and by others a separate species. It is as large as the sugar maple and its
range is much the same, but it is more abundant in the western part of its range than
in the East. The name refers to the color of the bark of old trunks. If the name had
considered the bark of young twigs it would have been yellow or orange maple,
because the twigs are of that color. In summer the peculiar drooping posture of the
leaves calls attention to this tree. However, the bark, twigs, and leaves combined

448

American Forest Trees

are not sufficient to set it apart, in the eyes of most people, for it generally passes
without question as sugar maple, even when it stands side by side with that tree. It
yields sugar abundantly. The wood is a little heavier than that of sugar maple, but
the difference cannot be noticed except when the two woods are weighed. Their uses
are the same. No maker of furniture, flooring, or finish ever protests against black
maple. The tree generally prefers lower and damper ground than sugar maple, and
is often found along streams.

SERVICEBERRY

NEEi

'BHWii '£3^*' * '"iS-Ml

jJ

5^i

Serviceberry

SERVICEBERRY

(A mela rich ier Canadensis)

THIS tree will never be other than a minor species in the United
States, but it is not a worthless member of the forest. It belongs
to the rose family, and therefore is near akin to the haws, thorns, and
crabapples. The genus is found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as
in the United States. Two tree species occur in this country, or, ac-
cording to some botanists, three, one west of the Rocky Mountains, two
east.

The serviceberry has a number of names: June berry, service-tree,
May cherry, Indian cherry, wild Indian pear, currant tree, shadberry,
savice, and sarviee. The northern limit of its range is in Newfoundland,
the southern in Florida. It grows westward to Minnesota and Arkansas ;
but it is not plentiful except in certain restricted localities. It is most
abundant among the ranges of the Appalachian mountains, and of its
largest size toward the south. It is dispersed through forests generally,
a tree or bush here and there; but it prefers the borders of forests, the
brinks of cliffs, banks of streams, or some other open space where light
is abundant. It prospers most in rich soil but does fairly well in ground
thin and dry.

The bloom, where it occurs, is a conspicuous feature of the land-
scape, though generally a tree on ten or twenty acres represents the
density of its stand. The white, showy bloom comes early in spring,
when most trees are yet bare of leaves. Occasionally, however, the
serviceberry is more abundant, and the rows and clumps of blooming
trees along creek banks or about the margins of glades or other openings
in the forests, look like distant snowdrifts.

The fruit is a berry a half inch or less in diameter, bright red when
fully grown in early summer, and changing to purple when ripe. The
seeds are brown and very small, and each berry contains from five to ten.
When circumstances are favorable, the tree is a prolific bearer, the slen-
der branches bending beneath the weight. The tree need not reach any
particular size before beginning to bear. On some of the severely
burned summits of the Alleghany mountains in West Virginia, 4,000 feet
or more above sea level, this tree, when only two or three feet high, bears
abundantly. Such trees are probably sprouts from roots of older trunks
destroyed by fire. At its best, it reaches a height of forty or fifty feet
and a diameter of one or possibly two feet. Trunks of largest size occur
among the southern Appalachian ranges.

The wood is heaw and very hard and strong. It is liable to check

452 American Forest Trees

and warp in seasoning, is satiny, and is susceptible of a good polish.
Medullary rays are very numerous, but obscure; color, dark brown, often
tinged with red. The wood is stronger, stiffer and heavier than white
oak. It possesses most of the properties to make it a wood of great
value, but its scarcity, and the usual small size of the trees, relegate it to
the class of minor woods. Some use is made of it in turnery and for
other small articles. It is frequently planted in gardens for its bloom
and berries. In such situations it lacks some of the charm which it
holds as part and parcel of the wildwoods where its early spring bloom is
thrown against a background of leafless branches.

Western Serviceberry (Amelanchicr alnifolia) is also called
pigeonberry and sarvice. Its botanical name refers to the resemblance
of its leaves to those of alder. Its range covers a million square miles,
and the species reaches its best development on islands and rich bottom
lands of the lower Columbia river. It is found as far south as California,
north to Yukon territory, east to Lake Superior and northern Michigan.
It is nowhere a tree of attractive size, and is usually a shrub about ten
feet tall and one inch thick. Trees are sometimes thirty feet high and
six or eight inches in diameter. The fruit is blue-black and sweet, and
pleasant to the taste if not overripe. Indians in the northern and
western range of this tree gather the berries industriously while they last,
and many of the white settlers do likewise. The birds flock to the
thickets for their share, and though the berries are small, the bears in the
region consider them worthy of prompt and continued attention.
The berries are generally a little more than half an inch in diameter,
and ripen in July or August, depending on latitude. Cattle, sheep,
goats, and deer find this small tree or bush a source of food. They do
not object to eating the berries when obtainable, but their principal
attack is on the leaves and tender shoots which afford excellent browse.
Fortunately, the serviceberry is so tenacious of life that it is next to
impossible to browse it to death. If eaten down to the ground, with
little left but bare and barked trunks sticking up like bean poles, the
roots will throw up sprouts year after year, making the service thicket a
permanent browse-pasture. Fire is not able to destroy such a thicket,
for, when the tops are burned off, the sprouts will quickly spring up
with vigor unimpaired. As a source of food for insects, birds, beasts,
and men, few trees, in proportion to size and quantity, are the equal of
western serviceberry. Flowers, fruit, leaves and sprouts are all food
for something.

Longleaf Service Tree (Amelanchier obovalis) is by some
regarded a variety rather than a species. It occupies in part the same
range as serviceberry, but runs much farther north, reaching the valley

American Forest Trees 453

of Mackenzie river in latitude 65. It is found in North Carolina and
Alabama, but it is only a shrub in the extreme southern part of its
range. The fruit ripens in early summer and is reddish purple. Trees
are seldom more than thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. A
variety with large fruit is occasionally planted as an ornamental tree.
Unless the crop of serviceberries is unusually plentiful in a locality, the
most of it is eaten by birds which temporarily abandon nearly all other
sources of food and give their undivided attention to the perishable
harvest which must be garnered in at once or it will be lost.

Narrowxeaf Crab (Mains anguslifolia) is one of the wild crab-
apples of the United States. They are of the genus Mains and the
thousands of varieties of cultivated apples are derived from them, or
from other species found in the old world which are very similar. They
belong to the rose family. The narrowleaf crab is found from Pennsyl-
vania to Florida and westward to Tennessee and Louisiana. It thrives
best in open spaces in the forest and is often found in glades and along
the banks of streams in the Xorth, while in the South it occurs in de-
pressions in the pine barrens. The flowers are much like those of apple,
very fragrant, and in color are white, pink, or rose. When in lull
bloom, the tree is a beautiful object, and its odor is carried long distances.
The fruit is an apple in all respects except size and taste. It is some-
what flattened, and is an inch or less across. It is fragrant when fully
ripe, and many a person has been led by appearances to taste, only to
meet disappointment. The flesh is hard and sour, and unfit for food
in its natural state, but by cooking and artificial sweetening, it is made
into preserves. The tree reaches a height of twenty or thirty feet and
a diameter of eight or ten inches. It is smaller than the sweet crab.
The wood is hard, heavy, light brown, tinged with red, with thick yellowT
sapwood. It is not put to many uses, but is occasionally made into
small handles, and levers. It has been much used as stock on which
to graft apples. Farmers who wanted orchards formerly dug up small
crabapples in the surrounding woods and fields, planted them in an
orchard, and when securely rooted, the apples of desired kinds were
grafted on. If successful, the apple finally replaced the crab by spread-
ing its own bark and wood over the entire trunk, until no part of the
original stock remained visible. The sweet crab was also employed as a
stock on which to graft apples.

Sweet Crab (Mains coronaria) is the wild crab of the northeastern
states, although it intrudes on the region to the southwest to a limited
extent. It finds use in ornamental planting in the region of best
growth. It is known as American crab, sweet scented crab, crab apple,
wild crab, crab, American crab apple, and fragrant crab. Its range

454 American Forest Trees

extends from the shores of Lake Erie in Canada, south through New
York and Pennsylvania, along the Alleghany mountains to Alabama;
west to Minnesota, eastern Nebraska, Kansas, Louisiana, and eastern
Texas. It needs moist soil for good growth and the best types are
found in the lower Ohio basin. In height this tree rarely exceeds
thirty feet and it is bushy, having short rigid limbs. The leaves are
rounded and sharply toothed, the blossoms generally white and very
fragrant; the fruit small, dry, yellow, tinged with red. The wood is
heavy, not strong, heart light red, sapwood yellow. It is used for tool
handles, small turned articles, and for carving and engraving.

Oregon Crabapple {Mains rivularis) grows wild from the
Aleutian Islands, Alaska, southward to central California, and is of
largest size in Washington and Oregon where trees are occasionally
forty feet high and eighteen inches in diameter, but they are generally
about ten feet high and form dense thickets. The fruit is oblong, ripens
late in autumn, is greenish, or reddish, or clear lemon yellow in color,
and rather pleasant to the taste. The tree grows slowly, the wood is
hard, and light reddish-brown in color, and is suitable for tool handles.

Iowa Crab (Mains ioensis) grows from Minnesota to Texas and is
the common crabapple of the Mississippi basin. Large trees are twenty-
five feet high and a foot in diameter. It is believed that this tree crosses
with the common apple, and produces a variety known as the soulard
apple (Malus soidardi). Wild apple (Mains mains) is a European
species introduced into this country and now running wild.

Mountain Ash (Pyrus americana) is closely related to the crabs. It occurs
from Newfoundland to Manitoba, and southward along the mountains to North
Carolina. Trees have compound leaves, red berries the size of small cherries, and
reach a height of thirty feet and a diameter of a foot or more. There are several forms
or varieties, among them the small fruit mountain ash (Pyrus americana microcarpa)
of the Alleghany mountains.

RED HAW

RED HAW

(CraUzgns Coccirv>a)

THIS tree belongs to tie rose family, and the genus Crataegus consists
of a large group of small, thorny trees, scattered through many
parts of the world. They are known by their thorns, but comparatively
few of them are known by name to the ordinary observer, and they
afford a perpetual source of study, victory, and bewilderment to the
trained botanist. "No other group of American trees," says Sudworth,
"presents such almost insurmountable difficulties in point of distinctive
characters. It is impossible, and fortunately unnecessary, for the
practical forester to know them all, and exceedingly difficult even for
the specialist." More than one hundred species of these thorn trees
occur in the United States, exclusive of shrubs. Their bloom resembles
that of apple and pear trees. Bees and insects swarm round the
flowering trees, assisting in cross fertilization. The various species are
aggressive. They force their way into vacant spaces, and their thorns
protect them against browsing animals. The wood is sappy and heavy,
and for most of the species it is valueless. The growing brambles,
however, perform an important service in forest economy. Seeds of
various valuable trees are blown by wind or carried by birds and mam-
mals into the thickets where they germinate and get a start under the
protecting shelter of the thorns. Finally the seedlings overtop the
brambles, gain the mastery, shade the thorns to death, and develop
valuable forests. The thorn trees shed their leaves annually. Their
seeds are slow to germinate, some not sprouting until the second year.
The fruit is worthless for human consumption, but some of it has a tart
and not unpleasant taste. It is of many colors and sizes, depending
on species.

No attempt is here made to name or to list the species. Such a
list would, for most people, be a dull catalogue of names, and many of
them in Latin because there are no English equivalents. A few repre-
sentative species are given. The red haw, though not the most abun-
dant, is widely distributed, and is probably as well known as any. Its
range extends from Newfoundland westward through southern
Canada to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, thence south to
Texas and Florida. It covers one-half of the United States. In the
northern part of its range the red haw is confined to the slopes of low
hills and along water courses, but south in the Appalachian mountains
it grows at an elevation of several thousand feet.

It has various names in different regions. It is called scarlet haw,

458 American Forest Trees

red haw, white thorn, scarlet thorn, scarlet-fruited thorn, red thorn,
thorn, thorn bush, thorn apple, and hedge thorn. The fact is worthy
oi note that it is well known and is clearly recognized in every region
where it grows, though various names are given it.

The red haw never reaches large size. In rare cases it may attain
a height of thirty feet and a diameter of ten inches, but it is usually less
than half that size. Where it grows in the open it develops a round
crown. The branches are armed with chestnut-brown thorns from an
inch to an inch and a hah in length. The bright scarlet color of the fruit
gives name to the tree. It ripens late in September or in October, and
at that time the tree presents a beautiful appearance. The branches
frequently remain laden with fruit after the leaves have fallen.

The wood of red haw is of a high character and but for its scarcity
would have wide commercial use. It is among the heavy woods of this
country. A cubic foot of it, thoroughly seasoned, weighs 53.71 pounds.
The tree is of slow growth and therefore the annual rings are narrow, and
the wood is dense. The evenness and uniformity of the rings of yearly
growth make the wood susceptible of a high polish. The medullary
rays are very obscure in red haw, and for that reason the appearance of
the wood is much the same, irrespective of the direction in which it is
cut. In that respect it is similar to the wood of most members of the
thorn family — usually being too small to be quarter-sawed. However,
even if the trees were large enough, quarter-sawing would bring out little
figure.

Red haw is a lathe wood. It is well suited to some other purposes,
and has been used for engraving blocks, small wedges, and rulers, but
the best results come from the lathe. If it is thoroughly seasoned it is
not liable to crack or check, though cut thin in such articles as goblets
and napkin rings. The turner sometimes objects to the wood because
of its hardness and the rapidity with which it dulls tools. This draw-
back, however, is compensated for by the smoothness and fine polish
which may be given to the finished article. Red haw checker pieces
have been compared with ebony for wearing quality. In color the
ebony is more handsome, and on that account is generally preferred.

Perhaps the most extensive use of red haw is in the manufacture of
canes. Most of the species of thorn are suitable for that purpose on
account of their weight, strength, and hardness. Red haw is not special-
ly preferred, but is used with others. As a source of wood supply, the
tree will never be important, but as an adornment to the landscape it
will always be valuable, and at the same time will fill a minor place in
the country's list of commercial woods.

Summer Haw {Cratmgus aestivalis) is a southern species which

American Forest Trees 459

contributes more or less to the food supply of the people within its range.
It is known also as May haw and apple haw. The flowers appear in
February and March, are about one inch in diameter, and flushed with
red toward the apex. The fruit ripens in May, is bright red, very frag-
rant, and is from half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter. The flesh
is of a pleasant taste, and is gathered in large quantities by country
people for making preserves and jelly. It is sold in town and city
markets, particularly in New Orleans. The range of this thorn tree is
from South Carolina and Florida, to Texas. It attains a height of
twenty or thirty feet, and a diameter sometimes as great as eighteen
inches. It reaches its largest size in Louisiana and Texas. It grows
well on land which may be submerged several weeks in winter. The
wood has not been reported for any use.

Cockspur (Cralccgus crus-galli) may be taken as the type of more
than twenty species of cockspur thorns growing in this country. Its
other names are red haw, Newcastle thorn, thorn apple, thorn bush,
pin thorn, haw, and hawthorn. It grows southwestward from Canada
to Texas, and extends into Florida. The largest trees are twenty-five
feet high and a foot in diameter. The fruit is dull red, half inch in
diameter, ripens in September and October, and hangs on the branches
until late winter. Hogs eat the fruit when they can get it, and boys
utilize the small apples as bullets for elder pop guns. The thorns are
formidable slender spines from three to eight inches long, strong, and
extremely sharp. They were formerly used as pins to close wool sacks
in rural carding mills. The many species of cockspur thorns are multi-
plied by numerous varieties. Fence posts and fuel are cut from the
best trunks.

Pear Haw (Cratcegus tomenlosa) is a representative of at least ten
species. It is called pear haw without any very satisfactory reason, since
the fruit bears little resemblance to pears. It is half an inch in diameter,
dull orange red in color, and sweet to the taste, but it is of little value as
food. The tree has been occasionally planted for ornament, but never
for fruit. The flowers are showy. Trees at their best are fifteen or
twenty feet high and five or six inches in diameter. They have few
thorns and such as they have are small. The tree's range extends from
New York to Missouri, and along the Appalachian mountains to northern
Georgia, and west to Texas and Arkansas. It is known in different parts
of its range as black thorn, red haw, pear thorn, white thorn, common
thorn, hawthorn, thorn apple, and thorn plum.

Hog Haw (Crataegus brack yacantha) is distinguished by its blue
fruit. The name indicates that the fruit is unfit for human food but is
eaten by swine. In some parts of Louisiana the dense thickets produce

460 American Forest Trees

considerable quantities of forage for hogs. The range is not extensive,
being confined to Louisiana and eastern Texas where the tree occurs in
low, wet prairies. The largest specimens are forty or fifty feet high and
eighteen inches in diameter. It is one of the largest of the thorns, and
the best trunks are of size to make small, very short sawlogs, but it does
not appear that the wood has ever been manufactured into commodities
of any kind. The tree is occasionally planted for ornament.

Black Haw (Cratagus douglasii) reaches its best development on
the Pacific coast where trees occur thirty or more feet in height and a
foot and a half in diameter. The principal range is west of the Rocky
Mountains, from British Columbia to northern California, but it extends
eastward to Wyoming, and the tree is found also in northern Michigan.
The fruit is black or very dark purple, is edible, and matures in early
autumn, falling soon after. The heartwood is brownish-red. No use
for the wood has been found on the Pacific coast.

Washington Haw (Crakegus cordata), also known as Washington
thorn, Virginia thorn, heart-leaved thorn, and red haw, grows on banks
of streams from the valley of the upper Potomac river southward through
the Appalachian ranges to northern Georgia, and westward to Missouri
and Arkansas. Flowers are rose-colored, the fruit ripens in the fall and
hangs till late winter. Trees are twenty or thirty feet high, and a foot or
less in diameter. Washington haw is frequently planted in this country
and in Europe.

English Hawthorn (CraUzgus oxyacantha) was introduced into
this country from Europe and has become naturalized in some of the
eastern states. Thirty or more varieties are distinguished in cultivation.
It is worthy of note that, although the United States has more than 130
species of thorn trees of its own, with varieties so numerous that no one
has yet named or counted all of them, a foreign thorn has been intro-
duced and added to the number.

MAHOGANY

Mahogany

MAHOGANY

(Swietenia Mahagon i)

THIS tree belongs to the family Meliacece which has about forty
genera, all of which are confined to the tropic except Swietenia to
which mahogany belongs. This tree has made its way up from southern
latitudes and has secured a foothold in Florida where it is confined to the
islands and the most southern part of the mainland.

No attempt is here made to settle or even to take part in the
disputes among dendrologists as to what mahogany is. There are said
to be more than forty different trees which pass as mahogany in lumber
markets. Various descriptions and keys have been published for the
purpose of separating and identifying different woods which are bought
and sold as mahogany. These woods grow on every continent except
Europe ; but those which pass as mahogany nearly all come from Africa
or America. Some are well known, both as to origin and botany, while
others are doubtful. Logs sometimes appear in markets and no one
knows where they come from, or the species which produce them. It has
been maintained that annual rings will separate true mahogany from the
false — that the true has no annual rings. At the best, this evidence is
only negative and is worth little, since many tropical trees show no
annual rings, and yet are no kin to mahogany. Neither is it certain that
true mahogany shows no yearly rings. Some trees do not, but others
may. The ring, as is well known, is produced because the tree grows
part of the year and rests part. In the tropics where growth is con-
tinuous, the ring may not exist, but it sometimes does exist, and thus
upsets the theory. Besides, it proves little in the case of mahogany
which has a range extending from south of the equator northward into
the temperate zone, where there are seasonal changes. It also grows
near sea level and at considerable altitudes, and elevation alone might
make considerable variation in the character of the wood.

The two most important mahoganies of commerce — leaving botany
out of the question — grow in Africa and in America. The most im-
portant of the African mahoganies is Khaya senegalcnsis, and of the
American is Swientenia mahagoni. It is the latter which extends its
range into the United States, and it alone will be considered in these
pages as true mahogany; the status of foreign woods which pass as
mahogany will not be discussed.

Leaves of the mahogany tree are three or four inches long, and an
inch or more wide. They are compound, with from three to five pairs of
leaflets. The tree is an evergreen and presents a fine appearance. The

4G3

464 American Forest Trees

flowers appear in July and August, are small and cup-shaped. Fruit is
four or five inches long and two or more wide. It ripens in late fall or
early winter. The nearly square seeds are three-fourths of an inch long.
In Florida the tree rarely exceeds fifty7 feet in height and two in diameter;
but in tropical countries it may exceed a height of 100 and a diameter of
eight or ten. The bark is thin.

The wood is practically of the same weight as white oak, but is
stronger and more elastic. It is exceedingly hard, very durable, and is
susceptible of high polish. Medullary rays are numerous but small and
obscure. The color is rich reddish-brown, turning darker with age, but
the thin sapwood is yellow. It is known in Florida as mahogany,
madeira, and redwood.

The uses of mahogany are so many and so well-known that it is
unnecessary to speak of them in detail. There were importations into
the United States nearly three hundred years ago, and it has been coming
ever since. One thing about this wood deserves mention : the price has
not varied much in three hundred years. Different prices have prevailed,
owing to distance from supply and differences in grade and quality;
and that holds true today; but for similar grades, the prices have been
remarkable for their evenness.

Flerida never figured largely in the world's supply of mahogany.
At their best, the trees were neither large nor numerous, but their quality
was good. Cutting of this timber ceased in Florida about three-quarters
of a century ago. The islands and the small area of the mainland where
the timber grew, were stripped. The logs were shipped to the Bahama
islands and it is said they found their ultimate market in England. A
few trees were overlooked here and there, and some that were small
seventy-five years ago, have grown to merchantable size since. These
have been cut, a few at a time, and the cutting is still going on. The
total is now only a few thousand feet a year, and one of the markets for
the logs, probably the chief market, is Miami, Florida. The logs are
small, and are generally cut and brought in by negroes who find a tree
now and then, cut the logs, and float them as near to market as possible,
and haul them the rest of the way. The scarcity of the trees may be
inferred from the fact that the average resident of south Florida, where
the range of the mahogany lies, never saw one. In appearance the tree
when seen at a little distance, resembles a young, vigorous black walnut
tree.

China Tree (Mclia azedarach) belongs to the same family as
mahogany but is of a different genus. It is not native in the United
States, but has been extensively planted and is running wild. It is a
forest tree in some parts of Louisiana, but. is found under pure forest

American Forest Trees 465

conditions only here and there. As such, the trunk and thin crown
look like a forest grown butternut tree in Wisconsin. It is abundant in
yards and along streets, where it is often called Chinaball tree. A little
of the wood is used. The color resembles mahogany, but the texture is
much coarser. Annual rings are clearly marked by rows of large pores,
and the wood does not polish well. It is sometimes known as pride of
India, which country is its native home, or it was carried there from
Persia at an early date. A variety, commonly known as the Texas
Umbrella tree (Mclia azcdarach umbraculifcra), has been widely planted,
and is known by its short trunk and dense, round crown.

Soapbeery (Sapindus saponaria), known also as false dogwood, is
a species of south Florida, and is one of three soap trees in this country.
It has no family kinship with mahogany, but the appearance of the trees
leads some persons to conclude that they are related to the China tree.
In fact, one of the species is locally known as wild China and Chinaberry.
They are called soap trees because their fruit has a property which causes
water to foam, and the natives of the West Indies once used it for soap.
The botanical name Sapindus means "Indian soap." The tree is twenty-
five or thirty feet high, and ten or twelve inches in diameter. The bloom
appears in November in Florida, and the fruit ripens the following
spring. The wood is heavy, rather hard, and is light brown, tinged with
yellow. It reaches largest size on the Thousand Islands, Florida.
Another species is Sapindus marginaiiis which attains size similar to that
of the first. It is found in southern Florida, but is not abundant. It
grows as far north as the mouth of the St. John river. A third species is
Sapindus drummondi which has its range from western Louisiana,
Arkansas, and southern Kansas, through Texas, New Mexico, and
Arizona, to Mexico. The flowers appear in May and June, and the fruit
ripens in September and October, but it hangs on the trees until the
following spring. When first ripe, it is half an inch in diameter, and
yellow, but when it dries it turns black. Trees attain diameters up to
two feet, and heights of forty or fifty. It is commonly supposed to be
the Chinaberry, by persons who judge by general appearances, but the
tw7o are not related. The wood's appearance suggests the heartwood of
ash. It probably reaches its best development in Texas where it is
manufactured into boxes, crates, and even furniture, but not in large
amounts. It is reputed to be a rapid grower, and it may be under the
most favorable circumstances, but it is usually of rather slow growth.
The wood splits readily into thin strips which arc employed in making
baskets for harvesting cotton. In western Texas it is made into pack
saddle frames.

Mountain Mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius) is not a mahogany, and is not

466

American Forest Trees

even in the same family. It belongs to the rose family, and is closely related to the
crabapple; but since it is commonly known as mahogany, it is proper to mention it
here. Extensive consideration is unnecessary, for the tree is not important as a
source of wood. Three species are recognized by some botanists, four by others. All
are western, and are noted for their long-tailed fruit. The generic name refers to that
feature. The seed, with its tail, is carried by the wind, or it catches in the wool of
sheep and the hair of cattle and goats, or the feathers of birds, and is carried far and
near. The mountain mahogany sometimes is thirty feet high, and two in diameter.
It grows from 5,000 to 9,000 feet elevation, sometimes on steep cliffs. Its range
extends from Wyoming and Montana to Oregon, California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
The wood is bright, clear red, or rich dark brown. It reaches its largest size on the
mountains of central Nevada. Another species is known as valley mahogany
(Cercocarpus parvif alius) . It ranges from Nebraska to Oregon, and Texas to Cali-
fornia. Its rate of growth is very slow, and it seldom exceeds a height of thirty feet
and a diameter of ten inches. The wood is reddish-brown. A third species, called
Trask mahogany (Cercocarpus traskia:) is chiefly notable on account of its restricted
range. It occurs as far as known, in a single canyon of Santa Catalina island, off the
southern coast of California. Some of the specimens are twenty feet high and six
inches in diameter. A fourth species, or a variety, is known as short-flower mahogany
(Cercocarpus parvifolius breviflorus). It occurs in western Texas, southern New
Mexico and Arizona, usually at elevations about 5,000 feet above sea level where the
largest trees are not more than eight inches in diameter and twenty-five feet high.

Vauqueunia (Vauquelinia californica) belongs to the same family as the so-
called western mahoganies, that is, the rose family ; but it is of a different genus. Its
range is largely south of the international boundary, but it extends into southern
Arizona where the best development of the species occurs about 5,000 feet above the
sea on grassy slopes. It is seldom more than a bush, and the wood is very
heavy and hard, and is dark-brown, streaked with red.

BLACK WILLOW

ti&E&FW*.

Hlack Willow

BLACK WILLOW

(Salix Nigra)

THE willows and the cottonwoods belong to the same family of
trees, Salicacece, and the family is fairly numerous, and it has some
well-defined traits of character. The quinine-bitter of the bark is ever
present, but more marked in willows than in cottonwoods. Though
quite unpleasant to the taste, it is harmless. The leaves never grow in
pairs, and in most instances they fall early in autumn, and some without
changing color. Male and female flowers are borne on different trees,
and fertilizing is done by insects, often by honey bees and bumblebees.
Fruit ripens in late spring, and the seeds are equipped for flight by being
provided with exceedingly fine silky hairs. The wind carries them long
distances. The trees generally grow in the immediate vicinity of streams
or in situations where the soil is damp, but there are exceptions.

The willow family consists of two genera, one the cottonwoods or
poplars, the other the willows proper. There are about seventy-five
species of willow in America, twenty of them trees. Some, however,
are quite small and only occasionally attain sizes which place them in
the tree class. The willows are old residents of this continent. They
grew in the central portion of what is now the United States in the
Cretaceous age, as is proved by their leaf prints in the rocks. They have
held their ground ever since, and there is no likelihood that they are
about to give it up. Few species are better fitted for holding what they
have. A few trees are capable of seeding a large region in a few years,
and if soil and situation are suitable, reproduction will be abundant.
The willows' tenacity of life is often remarkable. It sometimes seems
next to impossible to kill them by cutting off their tops. There are said
to be instances in Europe where willows have been pollarded successively
during hundreds of years, the crops of sprouts being used for wickerwork
and other purposes. No such records exist in this country, but the
willow's sprouting habit is well known. A shoot stuck in the ground
will grow, and a fence post will sprout. Many willows develop large
stools, or roots, and repeatedly send up numerous sprouts, and it makes
little difference how often they are cut, others will come up.

Comparatively few willows that start in life ever become trees.
They are suppressed by crowding, or meet misfortunes of one kind or
another which keep them small, but occasionally a tree of good size
results. Willow trees are usually not old. Probably few reach an age
exceeding 150 years. Large trunks, in old age, are apt to be hollow or
otherwise defective, though a willow tree will live many years after

469

470 American Forest Trees

much of its trunk has disappeared. A little green bark on the side, and
sprouts from the stump will maintain life long after all usefulness has
ceased.

Young willows are usually pliant and tough, old are stiff and
brash. They range from sea level up to 10,000 feet or more; grow
profusely in the wet lands about the gulf of Mexico, and likewise on the
bleak coasts of the Arctic ocean. Commander Peary found willows
blooming in considerable profusion on the extreme northern shore of
Greenland, where they produce enough growth during the few weeks of
summer sunshine to afford the muskox the means of eking out a living
during his sojourn in those inhospitable regions.

The identification of willows is one of the most difficult tasks that
fall to the botanists. Black willow is unquestionably the most im-
portant willow in this country from the lumberman's standpoint. It is
the common tree willow that attains size suitable for sawlogs. If a
forest grown willow of large size is encountered east of the Rocky Moun-
tains in the United States, it is pretty safe to class it as black willow.
There are some others which grow large, but not many. Planted
willows, both large and small, may be foreign species, and white
willows, which are not native in this country, but have been widely
planted, and are running wild, may be occasionally found of ample size
for saw timber.

Black willow's range extends from New Brunswick to Florida,
west to the Dakotas, and south to Texas, thence passing into Mexico,
New Mexico, Arizona, and California. It attains its best size in the Ohio
and Mississippi valleys, though large trees are found in other parts of
its range. It is difficult to say what its average size is, for some black
willows are only a few feet high and an inch or two in diameter. The
largest trees exceed 100 feet in height and three in diameter. An
extreme size of seven feet in diameter has been reported. It is not
unusual to see willow logs three feet in diameter in mill yards in Louis-
iana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, and logs four feet in diameter are not
so unusual as to excite much comment. The average sizes, however,
of willow sawlogs in that region are from eighteen inches to two feet.

The wood of black willow is pale reddish-brown. When freshly cut
it is sometimes purple, almost black. When sawed in lumber and
exposed to the air the dark color fades. The wood is soft but firm. It
has about fifty per cent of the strength of white oak, and forty per cent
of its stiffness. It weighs 27.77 pounds per cubic foot; and considering
its weight, it is tolerably strong and stiff.

Probably no other wood in the United States is as systematically
cheated out of its just credit as this one. Many of the oaks are seldom

American Forest Trees 471

given their proper names, but they are listed as oak in sawmill output,
and thus the genus; if not the species is given credit. But willow is al-
most totally ignored. The United States census in 1910 credited to all
the willow lumber in this country an amount less than a million and a half
feet; yet a single mill in Louisiana, and not a large mill at that, cut and
sold four times that much during that year. The wood was cut by
hundreds of other mills, some a few logs only, others considerable
quantities.

It is sold for various purposes, and much of it goes as cottonwood.
In some instances it is called brown cottonwood. Probably ninety per
cent is made into boxes, but it has many other uses. It is cut into
excelsior, made into rotary cut veneer, and finds place in the manu-
facture of furniture; it is a common woodenware material; slack coopers
make barrels of it; and it is turned for baseball bats.

The supply of black willow in this country is not small. It is
usually found in wet situations along streams. Sometimes islands and
low flats are taken possession of and pure stands result. The growth is
sometimes phenomenal. Trunks may add nearly or quite an inch to
their diameter per year when conditions are exceptionally favorable.
Instances, apparently well authenticated, are reported of abandoned
fields along the Mississippi, which in sixty years grew 100,000 feet of
willow per acre.

Longstalk Willow (Salix longipes) sometimes grows to a height of thirty
feet with a diameter of six or eight inches. Its range extends from Maryland to
Texas, and is at its best in the Ozark region of southwestern Missouri and north-
western Arkansas.

Almondleaf Willow (Salix amygdaloides) grows across northern United
States and southern Canada from New York to Oregon, and occurs as far south as
Missouri and Ohio, and is abundant in the lower Ohio valley. At its best it is seventy
feet high and two feet in diameter. The wood is light, soft, and the heartwood is
brown.

SmoothlEaf Willow (Salix lamigala) attains a diameter of one foot and a
height of forty or fifty. It is a Pacific coast tree, occurring in California on the western
slopes of the Sierra Nevadas up to an altitude of 3,000 feet. It is known as black
willow. The wood is pale reddish-brown.

SilverlEaf Willow (Salix sessilifolia) looks like longleaf willow, and though
usually a shrub it sometimes is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter.
It grows from the mouth of the Columbia river to southern California.

YewlEaf Willow (Salix taxifolia) ranges from western Texas, through
southern Arizona into Mexico and Central America. Trees are occasionally forty
feet high and more than one foot in diameter. A little fuel and fence posts are cut
from this willow.

Bebb Willow (Salix bebbiana) is nearly always shrubby, but occasionally
reaches a trunk diameter of six or eight inches and a height of twenty feet. Its
northern limit lies within the Arctic circle, its southern in Pennsylvania, Nebraska,
and Arizona. West of Hudson bay it forms almost impenetrable thickets, and "ai
Colorado it ascends mountains to elevations of 10,000 feet.

472 American Forest Trees

GlaucOI's Willow (Salix discolor), commonly known as silver or pussy willow
ranges from Nova Scotia to Manitoba, and southward to Delaware, West Virginia
Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. It is one of the best known willows within its range
on account of its flowers which are among the earliest of the season, and very showy
The largest specimens are scarcely twenty-rive feet high and twelve inches in diameter

Mackenzie Willow7 (Salix cordata mackenzieana) is not abundant, and is one
of the smallest of the tree willows. It is nearly always a shrub. Its range extends
from California nearly to the Arctic circle, where it occurs in gravelly soil on the
borders of mountain streams.

Missouri Willow (Salix missouriensis) is so named because it occurs princi-
pally in Missouri, but its range extends into Kansas and Iowa. It is occasionally
forty feet high and a foot in diameter. . It is used for fence posts.

Bigelow Willow (Salix lasiolepis) is generally called white willow on account
of its gray bark. It occurs in California and Arizona, and at its best it is twenty-five
feet high and ten inches in diameter. Some use is made of it as fuel, where other
wood is scarce.

Xlttall Willow (Salix nuttallii), called also mountain willow in Montana,
ranges from British America, east of the kocky Mountains, to southern California.
Its usual height is twenty or twenty-five feet, and its diameter six or eight inches.
In southern California it grows 10,000 feet above sea level.

Hooker Willow (Salix hookeriana) occurs in the coast region from Vancouver
island to southern Oregon, and varies in height from a sprawling shrub to a height of
thirty feet and a diameter of one. Little use is made of it.

Silky Willow (Salix siichensis), known also as Sitka willow, ranges from
Alaska to southern California. The largest specimens are twenty -five feet high and
ten inches in diameter. Trunks are largely sapwood and are of little commercial
importance.

BroadlEaf Willow (Salix amplifolia), known also as feltleaf willow, was
discovered in Alaska in 1S99. The leaves are woolly. The largest trees rarely
exceed a height of thirty feet and a diameter of six inches. Its range extends to the
valley of the Mackenzie river.

A number of foreign willows have become naturalized in the United States.
Among them is white willow (Salix alba), which grows to large size, probably as large
as black willow; crack willow (Salix fragilis), so named on account of the brittleness
of its twigs; and weeping willow (Salix babylonica). The botanical name is based on
the supposition that it was this willow, growing by the rivers near Babylon, on which
the captive Hebrews hung their harps. Basket willow is planted for its osiers in
several eastern states. It is not a single species, but a group of varieties developed
by cultivation.

HARDY CATALPA

HARDY CATALPA

(Catalpa Speciosa)

THIS tree belongs to the family BignoniacetB which has its name from
Abbe Bignon, librarian of Louis XV. About one hundred genera
belong to this family, only three of which reach the size of trees in the
United States. These include the catalpas, the desert willow, and the
black calabash tree.

Seven species of catalpa are known, two of them occurring in the
United States. Others are found in China and the West Indies. The
name is an Indian word and was first heard among the tribes of the
Carolinas. It seems probable that the name catalpa as applied to a tree
and catawba, applied to a grape, have the same origin, and in some way
refer to the Catawba Indians, a small tribe — said to be Sioux — that lived
two hundred years ago in the western part of the Carolinas and neigh-
boring regions where one of the catalpa species was first heard of by
Europeans. The tree in that region is still often called catawba.

The two catalpas of this country are known to botanists as Catalpa
speciosa and Catalpa catalpa. Much confusion has resulted from attempts
to distinguish one from the other. Botanists are able to clear the
matter up among themselves, but the general public has not been so
successful. John P. Brown, of Connersville, Indiana, specialized on
catalpas during many years, and published numerous tracts, pamphlets,
and books for the purpose of educating the public to the point where the
differences between common catalpa and hardy catalpa could be
distinguished. His labor was likewise directed toward inducing land
owners to plant catalpa for commercial purposes. Due to his efforts,
and otherwise, catalpa was for a time the most advertised plantation tree
in this country. Some supposed that hardy catalpa was the wood which
was to save the country from a threatened timber famine. Claims
made for it were wide and far reaching.

The judgment of history has been — if it may be classed as a matter
of history — that the tree fell short of expectation. This does not imply
an inferiority of the wood itself, or a slower rate of growth than was
claimed for it; but exceptional cases were interpreted as averages, and
for that reason the whole situation was overestimated. When all
conditions are perfect, hardy catalpa grows rapidly and grows large, but
it demands nearly perfect conditions or it will disappoint. It wants
ground rich enough and damp enough to grow good crops of corn, and
farmers are not generally willing to put that class of land to growing
fence posts and railroad ties.

476 American Forest Trees

The range of hardy catalpa before the species was spread by arti-
ficial planting, was through southern Illinois and Indiana, southeastern
Missouri and northeastern Arkansas, western Louisiana and eastern
Texas, and western Kentucky and Tennessee. Its position on the fertile
banks of streams, and on flood plains subject to frequent inundation,
indicates that the spread of the species was effected by running water.
In that case, the dispersal of seeds would be down stream, implying that
the starting place of the species was along the lower reaches of the
Wabash river.

The catalpa may reach a height of 100 or 120 feet and a diameter
of four feet ; but few trees attain that size. The leaves are ten or twelve
inches long and seven or eight wide, and are considerably larger than
those of common catalpa. The flowers appear late in May or early in
June, and are showy. The prevailing colors are white and purple, and
the blossoms are about two inches long and two and a half wide.

The fruit is a pod from eight to twenty inches long, and the enclosed
seeds are nearly an inch long, shaped like beans. The trees are prolific
bearers.

The tree is known by several names in different parts of its range,
including the territory where it is known only from plantings. It is
called western catalpa to distinguish it from the other species found
farther east and south. In Missouri and Iowa it is known as cigar tree.
The name Indian bean is an allusion to the large seeds. Shawneewood
is another name referring to the supposed interest of Indians in the tree.
Shawnee was the name of a tribe of Indians in the Ohio valley in early
times.

The wood weighs less than twenty-six pounds per cubic foot, and is
soft and weak. It is rated very durable in contact with the soil, and this
is one of the chief advantages claimed for it. The annual rings are clear-
ly marked by several bands or rows of large open ducts, and the denser
summerwood forms a narrow band. The medullary rays are numerous
and obscure. The heartwood is brown, the sapwood lighter. In appear-
ance, the heartwood suggests butternut, but it is coarser, and lacks the
gloss shown by polished butternut. Quarter-sawing produces no figure,
but when sawed at right angles to the radial lines, the annual rings are
cut in a way to give figure resembling that of ash or chestnut.

The wood of this catalpa has been thoroughly tried out for a
number of purposes. Furniture and finish have been made of it with
varying success, and molding and picture frames are listed among its
uses. It is not a sawlog tree. Statistics of lumber cut seldom mention
it, though now and then a log finds its way to a mill. Efforts have been
made to pass the wood as mahogany, but with poor success. The

American Forest Trees 477

counterfeit is easily detected, since the artificial color which may be
imparted to catalpa is about the only resemblance to mahogany.

In the lower Mississippi valley some success, but on a very small
scale, has resulted from attempts to induce catalpa to grow in crooks
suitable for small boat knees. The young trunk, after being hacked on
one side, is bent and induced to grow the crook or knee. Natural crooks
have been utilized in the manufacture of knees for small boats in Louisi-
ana.

Probably ninety per cent of all the catalpa ever cut has gone into
fence posts. It is habitually crooked. A straight bole is the exception ;
though in plantations trees are crowded and pruned until they grow
fairly straight, and sometimes trunks of forest grown trees of large size
are nearly faultless in their symmetry.

It was once believed in some quarters that catalpa would solve the
railroad tie problem by growing good ties quickly. It must be admitted,
however, that in spite of extensive plantings, the railroad tie problem
has not yet been solved by catalpa.

Common Catalpa (Catalpa catalpa) originated many hundred miles
outside the range of hardy catalpa, to judge by the localities in which
it was first found by white men. It is supposed to have been in-
digenous in southwestern Georgia, central Alabama, and Mississippi, and
northwestern Florida. Its range has been greatly extended by planting,
and it grows in most parts of the country east of the Rocky Mountains, as
far north as New England. It has been planted in many parts of Europe.
Its leaves, flowers, fruit, and the tree itself are smaller than hardy
catalpa. The pods hang unopened all winter. The trunks sometimes
are three feet in diameter and sixty high, but are generally small,
crooked, rather angular, and poor in appearance, but the leaves and
flowers are ornamental. The wood is durable in contact with the ground,
and its largest use has been for posts, crossties, and poles.

Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) does not even belong to the
willow family, notwithstanding its names, all of which are based on the
presumption that it is a willow. The shape and size of its leaves are
responsible for that misapprehension. The very narrow leaves may be
a foot long. It is called flowering willow and Texas flowering willow.
Its flowers are always emphasized when it is compared with willow, for
they are totally different from the willow's characteristic catkins. The
flowers appear in early summer in racemes three or four inches long, and
continue open during several months in succession. The fruit is a pod
seven or nine inches long, and as slender as a lead pencil. It is this pod
which gives the plainest hint of its relationship to the catalpas, for it
is in good standing in the family with them. The seeds resemble very

478

American Forest Trees

small beans with wings at each end. They are light, and the wind
disperses them. The tree is a prolific seeder.

The range of this small tree extends across western Texas, New
Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, into San Diego county, California. The
tree occurs in dry, gravelly, porous soil near the banks of streams and in
depressions in the desert. The wood is weak and soft, the heart brown,
streaked with yellow. No use has been found for it. The tree is culti-
vated for ornament in Mexico and sometimes in the southern states.
The flowers look well when they are encountered in the desert. They
are white, faintly tinged with purple, with bright yellow spots inside.
They are funnel shaped and have the odor of violets.

CUCUMBER

CUCUMBER

(Magnolia Acuminata)

THIS tree is a member of the magnolia family which has ten genera in
North America, two of them, magnolia and liriodendron, being
trees. The family has its name from Pierre Magnol, a French botanist
who died in 1715. The genus magnolia has seven species in the United
States, all of which are of tree size. They are evergreen magnolia
(Magnolia fatida), sweet magnolia (Magnolia glauca), cucumber
(Magnolia acuminata), largeleaf umbrella [Magnolia macrophylla),
umbrella tree (Magnolia tripciala), Fraser umbrella (Magnolia fraseri),
and pyramidal magnolia (Magnolia pyramidata). The remaining
member of the magnolia family is the yellow poplar (Liriodendron
tulipifera). Though of the same family it is of a different genus from
the seven other magnolias.

The cucumber is the hardiest member of the magnolia family. It
is found in natural growth farther north than any other, yet it has the
appearance of a southern tree. All magnolias look like trees belonging
in the South. Their large leaves indicate as much, and some of them do
not venture far outside of the warm latitudes. It is one of the oldest of
all the families of broadleaf trees, and it has been a family that during an
immense period of the earth's history has clung near the old homestead
where it came into existence countless ages ago. There were magnolias
growing in the middle Appalachian region, and eastward to the present
Atlantic coast, so far in the past that the time can be measured only by
hundreds of thousands of years.- Leaf prints in rocks, which were once
mud flats, tell the story — though but a page here and there — of the
magnolia's ancient history, doubtless antedating by long periods the
earliest appearance of man on earth.

Next to the yellow poplar, the cucumber tree is the most important
species of the magnolia family, at least as a source of lumber. As an
ornamental tree it may not equal some of the others, particularly certain
of the southern species which are evergreen and produce large, showy
flowers.

The cucumber tree receives its name from its fruit, which locks
like a cucumber when seen at a distance, but it is far from being one. Its
intense bitter makes it safe from the attacks of birds and beasts. So far
as known, it is not eaten, tasted, or touched by any living creature —
except man. Some of the pioneer settlers, in the days when there was
precious little to eat on the frontiers, discovered a way of extracting the
bitter from the wild cucumber, and making some M>rt of a pickle of the

482 American Forest Trees

remainder; but the art seems to have been lost with the passing of the
pioneers of the Daniel Boone type, and the wild cucumber now hangs
untouched, and tempts nobody. It is three inches or less in length,
generally slightly curved, and is green in color until fully ripe. Even the
flowers which produce the fruit are green, with the merest suggestion of
vellow. They are so inconspicuous that few persons ever notice them,
even though cucumber trees stand in door yards. The ripe cucumbers
are dark red or scarlet, or rather the seeds are, which grow on the surface
like grains of corn on a cob, though fewer in number and farther apart.
Something seems to be lacking in the machinery by which the flowers
are fertilized, with the result that often nearly half the seeds which ought
to cover the surface of the cucumber, fail to materialize. There are
many blank spaces representing flowers which the pollen missed.

There is likewise something missing in the modus operandi of
scattering the seeds. They have no wings, and the wind is powerless to
carry them. They are as bitter as quinine and no bird, squirrel, or
mouse will plant, carry, or touch them. Nature appears to have for-
gotten to provide any other means for dispersing the seeds of this re-
markable tree. When seeds are full}7 ripe, they drop away from the
parent fruit — the cucumber — but the fall of each seed is arrested by a
small thread which suspends it from one to three inches below the fruit.
There the seeds hang, swinging and dangling in the wind. What part the
threads play in the economy of nature is not apparent, unless their
purpose is to expose the seeds to a chance of becoming entangled with
the wings, feet, or feathers of flying birds, whereby they may be carried
away and dropped in suitable places for growing. There can be no
doubt that this happens occasionally, and constitutes one of the methods
of seed dispersal. Others are transported by flowing water.

The chances seem to be greatly against the survival of the cucumber
tree in competition with maples, birches, pines, and cottonwoods, whose
winged seeds are wind-borne; or with oaks, hickories, and walnuts
whose heavy, wingless nuts are planted hither and thither by accommo-
dating squirrels which are intent only on providing for their own winter
wants, but in reality are industrious and effective forest planters. Not-
withstanding the disadvantages under which the cucumber tree is placed,
it has managed to hold its ground in the forest during immense periods
of time, and it seems to be as firmly established now as ever.

The leaves of this tree are from seven to ten inches long, and four
to six wide. In autumn before they fall they turn a blotched yellow-
brown color. The first severe frost brings them all down in a heap.
At sunset the tree may be laden with leaves, and by the next noon all
will be on the ground. They are so heavy that the wind does not move

American Forest Trees 483

them far, and they drop in heaps beneath the branches. In color they
resemble owl feathers, and the suggestion that comes to one's mind,
who happens to pass under a cucumber tree the morning following the
first frost, is that during the night some prowler picked a roost of owls
and scattered the feathers on the ground.

The range of cucumber extends from western New York to Ala-
bama, following the Appalachian mountains; and westward to Illinois
and Mississippi, appearing west of the Mississippi river in Arkansas. It
occurs on low rocky slopes, the banks of mountain streams, and on rich
bottom land. It is of largest size and is most abundant in the narrow
valleys in eastern Tennessee and the western parts of the Carolinas.
The tree is from two to four feet in diameter, and sixty to ninety feet
high. The trunk is of good form for sawlogs. Among its local names
are pointed-leaf magnolia, black lin, magnolia, and mountain magnolia.

The wood of cucumber resembles that of yellow poplar in appear-
ance and in physical properties, except that it is ten per cent heavier
than poplar. It usually passes for that wood at sawmill and factory.
The Federal census credits it with less than a million feet a year as lum-
ber. That is much too small. It is valuable and finds ready sale.
Manufacturers of wooden pumps regard it as the best material for the
bored logs. It is worked into interior finish for houses, flooring for cars,
interior parts of furniture, woodenware, boxes and crates, slack cooper-
age, including veneer barrels.

The tree is planted for ornament in the northern states and Europe.
The chief value lies in its large, green leaves and symmetrical crown.
The red fruit adds to the tree's attractiveness late in summer.

LargelEaf Umbrella (Magnolia macrophylla.) is valuable chiefly as a sort of
ornamental curiosity, on account of its enormous leaves and flowers. The leaf is
from twenty to thirty inches long and ten to twelve wide. It drops in autumn
before its green color has undergone much change. The leaves lack toughness, and
the wind whips them into strings long before the summer is ended. Thus what
otherwise would be highly ornamental becomes somewhat unsightly. When well
protected from wind by surrounding objects, the leaves fare better and last longer.
The white, fragrant flowers are likewise remarkable on account of size. They are
cup-shaped and some of them are almost a foot across. They pay a penalty no less
severe than the leaves pay, on account of large size, and are liable to be thumped and
bruised by swinging leaves and branches.

The largeleaf umbrella is a t ree of the southern Appalachian mountains al-
though its range extends southwest to Louisiana, and northward from there to Ar-
kansas. It is at its best in deep rich soil of sheltered valleys, occurring in isolated
groups, but never in pure forests. It is known as large-leaved cucumber tree, great-
leaved magnolia, large-leaved umbrella tree, and long-leaved magnolia. The fruit is
nearly a sphere, from two to three inches in diameter, and bright rose color when
fully ripe. The seeds are two-thirds of an inch long. The smooth, light gray bark is
usually less than a quarter of an inch thick. Large trees are forty or fifty feet high

484

American Forest Trees

and twenty inches in diameter. It is not considered valuable for .umber, because of
scarcity and small size. The wood is considerably heavier than yellow poplar, and is
hard but not strong; light brown in color with thick, light yellow sapwood. Reports
do not show that the wood is put to any use. Planted trees are hardy as far north as
Massachusetts, and success has attended the tree's introduction in the parks and
gardens of southern Europe.

Yellow Flowered Cucumber Tree (Magnolia acuminata cordata) is usually
considered a variety of the common cucumber tree, rather than a separate species.
The most noticeable feature is the yellow blossom which gives the names by which
it is generally known, among such being yellow-flowered magnolia, and yellow cu-
cumber tree. It is not a garden variety, for it grows wild; but it has been cultivated
during more than a century, and has undergone changes which are not matched by
wild trees. The finest forms of the forest variety are found on the Blue Ridge in
South Carolina, and in central Alabama. The cultivated tree is distinguished by its
darker green leaves, and by its smaller, bright, canary-yellow flowers. The variety
has no value as a timber tree, but is widely appreciated as an ornament. Cultivated
trees generally remain small in size, and do not develop the long, clean trunks com-
mon with the cucumber tree under forest conditions.

Umbrella Tree (Magnolia iripetala) is one of the magnolias and should not
be confounded with the Asiatic umbrella tree often planted in yards. The flower is
surrounded by a whorl of leaves resembling an umbrella, hence the name. It is also
known as cucumber, magnolia, and elkwood. The range of the tree extends from
Pennsylvania to Alabama and west to Arkansas. It prefers the margins of swamps
and the rich soil along mountain streams. Leaves are eighteen inches long and half
as wide. They fall in autumn. Flowers are cup-shaped and creamy-white. The
fruit somewhat resembles that of the common cucumber tree, but is rose colored when
fully ripe. Trees are thirty or forty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The
brown heartwood is light, soft, and weak, and is used little or not at all for com-
mercial purposes. The tree is cultivated for ornament in the northern states and
in Europe.

VELLoW POPLAR

YELLOW POPLAR

(Liriodendron Tulipifera |

IN diameter of trunk the yellow poplar is, next to sycamore, the
largest hardwood tree of the United States, and if both height and
trunk diameter are considered, it surpasses the sycamore in size. It
belongs to a very old group of hardwoods which have come down from
remote geological ages, and the species is now found only in the United
States and China. Mature trees are from three to eight feet in diameter
and from 90 to 180 in height.

It has many names in different parts of its range, but it is never
mistaken for any other tree. The peculiar notched leaf is a sure means
of identification. The resemblance of the flower to the tulip has given
it the name tulip tree in some localities, and botanists prefer that name.
It is so called in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West
Virginia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario. Wood users
in New England and in some of the other northern states prefer the
name whitewood and it is so known, in part at least, in New England,
New York, New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio,
Michigan, and Illinois. Yellow poplar is the name preferred by lumber-
men in nearly all regions where the tree is found in commercial quan-
tities, notably in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware,
Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas,
Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee. The name
is often shortened to poplar, which is used in Rhode Island, Delaware,
North and South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and
Indiana. The name tulip poplar is less frequently heard, and blue
poplar and hickory poplar are terms used in West Virginia, Virginia,
and North Carolina, but generally under the impression that they refer
to a different form or species. In Rhode Island it is called popple, in
New York cucumber tree, and canoewood in Tennessee and in the upper
Ohio valley.

The botanical range of yellow poplar is wider than its commercial
range; that is, a few trees are found in regions surrounding the borders
of the district where the tree is profitably lumbered. The boundaries
of its range run from southwestern Vermont, westward to Lake Michigan
near Grand Haven, southward to northern Florida, and west of the
Mississippi river in Missouri and Arkansas The productive yellow
poplar timber belt has never been that large but has clung pretty closely

488 American Forest Trees

to the southern Appalachian mountain ranges and to certain districts
lying both east and west of them. The best original stands were in
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, western North
Carolina, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and in some parts of Ohio
and Indiana. However, considerable quantities of good yellow poplar
have been cut in other regions.

The physical properties of the wood of yellow poplar fit it for many
purposes but not for all. It is not very strong and is tolerably brittle.
It is light in weight, medium soft, and is easily worked. The annual
rings of growth are not prominent compared with some of the oaks, yet
select logs show nicely in quarter-sawing. The medullary rays are
numerous, but small and not prominent, for which reason bright streaks
and flecks are not characteristic of the wood. Yellow poplar is fairly
stiff and elastic, but is not often selected on account of those qualities.
In color it is light yellow or brown. The color gives name to the tree.
The sapwood is whiter, and it is the abnormally thick sapwood of some
trees which causes them to be called white poplar. The wood has little
figure, and it is seldom employed for fine work without stain or paint of
some kind. It is not usually classed as long lasting when exposed to the
weather, yet cases are known where weather boarding of houses, and
bridge and mill timbers of yellow poplar have outlasted the generation of
builders.

The quantity of yellow poplar in the country is but a remnant of
the former enormous supply that covered the rich valleys and fertile
coves in a region exceeding 200,000 square miles. It occupied the best
land, and much was destroyed by farmers in clearing fields. It was
not generally found in groves or dense stands, but as solitary trees
scattered through forests of other woods. The trunks are tall and
shapely, the crowns comparatively small. The form is ideal for sawlogs,
and very few trees of America produce a higher percentage of clear,
first class lumber. That is because the forest-grown poplar early sheds
its lower branches, and the trunks lay on nothing but clear wood.
In the yellow poplar's region it was the principal wood of which the
pioneers made their canoes for crossing and navigating rivers. It is
still best known by the name canoewood in some regions. It worked
easily and was light, and a thin-shelled canoe lasted many years, barring
floods and other accidents. Builders of pirogues, keelboats, barges, and
other vessels for inland navigation in early times when roads were few
and streams were the principal highways of commerce, found no timber
superior to yellow poplar. It could be had in planks of great size and
free from defects, and while not as strong as oak, it was strong enough
to withstand the usual knocks and buffetings of river traffic.

American Forest Trees 489

Yellow poplar sawlogs have probably exceeded in number any
other wood, except white pine, floated down rivers and creeks to
market. The wood floats well and lumbermen have usually pushed far
up the rivers, ahead of other lumber operations, to procure it. Enor-
mous drives have gone and are still going out of rivers in the Appalachian
region.

The uses of yellow poplar are so many that an enumeration is
impracticable, except by general classes. These are boxes and wooden-
ware, vehicles, furniture, interior finish, and car building. There is
another class consisting of low-grade work, such as common lumber,
pulpwood, and the like.

There is a class of commodities which are usually packed in boxes
and require a wood that will impart neither taste nor stain. That
requirement is met by yellow poplar. It has been an important wood
for boxes in which food products are shipped. It is so used less fre-
quently now than formerly because of increased cost, but veneer is
employed to a large extent, and while the total quantity of wood going
into box factories is smaller than formerly, the actual number and
contents of poplar boxes are perhaps about the same. It is a white
wood and shows printing and stenciling clearly. That is an important
point with many manufacturers who wish to print their advertisements
on the boxes which they send out. Woodenware, particularly ironing
boards, bread boards, and pantry and kitchen utensils, are largely
made of poplar because it is light, attractive, and easily kept clean. It is
popular as pumplogs for the same reason.

As a vehicle wood, yellow poplar is not a competitor of oak and
hickory. They are for running gear and frames; poplar for tops and
bodies. No wood excels it for wide panels. It receives finish and paint
so well that it is not surpassed by the smoothest metals. Many of the
finest carriage and automobile tops are largely of this wood. In case
of slight accidents it resists dints much better than sheet metal.

Cheap furniture was once made of yellow poplar. It now enters
into the best kinds, and is finished in imitation of costly woods, notably
mahogany, birch, and cherry. No American wood will take a higher
polish. It is also much employed as an interior wood by furniture
manufacturers. It fills an important place as cores or backing over
which veneers are glued.

When used as an interior house finish and in car building, it is
nearly always stained or painted. Many of the broad handsome panels
in passenger cars, which pass for cherry, birch, mahogany, or rosewood,
are yellow poplar, to which the finisher and decorator have given their
best touches.

490 American Forest Trees

All poplar lumber is not wide, clear stock, though much of it is.
The lower grades go as common lumber and small trees are cut for pulp-
wood. A large part of the demand for high-grade yellow poplar is in
foreign countries, and a regular oversea trade is carried on by exporters.
Foreign manufacturers put the wood to practically the same uses as the
best grades in this country.

Yellow poplar seasons well, and is a satisfactory wood to handle.
When thoroughly dry it holds its shape with the best of woods. Bluing
is apt to affect the green wood if unduly exposed. Fresh poplar chips
in damp situations sometimes change to a conspicuous blue color within
a day or two. However, millmen do not experience much difficulty in
preventing the bluing of the lumber.

Gyminda (Gyminda grisebachii) is also called false boxwood, and
belongs to the staff family. The name gyminda is artificial and meaning-
less. The genus has a single species which occurs in the islands of
southern Florida where trees of largest size are scarcely twenty-five feet
high and six inches in diameter. The wood is very heavy, hard, fine-
grained, and is nearly black. It is suitable for small articles, but it is
not known to be so used, and its scarcity renders improbable any im-
portant future use of the wood. The fruit is a small berry, ripening in
November. The range of the species extends to Cuba, Porto Rico, and
other islands of the West Indies.

EVERGREEN MAGXOLIA

EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA

(Magnolia Fceiida)

THIS is not a timber tree of first importance. A few years ago it
was seldom cut except in very small quantities ; but it was found to
possess good qualities, and now it goes regularly to the mills which saw
hardwoods in the region where it grows. The wood of different magnolia
trees, or even the wood of the same tree, shows lack of uniformity. Some
of it looks like yellow poplar and compares favorably with it in several
particulars, while other of it is very dark, with hard flinty streaks which
not only present a poor appearance, but dull the tools of the woodwork-
ing machines and create an unfavorable impression of the wood generally.
This magnolia holds pretty closely to the damp lands in all parts of its
range. The amount of the annual cut is not known, because it goes in
with the minor species in most places and no separate account is taken.
It is coming into more notice every year, and some manufacturers have
been so successful in finding ways to make it serviceable that the best
grades are easily sold. The wood does not hold its color very well. The
light-colored sapwood is apt to become darker after exposure to the air,
and the dark heartwood fades a little. The tree is so handsome in the
forest that it is occasionally spared when the surrounding trees are
removed.

It is doubtful if any American tree surpasses it as an ornament
when its leaves, trunk, flowers, and bark are considered. It is not
perfect in all of these particulars ; in fact, it possesses some serious faults.
The crown is often too small for the tree's height; the branches straggle,
many on some parts of the trunk and few on others; the flowers are
objectionable because of strong odor which is unpleasant to most people.
But these shortcomings are more thai, compensated for by splendid
qualities. The rich, dark green of the leaves, then size and profusion,
their changeless luster, place them in a position almost beyond the reach
of rivalry from any other tree.

Those who see this splendid inhabitant of the forest only where it
has been planted in northern states, and elsewhere outside of its natural
range, miss much of the best it has to give. It belongs in the South.
The wet lands, the small elevations in deep swamps, the flat country
where forests are dense, are its home. The yellowish-green trunk rises
through the tangled foliage that keeps near the ground, and towers fifty
feet above, and there spreads in a crown of green so deep that it is almost
black. It likes company, and seldom grows solitary. Its associates are
the southern maples, red gum, tupelo, cypress, a dozen species of oak,

493

4&4 American Forest Trees

and occasionally pines on nearby higher ground. Festoons of grayish-
green Spanish moss often add to the tropical character of the scene.
The moss seldom hangs on the magnolia, but is frequently abundant on
surrounding trees.

Lumbermen formerly left the evergreen magnolia trees on tracts
from which they cut nearly everything else. Large areas which had
once been regarded as swamps were thus converted into parks of giant
magnolias, many of which towered seventy or eighty feet. The tracts
were left wild, and those who so left them had no purpose of providing
ornament, but they did so. Many a scene was made grand by its
magnolias, after other forest growth had been cut away.

The range of evergreen magnolia is from North Carolina to Florida
and west to Arkansas and Texas. The species reaches largest size in the
vicinity of the Mississippi, both east and west of it. Trees eighty feet
high and four feet in diameter occur, and trunks are often without limbs
one-half or two-thirds their length, when they grow in forests.

The common name for the tree in most parts of its range is simply
magnolia, though that name fails to distinguish it from several other
species, some of which are associated with it. Occasionally it is called
big laurel, great laurel magnolia, laurel-leaved magnolia, laurel, and
laurel bay. Bull bay is a common name for it in Georgia, Alabama,
and Mississippi. It is called bat tree, but the reason for such a name
is not known.

Leaves are from five to eight inches long and two or three wide,
and dark green above, but lighter below. They fall in the spring after
remaining on the branches two whole years.

The odor of the flowers is unpleasant, but they are attractive to the
sight, being six or eight inches across, with purple bases. The flowering
habit of this tree is all that could be desired. It is in bloom from April
till August.

The fruit resembles that of the other magnolias and is three or four
inches long and two or less wide. Its color is rusty-brown. The ripe
seeds hang awhile by short threads, according to the habit of the family.
The wood is stronger than poplar, fully as stiff, and nearly fifty per cent
heavier. The annual rings are rather vaguely marked by narrow bands
of summerwood. Pores are diffuse, plentiful, and very small. Medul-
lary rays are larger than those of yellow poplar, and show fairly well in
quarter-sawed stock. The wood is compact and easily worked, except
when hard streaks are encountered. The surface finishes with a satiny
luster; color creamy- white, yellowish- white, or often light brown. Occa-
sionally the wood is nearly diametrically the opposite of this, and is of all
darker shades up to purple, black, and blue black. The appearance of

American Forest Trees 495

the dark wood suggests decay, but those who pass it through machines,
or work it by hand, consider it as sound as the lighter colored wood.

The uses of magnolia are much the same in all parts of its range,
and those of Louisiana, where the utilization of the wood has been
studied more closely than in other regions, indicate the scope of its
usefulness. It is there made into parts of boats, bar fixtures, boxes,
broom handles, brush backs, crates, door panels, dugout canoes, ex-
celsior, furniture shelving, interior finish, ox yokes, panels, and wagon
boxes. In Texas where the annual consumption probably exceeds a
million feet, it is employed by furniture makers, and appears in window
blinds, packing boxes, sash, and molding. In Mississippi, fine mantels
are made of carefully selected wood, quarter-sawed to bring out the
small, square "mirrors" produced by radial cutting of the medullary
rays.

Evergreen magnolia has long been planted for ornament in this
country and Europe. It survives the winters at Philadelphia. Several
varieties have been developed by cultivation and are sold by nurseries.

Southern forests have contributed, and still contribute, large
quantities of magnolia leaves for decorations in northern cities during
winter. The flowers are not successfully shipped because they are easily
bruised, and they quickly lose their freshness and beauty.

Sweet Magnolia (Magnolia glauca) ranges from Massachusetts to Texas and
south to Florida. It reaches its largest size on the hummock lands of the latter state.
Trees are occasionally seventy feet high and three or more in diameter, but in many
parts of its range it is small, even shrubby. Among the names by which it is known
are white bay, swamp laurel, swamp sassafras, swamp magnolia, white laurel, and
beaver-tree. It inhabits swamps in the northern part of its range, hence the fre-
quency of the word "swamp" in coining names for it. Beaver-tree as a name is
probably due to its former abundance about beaver dams, where impounded water
made the ground swampy. In the North, sweet magnolia's chief value is in its flowers,
which are two or three inches across, creamy-white, and fragrant. They were
formerly very abundant near the mouth of the Susquehanna river in Maryland and
Pennsylvania, and northward through New Jersey; but the traffic in the flowers has
destroyed the growth in many places where once plentiful. It is not important as a
timber resource, but it is employed for a number of useful purposes where logs of fair
size may be had. The sapwood is creamy-white, but the heart is nearly as dark as
mahogany, and in Texas it is used to imitate that wood. The brown and other shades
combine with fine effect. One of its common uses is for broom handles. Heartwood
is worked into high-grade chairs. It takes a beautiful polish.

FrasER Umbrella (Magnolia fraseri) ranges south from the Virginia moun-
tains to Florida and west to Mississippi. It is of largest size in South Carolina where
trees are sometimes thirty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The leaves fall
in autumn of the first year; the creamy-white, sweetly-scented flowers are eight or ten
inches in diameter, and the fruit resembles that of the other magnolias. The wood
is weak, soft, and light. The heart is clear brown, the sapwood nearly white. It
has not been reported in use for any commercial purpose. Among its other names

496 American Forest Trees

it is known as long-leaved cucumber tree, ear-leaved umbrella tree, Indian bitters,
water lily tree, and mountain magnolia. In cultivation this species is hardy as far
north as Massachusetts, and it is planted for ornament in Europe.

Pyramid Magnolia (Magnolia pyramidata) seems to have generally escaped
the notice of laymen, and it therefore has no English name except the translation of
the Latin term by which botanists know it. Its habitat lies in southern Georgia and
Alabama, and western Florida, and it is occasionally seen in cultivation in western
Europe. It is a slender tree, twenty feet or more in height. Its flowers are three or
four inches in diameter, and creamy-white in color. A tree so scarce cannot be ex-
pected to be commercially important.

Western' Black Willow (Salix lasiandra) is a rather large tree when at its
best, reaching a diameter of two feet or more, and a height of fifty, but in other parts
of its range it rarely exceeds ten feet in height. It follows the western mountain
ranges southward from British Columbia into California. The wood is soft, light,
and brittle, and is used little if at all. Lyall willow (Salix lasiandra lyalli) is a well
marked variety of this species and is a tree of respectable size.

Glossyleaf Willow (Salix lucida) is a far northern species which has its
southern limit in Pennsylvania and Nebraska. It grows nearly to the Arctic circle.
Trees twenty-five feet high and six or eight inches in diameter are the best this
species affords.

LonglEAP Willow (Salix fluviatilis) is known also as sandbar willow, narrow-
leaf willow, shrub, white, red, and osier willow, and by still other names. It ranges
from the Arctic circle to Mexico, reaching Maryland on the Atlantic coast, and
California on the Pacific. In rare cases it is sixty feet high, and two in diameter,
but it is usually less than twenty feet high.

WAHOO

N

WAHOO

(Evonymus Atropur pureus)

O one seems to know what the original meaning of the word wahoo
was. It is applied to no fewer than six different trees in this
country, four of them elms, one a basswood, and one the tree now under
consideration. The generic name, Evonymus, appears to be an effort to
put somebody's seal of approval on the name, for it means in the Greek
language "of good name."

It belongs to the family Cdastracece, which means the staff family.
Some designate members of this group as "Spindle trees," because
formerly in Europe the wood was employed for knitting needles, hooks
for embroidering, spindles for spinning wheels, and the like. Unless the
members of the family in Europe have wood quite different from that
of the wahoo tree in this country, no adequate reason can be found for the
use of the wood for spindles or staffs, because it is poor material for that
purpose. It may be compared with basswood.

This beautiful little tree, scarcely more than a shrub in most regions
of its growth, is a widely distributed species, its range extending through
western New York to Nebraska, southeastern South Dakota and eastern
Kansas, and in the valley of the upper Missouri river, Montana, south-
ward to northern Florida, southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. In
these localities it is generally a shrub, rarely reaching a height of more
than nine or ten feet. It attains the proportions of a tree only in the bot-
tom lands of southern Arkansas, Oklahoma, and in the lower Appala-
chian regions. The most favorable habitat of the tree is moist soil
along the banks of streams. In the southern and western parts of its
range, under favorable conditions of soil and climate, and when isolated
from other species, the wahoo tree grows to rather large size and
develops a wide flat top of slender spreading branches.

The largest and most beautiful specimens of wahoo grow in the
mountainous regions of West Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and western
North Carolina. In these sections it is no unusual thing for a tree of this
species to attain a height of sixty or seventy feet and a diameter of
twenty or twenty-four inches. It is never found in pure stands but is
isolated along the edge of the forest, and thrives best near water courses.

The tree is known by a variety of names in the different parts of the
country. The Indians are said to have called it wahoo. Burning bush,
a very popular name, is especially appropriate, as no brighter dash of
color is displayed by any tree than the scarlet fruit of this growth, which
remains on the branches long after the leaves have fallen, often until the

500 American Forest Trees

winter storms beat it to the ground. The growth is also called occasion-
all}- by the name bleeding-heart tree, in reference to the blood-red con-
tents revealed by the bursting fruit.

The wahoo in the fall of the year may be identified by the flaming
color of its fruit, or rather the seeds of the fruit. The hull bursts and
exposes the bright red seeds within. These, contrary to the usual run
of red fruits, are not of a glossy surface, and in this the tree is unique.
During the summer season, however, identification is not such a simple
matter, for the foliage is quite ordinary, and the flat, unassuming flowers
have little that is distinctive about them; but as the autumn approaches
and the leaves turn a pale yellow color, the tree becomes a conspicuous
and beautiful object with its scarlet berries.

The bark of the wahoo is ashen gray, thin, furrowed, and divided
into minute scales. On the branchlets it is a dark purplish-brown,
later becoming brownish-gray.

The heartwood of wahoo is white, with a slight tinge of orange.
The sapwood, scarcely distinguishable from the heartwood, is more nearly
white in tone. The wood is heavy and close-grained but not very hard.
It weighs when seasoned a little less than forty pounds to the cubic foot.
Such of this wood as is sawed into lumber, which is but a small quantity,
sells commercially with poplar saps, thus masquerading like its forest
fellow, the cucumber tree. The character of the wood is such that it
will not stand exposure to the weather any length of time. It is far
from durable, but is remarkably clear from defects and answers ad-
mirably many purposes for which sap poplar is desirable.

The leaves of the tree are waxy in appearance, opposite, entire,
elliptical or ovate in shape, from two to four inches long, one to two
broad. They are finely serrate and pointed at both apex and base, and
the stems are short and stout.

The flowers, which appear in May and June, are definitely four-
parted, presenting a Maltese cross in shape. They are half an inch
across, and their rounded petals are deep purple in color. The fruit
which succeeds these flowers and which ripens in October is also four-
parted. It is about half an inch across, a pale purple when full size,
and hangs on long slender stems. When ripe the purple husk bursts
and reveals the seed enveloped in a scarlet outer coat that fits it loosely.
The leaves, bark, and fruit of the wahoo are acrid and are reputed to be
poisonous.

The wood is one-third heavier than that of yellow poplar, and it is
evident that it would not pass as poplar with any one disposed to reject
it. It is also much harder than poplar, and is more difficult to season, as
it checks badly. The medullary rays are so thin as to be scarcely dis-

American Forest Trees 501

cernible. The wood contains many very small pores. The bark is
said to possess some value for medicinal purposes. No special uses for
the wood have been reported, and it is too scarce to be of much value.
The tree's principal importance is as an ornament, and it shows well in
winter borders where the bright colors of the seeds are exposed. It is
planted both in this country and in Europe. The plantings seldom
or never reach tree size.

Florida Boxwood (Scluzfjcria frutescens) is of the same family as
wahoo but of another genus, and is quite a different kind of tree. The
generic name is in honor of Jakob Christian Schaeffer, a distinguished
German naturalist who died in 1790. Two species of this tree occur in
the United States, one the Florida boxwood, the other a small, shrubbv
growth in the dry regions of western Texas and northern Mexico.
Florida boxwood is a West Indies tree which nourishes in the Bahamas
and southward along the other islands to Venezuela. It has gained a
foothold on the islands of southern Florida where it has found conditions
favorable and it grows to a height of thirty or forty feet, and reaches a
trunk diameter of ten inches, but such are trees of the largest size. The
leaves are bright yellow-green, about two inches long, and one or less in
width. They appear in Florida in April and persist a full year, until the
foliage of the succeeding crop displaces them. The flowers which are
small and inconspicuous, open about the same time as the leaves. The
fruit is a scarlet berry which ripens in November, and has a decidedly
disagreeable flavor. The bark is very thin.

When sound wood in sufficiently large pieces is obtainable it is
valuable for a number of purposes, but chiefly as a substitute for Turkish
boxwood as engraving blocks. The trees are always small in Florida,
which is the only place in the United States where they occur, and the
largest are often hollow or otherwise defective. The wood weighs 4S.27
pounds per cubic foot, thoroughly dry, which is about two pounds
heavier than white oak. It is rich in ashes, having about four times as
much as white oak. The color of the heartwood is a bright, clear yellow
to which is due the name yellow-wood occasionally applied to the tree in
the region where it grows, as well as in markets where it is sold. This
is not the tree known in commerce as West Indies boxwood, though it
may be an occasional substitute. It is said that Florida boxwood was
formerly much more abundant in this country than it is now. It was
lumbered for the European market at about the same time that the
south of Florida was stripped of its mahogany. It is suitable for main-
small articles where a hard, even-grained wood is wanted.

Ironwood (CyrUla racemiflora) ranges from the coast region of
North Carolina to Florida, and west near the coast to Texas. It is

502 American Forest Trees

known as leatherwood, burnwood, burnwood bark, firewood, red titi, and
white titi. Ten woods besides this are called ironwood in some parts of
this country. The name is applied because the hardness of the wood
suggests iron. It is not remarkable for its weight nor its strength. The
medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous. In color it is brown,
tinged with red. It is not apparent why it is a favorite fire wood, for its
fuel value does not rate high theoretically, being much below many
species with which it is associated. The largest trees rarely exceed a
height of thirty feet and a diameter of twelve inches. They flourish in
shady river bottoms and along the borders of sandy swamps and shallow
ponds.

The tree occasionally assumes the form of a bush and sends up many
stems which produce almost impenetrable thickets. Aside from its use
as fuel, it is in small demand anywhere. In Texas it is sometimes made
into wedges, and similar uses for it are doubtless found in other
regions where it is abundant. It is named from Domenico Civillo, an
Italian naturalist who died in 1799.

Titi (Cliftonia monophylla) is of the cyrilla family and is one of
three species which occasionally pass under that name. It sometimes
reaches a height of fifty feet and a diameter of one or more. Its range
follows the coast region from South Carolina to Louisiana. It betakes
itself to swamps and flourishes in situations that would be fatal to many
species. Half under water during many months of the year it is placed
at no disadvantage. It grows equally well in shallow swamps which
are rarely overflowed. Near the southern limits of its range in Florida
it is reduced to a shrub. It is known as ironwood and buckwheat tree.
The last name is due to its seeds which are about the size of a buckwheat
grain and otherwise resemble it. The flowers appear in early spring on
long racemes, and are very fragrant. The wood weighs about thirty-
nine pounds per cubic foot, is not strong, but is moderately hard. It is
valuable as fuel and burns with a clear, bright flame.

MOUNTAIN LAUREL

MOUNTAIN LAUREL

(Kaimia Latifolia)

THIS tree belongs to the heath family and not to the laurels, as the
name seems to imply. The same is true of rhododendron. The
kaimia genus has five or six species in this country, but only one of tree
size, and then only when at its best. Mountain laurel reaches its best
development in North and South Carolina in a few secluded valleys
between the Blue Ridge and the western mountains of the Appalachian
ranges. The largest specimens are forty or fifty feet high and a foot or a
foot and a half in diameter. Trunks are contorted and unshapely, and
lumber is never sawed from them.

The tree has many names, most of them, however, are applied to
the species in its shrubby form. A common name is simply laurel, but
that does not distinguish it from the great laurel which is often associated
with it. Calico bush is one of its names, and is supposed to be descriptive
of the flowers. Spoonwood is one of its northern names, dating back to
the times when early settlers, who carried little silverware with them to
their frontier homes, augmented the supply by making spoons and ladles
of laurel roots. Ivy is a common name, sometimes mountain ivy, or
poison ivy. Poison laurel and sheep laurel are among the names also.
The leaves are poisonous, and if sheep feed on them, death is apt to
follow. The exact nature of the poison is not understood. Sheep
seldom feed on the leaves, and do so only when driven by hunger.
Other names are small laurel, wood laurel, and kaimia. The last is the
name of the genus, and is in honor of Peter Kalm, a Swedish naturalist.

The species is found from New Brunswick to Louisiana, but princi-
pally among the ranges of the Appalachian mountains. Its thin bark
makes it an easy prey to fire and the top is killed by a moderate blaze.
The root generally remains uninjured and sends up sprouts in large
numbers. Thickets almost impenetrable are sometimes produced in
that way.

Flowers and foliage of mountain laurel are highly esteemed as
decorations, foliage in winter, and the flowers in May and June. The
bloom appears in large clusters, and various colors are in evidence, white,
rose, pink, and numerous combinations. The seeds are ripe in Septem-
ber, and the pods which bear them burst soon after.

The wood of mountain laurel weighs 44.62 pounds per cubic foot.
It is hard, strong, rather brittle, of slow growth, brown in color, tinged
with red, with lighter colored sapwood. This description applies to the
wood of the trunk; but in nearly all cases where mention is made of the

506 American Forest Trees

wood of this tree, it refers to the roots. These consist of enlargements
or stools, often protruding considerably above the ground. If the area
has been visited repeatedly by fire, the roots are generally out of pro-
portion to the size of the tops. In that respect they resemble mesquite,
except that the enlarged root of mesquite penetrates far beneath the
surface while that of mountain laurel remains just below the surface or
rises partly above it.

The utilization of mountain laurel is not confined to the trunks
which reach tree size. Generally it is the root that is wanted. Roots
are usually sold by weight, because of the difficulty of measuring them
as lumber or even by the cord. The annual product of this material in
North Carolina alone amounts to about 85,000 pounds, all of which goes
to manufacturers of tobacco pipes and cigar holders. The use of the
laurel root for pipes is as old as its use for spoons. Pioneers who raised
and cured their own tobacco smoked it in pipes which were their own
handiwork. The laurel root was selected then as now because it carves
easily, is not inclined to split, does not burn readily, and darkens in color
with age. It is cheap material, is found throughout an extensive region,
and the supply is so large that exhaustion in the near future is not anti-
cipated.

The wood is employed in the manufacture of many small articles
other than tobacco pipes. Paper knives, small rulers, turned boxes for
pins and buttons, trays, plaques, penholders, handles for buckets,
dippers, and firewood, are among the uses for which laurel is found suit-
able.

It is of no small importance for ornamental purposes, and is often
seen growing in clumps and borders in public parks and private yards,
where its evergreen foliage and its bloom make it a valuable shrub.
It is planted in Europe as well as in this country.

Great Laurel (Rhododendron maximum) is also in the heath
family. More than two hundred species of rhododendron are known, and
seventeen are in this country, but only one attains tree size. The generic
name means "rose tree," and the name is well selected. The flowers are
the most conspicuous feature belonging to this species, and few wild
trees or shrubs equal it for beauty. It is not native much west of the
Alleghany mountains, but grows north and east to Nova Scotia. It is
at its best among the mountains, thrives in deep ravines where the shade
is dense, and on steep slopes and stony mountain tops. It forms
extensive thickets which are often so deep and tangled that it is difficult
to pass through them. This laurel is seldom found growing on limestone.
It reaches its largest size in the South. Trees thirty or forty feet high
and a foot in diameter occur in favored localities. It grows,on the Alle-

American Forest Trees 507

ghany mountains in West Virginia at an elevation exceeding 4,000 feet
and there forms vast thickets. Some use is made of the wood for en-
graving blocks and as tool handles. It is hard, strong, brittle, of slow
growth, and light clear brown. It is frequently planted in parks in this
country and Europe, and three or more varieties are distinguished in
cultivation. This laurel's leaves have a peculiar habit of shrinking and
rolling up when the thermometer falls to zero or near it. Among the
names applied to it are great laurel, rose bay, dwarf rose bay tree, wild
rose bay, bigleaf laurel, deer tongue, laurel, spoon hutch, and rhododen-
dron.

Catawba Rhododendron (Rhododendron catawbiense) is a rare,
large-flowered species of the mountain regions from West Virginia south-
ward to Georgia and Alabama. The wood is not put to use, and the
species is chiefly valuable as an ornamental shrub. It seldom reaches
large size.

Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) follows the Alleghany moun-
tain ranges south from Pennsylvania, and extends into Florida, reaching
the Atlantic coast in Virginia, and Indiana, Tennessee, and Louisiana
westward. The best development of the species is found among the
western slopes of the Big Smoky mountains in Tennessee. It is called
sorrel-tree, sour gum, and sour gum bush, on account of the acidity of
the leaves when chewed. Arrow-wood, another name, refers to the long,
straight stems between the whorls of branches of young trees — those
three or four feet high. The stems are of proper size for arrows, and
amateur bowmen use them. Those who designate the tree as lily-of-the-
valley have in mind the flowers. The shape suggests an opening lily,
but the size does not. The flower is about one-third of an inch long, but
panicles several inches long are covered with them. They open in July
and August, and in September the fruit is ripe. The seed is pale brown
and one-eighth of an inch long.

The sourwood tree at its best is fifty or sixty feet high and from
twelve to eighteen inches in diameter. The bark of young trees is
smooth, but on mature trunks it resembles the exceedingly rough
bark of an old black gum. In fact, many people suppose this tree
to be black gum, never having noticed the difference of leaf, fruit, and
flower. The genus consists of a single species. The wood is heavy,
hard, compact, and it takes good polish. The medullary rays
are numerous, but thin, and they contribute little or nothing to
the figure of the wood. The annual rings show little difference between
springwood and summerwood, and consequently produce poor figure
when the lumber is sawed tangentially. The pores are many and small
and are regularly distributed through the yearly ring. Hcartwood is

508

American' Forest Trees

brown, tinged with red, the sapwood lighter. The strength and elasticity
of sourwood are moderate. The wood is made into sled runners in some
of the mountain districts where it occurs, but no particular qualities fit it
for that use. It is occasionally employed for machinery bearings. It
has been reported for mallets and mauls, but since it is not very
well suited for those articles, the conclusion is that those who so report
it have confused it with black gum which it resembles in the living
tree, but not much in the wood. Small handles are made of it, and
it gives good service, provided great strength and stiffness are not
required. Sourwood is not abundant anywhere, and seldom are more
than a few trees found in a group.

Tree HicklEberry ( Vaccinium arboreum) is the only tree form of twenty-five
or thirty species of huckleberry in this country. The cranberry is one of the best
known species. The range of tree huckleberry extends from North Carolina to Texas,
and it reaches its largest size in the latter state where trunks thirty feet high and ten
inches in diameter occur, but not in great abundance. The fruit which this tree-
bears has some resemblance to the common huckleberry, but is inferior in flavor,
besides being dry and granular. It ripens in October and remains on the branches
most of the winter. The fruit is about a quarter of an inch in diameter, dark and
lustrous, and is a conspicuous and tempting bait for feathered inhabitants of swamp
and forest. The bark of the roots is sometimes used for medicine, and that from the
trunk for tanning, but it is too scarce to become important in the leather industry.
The tree is known in different parts of its range as farkleberry, sparkleberry, myrtle
berry, bluet, and in North Carolina it is known as gooseberry. The wood is hard,
heavy, and very compact; is liable to warp, twist, and check in drying; polishes with
a fine, satiny finish. Medullary rays are numerous, broad, and conspicuous; wood
light brown, tinged with red. Small articles are turned from it.

OSAGE ORANGE

OSAGE ORANGE

(Toxylon Pomifcrum)

OSAGE orange belongs to the mulberry family. There are fifty-
four genera, three of which are found in the United States, the
mulberries, the Osage orange, and the figs. Osage orange is known by
several names, the principal one of which refers to the Osage Indians,
who formerly lived in the region where the tree grows. It is called
orange because the fruit, which is from two to five inches in diameter,
looks like a green orange, but it is unfit for food. In its range most people
call it bodark or bodock, that being a corruption of the name by which
the French designated it, bois d'arc, which means bow wood. It was
so called from the fact that Indians made bows of it when they could get
nothing better. Its value as material for bows seems to be traditional
and greatly overestimated. It is lower in elasticity than white oak and
very much lower than hickory, and, theoretically, at least, it is not well
suited for bows. The wood is known also as mock orange, bow-wood,
Osage apple tree, yellow-wood, hedge, and hedge tree. The last name is
given because many hedges have been made of it.

Osage orange has been planted in perhaps every state of the Union,
and grows successfully in most of them. It is one of the most widely
distributed of American forest trees, but its distribution has been chiefly
artificial. It was found originally in a very restricted region, from which
it was carried for hedge and ornamental planting far and wide. Its
natural home, to which it was confined when first discovered, embraced
little more than ten thousand square miles, and probably half of that
small area produced no trees of commercial size. Its northern limit was
near Atoka, Oklahoma, its southern a little south of Dallas, Texas; a
range north and south of approximately one hundred miles. Its broad-
est extent east and west was along Red River, through Cooke, Grayson,
Fanning, Lamar, and Red River counties, Texas, about 120 miles.
Some Osage orange of commercial size grew outside the area thus de-
limited, but no large amount. Much of that region, particularly south
of Red River, was prairie, without timber of any kind ; but scattered here
and there were belts, strips, thickets, and clumps of Osage orange mixed
with other species. On the very best of its range, and before disturbed
by white men, this wood seldom formed pure stands of as much as 100
acres in one body, and since the country's settlement, the stands have
become smaller or have been entirely cleared to make farms. All
accounts agree that the Osage orange reaches its highest development on
the fertile lands along Boggy and Blue rivers in Oklahoma, though fine

512 American Forest Trees

bodies of it once grew south of the Red River in Texas, and much is still
cut there though the choicest long ago disappeared. Few trees are less
exacting in soil, yet when it can make choice it chooses the best. In its
natural habitat it holds its place in the black, fertile flats and valleys,
and is seldom found on sandy soil. It is not a swamp tree, though it is
uninjured by occasional floods. The tracts where it grows are some-
times called "bodark swamps," though marshy in wet weather only.

The tree attains a height of fifty or sixty feet when at its best, but
specimens that tall are unusual. Trunks are occasionally two or three
feet in diameter, but that size is very rare. At the present time probably
ten trees under a foot in diameter are cut for every one over that size.

Rough and unshapely as Osage trees are, they have been more
closely utilized than most timbers. Fence posts are the largest item. The
board measure equivalent of the annual cut of posts has been placed at
IS, 400,000. The posts are shipped to surrounding states, in addition
to fencing nearly 40,000 square miles of northern Texas and southern
Oklahoma. Houseblocks constitute another important use. These are
short posts set under the corners of buildings in place of stone founda-
tions. The annual demand for this kind of material amounts to about
1,000,000 board feet. An equal amount goes into bridge piling. The
principal demand comes from highway commissioners. Telephone
poles take a considerable quantity, and insulator pins more.

One of the most important uses of Osage orange is found in the
manufacture of wagon wheels, though the total quantity so used is
smaller than that demanded for fence posts.

About 10,000 or 12,000 wagons with Osage orange felloes or rims
are manufactured annually in the United States. That use of the wood
is not new. It began in a small way soon after the settlement of the
region. At first the work was hand-done by local blacksmiths and
wheelwrights. They found the wood objectionable, from the workman's
standpoint, on account of its extreme hardness and the difficulty of
cutting it. That objection is still urged against it though machines have
taken the place of the hand tools of former times. Saws and bits are
quickly dulled, and the cost of grinding, repair, and replacement in-
creases the operator's expense much above ordinary mill outlay for such
purposes. On that account many prefer to work the wood green. It is
then softer, and cuts more smoothly. If seasoned before it is passed
through the machines it is liable to "pull." That term is used to indi-
cate a rough-breaking of the fibres by the impact of knives. The readi-
ness with which the wood splits calls for extraordinary care in boring it,
and many felloes are spoiled in finishing them to receive the tenoned
ends of spokes.

American Forest Trees 513

A number of commodities are made of Osage orange but in quanti-
ties so small that the total wood used does not constitute a serious drain
upon the supply. Police clubs are occasionally made as a by-product
of the rim mill. Some years ago at the Texas state fair at Dallas, a piano
was exhibited, all visible wood being Osage orange, handsomely polished.
The rich color of this wood distinguishes it from all other American
species. When oiled it retains the yellow color, but unoiled wood fades
on long exposure. Clock cases of Osage have been manufactured locally,
and gun stocks made of it are much admired, though the wood's weight
is an argument against it for gun stocks. Canes split from straight-
grained blocks, and shaved and polished by hand, are occasionally met
with, but none manufactured by machinery have been reported. Saw-
mills in the Osage orange region use the wood as rollers for carriages and
off-bearing tables. Rustic rockers and benches of the wood, with the
bark or without it, figure to a small extent in local trade. It has been
tried experimentally for parquetry floors, with satisfactory results.
Sections of streets have been paved with Osage orange blocks. The
wood wears well and is nearly proof against decay, but no considerable
demand for such blocks appears ever to have existed. Railroads which
were built through the region years ago cut Osage for ties and culvert
timber, but no such use is now reported. The demand for the wood for
tobacco pipes is increasing, more than 100,000 blocks for such pipes
having been sold during a single year.

Osage orange weighs 48.21 pounds per cubic foot. It is twenty-
eight per cent stronger than white oak. but is not quite as stiff, is very
brittle, and under heavy impact, will crumble. For that reason, Osage
wagon felloes will not stand rocky roads. The bark is sometimes used
for tanning, and the wood for dyeing.

Red Mulberry {Morus rubra) is frequently spoken of simply as mulberry, and
is sometimes called black mulberry. The full grown fruit is red, but turns black or
very dark purple when ripe. The berry is composed of a compact and adhering
cluster of drupes, each drupe about one thirty-second of an inch long. What seems
to be a single berry is really an aggregation of very small fruits, each resembling a
tiny cherry. The mulberry is naturally a forest tree, but it is permitted to grow
about the margins of fields, and is often planted in door yards for its fruit and its
shade. It is looked upon by many as a tame species.

Two mulberries grow naturally in this country. The red species ranges from
Massachusetts west to Kansas, and south to Texas and Florida. Its best growth is
found in the lower Ohio valley and the southern foot hills of the Appalachian moun-
tains. The largest trees are seventy feet high and three or four in diameter. If this
tree were abundant the wood's place in furniture and finish would be important.
The heartwood is dark, of good figure, and fairly strong. It takes a fine polish, and
resembles black walnut, though usually of a little lighter shade. Its largest use is as
fence posts. It is durable in contact with the soil. The effect " hen made into furni-
ture, finish, and various kinds of turner}', is pleasing. Farm tools, particularly

514

American Forest Trees

scythe snaths, are made of it, and it has been reported for slack cooperage and boat
building, but such uses are apparently infrequent. The wood is evidently sold under
some other name, or without a name, for the total sawmill output in the United
States is given in government statistics at only 1,000 feet, which is probably not one
per cent of the cut.

Mexican Mulberry (Morus celtidifolia) ranges from southern Texas to Ari-
zona. Trees are seldom more than thirty feet high and one in diameter. The berry
is about half an inch long, black, and made up of a hundred or more very small drupes.
It is edible, but its taste is insipid. The wood is heavy and is of dark orange or
dark brown color. It is suitable for small turnery and other articles, but no reports
of uses for it have been found. The tree is occasionally planted for its fruit by
Mexicans, but Americans care little for it.

Two foreign mulberries have been extensively planted in this country, and in
some localities they are running wild and are mistaken for native species. One is
the white mulberry (Morns alba), a native of China; the other is the paper mulberry
(Broussonetia papyri/era) a different genus, but of the same family. It is a native of
Japan, and has been naturalized in some of the southern states. Nine varieties of
the white mulberry have been distinguished in cultivation.

PERSIMMON

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Persimmon

PERSIMMON

Dwspyros Virginiana)

PERSIMMON belongs to the ebony family, and the family has con-
tributed to the civilization of the human race since very early times.
Some of the oldest furniture in existence, that which was found hidden
in the ruins of ancient Egypt, is ebony, and there is evidence among the
old records in the land of the Nile that the Egyptians made voyages
southward through the Red sea and brought back cargoes of ebony from
Punt, a region in eastern Africa. The name ebony is believed to be
derived from a Hebrew word, probably brought to Palestine by some of
Solomon's captains who traded along the south coast of Asia or the east
coast of Africa about the time of the building of the first temple. The
botanical name for the genus (diospyros) is made up of two words
meaning "Jupiter's wheat" — supposed to be a reference to the value of
persimmons as food. The name, however, is not as old as the Hebrew
word, nor is the Hebrew as old as the references to ebony in the records
of Egypt. A piece of the old furniture — not less than 4,000 years old —
is still in existence. It probably matches in age the cedar of Lebanon
coffins in the oldest Egyptian tombs.

The ebony family consists of five genera, one of which is per-
simmon (diospyros). This genus consists of 160 species, only two of
them in the United States. Thus the persimmon trees of this country
are a very small part of the family to which they belong, but they are a
highly respectable part of it. The word persimmon is of Indian origin,
and was used by the tribes near the Atlantic coast. The original spelling
was "pessimin," and that was probably about the pronunciation given
it by the aborigines.

It has never been called by many names. It is known as date
plum in New Jersey and Tennessee, and as possumwood in Florida.
The avidity with which opossums feed on the fruit is responsible for the
name.

The range of persimmon extends from Connecticut to Florida,
and westward to Iowa, Missouri, and Texas. It reaches its largest size
in the South. It is of vigorous growth, spreading by means of seeds, and
also by roots. The latter is the most common method where the ground
is open. Such situations as old, abandoned fields invite the spread of
persimmons. Roots ramify under the ground, and sprouts spring up,
often producing thickets of an acre or more. Trees do not generally reach
large size if they grow in that way, but their crowded condition does not
make them fruitless as can be attested to by many a boy who penetrates

518 American Forest Trees

the persimmon thickets by means of devious paths that wind with
many a labyrinthic turn which takes in all that is worth finding.

The variation in the quality of persimmons is greater than that of
most wild fruits. Nature usually sets a standard and sticks closely to
it, but the rule is not adhered to in the case of persimmons. Some are
twice as large as others; some are never fit to eat, no matter how severely
or how often they are frosted ; others require at least one fierce frost to
soften their austerity; but some may be eaten with relish without the
ameliorating influence of frost.

The austerity of a green persimmon is due to tannin. It is sup-
posed that cultivation might remove some of this objectionable quality,
but no great success has thus far attended efforts in that direction.
Japanese persimmons, which are of a different specie, are cultivated
with success in California.

The sizes of persimmon trees vary according to soil, climate, and
situation. They average rather small, but occasionally reach a height of
100 feet and a diameter of nearly two. Mature trunks are usually little
over twelve inches in diameter, and many never reach that size.

The dry wood weighs 49.28 pounds per cubic foot, which is about
the weight of hickory. It is hard, strong, compact, and is susceptible
of a high polish. The yearly rings are marked by one or more bands of
open ducts, and scattered ducts occur in the rest of the wood. The
medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous; color of heartwood dark
brown, often nearly black; the sapwood is light brown, and frequently
contains darker spots.

The value of persimmon depends largely upon the proportion of
sapwood to heartwood. That was the case formerly more than it is
now; for until recent years the heartwood of persimmon was generally
thrown away, and the sapwood only was wanted ; but demand for the
heart has recently increased. There is much difference in the propor-
tion of heartwood to sapwood in different trees. It does not seem to be
a matter of size, nor wholly of age. Small trunks sometimes have
more heart than large ones. A tree a hundred years old may have
heartwood scarcely larger than a lead pencil, and occasionally there is
none. In other instances the heart is comparatively large.

Persimmon has never been a wood of many uses, as hickory and
oak have been. In early times it was considered valuable almost
wholly on account of its fruit, and that had no commercial value, as it
was seldom offered for sale in the market. In the language of the
southern negroes who fully appreciated the fruit, it was "something
good to run at" — meaning that the ripe persimmons were gathered and
eaten from the trees while they lasted, but that few were preserved.

American- Forest Trees 519

It is recorded that the "small wheel" of the pioneer cabins was
occasionally made of persimmon wood. The wheel so designated was
the machine on which wool and flax were spun by the people in their
homes. Spinning wheels were of two kinds, one large, with the operator
walking to and fro, the other small, with the operator sitting. It was
the small wheel which was sometimes made of persimmon. There is
no apparent reason why it should have been made of that wood in prefer-
ence to any one of a dozen others.

The demand for persimmon in a serious way began with its use as
shuttles in textile factories. Weavers had made shuttles of it for home
use on hand looms for many years before the demand came from power
looms where the shuttles were thrown to and fro by machinery. Up to
some thirty years ago, shuttles for factories were generally made of
Turkish boxwood, but the supply fell short and the advance in price
caused a search for substitutes. Two satisfactory shutdewoods were
found in this country, persimmon and dogwood. The demand came
not only from textile mills in America but from those of Europe. The
manufacture of shuttle blocks became an industry of considerable
importance.

Persimmon wood is suitable for shuttles because it wears smooth,
is hard, strong, tough, and of proper weight. Most woods that have
been tried for this article fail on account of splintering, splitting, quickly
wearing out, or wearing rough. The shutde is not regarded as satis-
factory unless it stands 1,000 hours of actual work. Some woods which
are satisfactory for many other purposes will not last an hour as a
shuttle.

The manufacture of shutdes, after the square has been roughed out,
requires twenty-two operations. Probably more shuttlewood comes
from Arkansas than from any other section, though a dozen or more
states contribute persimmon. The total sawmill cut of this wood in the
United States is about 2,500,000 feet, but this does not include that
which never passes through a sawmill.

The wood has other uses. It has lately met demand from manu-
facturers of golf heads. Skewers are made of it in North Carolina, and
billiard cues and mallets in Massachusetts.

The heartwood is dark and shuttle makers and golfhead manu-
facturers will not have it. Until recently it was customary to throw it
away, because no sale for it could be found. It is now known to be
suitable for parquet flooring and for brush backs, and the demand for
the heartwood is as reliable as for the sapwood. A little of the dark
wood is cut in veneer and is employed in panel work, and other is used
in turnery.

520 American Forest Trees

The seeds of persimmon furnished one of the early substitutes for
coffee in backwoods settlements when the genuine article could not be
obtained. They were parched and pounded until sufficiently pulverized.
During the Civil war many a confederate camp in the South was fra-
grant with the aroma of persimmon seed coffee, after the soldiers had
added the fruit to their rations of cornbread.

Mexican Persimmon (Diospyros texana) grows in Texas and
Mexico. It is most abundant in southern and western Texas, where it
suits itself to different soils, is found on rich moist ground near the borders
of prairies, and also in rocky canyons and dry mesas. The largest trees
are fifty feet high and twenty inches in diameter, but trunks that large
are not abundant. The tree differs from the eastern persimmon in that
the sapwood is thinner, and the heartwood makes up a much greater
proportion of the trunk; the uses are consequently different, since it is
taken for its dark wood, the eastern tree for its light-colored sap. The
fruit of the Mexican persimmon is little esteemed. It is small, black,
and the thin layer of pulp between the skin and the seed is insipid.
Until fully ripe it is exceedingly austere. The Mexicans in the Rio
Grande valley make a dye of the persimmons and use it to color sheep
skins. The fruit's supply of tannin probably contributes to the tanning
as well as the dyeing of the sheep pelts. The wood is heavier than
eastern persimmon, and has more than three fold more ashes in a cord of
wood, amounting to about 160 pounds. The bark is thin and the trunk
gnarled. The dark color of the wood gives it the name black persim-
mon in Texas. Mexicans call it chapote. Sargent pronounces it the
best American substitute for boxwood for engraving purposes, but it
does not appear to be used outside of Texas. The wood is irregular in
color, even in the same piece, being variegated with lighter and darker
streaks, and cloudy effects. It ought to be fine brush-back material.
It is worked into tool handles, lodge furniture, canes, rules, pen holders,
picture frames, curtain rings, door knobs, parasol handles, and maul
sticks for artists.

FLOWER IXC, DOGWOOD

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FLOWERING DOGWOOD

(Comas Florida)

THE dogwood or cornel family is old but not numerous. It origi-
nated several hundred thousand years ago and spread over much
of the world, but preferred the temperate latitudes. One species at least
crossed the equator and established itself in the highlands of Peru.
There are forty or fifty species in all, about one-third of them in the
United States, but most are shrubs. Black gum and tupelo are members
of the family, and are giants compared with the dogwoods. In Europe
the tree is usually called cornel, and that has been made the family name.
It is a very old word, coined by the Romans before the days of Caesar.
They so named it because it was hard like horn {cornus meaning horn
in the Latin language). They used it as shafts of spears, and so common
was that use that when a speaker referred to a spear he simply called it
by the name of the wood of the handle or shaft, as when Virgil described
a combat which was supposed to have occurred 800 years before the
Christian era, and used the words: "Clogged in the wound the Italian
cornel stood."

The qualities of this wood which led to important uses among the
Romans, have always made dogwood a valuable material. Civilized
nations do not need it for spear shafts, but they have other demands
which call for large amounts.

The flowering dogwood has other names in this country. It is
generally known simply as dogwood, but it is called boxwood in Connecti-
cut, Rhode Island, New York, Mississippi, Michigan, Kentucky, and
Indiana; false box-dogwood in Kentucky; New England boxwood in
Tennessee ; flowering cornel in Rhode Island ; and cornel in Texas.

Its range extends from Massachusetts through Ontario and Mich-
igan to Missouri, south to Florida, and west to Texas. The area where
it grows includes about 800,000 square miles. It is most common and
of largest size in the South, comparatively rare in the North, generally
occurs iu the shade of taller trees, and prefers well-drained soil, but is not
particular whether it is fertile or thin.

The dogwood is valuable as ornament and for its wood. It was
formerly a source of medicine, from roots, bark, and flowers; but it seems
to have been largely displaced by other drugs; was once considered a
good substitute for quinine, that use having been learned from Indian
doctors. The Indians dug roots for a scarlet dye with which the vain
warrior stained escutcheons on buckskin, and colored porcupine quills
and bald eagle feathers for decorating his moccasins and his hair.

524 American Forest Trees

The dogwood varies in size from a shrub with many branches to a
tree forty feet high, eighteen inches in diameter, and with a flat but
shapely crown. The trunk rises as a shaft with little taper, until the
first branches are reached. All the branches start at the same place,
and the trunk ends abruptly— divides into branches. Flowers are an
important part of the tree, as might be inferred from the prominence
given them in the tree's names. In the South the flowers appear in
March, in the North in May, and in both regions before the opening of
the leaves. The flowers on vigorous trees are three or four inches across,
white, and very showy. A dogwood tree in full bloom against a hillside
in spring is a most conspicuous object, and is justly admired by all who
have appreciation of beauty. The flowers fall as leaves appear, and for
some months the tree occupies its little space in the forest unobserved ;
but in the autumn it bursts again into glory, and while not quite as con-
spicuous an object as when in bloom, it is no less worthy of admiration.
The fall of the leaves reveals the brilliant scarlet fruit which ladens the
branches. The berries are just large enough for a good mouthful for a
bird, but birds spare them until fully ripe to the harvest, and they then
harvest them very rapidly. The tree is thus permitted to display its
fruit a considerable time before yielding it to the feathered inhabitants
of the air whose mission in forest economy is to scatter the seeds of trees,
when nature provides the seeds themselves with no wings for flying.

The two periods in the year when dogwood is highly ornamental,
the flowers in spring before leaves appear, and fruit in autumn after
leaves fall, are responsible for this tree's importance in ornamental
planting. It is a common park tree, but it is small, generally not more
than fifteen feet high, and it occupies subordinate places in the plans of
the landscape garden. It is a filler between oaks, pines, and spruces,
and it passes unnoticed, except when in bloom and in fruit.

Dogwood is about four pounds per cubic foot heavier than white
oak, has the same breaking strength, and is lower in elasticity. It is
quite commonly believed that this tree has no heartwood, but the belief
is erroneous. It seldom has much, and small trunks often none; but
when dogwood reaches maturity it develops heart. Sometimes the
heartwood is no larger than a lead pencil in trunks forty or fifty years
old. The heart is brown, sapwood is white, and is the part wanted by
the users of dogwood. Annual rings are obscure and it is a tree of slow
growth. The wood is as nearly without figure as any in this country.
It seldom or never goes to sawmills. The logs are too small. Most of
the supply is bought by manufacturers of shuttles and golf stick heads,
in this country and Europe. They purchase it by the cord or piece. It
does not figure much in any part of the lumber business, but is cutkand

American Forest Trees 525

marketed in ways peculiar to itself. Log cutters in hardwood forests
pay little attention to it. The dogwood harvest comes principally from
southern states. Village merchants are the chief collectors, and they
sell to contractors who ship to buyers in the manufacturing centers.
The village merchants buy from farmers, who cut a stick here and
there as they find it in woodlots, forests, or by the wayside, on their
own land or somebody else's. When the cutter next drives to town he
throws his few dogwoods in the wagon, and trades them to the store
keeper for groceries or other merchandise. It is small business, but in
the aggregate it brings together enough dogwood to supply the trade.

Dogwood has many uses, but none other approaches shuttle making
and golfhead manufacture in importance. The wood is made into
brush blocks, wedges, engraver's blocks, tool handles, machinery
bearings as a substitute for lignum-vitae, small hubs, and many kinds of
turnery and other small articles.

Western Dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) is a larger, taller tree than
the eastern flowering dogwood. A height of 100 feet is claimed for it in
the low country along the coast of British Columbia, but there are no
authentic reports of trees so large anywhere south of the boundary
between Canada and the United States. Its height ranges from twenty
to fifty feet, and its diameter from six to twenty inches. The appearance
is much the same as its eastern relative. Its berries are red, and grow
in clusters of forty or less; the bark on old trunks is rough, but is smooth
on those of medium size ; the flowers are generally described as very large
and showy, but the true flower is quite an inconspicuous affair, being a
small, greenish-yellow, button-like cluster, surrounded by four or six
snowy-white or sometimes pinkish scales which are popularly but
erroneously supposed to form a portion of the real flower. The western
dogwood in its native forest often puts out flowers in autumn; is well
supplied with foliage which assumes red and orange colors in the fall
when the showy berries are at their best. However, the tree has not yet
won its way into the good graces of landscape gardeners, and has not
been much planted in parks. It wants some of the good points possessed
by the flowering dogwood. The western tree shows to best advantage in
its native forest where it thrives on gentle mountain slopes and in low
bottoms, valleys, and gulches, provided the soil is well drained and rich.
It runs southward fifteen hundred miles from Vancouver island to south-
ern California. It cares little for sunshine, and often is found growing
nicely in dense shade. Seedlings do better where shade is deep. The
wood is lighter but somewhat stronger than that of the flowering dog-
wood; is pale reddish-brown, with thick sapwood ; is hard, and checks
badly in seasoning. Mature trees are from 100 to 150 years.

526

American Forest Trees

Blue Dogwood (Cornus altermfolia) is given that name because
of the blue fruit it bears. It has a number of other names, among them
being purple dogwood, green osier, umbrella tree, pigeonberry, and
alternate-leaved dogwood, the last being simply a translation of its
hotanical name. It grows in more northern latitudes than the flowering
dogwood, and does not range as far south. It is found from Nova
Scotia to Alabama, and westward to Minnesota, but its southern habitat
lies along the Appalachian mountain ranges. It attains size and assumes
form similar to the flowering dogwood. The wood is heavy, hard,
brown, tinged with red, the sapwood white. It is a deep forest tree, but
has been domesticated in a few instances where it has been planted as
ornament. The wood seems to possess the good qualities of flowering
dogwood, but no reports of uses for it have been made.

Two varieties of flowering dogwood have been produced by culti-
vation, weeping dogwood (Corn its florida pcndula), and red-bract
dogwood (Cornus florida rubra). English cornel or dogwood (Cornus
mas) has been planted in many parts of this country. The so-called
Jamaica dogwood is not in the dogwood family.

Andromeda (.4 ndromeda ferruginea) is a small southern tree of South Carolina,
Georgia, and Florida, and in the latter state is sometimes known as titi, though other
trees also bear that name. The largest are thirty feet high, if by chance one can be
found standing erect, for most of them prefer to sprawl at full length on the ground.
The fruit is a small berry of no value. The wood is weak, but hard and sufficiently
compact to receive fine polish. The heartwood is light brown, tinged with red.

CALIFORNIA LAUREL

CALIFORNIA LAUREL

{Umbelhdaria Calijornica)

THIS tree's range lies in southern Oregon and in California. It is
a member of the laurel family and is closely related to the east-
ern sassafras and the red and the swamp bays of the southern states;
but it is not near kin to the eastern laurels which, strange as it may
appear, do not belong to the laurel family, notwithstanding the names
they bear.

The people of California and Oregon have several names for this
interesting tree. It is known as mountain laurel, California bay tree,
myrtle tree, cajeput, California olive, spice tree, laurel, bay tree, oreo-
daphne, and California sassafras.

Those who call it laurel name it on account of its large, lustrous,
thick leaves which adhere to the branches from two to six years. All
new leaves do not come at once, as with most trees, but appear a few at
a time during the whole summer.

The names which connect this tree with sassafras, spice and cajeput
are based on odor and taste. All members of the laurel family in this
country are characterized by pugent, aromatic odor and taste, and the
one under consideration shares these properties in a remarkable degree.
When the leaves and the green bark are crushed, they give off a light,
volatile oil in follicles which float in the air, like those of an onion, and
when inhaled it produces severe pain over the eyes, and may induce
dizziness and violent sneezing. Though the symptoms are alarming to
one who is undergoing the experience for the first time, no serious
inconvenience follows. Dried leaves are capable of producing a similar
effect but with less violence. The California laurel's close relationship
to the camphor tree is readily believed by persons who inhale some of the
oily spray from the crushed leaves.

Attempts have been made to produce the commercial oil of cajeput,
or a substitute for it, by distilling the leaves and bark of this laurel. A
passable substitute has been manufactured, but it cannot be marketed
as the genuine article. By distilling the fruit a product known as
umbellulic acid has been obtained.

The California laurel carries a very dense crown of leaves. This
is due partly to the old crops which hang so long, and to the tree's habit
of lengthening its leading shoots during the growing season, and the
constant appearance of young leaves on the lengthening shoots. It can
stand an almost unlimited amount of shade itself, and is by no means
backward in giving abundance of shade to small growth which is trying

530 American Forest Trees

to struggle up to light from below. It delights in dense thickets, but it
prefers thickets of its own species.

Its fruiting habits and its disposition to occupy the damp, rich
soil along the banks of small water courses, are responsible for the
thick stands. The fruit itself is an interesting thing. It is yellowish-
green in color, as large as a good-sized olive, and looks much like it.
The fruit ripens in October, and falls in time to get the benefit of the
autumn rains which visit the Pacific coast. Since the trees generally
grow along gulches, the fruit falls and rolls to the bottom. The first
dashing rain sends a flood down the gulches, the laurel drupes are carried
along and are buried in mud wherever they can find a resting place.
Germination takes place soon after. The fruit remains under the mud,
attached to the roots of the young plants, until the following summer.

The result is that if a laurel gets a foothold in a gulch through
which water occasionally flows, lines of young laurels will eventually
cover the banks of the gulch as far down stream as conditions are
favorable.

The wood of California laurel weighs 40.60 pounds per cubic foot
when kiln-dried. That is nine pounds heavier than sassafras. It is
very heavy when green and sinks when placed in water. It is hard and
very firm, rich yellowish brown in color, often beautifully mottled; but
this applies to the heartwood only, and not to the thick sapwood.

Lumbermen have discovered that the wood's color can be material-
ly changed by immersing the logs when green, and leaving them sub-
merged a long time. The beautiful "black myrtle," which has been so
much admired, is nothing more than California laurel which has under-
gone the cold water treatment.

The annual rings of growth are clearly marked by dark bands of
summerwood. The rings are often wide, but not always, for sometimes
the growth is very slow. The wood is diffuse-porous, and the pores are
small and not numerous. The wood's figure is brought out best by tan-
gential sawing, as is the case with so many woods which have clearly-
marked rings but small and obscure medullary rays. Figure is not
uniform; that is, one trunk may produce a pattern quite different from
another. The figure of some logs is particularly beautiful ; these logs are
selected for special purposes. Sudworth says that none of our hard-
woods excels it in beautiful grain when finished, and Sargent is still more
emphatic when he declares that it is "the most valuable wood produced
in the forests of Pacific North America for interior finish of houses and
for furniture."

The wood of this tree has more than ninety per cent of the strength
of white oak, is considerably stiffer, and contains a smaller amount of

American Forest Trees 531

ash, weight for weight of wood. The species reaches its best develop-
ment in the rich valleys of southwestern Oregon, where, with the broad-
leaf maple, it forms a considerable part of the forest growth. The largest
trees are from sixty to eighty feet high, and two to four in diameter. In
crowded stands the trunks are shapely, and often measure thirty or
forty feet to the first limbs ; but more commonly the trunk is short.

The boat yards in southwestern Oregon were the first to use Cali-
fornia laurel for commercial purposes, but early settlers made a point
of procuring it for fuel when they could. The oil in the wood causes it to
burn with a cheerful blaze, and campers in the mountains consider
themselves fortunate when they find a supply for the evening bonfire.

Shipbuilders have drawn upon this wood for fifty years for ma-
terial. It is made into pilot wheels, interior finish, cleats, crossties, and
sometimes deck planking. Furniture makers long ago made a specialty
of the wood for their San Francisco trade. For thirty years travelers
admired the superb furniture of the Palace hotel in that city, and won-
dered of what wood it was made. It was the California laurel. The
hotel's furniture was hand-made, or largely so, at a time when wood-
working factories were few on the Pacific coast. The furniture was
finally destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. Furniture is still
one of the products made of the wood, but the quantity is small. Other
products are interior finish ; fixtures for banks, stores and offices ; musical
instruments, including organs ; mathematical instruments, and carpen-
ters' tools, including rulers, straight-edges, spirit levels, bench screws
and clamps, and handles of many kinds.

Makers of novelties and small turnery find it serviceable for paper
knives, pin trays, match safes, brush backs, and many articles of like
kind. One of the largest uses for it is as walking beams for pumping
oilwells in central and southern California. The beauty of grain has
nothing to do with this use.

Country blacksmiths repair wagons and agricultural implements
with this wood. Farmers have long employed it about their prem-
ises for posts, gates, floors, and building material. Cooks flavor soup
with the leaves, and poultrymen make henroosts of poles, believing that
the wood's odor will keep insects away. This is probably the old sassa-
fras superstition carried west by early California settlers.

RED Bay (Persea borbotiia) is a southern member of the laurel family, and close
akin to sassafras and the California laurel. The bark is red, hence the name; but it is
known also as bay galls, laurel tree, Florida mahogany, false mahogany, and sweel
bay. It grows from Virginia to Texas, but is most abundant near the coast, yet it
ascends the Mississippi valley to Arkansas. The leaves remain on the I ree a full year,
but turn yellow toward the last, in consequence of which the species is not evergreen.
In shape and color the leaves resemble laurel. The fruit is a small, dark blue drupe,

532 American Forest Trees

with thin flesh. The wood is heavy, hard, very strong, rather brittle, bright red,
with thin, lighter-colored sapwood. It was once very popular in the South for furni-
ture. Rare pieces, some 150 years old, are still found in southern homes. The wood
was exported prior to 1741 from the Carolinas, and the quantity seems to have been
considerable. It was then regarded as a finer wood than mahogany. It was ex-
ported to the West Indies, where mahogany was abundant, and was made into
furniture and finish for the homes of wealthy planters and merchants. An old report
describes the wood as resembling "watered satin." It was in early demand by ship-
builders, but it has now ceased to go to boat yards. Except in rare instances, it
is not reported by any wood-using industries. In Texas a little is made into pin
trays, small picture frames, canes, and shelves. It deserves a more important
place, for when polished and finished, it is one of the handsomest woods of this
country. Trees attain a height of sixty or seventy feet, and a diameter of two or
three.

Swamp Bay (Persea pubescens) attains a height of thirty or forty feet, but is
seldom more than a foot in diameter, and is too small for saw timber. The wood is
strong, heavy, rather soft, orange colored, streaked with brown, and not as handsome
as its larger relative, red bay, which is associated with it from North Carolina to
Mississippi. It is an evergreen in some cases, but in others the leaves turn yellow
the second spring. The black fruit is a drupe nearly an inch long. The wood is
without attractive figure, since its medullary rays are obscure, and the annual rings
are indistinct and produce little contrast when the trunks are sawed tangentially.
Color is the chief attraction that can be claimed for the wood. A little is occasionally
worked into interior finish.

LOCUST

LOCUST

(Robinui Pseudacacia)

LOCUST belongs to the pea family, known in botany as Leguminosce.*
In most parts of its range it is known simply as locust, but in some
localities it is called black locust, an allusion to the color of the bark;
yellow locust, descriptive of the heartwood ; white locust, referring to the
bloom; red locust, probably a reference to the wood, and green locust for
the same reason; acacia and false acacia; honey locust, a name which
belongs to another species; post locust, because it has always been a
favorite tree for fence posts; and pea-flower locust, a reference to the
bloom.

Several of the names refer to the color of the wood, and seem
contradictory, for yellow, green, and red are not the same; yet the
names describe with fair accuracy. Color of the heartwood varies with
different trees, yellow with some, tinged with red with others, and
sometimes it might be appropriately called blue locust, for the heart-
wood is nearer that color than any other.

The natural range of locust seems to have been confined to the
Appalachian mountain ranges from Pennsylvania to Georgia. It
probably existed as a low shrub in parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Its range has been extended by planting until it now reaches practically
all the states, but is running wild in only about half of them. It has
received a great deal of attention from foresters and tree planters. It
attracted notice very early, because of its hardness, strength, and lasting
properties. At one time the planting of locust came nearly being a fad.
In England it was supposed that it would rise to great importance in
shipbuilding, and in France it was looked upon as no less important.
Books were written on the subject in both English and French. All the
details of planting and utilization were discussed. Its generic name,
Robinia, is in honor of a Frenchman, Robin. Extravagant claims

*This is a very large family, containing trees, shrubs, and vines, such as locusts,
acacias, beans, and clovers. There are 430 genera in the world, and many times that
many species. The United States has seventeen genera and thirty species of the pea
family that are large enough to be classed as trees. Their common names follow:
Florida Cat's Claw, Huajillo, Texan Ebony, Wild Tamarind, Huisache, Texas Cat's
Claw, Devil's Claw, Leuc;ena, Chalky Leucaena, Screwbean, Mesquite, Redbud, Texas
Redbud, Honey Locust, Water Locust, Coffeetree, Horsebean, Small-leaf Horsebean,
Greenbark Acacia, Palo Verde, Frijolito, Sophora, Vellow-wood, Eysenhardtia, Indigo
Thorn, Locust, New Mexican Locust, Clammy Locust, Sonora Ironwood, Jamaica
Dogwood. These species are treated separately in the following pages, and are given
space according to their relative commercial importance in the particular regions
where they grow.

536 American Forest Trees

were once made for the wood. When American ships were gaining
victory after victory over English vessels in the war of 1812, it was
asserted in England that the cause of American success was the locust
timber in their ships. The claim may have been partly true, but other
factors contributed to the phenomenal series of successes.

The locust craze died a natural death. Too much was claimed for
the wood. Possibilities in the way of growth were over estimated. It
was assumed that the tree, if planted, would grow everywhere as vigor-
ously as on its native mountains in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
Virginia, where trees two or three feet in diameter and eighty feet high
were found. Experience proved later that nature had planted the locust
in the best place for it, and when transplanted elsewhere it was apt to
fall short of expectations. Outside of its natural range it grows vigor-
ously for a time, and occasionally reaches large size; but in recent years
the locust borer has defeated the efforts of man to extend the range of
this species and make it profitable in regions distant from its native
home. The tree is often devoured piecemeal, branches and twigs break-
ing and falling, and trunks gradually disappearing beneath the attacks
of the hungry borers. No effective method of combating the pest is
known. The planting of locust trees, once so common, has now nearly
ceased.

Within its native range, and beyond that range when it has a
chance, locust is a valuable and beautiful tree. It is valuable at all
times on account of the superior wood which it furnishes, and beautiful
when in bloom and in leaf. A locust in full flower is not surpassed in
ornamental qualities by any tree of this country. It is a mass of white,
exceedingly rich in perfume. It blooms in May or June. During the
summer its foliage shows tropical luxuriance with exquisite grace. Its
compound leaves are from eight to fourteen inches long, with seven to
nine leaflets. They come late in spring and go early in autumn. The
tree's thorns, resembling cat claws, are affixed to the bark only, and
usually fall with the leaves. The fruit is a pod three or four inches long,
and contains four or eight wingless seeds. They depend on animals to
carry them to planting places. The pods dry on the branches, and
rattle in the wind most of the autumn. The tree spreads by under-
ground roots which send up sprouts. A locust in winter is not a thing of
beauty. It appears to be dead ; not a bud visible. Its black, angular
branches lack every line of grace.

Locust wood is remarkable for strength, hardness, and durability.
It is about one pound per cubic foot lighter than white oak, but is thirty-
four per cent stiffer and forty-five per cent stronger. Its strength
exceeds that of shagbark hickory, and it is doubtful whether a stronger

American Forest Trees 537

wood exists in the United States. Its hardness is equally remarkable,
and is said to be due to crystals formed in the wood cells, and known as
"rhaphides." Its durability is probably equal to that of Osage orange,
mesquite, and catalpa, but it is not easy to fix a standard of durability
by which to compare different woods. Locust is the best fence post
wood in this country, because it is usually much straighter than other
very durable woods. The posts are expected to last at least thirty years,
and have been known to stand twice that long.

For more than 150 years locust was almost indispensable in ship-
building, furnishing the tree nails or large pins which held the timbers
together. It supplied material for other parts of ships also, but
in smaller quantities. The substitution of steel ships for wooden lessen-
ed demand for locust pins, and in many instances large iron nails are
used to fasten timbers together. In spite of this, the demand for
locust tree nails is nearly always ahead of supply.

The wood's figure is fairly strong, due to the contrast between
the springwood and that grown later, but not to the medullary rays,
which are small and inconspicuous. The wood is not in much demand
for ornamental purposes. Small amounts are made into policemen's
clubs, rake teeth, hubs for buggy wheels, ladder rungs, and tool handles.

The tree grows rapidly where conditions are favorable, and very
slowly when they are not. Usually trees of fence post size are twenty
years old at least, but trunks thirty five years old have been known to
produce a post for each two years of age, though that was exceptional.
Railroads, especially in Pennsylvania, planted locust largely a few years
ago for ties. It has been reported that in some instances expectations
of growth have not been fully realized.

Clammy Locust (Robinia riscosa) was originally confined to the mountains
of North Carolina and South Carolina where its attractive flowers brought it to the
notice of nurserymen who have enlarged its natural range a hundred if not a thousand
fold. It is now grown in parks and gardens not only in the United States east of the
Mississippi river and as for north as Massachusetts, but in most foreign countries
that have temperate climates. It is usually a shrub, but on some of the North
Carolina mountains it attains a height of forty feet and a diameter of twelve inches.
The wood is seldom or never used for any commercial purpose. The leaves are from
seven to twelve inches long, and contain thirteen to twenty-one leaflets. The flowers
appear in June, possess little odor, and are admired solely for their beauty. They
are mingled red and rose color. The pods are from two to three and a half inches long,
and contain small, mottled seeds. The wood is hard and heavy, the heart brown
and the sap yellow. In its wild haunts it is usually a shrub five or six feet high.

New Mexican Locust {Robinia neo-mexicana) is a small southwestern tree,
seldom exceeding a height of twenty-five feet or a diameter of eight inches. It ranges
from Colorado to Arizona, and takes its name from its presence in New Mexico. It
reaches its largest size near Trinidad, Colorado. It is found at elevations of 7,(100
feet. Leaves are from six to twelve inches long, and the leaflets number from fifteen

538 American Forest Trees

to twenty-one. The flowers appear in May and are less showy than those of the
eastern locust. The wood is heavy, exceedingly hard, the heartwood yellow, streaked
with brown, the thin sapwood light yellow. This locust is occasionally used locally
for small posts or stakes, but .is generally too small. It is sometimes met with in
cultivation in Europe and the eastern states.

Texan Ebony (Zygia ftexicaulis) ranges from the Texas coast through Mexico
to Lower California. It reaches a height of thirty feet or more, and a diameter of
two or less. It is a beautiful tree along the lower Rio Grande where it reaches its
largest size. The light yellow or cream-colored, very fragrant flowers bloom from
June till August; the fruit ripens in Autumn but adheres several months to the
branches. Mexicans roast the seeds as a substitute for coffee. The color of the
heartwood gives this tree its name, but it is not a true ebony. The wood of the roots
is blacker than that of the trunk, and small articles ;nade of roots resemble black
ebony of Ceylon. The trunk wood is liable to be streaked with black, brown, and
medium yellow. The rings of annual growth are frequently of different colors.
Considerable demand is made upon this wood in Texas for crossties. It is very
durable, but is so hard that holes must be bored for the spikes. It is sold in large
amounts as cordwood, and it burns well. Other articles"made of this so-called ebony
are foundation blocks for buildings and rollers for moving houses. It is used also for
small turnery.

Huajillo (Zygia brcvifolia) has no English name, but Americans in the Rio
Grande valley where this tree grows call it by its Mexican name. It is a larger tree
in Mexico than on this side of the river. It is not often more than thirty feet high
and six inches in diameter, and is generally a shrub. Its beautiful foliage looks like
masses of ferns, and the flowers range from white to violet-yellow. The wood is
dark, hard, heavy, and is seldom used for anything but fuel.

Florida Cat's Claw {Zygia unguis-cati) , with a Latin name that would make
Julius Caesar stare and gasp, reaches its largest size in the United States on Elliott's
Key, Florida. Its name refers to its curved thorns. Trunks twenty-five feet high
and eight inches in diameter are the largest in this country. It bears pods, but the
leaves are not compound, thus differing from most trees of the pea family. The
wood is not put to any use, though it is very hard and heavy, rich red, varying to
purple, with clear yellow sapwood. It is said to check badly in drying. The bark is
used for medicine in some of the islands of the West Indies.

HONEY LOCUST

Honey Locusi

HONEY LOCUST

(Glcditsia Triacanthos)

THIS tree has never suffered for want of names, but most of them
refer either to the sweetness of the pod or to the fierceness of the
thorns. The belief has long prevailed that it was the pods of this tree
on which John the Baptist fed while a recluse in the Syrian desert. The
tradition should not be taken seriously. It was certainly not this tree,
if any, which furnished food to the prophet in the wilderness, for it does
not grow in Syria. Some related species may grow there, for species of
Gleditsia occur in western Asia as well as in China, Japan, and west
Africa. The generic name is in honor of Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch, a
German botanist who died in 1786.

The name honey locust refers to the pod, not the flowers. The
latter are greenish, inconspicuous, and though eagerly sought by bees,
they offer no particular attractions to people. Few persons ever notice
them.

In some of the southwestern states the tree is called black locust,
though for what reason it is not apparent. Sweet locust, by which name
it is known in several states, has reference to the pods, as do the names
honey, and honey-shucks locust, applied in different localities. Many
persons in naming the tree have thorns in mind. It is known as three-
thorned acacia, thorn locust, thorn tree, thorny locust, and thorny
acacia. The botanist who named it considered thorns a characteristic,
for Triacanthos means "three-thorned."

No one who has ever had dealings with the thorns, will fail to duly
consider them. They are about the most ferocious product of American
forests. The tree's trunk and largest branches bristle with them,
standing out like porcupine quills, and sharper than any needle devised
by human ingenuity. Microscopists use them for picking up and
handling minute objects, their points being smooth and delicate though
their shafts may be strong and rough. Thorns are arrested branches,
coming from deep down in the wood. No more can one of them be pulled
out than a limb can be extracted by the roots. They come from the
center of the tree or limb. Some put out leaves and become true
branches, but others sharpen their points, assume an attitude of hostility,
and remain thorns to the end of their lives. Some of them are a foot
long, and are so strong that birds flying against them are impaled and
meet cruel death. A well-armed trunk is proof against the agilitv and
skill of the squirrel. He cannot negotiate the thorns, and probably
he tries only once. The hot pursuit of a dog will not compel him to

542 American Forest Trees

attempt it. All trees, however, are not formidably thorned ; some have
few, and certain varieties have none.

The honey locust is sometimes called the Confederate pin tree in
the South. This is a reference to the Civil war, and the use occasionally
made of the thorns by soldiers in mending the rents in their torn uni-
forms. The thorns were once put to a somewhat similar use among the
Alleghany mountains where local factories for carding and spinning
country wool employed them to pin up the mouths of wool sacks.

The natural range of honey locust has been greatly extended by
man. It was not originally found east of the Alleghany mountains.
It grew from western Pennsylvania to northern Alabama and Mississippi,
and westward to Nebraska and Texas. It is now naturalized east of the
Alleghanies, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico. Planting for orna-
mental purposes and for hedges has been the cause of its extension into
new territory. In spite of thorns, it is ornamental. Its foliage is thin,
and its flowers inconspicuous, but the tree possesses a grace which wins
it favor. It grows very rapidly, and in a short time a seedling becomes a
respectable tree, and continues its rapid growth a long time. In
southern Indiana and Illinois, which is the best part of its range, trees
have attained a height of 140 feet and a diameter of six. The average
size of forest-grown specimens is seventy-five feet in height, and two or
more in diameter.

The leaves are seven or eight inches long, doubly compound; the
fruit a pod a foot or more in length, which assumes a twist when ripe,
or sometimes warps several ways. The green pod contains a sweet
substance often eaten by children, but it is believed to be of little value
for human food. Cattle devour the pods when in the sugary condition;
but they cannot often obtain them, because thorns intervene, when the
pods would otherwise be in reach. In rural districts, a domestic beer is
brewed from the young fruit. The juice extracted from it is per-
mitted to ferment, but the beverage is probably never sold in the market.

The pods are in no hurry to let go and fall, even after they are fully
ripe. They become dry, distort themselves with a number of corkscrew
twists, and hang until late fall or early winter, rattling in the wind and
occasionally shaking out a seed or two.

Honey locust has never been considered important from the
lumberman's standpoint. Sawlogs go to mills here and there, but never
many in one place. The wood is not listed under its own name, but is
put in with something else. Occasionally, it is said, it passes as syca-
more in the furniture factor)', though the difference ought not be
difficult to detect. It doubtless depends to a considerable degree on the
particular wood, for all honey locust does not look alike when converted

American- Forest Trees 543

into lumber. Some of that in the lower Mississippi valley might pass as
sycamore if inspection is not too conscientiously carried out. The
medullary rays, being darker than the body of the wood, suggest syca-
more in quarter-sawed stock. Some of it goes into furniture, finish,
balusters, newel posts, panels, and molding, particularly in eastern
Texas. In Louisiana, where wood of similar texture and appearance
might be expected, it is not looked on with favor, but is employed only
in the cheapest, roughest work.

The principal use of the wood is for posts and railroad ties. It lasts
well, and is strong. Claims have been made that it is generally equal and
in some ways superior to locust. It is difficult to see on what these claims
are based. It is lighter, less elastic, and much weaker. Figures showing
the comparative durability of the two woods are not available, but in
like situations, locust would doubtless last much longer. As timber
trees, the former may have the advantage over locust in being free from
attacks of borers, attaining greater size, and thriving in a much larger
area. It has been planted for ornament in other lands than this, and is
now prospering in all the important countries of the temperate zone.
One variety is thornless, and is known to botanists as Glcditsia triacan-
thos Icevis; another has short thorns.

Water Locust {Gleditsia aquatica) looks so much like honey locust that the
two are often supposed to be the same species in Louisiana ; yet there are a number
of differences. Water locust has fewer thorns and they are smaller, and often flat
like a knife blade. The pods are entirely different from those of honey locust, being
short and wide. The two species share the same range to some extent, but that of
water locust is smaller, extending from South Carolina to Texas, Illinois, and Missouri ;
but the best of the species is west of the lower Mississippi where trees may reach a
height of sixty feet and a diameter of two. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, the
heartwood rich bright brown, tinged with red, the sapwood yellow. The wood is
much like that of honey locust, and when used at all is employed in the same way.

Texas Loccst (Gleditsia texana) is of no importance as a timber tree, and
deserves mention only because its extremely restricted range gives it an interest.
It exists, as far as known, in a single grove on the bottom lands of the Brazos river,
near Brazoria, Texas, where some of the trees exceed 100 feet in height, and a diam-
eter of two. The bark is smooth and thin, the leaves resemble those of honey locust,
and the pods are about one- third as long.

HeiSACHE (Acacia farnesiana) is native along the Rio Grande in Texas, but it
is running wild in Florida from planted trees. It is one of the most widely distributed
species in the world, both by natural dispersal and by planting; and it is one of the
handsomest members of the large group of acacias which includes more than 400
species. It bears delicate double-compound leaves, small and graceful. A tree in
full leaf in its native wilds along the Rio Grande looks like a trembling fluffy mass of
green silk. Nature formed the tree for ornament, not for timber. It attains a height
of from twenty to forty feet, diameter eighteen inches or less. Trunk usually
divides into several branches near the ground. Perhaps the only place in this
country where the wood is used is in southern Texas where is it called "cassie," a

544

American Forest Trees

shortening of acacia. The wood so much resembles mesquite that locally they are
considered the same. Huisache warps and checks in seasoning, but it is employed in
a small way for furniture, usually as small table legs, spindles, knobs, and ornaments.
It takes high polish, and resembles the best grades of black walnut, but is much
heavier, harder, and stronger. It is next to impossible to drive a nail into it without
first boring a hole. When used as crossties, holes must be bored for the spikes.
The heartwood resists decay a long time, but the thin sapwood is liable to be riddled
by small boring insects, which seldom or never enter the heartwood.

Texas Cat's Claw {Acacia wrighUi) is a hardluck tree of western Texas where
it is usually found on dry, gravelly hills and in stony ravines. Its twice-compound
leaves are among the smallest of the acacias, seldom exceeding two inches in length.
The fragrant, light yellow flowers appear from March to May, and the short pods ripen
in midsummer, but like so many trees of the pea family, they are in no hurry to fall.
The largest trees are thirty feet high and one in diameter, but most people associate
cat's claw with low, tangled brush, tough as wire, and armed with curved thorns so
strong that their hold on clothing can hardly be broken. When a cat's claw bush
strikes out to become a tree — which is infrequent — it grows rapidly. It has been
known to attain a diameter of nine inches in twenty-three years. The heart is dark
in color and exceedingly hard. The color varies from nearly red to nearly black, and
takes a polish almost like ivory. The thin yellow sapwood is preyed on by boring in-
sects. Heartwood is made into canes, umbrella sticks, tool handles, rulers, and turned
novelties.

Devil's Claw (Acacia greggii) has such paradoxical names as paradise flower,
ramshorn, and cat's claw. It deserves them all where it grows wild on the semi-
deserts of the Southwest from Texas to California. The double-compound leaves
are one or two inches long, its bright, creamy -yellow and exquisitely fragrant flowers
are the glory of desert places, while its masses of thorns readily suggest the common
name by which it is known. The wood is scarce, but extraordinarily fine. It is
dark rich red, but clowded with streaks and patches of other shades, becoming at
times gray, at others green. Xo nail can be driven into it, and an ordinary gimlet will
hardly bore it. It is so saturated with oil that it is greasy to the touch. It is manu-
factured into small articles, but apparently is not used outside of the locality where it
grows. The wood is often contorted, due to pits and cavities which slowly close as
the tree advances in age. They add to rather than detract from the wood's beauty.

JJ .> ^<y—

COFFEE TREE

T

COFFEETREE

(Gymnodadus Dioicus)

HIS tree is scarce though its range covers several hundred thousand

square miles, from New York to Minnesota, and from Tennessee to
Oklahoma. It never occurs in thick stands, and usually the trees are
widely scattered. Many districts of large size within the limits of its
range appear to have none.

The names coffeetree and Kentucky coffeetree refer to the custom
of the pioneers, who settled the region south of the Ohio river, and who
used the grotesque fruit as a substitute for coffee at a time when the
genuine article could not be procured. The seed is a very hard bean that
can be procured in abundance, where trees abound.

The beans were softened by roasting or parching, and were then
pounded into meal with hammers, and boiled for coffee. The beverage
was black and bitter, and a little of it would go a long way with a modern
coffee drinker. When the Kentuckians were able to procure coffee they
let the wild substitute alone.

The name was sometimes varied by calling it coffeenut or coffeenut
tree, and sometimes it was known as coffeebean and coffeebean tree. It
is less easy to explain why it was called mahogany in New York, and
virgilia in Tennessee. Some knew it as the nicker tree, but the reason
for the name is not known. Stump tree was another of its names. This
was meant to be descriptive of the tree's appearance after it had shed its
leaves. It has remarkable foliage, double compound leaves two or three
feet long, with four or five dozen leaflets. When leaves fall in autumn it
looks as if the tree is shedding its twigs; and when all are down, the
stripped and barren appearance of the branches suggests the name
stump tree.

The flowers are greenish-purple and are inconspicuous. In this
respect they differ from many trees of the pea family which are noted
for their attractive bloom. The fruit is among the largest of the tree
pods of this country, ranging in length from six to ten inches and from
one and a half to two in width. When fully grown they are heavy
enough to make their presence felt if they drop on the heads of persons
beneath. They are slow to fall, however, and it is not unusual for them
to cling to the branches until late winter or early spring.

The coffeetree has been known to attain a diameter of five feet
and a height of more than a hundred, but the usual size is about half of
that. It prefers rich bottom lands, and the trunks generally separate
into several stems a few feet above the ground. Only one species exists

548 American Forest Trees

in this country, and as far as known, only one other species elsewhere,
and that grows in southern China where it is said the natives make soap
of the pods. It is not known that any such utilization has been attempt-
ed in this country.

The coffeetree's range has been considerably extended by planting
for ornament. In summer it is attractive, but from the first autumn
frost until the leaves put out the following spring, it is uninteresting.
The spring leaves are late, and the branches are bare more than half the
year.

The wood is heavy, strong, and durable in contact with the soil.
The heart is rich light brown, tinged with red, the sapwood thin and
lighter colored. Annual rings are distinct. The springwood is porous
and wide, the summerwood dense. The medullary rays are incon-
spicuous and of no value in giving figure to the wood. When the annual
rings are cut diagonally across they give figure like that of ash. The
wood of the coffeetree has never been in much demand. Furniture
makers may use it sometimes, but specific instances of such use do not
exist in manufacturers' reports. There are many places in furniture
and finish which it might fill in a satisfactory manner.

It is suitable for fence posts, and that is where it commonly gives
service. It is occasionally employed as frame work in house and barn
building, but is not sought for that purpose, and is used only when it
happens to be at hand. Though the tree has the habit of branching,
some of the trunks grow tall and shapely, and are good for two or three
sawlogs or railcuts. An occasional tree serves as fuel. Medicine is
sometimes made of a decoction of the fresh green pulp of unripe pods;
and the leaves are reported to produce a fly poison if soaked in water.

Redbud (Cercis canadensis) is also known as Judas tree, red Judas
tree, Canadian Judas tree, and salad tree. The last name refers to a
custom in some parts of its range of making salad of the flowers. It is
the flower rather than the bud that is red and gives the tree its name,
the bloom being conspicuous in early spring. The tree ranges from
New Jersey to Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, but reaches its
fullest development in southern Arkansas, Oklahoma, and eastern Texas
where trunks fifty feet high and a foot in diameter are found. It is
shrubby in many parts of its range. Leaves are not compound. The
fruit is a pink or rose-colored pod two or three inches in length, and by
some is considered nearly as ornamental though not as showy as the
flowers. No one ever thinks of redbud as a timber tree or considers its
wood, yet it might be used for a number of purposes. It is heavy and
hard, but weak; and the heartwood is rich dark brown tinged with red.
The tree is planted for ornament in this country and Europe.

American Forest Trees 549

Texas Redbud (Cercis reniformis) differs somewhat from the
common redbud, but it takes a botanist to point out the differences.
The largest trees are forty feet high and a foot in diameter; the range
extends from eastern Texas into Mexico; the wood closely resembles that
of the other species, and is not known to be used for any purpose.

California Redbud (Cercis occidenialis) is often classed as a shrub,
but Sudworth gives it a place among the forest trees of the Pacific coast.
The pea-shaped flowers are a clear magenta color. The pods turn purple
when ripening but afterwards change to russet-brown. The wood is
dark yellowish-brown, but because of the smallness of the trunks, it can
never be important. The tree is found along the California mountains,
six hundred miles north and south ; is an abundant seeder, and is valuable
as a protection to slopes and ravines, and as an ornament.

Horsebean (Parkinsonia aculeata) is generally called retama in
the valley of the lower Rio Grande in Texas where the species attains its
largest size. Trees are occasionally thirty feet high and a foot or more
in diameter. Trunks usually separate in several stems near the ground.
The range extends from southern Texas to California, and the species
is naturalized in south Florida, the West Indies, and many tropical
countries. Leaves vary in form, and are occasionally eighteen inches
long. Fruit consists of pods, each containing from two to eight beans.
The yellow flowers are small and fragrant; the bark on young twigs is
green, but on older trunks is brown. The brown, however, is easily
rubbed off, exposing the green beneath, as may be seen in school grounds
in some of the southern towns in Texas where this tree has been planted
for ornament, and abrasions, due to children climbing about the spread-
ing stems, keep the bark green. The upper branches are armed with
thorns which discourage the climbing propensities of children. The
wood is heavy, hard, tinged with yellow, and is made into small novelties,
but is not of much importance.

Small-leaf Horsebean (Parkinsonia micro phylla) is well named,
for the compound leaves, with four or six pairs of leaflets, are about an
inch long, covered with hairs, and fall at the end of a few weeks. Conse-
quently, the tree is bare most of the year, except for the pale yellow
flowers which appear in spring before the leaves, and the clusters of
striped pods, each containing from one to three beans. The pods are
nearly always present, for they have the pea family habit of adhering to
the branches a long time. Trees reach a height of fifteen or twenty
feet, and a diameter of ten inches or less. The wood is very hard and
dense, in color deep yellowish-brown, often mottled and streaked with
dull red ; the sapwood thick and yellow. The wood is suitable for small
articles, but its scarcity renders it of little importance. It is found in the

550

American Forest Trees

deserts of southern Arizona and the adjacent parts of California, and is
usually a small shrub.

Jamaica Dogwood (Ichthyomethia piscipula) is the lone represen-
tative of the genus, and is found in this country only in southern Florida.
It is not in the same family wit'', -he dogwoods, and its name is mislead-
ing. The Carib Indians formerly used the leaves to stupify fish and
render them easier to catch ; hence the botanical name. The leaves are
compound, but bear little resemblance to the foliage of most members of
the pea family to which this tree belongs. The flowers are the tree's
chief source of beauty, and are delicately clustered, hanging in bunches a
foot long. The fruit is a pod three or four inches long, with four wings
running the full length. The wings are useless for flying. Trees are
forty or fifty feet high and two or three feet in diameter; are common in
southern Florida and on the islands. The wood is of considerable im-
portance in the region where it grows but figures little in general markets.
It weighs 54.43 pounds per cubic foot, and is moderately strong and stiff.
In color it is a clear yellow-brown, with thick, lighter colored sapwood.
It is very durable in contact with the ground, and in Florida it is used
for posts, and occasionally for railway ties. It has been commonly
reported as a wood for boatbuilding in Florida, but its importance for
that purpose has probably been overstated, since an investigation of the
boatbuilding industry in Florida failed to find one foot of this wood in
use, although some may be employed but not listed in reports.

YELLOW-WOOD

YELLOW-WOOD

(Cladrastis Lulea)

THIS wood's color is evidently responsible for its names yellow ash,
yellow locust, and yellow-wood in Tennessee, North Carolina, and
Kentucky, but no reason is offered for the name gopherwood by which it
is known in some parts of Tennessee. The botanical name is based on
the brittleness of the twigs. It is the only species of the genus, and it is
not known to grow anywhere, except by planting, outside of Kentucky,
Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina.

It occurs in an area not much exceeding 60,000 square miles, and it
is not abundant in that area. It prefers limestone ridges and slopes, and
does best where the soil is fertile. It often overhangs the banks of
mountain streams, and is most abundant and of largest size in the
vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee, where a few trees have reached a diam-
eter of three or four feet and a height of fifty or sixty. A diameter of
eighteen or twenty-four inches is a good average.

The tree's habit of dividing six or seven feet from the ground into
two or more stems is responsible for the scarcity of trunks suitable for
saw timber, even in localities where trees of large size are found. How-
ever, an occasional trunk develops a shapely form. It goes to sawmills
so seldom that it is never mentioned in statistics of lumber cut or wood-
utilization.

Most people who are acquainted with this tree, know it as planted
stock in parks and yards where it is a favorite on account of its flowers.
The bloom may properly be described as rare from two viewpoints.
The beauty of its large clusters of white flowers differs from those of all
associated trees; and it seldom blooms. One year of plenty is generally
followed by several lean years. Those who plant the tree understand
this, and feel amply repaid for the long wait, when the flowering year
arrives. The planted tree is often known as virgilia, that being the name
under which nurseries sell it. Flowers appear about the middle of June,
in clusters a foot or more in length. It is claimed, but with what correct-
ness cannot at present be stated, that the odor of flowers of different
trees varies greatly, being faint with some, and strong and luxurious with
others.

The leaves are compound, but have no resemblance to those of
locust and the acacias. They are eight or twelve inches long, with five
or seven leaflets. In autumn before falling they change to a clear yellow,
but adhere to the branches until rather late in the season. The fruit,
which consists of small pods hanging in clusters, is ripe in September.

553

554: American Forest Trees

Yellow-wood is a little below white oak in strength and seven
pounds per cubic foot under it in weight; is hard, compact, and suscep-
tible of a beautiful polish. Rings of yearly growth are clearly marked
by rows of open ducts, and contain many evenly-distributed smaller
ducts. The wood is bright, clear yellow, changing to brown on ex-
posure; sap wood nearly white. Trunks of largest size are generally
hollow or otherwise defective.

The uses of yellow-wood have been few. In the days when
families in remote regions were under the necessity of manufacturing,
growing, or otherwise producing nearly even,- commodity that entered
into daily life, the settlers among the mountains of Kentucky and
Tennessee discovered that the wood of this tree, particularly the roots,
yielded a clear, yellow dye. The process of manufacture was simple.
The wood was reduced to chips with an ordinary ax, and the chips were
boiled until the yellow coloring matter was extracted. The resulting
liquor was the dye, and it gave the yellow stripe to many a piece of home-
made cloth in the cabins of mountaineers.

The women usually attended to the dye making and the manu-
facture of yarn and cloth ; but the men found a way to utilize yellow-
wood in producing an article once so common in Tennessee and Ken-
tucky that no cabin was without it — the trusty rifle. The gunsmith,
assisted by the blacksmith, made the barrel and the other metal parts,
but the hunter generally was able to whittle out the wooden stock.
Yellow-wood's lightness, strength, and color suited the gun stock maker's
purpose, and he slowly hewed and whittled the article, fitted it to the
barrel, adjusted it to his shoulder, and completed a weapon which never
failed the owner in time of need.

Frijolito (Sophora sccundiflora) is found in Texas, New Mexico,
and southward in Mexico. The name is Spanish and means "little
bean." A common name for it in English is coral bean. Sophora is
said to be an Arabic word of uncertain meaning, except that it refers to
some kind of a tree that bears pods. It is a species, therefore, which
draws its names from four languages, while the name applied to it by
Comanche Indians is translated "sleep-bush." The bright scarlet
seeds, as large as beans, but in shape like door-knobs, grow from one to
eight in a pod, and contain a narcotic poison, "sophorin." It is probable
that Indians discovered that the beans, if eaten, produced sleep, hence
the name. The tree is from twenty-five to thirty-five feet high, and
from six to ten inches in diameter. The leaves are compound, and
consist of seven or nine leaflets. The small, violet-blue flowers appear
in early spring. They are not conspicuous, but their presence cannot
escape the notice of a traveler in the dry, semi-barren canyons and on the

American Forest Trees 555

bluffs where the tree holds its ground. Their odor calls attention to
their presence. The perfume is powerful but pleasant, unless the
contact is too close. The pods are from one to seven inches long, and
hang on the boughs until late winter. It is not believed that birds or
mammels distribute the seeds, as their poison renders them unfit for
food. Running water appears to be the principal agent of distribution.
The tree reaches its largest size in the vicinity of Metagorda bay, Texas.
Among the dry western canyons it is usually a shrub. The small size
of this tree stands in the way of extensive use of the wood. It burns
well and its principal importance is as fuel. The weight is 61.34 pounds
per cubic foot; it is hard, compact, susceptible of a beautiful polish;
medullar}' rays are numerous and thin; color is orange, streaked with
red, the sapwood brown or yellow. The wood is worked into a few small
articles.

Sophora (Sophora affinis) ranges through portions of Arkansas
and Texas. It is popularly supposed to be a locust, and is called pink
locust or beaded locust, the first name based on the color of the wood,
the last on the appearance of the pod which looks like a short string of
beads, sometimes three inches in length, but usually shorter. In early
times the pioneers manufactured ink from the pods. It was a fairly
serviceable article, but was never sold, each family making its own.
This tree's flowers appear in early spring with the leaves. Trunks reach
a height of twenty feet and a diameter of eight or ten inches; but the
habit of separating into several stems a few feet above the ground lessens
the use of the wood, even as posts, for the stems are usually very crooked.
The tree's preferred habitat is on limestone bluffs, or along the borders
of streams, or in depressions in the prairie where small groves often
occur. The wood weighs fifty-three pounds per cubic foot, and is very
hard and strong. The annual rings are clearly marked with bands of
large, open pores; medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous; color of
the heartwood light red, the sapwood yellow. The wood is not sawed
into lumber, but is whittled into canes and tool handles.

Greexbark Acacia (Cercidium floridum) is properly named. Its
green bark makes up for its scarcity of leaves, and answers the purpose
of foliage. The manufacture of the tree's food goes on in the bark,
because the leaves are too small to do the work. The foliage resembles
that of locust and acacia in form, but the compound leaves are about an
inch in length, and the leaflets are one-sixteenth of an inch long. Flowers
are small, but the tree puts on three or four crops of them in a single
summer. The pods are two inches long. The tree i^ found in the United
States only in the south and west of Texas, where it is occasionally
called palo verde. It attains a height of twenty feet and a diameter

556 American Forest Trees

of ten inches when at its best. The wood is pale yellow tinged with
green, and, because of small size, is of little importance.

Palo Verde (Cercidium torreyanum) sheds its leaves and its pods
so early in the season that its branches are bare most of the year. Trees
are from fifteen to thirty feet high, and some are considerably more than
a foot in diameter. Its range covers a portion of southern California,
the lower part of the Gila valley in Arizona, and extends southward into
Mexico. It is a typical tree of the desert, and its extreme poverty of
foliage enables it to live in a dry, hot climate. It clings to the sides of
desert gulches and canyons, ekes out a dreary life in depressions among
desolate dunes and hills of sand and gravel, and spends its allotted period
of years in solitude, growing either singly or in small groups where the
full foliage at the best time of year is insufficient to offer much obstruc-
tion to the full glare of the sun from a cloudless sky. The small flowers
have little beauty or sweetness, but what they have is wasted on the
desert air. Wayfarers in the barren country use the wood for camp
fires.

Indigo Thorn (Dalea spinosa) receives its name from the color of its flowers
which appear in June. The tree has few leaves and they fall in a short time. This
appears to be a provision of nature to enable the tree to endure the heat and dryness
of its desert home. Its range covers the lower Gila valley in Arizona, and extends into
the Colorado desert in southern California. It is not abundant, and if it were, it is
of a size so small that it is practically valueless for commercial purposes. Some trees
are a foot in diameter and twenty feet high. The wood is light, soft, and of a rich
chocolate-brown color. It is known also as indigo bush and dalea.

Eysenhardtia (Eysenhardtia orihocarpa) is so little known that it has no
English name. It grows from western Texas to southern Arizona, but reaches tree
size only near the summit of Santa Catalina mountains in Arizona where it is twenty
feet or less in height and seldom more than eight inches in diameter. It inhabits an
arid region, and bears fruit sparingly, with usually a single seed in a pod. The wood
is heavy and hard, light reddish-brown in color, with thin yellow sap. It is not of
commercial importance and probably never will be.

MESQUITE

Mesquite

MESQUITE

(Prosopis Jidiflora)

THERE are known to be sixteen species at least of mesquite in the
world, in Asia, Africa, and North and South America. The one
here considered has a geographical range of at least seven thousand
miles north and south, from Kansas to Patagonia, and an east and west
range of four thousand miles, if the naturalized growth in Hawaii may
be considered the western outpost of the species. *

The generic name prosopis is a Greek word meaning "burdock;"
the rest of the botanical name is Latin, meaning "July flower." Mesquite
is an Aztec word (mezquitl), coming down through the Spanish. Other
names for the tree are algaroba, honey locust, honey pod, and iron wood.

The largest size of mesquite is found along the Rio Grande in
southern Texas where trees three feet in diameter and fifty feet high are
found, but individuals of that size are rare. The species is supposed not
to extend west of New Mexico, but varieties grow farther west.

The leaves are compound, with twenty or more leaflets. The
foliage is thin and casts a penumbrous shadow; trees generally occur
wide apart, and there is enough sunshine reaching the ground to satisfy
grass and other plants growing there. The pods are from four to nine
inches long, and each contains from ten to twenty seeds. The principal
growth of this tree in the United States is in Texas. It has been
planted in Hawaii and has run wild in some of the islands of the group.
It is of slow growth, but of remarkable vitality, holds its own, and gains
ground in the face of obstacles.

Persons well acquainted with conditions in Texas, both past and
present, say that the mesquite area is at least double now what it was
when the state came into the Union. Old stands were scattered here
and there, but hundreds of square miles which were in grass only, and
little of that, half a century ago, now support forests of mesquite. It is
perhaps a misnomer to designate some of these stands as forests, for
they present a rather ragged and sorry appearance, but they are forests
in the process of forming. The old growth, which is found principally
in the counties bordering on the lower Rio Grande, is made up of
trunks of large size, but the stands that have come on within the past
fifty or sixty years are of smaller trees. A large mesquite trunk is from

♦Botanists have had much controversy among themselves concerning mes-
quite, particularly as to what is its correct name. In giving in these pages some of
the important facts concerning this interesting tree, or group of species and varieties,
it is not necessary to touch the points in dispute.

560 American Forest Trees

one to three feet in diameter; a small one from one foot down to an inch
or two. A person would need to hunt from center to circumference of
Texas to find many mesquite trunks that would make a straight sawlog
twelve feet long. The tree is generally one of the most crooked, de-
formed and unpromising in the whole country ; and its habit of dividing
into forks near the ground, like a peach tree, makes it still more difficult
to make use of. In fact, in winter when mesquite trees are bare of
leaves the appearance of a forest reminds the observer of an old, neglect-
ed, diseased, moss-grown peach orchard in the eastern states; but in
summer the leaves conceal much of the trunk scaliness and deformity,
and there is something positively restful and attractive in the prospect
of a wide range of these trees, covering hills and prairies. The leaves are
compound like the acacias, and are delicate and graceful.

The spread of mesquite in the last fifty or seventy-five years has
been attributed to the checking of grass fires which Indians once set
yearly to keep the prairies open. The dispersion of the trees is facili-
tated by the scattering of seeds by cattle which feed on the pods. It is
a tree hard to kill. Roots send up sprouts year after year during long
periods. Sometimes, but not often in Texas, when adverse circum-
stances become so severe that the mesquite tree can no longer survive
above the surface, it grows beneath the ground, sending only a few
sprouts up for air. "Dig for wood" is a term applied to trees of that
kind, when fuel is dragged out with mattocks, grab hooks, and oxen.

The roots of the mesquite penetrate farther beneath the surface
for water than any other known tree in this country. Depths of fifty
or sixty feet are occasionally reached. Well diggers on the frontiers
learned to go to the mesquite for water. Large trunks never develop
unless their roots are abundantly supplied with moisture. Railroad
engineers on the "Staked Plains" of northwestern Texas tinned that
knowledge to account in boring wells.

Though mesquite is seldom or never mentioned in the lumber
business, it is and has been one of the most important trees of the region.
Its fuel value is very great. It has cooked more food, warmed more
buildings, burned more bricks, than any other wood in Texas. The
tannic acid in it injures boilers and it is not much used for steam pur-
poses. It is very high in ash. A cord of mesquite wood when burned
leaves from ninety to one hundred pounds of ashes. This exceeds five
fold the ashes left when white oak is burned.

Mesquite is a high-grade furniture material, though it is difficult to
work because of its exceeding hardness. Ordinary wood-working tools
and machinery will not stand it. Suites of nine pieces are sold in some
southwestern cities at $200 or $300. The merchants find difficulty in

American Forest Trees 561

getting mesquite furniture made. Factories do not want to handle it,
though the articles sell higher than mahogany. Large, heavy tables,
deeply carved, are sold in some of the cities, but all seem to be made to
order and largely by hand. The appearance of the polished and finished
wood is a little lighter in color than mahogany. It is not uniform in
color, but shades from tone to tone in the same piece. A little of the
lighter colored sapwood is worked in with pleasing effect. Some of the
tones resemble black walnut, and some suggest the luster of polished
cherry.

Mesquite is brittle. Pieces of large size may be broken by a few
blows with an ax. It has about half the strength of white oak, and is
very low in elasticity. The wood has been used for two hundred years —
possibly for thousands of years — as beams and sills for adobe houses;
but it is not required to carry much weight. Spaniards employed it in
building their churches and forts within its range. A timber taken from
the Alamo, at San Antonio, Texas, in 1912, was said to have served
more than 190 years with no sign of decay. Fence posts survive the
men who set them. Paving blocks outlast sandstone subjected to the
same use. Railroads in southern Texas employ this wood for crossties,
but it is so hard that holes must be bored for the spikes.

Mesquite baskets are made by hand of splits the size of knitting
needles, some of white sapwood, others of dark heartwood. Such
baskets, large enough to contain five quarts, sell in the curio shops at
San Antonio for $1.25 each. Some wagon makers insist that mesquite
is in the same class with Osage orange for wagon felloes in hot, dry
regions; but it does not appear that much of it is so used. The brittle-
ness of the wood is against it, in use as felloes, except for vehicles of the
heaviest sort where large pieces are demanded.

Among the uses of mesquite, by-products are an important con-
sideration. The pods are food for farm stock. Before the first railroad
reached San Antonio mesquite pods were a regular market commodity.
The Mexicans know how to make bread and brew beer from the fruit;
tan leather with the resin; dye leather, cloth, and crockery with the
tree's sap; make ropes and baskets of the bark. Parched pods are a
substitute for coffee; bees store honey from the bloom which remains two
months on the trees ; riled water is purified with a decoction of mesquite
chips; vinegar is made from the fermented juice of the legumes; tomales
of mesquite bean meal, pepper, chicken, and cornshucks; mucilage from
the gum; and candy and gum drops from the dried sap.

One of the most promising uses for this wood is in turnery. Short
lengths can be utilized to advantage. The artistic color tits it for the
manufacture of lodge gavels, curtain rings, goblets, plaques, trays, and

562 American* Forest Trees

numerous kinds of novelties. Spindles for grills and stairways do not
suffer in comparison with black walnut, mahogany, cherry, and teak.
The wood is porous, annual rings narrow and indistinct, and the medul-
lary rays thin and inconspicuous.

A variety {Prosopis juliflora glandulosa) is found from Kansas to
eastern Texas, and also in Arizona and California. It is the common
mesquite of eastern Texas. Another variety (Prosopis juliflora velutina)
occurs in some of the hot valleys of southern Arizona and southward in
Mexico.

Screwbean (Prosopis odorata) is known also as screwpod mesquite, and tornillo.
The name is due to the pod's habit of growing in spiral form, there being a dozen or
more tight twists. The flowers appear in early spring and new crops follow until
summer. The pods ripen early in autumn or late in summer, and many become in-
fested with grubs. The tree is from twenty-five to thirty feet high, and a foot or less
in diameter. Its range extends from western Texas and Utah and Nevada through
New Mexico and Arizona to southern California. The wood is stronger and stiffer
than common mesquite, but a little lighter. Its uses are much the same, and it has
the same habits of growth, including its disposition to develop enormous roots. The
name might lead to the conclusion that the flower is rich in perfume, but such is not
the case. The tree grows slowly and lives to old age, if it escapes fire and other
accidents.

Chalky LEUCJJNA (Leucana pulverulenta) , commonly called mimosa, occurs
in the United States only in southern Texas, but is somewhat abundant in Mexico,
where trees sixty feet high and nearly two feet in diameter are sometimes manu-
factured into lumber. Along the Rio Grande it is called "tepeguaja" by Mexicans.
This name is said to be equivalent to "hardwood," which is an appropriate name.
It is very smooth and handsome when finished, and is used for tool handles, small
spindles, grills, and other small articles, particularly products of the lathe. In color
it resembles the lighter shades of mahogany; weighs about forty-two pounds per cubic
foot; foliage extremely delicate and the tree is highly valuable for ornamental pur-
poses. It has been planted outside of its natural range. The pods sometimes
exceed a foot in length.

Leic.E.na (Leucorna glauca) is small and probably will never be of much
importance. Trunks are seldom more than five inches in diameter and twenty feet
high. The tree grows in canyons and ravines in western Texas. The compound
leaves are six or seven inches long, with thirty or less pairs of leaflets; fruit is a pod
six or eight inches long. The rich brown wood is streaked with red.

SWEET BIRCH

SWEET BIRCH

{Betula Lenta)

TEN species of birch occur in the United States, including Alaska.
Six are eastern and four western.* Sweet birch is known by that
name in many localities, but in others as black birch, cherry birch, river
birch, mahogany birch, and mountain mahogany. Its range extends
from Newfoundland to northwestern Ontario, south to southern Indiana,
Kentucky, and along the Appalachian mountains to Tennessee and
North Carolina. Probably the best development of the species is found
in the Adirondack region of northern New York, in the northern penin-
sula of Michigan, through southern Ontario, and along the mountain
ranges southward through Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

It attains a height of seventy or eighty feet, and a diameter of two
or three. It prefers deep, moist, rich soil, but will grow in comparatively
dry, rocky ground. Its seeds are produced in large numbers and are
scattered by the wind a hundred feet or more from the parent tree. They
lack the wing power and the buoyancy of the seeds of some of the other
birches, but they manage to get themselves sown in sufficient numbers,
and their powers of germination are good.

The young seedling comes into existence with smooth bark, but it
does not keep it through life. As age increases, the bark becomes
rough and black. It is not shed in papery rolls and flakes as is the bark
of river birch, yellow birch, and paper birch, with which it is associated
in some parts of its range. It is generally an easy tree to identify and
the black, rough bark is generally a sufficient guide.

The sweet birch is tapped like sugar maple, but not for the same
purpose or to the same extent — only an occasional tree. Immense
quantities of sap will flow from it during the two or three weeks when the
buds are swelling in the spring. It is said that as much as two tons has
been known to flow from a medium sized birch in a single season. The
sap is made into a beer which has some commercial value, but is chiefly
used locally. One of the ways of making it, employed by farmers and
woodsmen, is to jug the sap, put in a handful of shelled corn, and let
fermentation do the rest.

*The eastern species, which do not extend west of the continental divide, are,
Sweet Birch (Betula lento), Yellow Birch (Betula lutea), River Birch (Betula nigra),
Paper Birch (Betula papyri/era), White Birch (Betula populifolia) and Blue Birch
(Betula coerulea.) The western birches, none of which are known to extend much east
of the continental divide, are: Western Birch (Betula occidentalis) , Mountain Birch
(Betula fontinalis). White Alaska Birch (Betula alaskana), and Kenai Birch (Betula
kenaica). The last two occur in Alaska, but not in United States proper.

566 American Forest Trees

A substance known in commerce as oil of wintergreen is procured
almost exclusively from this birch, though occasionally it is made from
the small -wintergreen plant (Gualthcria procumbens). The product is
manufactured in very crude stills made by mountaineers in Pennsylvania
and southward along the mountains where sweet birch is abundant.
Frequently the woodsman's whole family go into the business, chopping
down birch bushes and hacking them with hatchets into chips of the
desired sizes. The oil is extracted from the hogged mass by a steaming
and roasting process. It is sold by the quart to country storekeepers
who ship it to wholesale druggists where it is refined and used to flavor
candy, medicine, and drugs. The woodsman who manufactures the oil
prefers young birches from half an inch to two or three inches in diameter,
and he usually procures them in old logging grounds where seedlings
have sprung up. It is said that on an average one hundred small
birch trees are destroyed for each quart of oil that goes to market. It is
a process wasteful in the extreme.

In the open ground, sweet birch develops a full crown, short trunk,
abundance of limbs, with numerous slender, graceful twigs and small
branches. Its leaves form a dense mass, and they are so free from
attacks by insects and worms that diseased foliage is unusual. That
cannot be said, however, of the trunk. It is not particularly liable to
disease, but many old trees show the results of decay. It is of slow
growth, and a small tree may be much older than its size indicates. The
sapwood is generally thick, heartwood forms slowly, and the contrast
in color between sap and heart is strong.

The wood of sweet birch had few uses in early times, except fuel.
The pioneer sawmill had little to do with it. Lumber was hard to saw
and was seasoned with difficulty. Its tendency to warp was too great
a tax on the lumberman's patience and ingenuity. The only way he
could hold it straight was to cob a few layers in the bottom of a pile, and
Stack thousands of feet of other lumber on top, and leave it a year or
two. That was generally too much trouble, particularly when the wood
had slow sale, and the price was low. Birch reached market in large
quantities only when modern mills and improved drykilns came into
existence.

The wood is heavy, strong, hard, in color dark brown tinged with
red. The light brown or yellow sapwood generally makes up seventy
or eighty annual rings. The difference between springwood and that
of the later season is not clearly marked, and consequently the rings
are often indistinct. The wood is very porous, and the pores are
diffused through all parts of the ring. They are too small to be seen with
the naked eye, except under the most favorable conditions. The medul-

American Forest Trees 567

lary rays are numerous but so small that they appear on the quartered
wood merely as a gloss, which, however, gives the surface a rich appear-
ance.

Forms known as curly and wavy birch are highly esteemed.
They are accidents of growth, well developed in birch, and occurring in
several other woods. Difficulties are encountered in assigning sweet
birch its individual place in the industrial world. As a tree it is well
known, but that is not the case when its lumber goes to market. The
sweet birch log goes into the sawmill, but when the lumber goes out at
the other end of the mill, it is often simply birch having lost the adjective
"sweet" somewhere in the operation. The reason is that sweet birch and
yellow birch, quite distinct in the forest, are often mixed and become
one, to all intents and purposes, when they reach the market. That is
not always the case, but it frequently is. Something depends on the
region. The yellow birch's range is more extensive, and in areas where
it is abundant, and sweet birch is not, it prevails in the lumber markets.
But south and southeast of the great lakes, as well as in the northeastern
part of the country', the two species mingle, and they are apt to go to
market simply as birch. The woods may be distinguished by a micro-
scopic examination, but the ordinary observer would make many
mistakes if he attempted to tell one from the other in the lumber yard.

The two woods are different in several physical properties. Both
are heavy, but sweet birch weighs 47.47 pounds per cubic foot, while
yellow birch weighs only 40.84 pounds, according to tests averaged by
Sargent. Yellow birch rates a little above the other in breaking strength.
Both are very stiff, but yellow birch rates superior. In most respects
the two woods are put to similar uses — flooring, interior finish, furniture
— but for some purposes sweet birch is preferred. It is substituted
oftener for cherry and mahogany, and for that reason is known as cherry
birch or mahogany birch. Its color makes the substitution easy, and
the appearance of the grain, with a little doctoring with stains and fillers,
helps in the deception. The buyer may be deceived as to the exact
kind of wood he is getting, but he is not cheated in the quality. Birch
is substituted where strength is required, as in the rails of beds, the
frames of sofas, davenports, large chairs, and certain parts of large
musical instruments. It is much stronger, and fully as hard as cherry
or mahogany, and as its appearance is so much like them, the article is
actually better on account of the substitution. Sweet birch is largely
employed for various parts of vehicle manufacture, particularly for
wagon hubs and frames of automobiles. It is also much used in the
manufacture of sleds, boats, and handles.

The demand is heavy and the supply is diminishing. The tree is of

568

American Forest Trees

such slow growth that few timber owners will be inclined to wait for a
second crop, after the old trees have been cut, since 150 years are
necessary under forest conditions to produce a merchantable tree.

Sonora Ironwood (Olneya tesoia) is a desert tree, and the only representative
of the genus. It takes its name from the Mexican state where it is most abundant
and where it was discovered in 1852. It grows in southern California and Arizona,
and there it thrives in gulches and depressions in the desert, frequently associated
with mesquite. It is so heavy that perfectly dry wood will sink in water. The
heartwood is deep chocolate-brown, mottled with red, the thin sapwood is lemon-
yellow. Its hardness renders it difficult to work, and it can scarcely be split. The
wood is made into canes and other small articles of great beauty. It is not abundant,
and the small supply is remote from manufacturing centers; otherwise it would be
more valuable. It is excellent fuel, but it is burned chiefly by stockmen and miners
in their camps. The largest trees are thirty feet high and eighteen inches in diameter.
It is an evergreen, and its pea-like flowers brighten many a remote desert place.

Wild Tamarind (Lysiloma latisiliqua) is forty or fifty feet high, two or three
in diameter, grows in southern Florida, and has double-compound leaves, four or five
inches long. The fruit is a pod one inch wide and five or less in length. The wood
weighs forty pounds to the cubic foot, is neither strong nor tough, very low in elasti-
city, is rich dark brown tinged with red, the sapwood white. It has been reported
for boatbuilding, and claims have been made that it is equal to mahogany for that
purpose, but the claim is of doubtful validity, in view of the rather poor showing it
makes in several physical properties, though it takes good polish.

YELLOW BIRCH

YELLOW BIRCH

(Detula Lulea)

THERE is little likelihood of mistaking the yellow birch for any other
as it stands in the woods. Its points of individuality may be
discovered on slight acquaintance, and there is little need of studying
leaves, flowers, and fruit to find ways of distinguishing this birch from
other members of the family. Its tattered, yellow and gray bark fixes
it in the memory of all who have seen it a few times. Two other eastern
birches have tattered, curling bark also, but they do not look like this.
They are the paper birch and the river birch. The former is too white to
be mistaken for yellow birch, and the river birch is too much the color of
bronze or copper. Yellow birch is named from the color of its bark, the
part which shows when the outer layers break and roll back, disclosing
the fresh, smooth, satiny layers below. Sometimes the tree is called
silver birch, gray birch, or swamp birch.

Its geographic range is bounded by a line drawn from New-
foundland to northern Minnesota, southward through the Lake States,
and along the Atlantic coast to Delaware. It follows the Appalachian
ranges of mountains to eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.
Generally the tree is small near the southern limit of its range. The
best grows in Michigan and Wisconsin, but it is of considerable impor-
tance in Minnesota.

Few trees are better equipped than yellow birch to perpetuate their
species. It is an abundant seeder, and the seeds are light, winged, and
they are scattered by wind over long distances. Sometimes they are
carried miles. Of course, most of them fall in unfavorable places, and
either do not germinate or perish soon after ; but they are not particularly
choice in situations, and will grow on bare mineral soil, even in old fields,
where they are flooded with sunshine, or they will grow in deep shade
where a beam of sunlight seldom touches them. They often germinate
without touching mineral soil, and take root quickly and grow vigorously.

It is not unusual in the northern part of the tree's range, and on
high mountains farther south, to see yellow birches standing on high,
spreading roots, two, three, or four feet above the ground. That
peculiar attitude is brought about by the manner in which the seed begins
to grow. It falls on moss which occupies the top of a log or a stump.
The moss in the deep shade retains much moisture, and the seed germi-
nates, grows, sends roots down the sidesof the log or the stump until they
strike mineral soil, and become firmly fixed. In course of time the log
or stump decays, and the spreading roots continue to sustain the

572 American Forest Trees

trunk, high above the ground. This attitude of the yellow birch tree is
very common in damp woods. Occasionally the seed finds lodgment in
the moss on top of a large rock. The roots descend the sides until they
reach the ground, and as the rock does not decay, the tree grows to
maturity on the rock. The most favorable seed bed for this species is a
mass of rotten wood where a log has decayed and fallen to pieces. Fre-
quently such a plot is covered with yellow birch seedlings. They have
the space all to themselves, because the seeds of few trees or plants will
grow in rotten wood, unmixed with mineral soil.

The trunk of yellow birch averages a little smaller than that of
sweet birch, but may equal it in some instances. Trees reach a height of
100 feet and a diameter of three or four, but a more common size, even
in the regions of best development, is a height of sixty or seventy feet,
and a diameter of two or less.

Yellow birch was a long time coming into use. One of the first
things learned about it by early settlers in the region where it was
abundant, was that it decays quickly in situations alternately wet and
dry. That prejudiced the woodsmen against it, and they were not
disposed to give it a fair trial, as long as there was plenty of other timber.
All birches are subject to quick decay, if conditions are right to produce
it. Yellow birch in the woods sometimes dies standing, and when that
happens, the wood falls to pieces so quickly that the bark may remain
standing with very little inside of it except powder of decayed wood.
This tree is seldom mentioned in early accounts of lumber operations,
and practically never with a good word. Operators generally left it
standing when they cut the timber which grew with it.

Yellow birch is heavy, very strong, hard, light brown tinged with
red, with thin, nearly white sapwood. The color of the heartwood
varies considerably. The pores are very numerous, rather small, and
are scattered through the wood with little tendency to run in bands or
groups. The springwood blends gradually with the summerwood in a
way to make the boundaries of the annual rings somewhat indistinct.
Medullary rays are numerous, but very thin and obscure. Quarter-
sawing adds little or nothing to the appearance of the wood. It has
poor figure, except an occasional tree with wavy or curly grain, or with
burls.

The wood may be readily stained. The pores hold the coloring
matter applied, and by varying the application, the appearance of the
surface can be varied. The colors of mahogany and of cherry are easily
imparted, and yellow birch often imitates those woods.

Vehicle makers choose this wood for its strength and elasticity. In
the North it is manufactured into frames for cutters and sleighs of all

American Forest Trees 573

kinds. It is a competitor of sugar maple for that purpose. Hubs are
made of it for horse-drawn vehicles, and its hardness gives long wear
where the spokes are inserted. That is one of the first points of failure
when a soft, inferior wood is used for hubs. The spokes work loose.

Manufacturers of automobiles have tried out yellow birch as
material for frames; it has stood the test, and is much used in competition
with other woods. The amount demanded for that purpose is not
necessarily large, but it must be the best wood that can be had.

This material reaches the markets in all grades. Large amounts
are used for packing boxes, crates, and shipping containers. Low
grades answer for these purposes, leaving the better sorts for the more
exacting industries. The logs are cut in rotary veneer for baskets,
and for ply work. Some of the veneer in three-ply is worked into
commodities of high class, such as seats and backs of theater chairs.

Birch flooring competes closely with maple for popular favor. It
may lack something of maple's whiteness, but it takes no second place
in hardness, smoothness, and wearing qualities. It is made into
parquet flooring as well as the ordinary tongued and grooved article.
As such, the sap matches the light colored woods, and the heart the dark.

It goes into all kinds of interior house finish, from floor to ceiling,
and the finest grades are often devoted to stair work. Door and
window frames are made of it in large quantities, but it is not suited to
outside work exposed to weather, because of its tendencies to decay.
It is much employed as door material. Furniture demands the same
class of wood. Medium priced articles may be of solid birch, but the
best commodities are made of veneers laid upon other woods. Figured
birch is a favorite material for that class of work.

The more common commodities manufactured of this wood can be
listed only by groups, because of their great number. Novelties consti-
tute a large class. One of the earliest demands was from the manu-
factures of pill boxes, such as apothecaries use. That was before anyone
had tried to sell yellow birch in the general market, and the demand
came principally from New England and New York. Another early
demand came from coopers who found that barrel hoops of yellow birch
were highly satisfactory for certain kinds of vessels. Fish kits were
among the first to appear in birch hoops. Small saplings were used,
not over two inches in diameter. They are large enough to make two
hoops by splitting. The bark was left on, and the identity of the wood
was never in doubt, because when the sapling is of that size, the bark is
a fine yellow. It has not yet commenced to crack open and roll up, as
it does later. Millions of birch hoops are still produced yearly in the
United States, but all of them are not of this species. The hoop busmess

574

American Forest Trees

has existed much more than a century, and millions of young birches
have been cut every year to meet the demand.

Birch broom handles have been a commodity since the first lathe
went to work on that product. They are made of all the commercial
birches, but yellow birch contributes a large part. Other handles are
manufactured of it also, such as are fitted to hand saws, planes, drawing
knives, chisels, and augers.

RIVER BIRCH

RIVER BIRCH

yBctula Nigra)

THIS tree is known as red birch, river birch, water birch, blue birch,
black birch, and simply as birch. The name red birch refers to
the color of the bark which is exposed to view in the process of exfolia-
tion. The trunk is constantly getting rid of its outer bark, and in doing
so, the exterior layers are rolled back, hang a while, and are gradually
whipped off by the wind. The new bark which is exposed to view when
the old is rolled back is reddish. Its color varies considerably, some-
times suggesting the tint of old brass, again it is brown, but people in
widely separated regions have seen fit to call the tree red birch because
of the color of its bark. The name black birch is not appropriate,
though the old bark near the base of large trunks may suggest it. No
reason can be assigned for calling it blue birch, unless the foliage in early
summer may warrant such a term. River birch and water birch are
more appropriate, as these names indicate the situations where the
species grows. It clings to water courses almost as closely as sycamore.
A favorite attitude of the tree is to lean over a river or pond, with the
long, graceful limbs almost touching the water.

Nature seems to recognize the tree's habit of hanging over muddy
banks, and has prepared it for that manner of life. Seeds are ripe
early in summer when the rivers are falling. They are scattered by
myriads on the muddy shores and upon the water. Those which fall in
the mud find at once a suitable place for germination, and those whose
fortune it is to drop in the water float away with the current or they are
driven by the wind until they lodge along the shores, and the receding
water leaves them in a few days, and they spring up quickly. Before
the autumn or early winter high water comes, they are well rooted in the
mud and sand, ready to put up a fight for their lives.

The provision is a wise one. If the seeds matured in the fall,
when water is low, they would be strewn along the low shores, and before
they could take root and establish themselves, the high water and the
ice of winter would destroy them. The seeds need mud to give them a
start in life, and they need that start early in summer.

The range of river birch is less extensive than that of the other
important eastern birches, yet it is by no means limited. Its eastern
boundary is in Massachusetts, its western in Minnesota, and it adheres
fairly well to a line drawn between the two states. Its range extends
200 miles west of the Mississippi and covers most of the southern states.
It is found in an area of nearly 1,000,000 square miles, but is scarce in

578 American Forest Trees

most of it. Id certain restricted localities it is fairly abundant, but there
are thousands of square miles in the limits of its range which have not
a single tree. Its greatest development is in the south Atlantic states,
and in the lower Mississippi basin.

Trees at their best are from eighty to ninety feet high and from
two to four in diameter, but most trunks are less than two feet in diam-
eter. The tree frequently forks fifteen or twenty feet from the ground,
or occasionally sends up several stems from the ground. Forms of that
kind are practically useless for lumber.

The wood is among the lightest of the birches and weighs 35.91
pounds per cubic foot. It is rather hard, medium strong, the heartwood
light brown in color, with thick, pale sapwood. It rates below sweet and
yellow birch in stiffness, is very porous, but the pores are quite small,
and can scarcely be seen without a magnifying glass. They are diffused
throughout the entire annual ring. There is no marked difference in
the appearance of the springwood and that of the late season. The
medullary rays are very small and have little effect on the appearance
of the wood, no matter in what way the sawing is done.

The wood is apt to contain pith flecks and streaks. These are
small, brown spots or lines scattered at random through the wood.
They are a blemish which is not easily covered up if the wood is to be
polished; but they are small and may not be objectionable. The flecks
are caused by insects which, early in the season, bore through the bark
into the cambium layer (the newly-formed wood), where eggs are
deposited. The young insect cuts a tunnel up or down along the cam-
bium layer, an inch or less in length and a sixteenth of an inch wide.
This gallery subsequently fills with brown deposits which remain perma-
nently in the wood. Sometimes these deposits are sufficiently hard to
turn the edge of tools.

River birch is widely used but in small amounts. It may properly
be described as a neighborhood wood — that is, wherever it grows in
considerable quantity it is put to use, but nearly always in a local way.
For example, in Louisiana, where it is as abundant as in any other state,
it is a favorite material for ox yokes, and no report from that state has
been made of its employment for any other purpose. The reason given
for its extensive use for ox yokes there is that it is very strong for its
weight, and that it resists decay. The yokes there are usually left out of
doors when not in use, and the dampness and hot weather cause rapid
decay of most woods. The birches are usually listed as quick-decaying
woods, but the verdict from Louisiana seems to be that river birch is an
exception.

Plain furniture is made of it. and the manufacturers of wooden ware

American Forest Trees 579

find it suitable for most of their commodities. It is sometimes listed as
wooden shoe material, but no particular instance has been reported where
it has been so used in this country. In Maryland some of the manu-
facturers of peach baskets make bands or hoops of it, and pronounce it
as satisfactory for that purpose as elm.

The supply is not in much danger of exhaustion. The species is
equipped to take care of itself, occupying as it does, ground not in de-
mand for farming purposes. When a tree once gets a start it has a
chance to escape the ax until large enough for use.

White Alaska Birch (Betula alaskana) is usually called simply
white birch where it grows. It is not exclusively an Alaska species
though that is the only place where it touches the territory of the United
States. It is supposed by some to be closely related to the white birches
of northern Asia, but the relationship, if it exists, has not been establish-
ed. In Alaska it grows as far north as any timber extends. It was first
discovered and reported in 1858 on the Saskatchewan river, east of the
Rocky Mountains, and its range is now known to extend down the valley
of the Mackenzie river toward the Arctic ocean to a point more than 100
miles north of the Arctic circle. It is common in many parts of Alaska
both along the coast and in the interior. In some portions of that terri-
tory it is an important source of fuel. Trees are from twenty-five to
sixty feet high, and from six to eighteen inches in diameter. The bark
is thin and often nearly white, separating into thin scales. The tree
bears typical birch cones, but larger than those of some of the other
species. No tests of the wood's physical properties have been made, but
it looks like the wood of paper birch, and will probably attain to con-
siderable importance in the future, since it grows over a large area, and
in many parts is abundant. There remain many things for both
botanists and wood-users to investigate concerning this tree which has
a range of more than half a million square miles.

Western Birch {Betula occidcntalis) is believed to be the largest
birch in the world, and yet it is not of much commercial importance in
the United States, because of scarcity, occurring only in northwestern
Washington and in the adjacent parts of British Columbia, as far as its
range has been determined. It resembles paper birch, and has often
been supposed to be that tree. The people in the restricted region
where it grows speak of it simply as birch. The largest trees are 100 feet
high and four feet in diameter, clear of limbs forty or fifty feet. A
height of seventy feet and a diameter of two are common. The general
color of the trunk is orange-brown, the new bark, exposed by exfoliation,
is yellow. The tree prefers the border of streams and the shores of
lakes. Though it is the largest of the birches, its seeds are among the

580

American Forest Trees

smallest. They are provided with two wings and are good flyers.
Manufacturers of flooring and interior finish in Washington reported the
use of 315,000 feet of this birch in 191 1. That was the only use found for
it in the only state where it grows. Information is meager as to the
probable quantity of this birch available. It has been reported in
Idaho, but exact information on the subject is lacking.

Mountain Birch (Betula fontanalis) is a minor species concerning which there
has been much contention among botanists. It has finally been called mountain
birch because it grows on mountains, as high as 10,000 feet among the Sierra Nevadas
in California. It has many local names for a tree so small as to be almost a shrub
throughout most of its range: Black birch, sweet birch, cherry birch, water birch,
and canyon birch. Its bark is of the color of old copper; wood is light yellowish-
brown, with thick white sapwood ; trunks seldom exceed ten inches in diameter and
thirty feet high: range extends from northern British Columbia to California, and
along the Rocky Mountains to Colorado and possibly further south. The uses of the
wood are few.

PAPER BIRCH

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Paper Birch

PAPER BIRCH

(Betula Papyri/era)

THIS tree is called paper birch because the bark parts in thin sheets
like paper. It is known as canoe birch from the fact that Indians
and early white explorers and travelers constructed canoes of the bark.
The name silver birch is an allusion to the color of the bark; and big
white birch is the name used when the purpose is to distinguish it from
the white birch with which it is associated in the northeastern part of
its range. It grows as far north as Arctic British America, east to
Labrador, south to Michigan and Pennsylvania, and west nearly or
quite to the base of the Rocky Mountains. This indicated area exceeds
1,000,000 square miles. The quantity of birch of this species in the
forests is unknown, but it runs into billions of feet, probably exceeding
any other single species of birch. The tree sometimes grows dispersed
through forests of other woods, sometimes in nearly pure stands. Persons
well acquainted with the species have expressed the opinion that paper
birch exists in larger quantities now than at the time when the country
was first explored by white men. That can be said of few other species;
but probably holds true of lodgepole pine in the West, loblolly pine in
the Southeast, and mesquite in the Southwest. Each of these species
took advantage of man's presence and influence to extend its range.
Cattle spread the mesquite; the lodgepole pine came up in fire-burned
tracts; loblolly pine spread into abandoned fields; and paper birch profit-
ed by fires which destroyed large tracts of timber.

The seeds are light, are furnished with wings which sail them long
distances through the air, and they are quickly scattered over the
burned areas where they spring up. In the contest, they are com-
petitors of aspen. Birch often captures the ground, but does not
always do it. Some of the largest stands in the Northeast occupy tracts
bared by fire half a century or more ago. When paper birch does not
find open tracts, it contents itself with sharing ground with other
species. That was the usual manner of its growth in the original forests ;
but it has been quick to seize opportunities to take full possession.

It does not like shade and, if crowded, one of the first things it does
is to rid its lower trunk of all branches. Only limbs remain which
are at the top where they receive plenty of light. Therefore, forest-
grown paper birches have long, clean trunks, though they are not always
straight. The largest trees are seventy feet high and three in diameter,
but those fifty feet in height and eighteen inches in diameter are above
rather than under the average.

584 American Forest Trees

The bark of paper birch has played an important part in American
history, story, and poetry. It was the canoe material, the roof, and the
utensil in its region. The Indians had brought the art of canoe making
to perfection before white men went among them. The bark peels from
the trunks in large pieces, and may be separated into thin sheets, which
are very tough, strong, and durable. The Indians sewed pieces of bark
together, using the long, slender roots of tamarack for thread. The bark
was stretched and tied over a frame, the shape of the canoe, and made of
northern white cedar, or some other light wood. Holes in the bark, and
the partings at the seams, were stopped with resin from balsam fir,
wax from balm of Gilead, or resin from pine. The forest supplied all the
material needed by the Indian, and a canoe thus made, and large enough
to carry S00 or 1,000 pounds, weighed no more than fifty pounds. Frail
as it seemed, it was good for long service on rivers and lakes, and could
weather storms of no small severity.

White men adopted the bark canoes at once, and learned from
Indians how to make them. The daring explorers and venturesome
fur traders who threaded every river and navigated every important lake
of British America, found the birch canoe equal to every requirement,
even to attacking whales in the tidewater of the Arctic ocean. The
bark from this birch was used for tents and the roofs of cabins; vessels
in which to store or carry food were made of it, as well as beds on which
to sleep, and wrapping material for bundles. These uses have now
practically ceased ; but as sport, recreation, and for the novelty, articles,
from canoes to visiting cards, are still made of the bark.

The wood of paper birch is valuable for certain purposes. The
trees are largely white sapwood, which is without figure. It is as plain a
wood as grows in the forest, but it may be stained. That, however, is
seldom done. The heartwood is dark or red, and is made into brush
backs and parquet flooring, but the hearts are small, and no large quan-
tity of that wood is used. The largest use of paper birch is for spools,
the common kind for thread. Some of larger size are made for use in
mills. The sapwood only is accepted by makers of spools. The heart
is cut out, and most of it is thrown away or burned under the boilers.
The qualities of paper birch which appeal to spool makers are, white
color, small liability to warp, and the ease with which it may be cut
without dulling the tools. The logs are worked into bars of the various
spool sizes, and are carefully seasoned. One of the problems that must
be constantly solved is the prevention of sap stain while the bars are
seasoning. The wood discolors quickly and deeply.

Tooth picks, shoe pegs, and shoe shanks are other important
commodities manufactured from paper birch. It has not yet been

American Forest Trees 585

satisfactorily converted into lumber, because it is more valuable for
spools, tooth picks, pegs, and the like. This wood is frequently listed
as a pulpwood, and it is quite generally believed that its use for that
purpose is important. This is apparently an error, as the wood is not
even mentioned in statistics of pulpwood output in this country.

Paper birch weighs 37.11 pounds per cubic foot, is strong, hard,
tough ; medullary rays are numerous but very small and obscure ; wood
is diffuse-porous, and earlywood blends gradually with latewood in the
annual rings which are not very distinct.

This is one of the woods which does not threaten to become soon
exhausted. A supply for half a century, at present rate of use, is in
sight, if no more should grow; but in fifty years new forests, now young,
will be large enough to use.

Kenai Birch {Belula kenaica) is an Alaska species concerning which com-
paratively little is known, except that its botanical identity and something of its
range have been established. Its small size, and the remote regions where it grows,
do not necessarily indicate that it can never be important. Scarcity of other woods
may give it a place which it does not now occupy. No reports on the properties of
the wood have been made. The bark is deep brown in color. Trees are from twenty
to thirty feet high and from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter. The trunks are
very short. Cones are an inch or less in length and the double winged seeds are
very small. The name applied to this species relates to the region where the best
developed trees have been found. As far as known, the species is confined to the
coast region of Alaska and to adjacent islands from the head of Lynn canal westward.
It has been reported on Koyukuk river above the Arctic circle.

White Birch (Betula populifolia) is known also as gray birch, old-field birch,
poverty birch, poplar-leaved birch, and small white birch. It is chiefly confined to
the northeastern part of the United States, but grows as far east as Nova Scotia, and
west to the southern shore of Lake Ontario. It occurs on the Atlantic coast south to
Delaware, and along mountain ranges to West Virginia. The names describe either
the habits or the appearance of the tree. The bark is white, and is the most promi-
nent feature of a thicket of these graceful but practically worthless little birches. It
is called an old-field species because it quickly scatters its small, winged seeds over
abandoned farmland and takes possession when it does not have to compete with
stronger species. Poverty birch is an allusion, either to the poor ground it occupies
or the unpromising nature of the tree itself. The resemblance of its leaves to those
of cottonwood leads some people to prefer the name poplar-leaved birch. The tree
at its best is seldom more than forty feet high and eighteen inches in diameter. A
height of twenty or thirty feet is the usual size. The stem is generally clothed with
branches nearly to the ground. The wood is light, soft, not strong or durable, heart
light brown, thick sap nearly white. The form and size of the trunk exclude it from
sawmills, but it has some special uses: Spools, shoe pegs, and hoops. Its small size
does not disqualify it for service along those lines. The tree springs up quickly,
grows with fair rapidity, and dies young. It is cut for cordwood in New England
and makes good fuel. It takes possession of areas bared by fire, and protects the
ground, furnishing shelter for more valuable species which come later.

Blue Birch (Betula cacrulca) is a small tree of which more information is to
be desired. It is rarely more than thirty feet high with a diameter of eight or ten

586

American Forest Trees

inches. Its leaves are long-pointed, its cones about an inch in length, the bark is
thin, white tinged with rose, and is lustrous. Bark is not easily separated into layers,
in that respect differing from the paper birch. The inner bark is of light orange color.
It is probably put to no use, unless for fuel or as hoops. It is smallest of New England
birches, and its range has not been fully determined, but it is known to grow in Maine
and Vermont, and probably will be found in other parts of New England and in the
adjacent regions of Canada. It has been compared with a European species of birch,
the Betula pendula.

RED ALDER

RED ALDER

(Alnus Orcgona)

MANY species of alder are found in various parts of the world, and
on both sides of the equator, but chiefly in the northern hemis-
phere. Some of these are trees, others are shrubs. Six species belonging
in the tree class grow in the United States, besides others which remain
shrubs. Some trees are burdened with names, changing them with
locality, but not so with alder. An adjective may accompany the name,
as red, white, seaside, or mountain, to describe it, but it is always
alder, no matter where it grows. The different species cover much of
the United States, and few large areas are found which have not one or
more species. It grows from sea level up to 7,000 feet or more, but
some species thrive at one elevation, and others above or below.

The alders are old inhabitants of the earth. They had a place in
the Eocene and Miocene forests of the old world and new. It is not ap-
parent that they have either gained or lost in extent of range during the
hundreds of thousands of years which measure their tenancy on the
earth. They have not been aggressive in pushing their way, nor
have they shown a disposition to retire before the aggression of other
trees. Some alders bear seeds equipped with wings for wind dis-
tribution, others produce wingless seeds which depend on water to bear
them to suitable situations and plant them. Of course, the water-borne
seeds are planted on muddy shores or on the banks of running streams,
and the trees of those species are confined to such situations. The
alders belong to the birch family.

Red alder is the largest of the alder group in this country. Mature
trees are from forty to ninety feet high, and from one to three feet in
diameter. The northern limit of its range crosses southern Alaska; its
southern border is in southern California. It is a Pacific coast tree,
with a north and south range of 2,000 miles. Trunks are straight, and
branches are generally slender. The largest specimens grow in the
vicinity of Puget Sound. The bark is thin, leaves are from three to ten
inches long, cones from one-half to one inch in length, seeds have very
narrow, thin wings, and are about the size of raddish seeds. The cones
remain green in color until the seeds are fully ripe, but they finally
turn brown, and seeds are liberated during the fall and winter.

Red alder is given that name because the newly cut wood is liable
to change quickly to a reddish-brown. This applies to the whitish
sapwood only; but since the trunk is largely sapwood, it is an important
matter. It is not apparent whether the change in color is due to attack

589

590 American Forest Trees

by fungi, or to some chemical change in the sap. It is not believed that
the change in color weakens the wood, at least it does not appear to do
so immediately. The heart is reddish, and when dressed and polished,
it presents a fine appearance.

Red alder when thoroughly air dry weighs about thirty pounds per
cubic foot, which is slightly above the weight of basswood. It is strong
for its weight, rating only eight per cent below white oak, while in
stiffness or elasticity it is about twelve per cent above white oak. It is
not difficult to season, is soft, stands weH when made up, and is one of the
most important hardwoods of the northwest Pacific coast. More than
2,000,000 feet a year go to wood-using factories in Washington and
Oregon.

The Indians of the Northwest, when they had only stone hatchets
or the crudest kinds of metal tools, found red alder a wood which worked
so easily that they specialized with it. They made canoes of the largest
trunks, and all manner of troughs, trays, trenches, platters, and dugouts,
some of no more than a pint in capacity, others holding three or four
bushels. The Field Museum in Chicago has a collection of these Indian
utensils made of alder. The workmanship shows considerable skill
mixed with barbaric art. There are carvings of eagles and bears which
are not entirely grotesque. The utensils were designed primarily to
contain food at ceremonial feasts, or it was stored for times of scarcity.
Among them are cooking vessels of alder in which meat was boiled by
filling the troughs with water and dropping in hot stones.

Furniture manufacturers are the largest users of red alder. Care-
fully selected heartwood, finished in the proper color, looks much like
cherry, though it lacks something of the characteristic cherry luster.
The sapwood in its natural color resembles the sapwood of yellow birch.
The annual rings are defined by narrow bands of dense summerwood.
The pores are small and diffused through the entire ring, as with birch.
Medullary rays are very thin and do not show much figure ; neither do
the rings of growth, in tangential sawing, display much contrast. It is,
therefore, a figureless wood, entering into practically all grades of
furniture, in the region where alder is plentiful, but it shows to particu-
larly good advantage in panels.

Reports on wood-utilization on the Pacific coast list this wood
for archery bows but particulars as to amount used, and why it is used at
all, are not given. The physical properties of the wood do not seem to
fit it for that use. It is wanting in both strength and elasticity which
are the prime, almost the only, factors considered in selecting bow wood.
No account has been found of any employment of alder for bows by
Indians of the region where it grows.

American Forest Trees 591

Broom handle turners in Washington use .'JoO.OOO feet of alder a
year. The smooth finish which may be imparted to the wood constitutes
its chief value for broom handles. It is well liked for porch columns.
When the center is bored out, the wood seldom checks. In that respect
it resembles yellow poplar. It takes paint well and holds it a long time.
Comparatively large amounts are converted into interior finish. It is
made into spindles, newel posts, railing, panels, molding, ornaments,
and pedestals. Occasionally it is finished in the wood's natural color.

Many minor places are found for red alder. Frames of pack
saddles are made of it; it forms parts of pulleys; is available for small
turnery ; and it is sometimes worked into bodies and compartments for
business wagons, such as butchers and bakers use. The bark is rich in
tannin and is said to be employed in local tanneries, but no statistics are
available showing the annual supply.

White Alder (Alnus rhombifolia) is known simply as alder in the
region where it grows. Where this tree and red alder occupy the same
range they are commonly supposed to be the same. The range of white
alder extends from northern Idaho to southern California. It is the
common alder of central California where it attains its best develop-
ment, and the only alder at low altitudes in southern California. Trees
vary in height from thirty to eighty feet, and in diameter from one to
three. A common size is fifty feet high and fifteen inches in diameter.
Like most alders, it sticks close to water courses, and is usually found in
the bottoms of gulches where water flows most of the year. The
flowers begin to appear in midsummer as dark, olive-brown catkins less
than an inch in length. By midwinter they are fully developed, and the
tree is loaded with catkins from four to six inches long and thick as lead
pencils. In the gulches among the elevated foothills it is not unusual
for trees to be bending beneath snow and flowers at the same time.
That is about the period when the seeds of the preceding year complete
their dispersal. The cones hang closed nearly a whole twelve months,
and when they give up their seeds, they often do it slowly. The seeds
are the size of pin heads, and seem to have had wings once, but lost
them. The remnants remain, but are of no use. If running w-ater does
not carry seeds to new grounds they lie beneath the parent tree. The
wood of white alder is five pounds lighter per cubic foot than red alder.
Its structure is less satisfactory. Medullary rays are irregular, some
being thin as those of sweet birch, while others are as broad as rays of
chestnut oak. Those of large size seem to be scattered at haphazard,
and are so irregular and uncertain that no dependence can be placed in
them for figure. Trees are largely sapwood, which is nearly white
when freshly cut, but it quickly turns brown; heartwood is pale, yellow-

592 American Forest Trees

ish-brown. This is said to be one of most quickly-decaying woods of the
western forests when logs are left lying in damp woods. The white alder
ought to be suitable for nearly every purpose for which red alder is used.

Mountain Alder {Alnus tenuifolia) is too small to contribute much to the
lumber supply of the country, though it may yield fuel in some localities where there
is little else. Its range extends from Yukon territory to Lower California, a distance
of 4,000 miles, and it nearly touches both the torrid and frigid zones. It is found
from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in the United States. Few trunks exceed
twenty-five feet in height or six inches in diameter; but the form is generally brush,
in tangled thickets along the courses of mountain streams, and on boggy slopes, up to
7,000 feet in altitude. The wood is light brown, and there are no reports showing its
use for any purpose except firewood.

Sitka Alder (Alnus sitchensis) is one of the smallest of the aborescent species,
and in most instances it is a shrub a few feet high. At its best it is thirty feet high
and eight inches in diameter. It grows from Alaska to Oregon, and eastward to
Alberta and Montana. It is found in mountain regions 4,000 feet above the sea. The
wood is valuable for fuel only. This species was discovered about eighty years ago,
but was practically lost sight of until recently. Many persons saw it but supposed
it to be one of the other alders.

LancELEaF Alder (Alnus acuminata) is a southwestern species, ranging
through southern New Mexico and southern Arizona and south 4,000 miles to Peru.
In the United States it ascends to altitudes of 4,000 or 6,000 feet where it fringes the
banks of streams, and flourishes in the bottoms of canyons. The largest trees are
thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. Flowers open in Februar}' before the
appearance of the leaves. The seeds have small wings which are of little or no use.

Seaside Alder (Alnus maritima) grows in Maryland, Delaware, and Okla-
homa, and the largest trunks are thirty feet high and five inches in diameter. It is
found on the banks of ponds and streams. The flowers appear in July, and the seeds
of last year's crop ripen at the same time. The wood is light soft, and brown, heart
and sap being scarcely distinguishable. The wood is not used.

The European Alder (Alnus glutinosa) has been naturalized in a few places in
the United States, and several varieties are distinguished in cultivation. A native
shrubby species (Alnus rugosa) is common in many parts of the eastern states. It is
not usually listed as a tree, being too small, but it is sometimes twenty-five feet high
and three or four inches in diameter. In Europe the charcoal made from alder is
considered excellent material for the manufacture of gun powder, and considerable
areas of alder in England are held in reserve against an emergency. It rs probable
chat the American alders would answer as well as the European species.

HORNBEAM

HuRNHKAM

HORNBEAM

{Osirya Yirginiana)

'"J-VHIS tree belongs to the birch family and is closely related to the
J. alders and to blue beech. Four species of hornbeam are known
in the world, and two of them are in the United States. One is well
known to most persons who are familiar with eastern hardwood forests,
but the other is seldom seen because of the limited extent of its range.

The well-known hornbeam is found in the valley of the St. Law-
rence river, throughout Nova Scotia and Ottawa, along the northern
shore of Lake Huron to northern Minnesota, south through the northern
states and along the Alleghany mountains to the Chattahoochee region
of western Florida; through eastern Iowa, southeastern Missouri and
Arkansas, eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and the Trintiy river region
of Texas. It is known as ironwood, hop-hornbeam, leverwood, and
hardhack.

The Indians were small users of wood except for fuel, but they had
places where they put wood to special uses. They chose hornbeam,
when they could get it, for one of these places. It was a favorite ma-
terial for the handles of their stone warclubs. The stone heads were
chipped to various forms, but were usually egg-shaped with a groove
round the middle for fixing the handle. This was made fast with thongs
of rawhide, and was generally nearly or quite two feet long, and slender as
a golf stick. Great strength and a high degree of elasticity were required
to stand the strain when a warrior swung his club in battle. Hornbeam
meets these requirements exactly, and doubtless the Indian found this
out by experience. It is about thirty per cent stronger than white oak,
and forty-six per cent more elastic. The demand for warclub handles
made no great inroads on the hornbeam supply, but it affords proof that
the Indians sometimes used good judgment.

The different names of this tree describe some characteristic of the
wood or foliage. The fruit resembles hops, hence one of the names.
Hardness gives it the other names by which it is known. It is the custom
nearly everywhere to call any wood ironwood if it is extra hard. No
fewer than eleven species of the United States are known as ironwood in
some parts of their ranges.

The leaves of hornbeam are simple and alternate; they taper to a
sharp point at the end, while the base is rounded. They are doubly
and sharply serrate. In color they are dark green above, and lighter
below, tufted in places, resembling birch leaves in some respects, al-
though they are quite different in texture, the leaves of birch being

596 American Forest Trees

glossy, while those of ironwood are rough. They are joined to the
twig with a short petiole, hardly a fourth of an inch in length.

The flowers grow in long catkins, staminate ones sometimes more'
than two inches long, covered with fringed scales. The pistillate catkins
r.e usually shorter. Hornbeam blooms in April and May and its fruit
ripens in August and September. The seed is a small nut equipped
with balloon-like wings, intended for wind distribution. The seeds are
often carried, rolled, and tumbled considerable distances. They keep
on going until their wings are torn off or wear out, or until they become
inextricably entangled among twigs or other obstacles. Comparatively
few of the seeds ever find lodgment in situations suitable for germina-
tion. Consequently, hornbeam is scarce.

It is not easy to state the average size of the hornbeam, though it is
usually small and never very large. Sometimes it reaches a height of
fifty or sixty feet and a diameter of two or more, but such sizes are
unusual. Trees a foot in diameter and forty feet high are more common.
The foliage is thin, and the tree is satisfied to grow in shade, provided
the shadows are not too dense. The leaves must have a little sunshine,
and the flecks that fall through the open spaces in the forest canopy
high above, suffice. The hornbeam makes no effort to overtop its
fellow trees ; but when it grows in the open, as on a rocky bank or ridge,
where it catches the full light, the crown puts on more leaves, and multi-
plies its branches, and it is no longer the lean tree which some of the
Indians called it. Forest grown specimens produce clear trunks, but
those in the open are limby almost to the ground.

Hornbeam has neither smell nor taste. It burns well, the embers
glowing brightly in still air. The weight of a cubic foot of seasoned wood
is fifty-one pounds. It is strong, hard, heavy, tough, and exceedingly
durable when exposed to variable weather, or when in contact with the
soil. It take's a beautiful polish. Trees more than a foot in diameter
are often found to be hollow.

The wood is strong, hard, tough, durable in contact with the soil;
heartwood light brown, tinged with red, or often nearly white; thick,
pale sapwood which generally does not change to heart for forty or fifty
years. The annual rings are not uniform in appearance. Some are
easily distinguishable, while others are vague. This variation is due to
the irregular development of the dark summerwood in the outer portion
of the rings. It is at times distinct and again is hardly discernible.

The wood is diffuse-porous, and the pores are too small to be easily
seen by the naked eye. The medullary rays are small and obscure.
In quarter-sawed wood they show as a silvery gloss, but the appearance
is too monotonous to be attractive. Neither is there striking figure

American Forest Trees 597

when the wood is sawed tangentially, because of the small contrast in the
different parts of the yearly ring. Hornbeam may, therefore, be listed
among woods which have little or no figure. No one ever thinks of using
it for the sake of its beauty. Because of the small size and limited
quantity hornbeam will never come into commercial prominence. Its
uses are almost entirely local and domestic. The lumberman or the
farmer selects a hornbeam sapling as being the best material obtainable
for making a wagon or sleigh tongue, a skid, or a lever. The farmer
often laboriously works a section of the flint-like wood into minor agri-
cultural implements.

The statistics of sawmill cut in the United States do not mention
hornbeam even among such minor species as holly, Osage orange, alder,
and apple. However, it is known that an occasional log goes to saw-
mills in the Lake States, and doubtless in other regions, and in some
instances the wood is kept separate from others and is sold to fill special
orders. Manufacturers of farm tools consider it the best wood for rake
teeth. That use has come down from the time when farmers made
their own rakes and pitchforks. They learned the wood's value
by experience, and manufacturers cater to the trade.

It is sometimes called lever wood, and that name dates from long
ago when the man who needed a lever went into the woods and cut one
to suit his needs. The modern lever is usually somewhat different and
partakes more of the nature of a handle. They are seen in sawmills
where they manipulate the carriage machinery; on certain agricultural
implements where their function is to throw clutches in and out of gear;
sometimes they are used as the handle by which the rudder of a small
boat is controlled ; and occasionally the lever has a place as an adjunct
of a wagon or log-car brake. In all of these uses strength and stiff-
ness are required, and durability is duly considered.

Wagon makers and repairers find several uses for hornbeam. It
would be more frequently employed if it were more plentiful. Nearly
any blacksmith who runs a repair shop for vehicles will testify to that.
It fulfills every requisite for axles; is made into felloes for heavy wagons;
and is considered the best obtainable wood for the tongues of heavy
logging wheels and stone wagons.

Among various occasional uses of this wood it is listed bv the
manufacturers of reels for garden hose; rungs for long ladders; stakes
for sleds, and also for cross pieces and parts of runners of sleds; wedges
for the makers of machinery; and hammer and hatchet handles. It is a
pretty active competitor of dogwood for some of these uses, and it has
been suggested for shuttles, but no report of its use in that capacity
seems to have been made.

598

American Forest Trees

One of its most common uses is as fence posts. Few lines of fence
are built exclusively of hornbeam posts, because not enough can be had
in one place; but posts are cut singly or a few together from Maine to
Arkansas, and the aggregate number is large. The wood is said to out-
last the heartwood of white oak when in contact with the ground, and
it is so strong that posts of small size stand the pull of wires or the weight
of planks or pickets.

Hornbeam is of slow growth and there is little reason to believe
that it will ever be seriously considered by timber growers ; but it will
doubtless win its way to favor as an ornamental tree. It has been
planted in city parks in New England and elsewhere, and its form, foliage,
and habits are much liked. The pale green pods or cones — they are not
exactly the one or the other — remain a long time on the branches and
are delicately ornamental until after the autumn frosts change their
green into brown. Then comes the flying time of the balloon seeds, and
that is an interesting period in parks and yards where the tree's habits
may be closely studied.

Knowlton Hornbeam (Oslrya kncnvlloni) is interesting chiefly on account of
its extremely limited range, and its far removal from all its kin. It is an exile in a
distant country. It has thus far been found only on the southern slope of the canyon
of the Colorado river in Arizona, about seventy miles north of Flagstaff. It occurs at
an elevation of 6,000 or 7,000 feet above the sea. Trees are twenty or thirty feet high
and twelve or eighteen inches in diameter, and trunks usually divide a foot or two
above the ground into three or more branches, which are often crooked and contorted.
Such sizes and forms could not be of much value for anything but fuel, even if abun-
dant. The heart is light reddish-brown, sapwood thin. The leaves are round instead
of pointed at the apex, as with the other hornbeam ; but the flowers and fruit are much
the same. Botanists speculate in vain as to how this species happens to be so far
removed from other members of its family.

SILVERBELL

SILVERBELL TREE

(Mohrodcndron Carolinum)

THIS tree belongs to the storax family, which is not a very numerous
family as forest families are generally counted, but it is old and
highly respectable. Its members are found in the old world and the
new in both North and South America, in Europe, Asia, and the Malay
Archipelago. Trees of the storax family produce, or they are supposed
to produce, resins and gums, balsams, and aromatic exudations, but some
give little or none. The priests and soothsayers of idolatrous nations of
ancient times laid great stress on storax. They insisted on having the
resin as an adjunct to their superstitious rites. It was the incense
offered in their worship, and they compassed sea and land to obtain it for
that purpose. It is not improbable that the southern peninsulas of Asia
and the far-off Molucca islands were visited in ancient times to procure
the incense which ultimately found its wray to the Mediterranean
regions.

It is, therefore, interesting to find that two members of the old
storax family are quietly living in the coast region and among the
mountains of the southeastern part of the United States. No one has
ever suspected that they might be capable of yielding resinous incense
suitable for the altars of heathen gods. They are the silverbell tree, and
its little cousin, the snowdrop tree {Mohrodendron dipterum). They
have had common names a long time, but their botanical names are the
result of a recent christening. They are named from Charles Mohr who
wrote an interesting book on the flora of Alabama. The silverbell tree
is the larger of the two and deserves first consideration.

It has a somewhat extensive range, but in some parts it is so
scarce that few persons ever see it. It is found from the mountains of
West Virginia to southern Illinois, south to middle Florida, northern
Alabama, and Mississippi, and through Arkansas and western Louisiana
to eastern Texas. Under cultivation, this tree is known as the snowdrop
tree in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Florida, and Louisiana. In Rhode Island, under cultivation, it is also
sometimes known as the silverbell tree, and bears the same name in
Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. In parts of Tennessee it is known as
the wild olive tree, and in other parts of the state as the bell tree. In
various localities in Alabama it is referred to as the four-winged halesia ;
and in others as opossumwood. It is indiscriminately known in various
sections of Texas as the rattlebox and calicowood, and some of the
furniture manufacturers in North Carolina list it as box elder, though it

602 ■ American Forest Trees

is only distantly related to the true box elder. In the Great Smoky
mountains in Tennessee, where the species reaches its greatest develop-
ment, it bears a variety of names, among them being tisswood, peawood,
bethvood, and ehittamwood.

The tree varies in size from a shrubby form so small that it is
scarcely entitled to the name of tree, up to a height of eighty, ninety,
and even more than 100 feet with diameters up to nearly four feet. The
largest sizes occur only among the ranges of the Great Smoky mountains
in Blount, Sevier, and Monroe counties, Tennessee. No reason is known
why this tree in that region should so greatly exceed its largest dimen-
sions in other areas ; but most species have a locality where the greatest
development is reached, and this has found the favorable conditions in
the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Some of the trees measure sixty
feet or more to the first limbs.

Lumbermen of the country are not generally acquainted with
silverbell, as is natural since its commercial range is so limited. It is not
listed in statistics of sawmill cut or of veneer mills. The wood-using
industries of the country do not report it, except in the one state, North
Carolina, and there in very small amounts. Doubtless, it is occasionally
used elsewhere, but it escapes mention in most instances. It has been
made into mantels at Knoxville, Tennessee, and passes as birch.

The wood is light, soft, usually narrow-ringed, color light brown,
the thick sapwood lighter. It weighs thirty-five pounds per cubic foot,
and when burned it yields a low percentage of ash. The wood's chief
value is due to its color and figure. Best results are not obtained by
sawing the logs into lumber, because the handsomest part of the figure is
apt to be lost. It is preeminently suited to the cutting of rotary veneer.
By that method of conversion the birdseye and the pitted and mottled
effects are brought out in the best possible manner. Veneers so cut
from logs selected for the figure, possess a rare beauty which no other
American wood equals. There is a pleasing blend of tones, which are
due to the direction in which the distorted grain is cut. This dis-
tinguishes the wood from all others and gives it an individuality.
Much of the figure appears to be due to the presence of adventitious
buds, similar to those supposed to be responsible for the birdseye effect
in maple.

The leaves of silverbell are bright green at maturity and are from
four to six inches long and two or three wide. They turn yellow before
falling in autumn. The flowers give the tree its name, for they resemble
delicate bells, about one inch in length. They appear in early spring
when the leaves are one-third grown, on slender, drooping stems from
one to two inches long. The trees are loaded throughout the whole

American' Forest Trees 603

crown, and present an appearance that is seldom surpassed for beauty
in the forests of this country.

The fruit is peculiar and is not particularly graceful. It has too
much the appearance of the load carried by a well-fruited vine of hops.
It ripens late in autumn and persists during most of the winter. There
is nothing in its color, shape, or taste to tempt birds or other creatures to
make food of it, though, under stress of circumstances, they may some-
times do so. The fruit is two inches or less in length and an inch wide,
and has four wings, which seem to be practically useless for flight. The
seed is about half an inch long.

The bark of the trunk is bright red-brown and about half an inch
thick, with broad ridges which separate on the surface into thin papery
scales. The young branches wear an early coat of thick, pale wool or
hairs, light, reddish-brown during the first summer, but later changing
to an orange color.

The botanical range of the species is extensive, though the tree-
form is confined to a few counties among the southern Appalachian
mountains. The northern limit of its range is in West Virginia where it
is so scarce that many a woodsman never recognizes it. Unless it is
caught while in the full glory of its bloom, it attracts no attention. It is
not there a tree, but a shrub, hidden away among other growth, along
mountain streams or on slopes where the soil is fertile. The blooming
shrub might, at a distance, be mistaken for a dogwood in full blossom,
but a closer inspection corrects the mistake.

It is true of this species as of many others that the range has
been greatly extended by planting. The bell-like white flowers early
drew attention of nurserymen who were on the lookout for trees for
ornamental planting. It was carried to Europe long ago, and graces
many a yard and park in the central and northern countries of that
continent. It now grows and thrives in the United States six hundred
miles northeast of its natural range, where it endures the winters of
eastern Massachusetts, blooms as bounteously as in its native haunts
among the shaded streams of the Alleghany mountains.

Snowdrop Tree (Mohrodcndron dipterum) is a near relative of the
silverbell tree, and looks much like it, except that it is smaller, has larger
leaves, and the flowers are creamy-white. The two occupy the same
territory in part of their ranges, but they differ in one respect. The
silverbell tree grows with great luxuriance among the mountains while
the snowdrop tree keeps to the low country and is seldom or never found
growing naturally at any considerable elevation. It prefers swamps or
damp situations near the coast. While the silverbell tree's range in-
cludes West Virginia, that of the snowdrop extends no farther north than

604

American Forest Trees

South Carolina. It follows the coast to Texas, and runs north through
Louisiana to central Arkansas. Its range has been greatly enlarged
by planting, and the northern winters do not kill it on the southern
shores of Lake Erie. The largest trees are about thirty feet high and six
inches in diameter, but the growth in most places is shrubby. Leaves
are four or five inches long and three or four wide. Flowers are one inch
long and are borne in profusion. They constitute the tree's chief value
as an ornament, though the foliage is attractive. The bloom lasts a
month or six weeks, from the middle of March till the last of April.
The fruit has two wings instead of four, as with silver bell, but occasional-
ly two rudimentary wings are present. The wood is light, soft, strong,
color light brown, with thicker, lighter sapwood. The smallness of the
trunks makes their use for lumber impossible. The species is valuable
for ornamental purposes only, and has been planted both in this country
and Europe. It has a number of names by which it is known in different
localities, among them being cowlicks in Louisiana, and silverbell tree
in the North where it has been planted outside of its natural range.

SYCAMORE

SYCAMORE

(Platanus Occidentalis)

PROBABLY no person with a practical knowledge of trees ever
mistakes sycamore for anything else. The tree stands clear-cut
and distinct. Until the trunk becomes old, it sheds its outer layer of
bark yearly, or at least frequently, and the exfoliation exposes the white,
new bark below. The upper part of the trunk and the large branches
are white and conspicuous in the spring, and are recognizable at a long
distance. No other tree in the American forest is as white. The nearest
approach to it is the paper birch of the North, or the white birch of New
England.

Notwithstanding the tree's individuality, it has a good many
names. It is generally known as sycamore throughout the states of the
Union, but it is frequently called buttonwood in Vermont, New Hamp-
shire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl-
vania, Delaware, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,
Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, Michigan, Minnesota,
Ohio, and Ontario; buttonball tree in several of the eastern states and
occasionally in Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and Nebraska; the plane
tree in Rhode Island, Delaware, South Carolina, Kansas, Nebraska, and
Iowa; the water beech in Delaware; the platane, cottonier, and bois
puant in Louisiana. Probably the finest growth of the sycamore ever
encountered was in Ohio and Indiana, and these states still contain iso-
lated patches of magnificent specimens of the wood. The Black
Swamp of Ohio was originally a famous sycamore country, of which
Defiance was the center of lumber manufacture. Many parts of Indiana
produced a good sycamore growth, and a considerable amount of timber
of excellent quality still exists, but is now largely owned by farmers
who are generally holding it out of the market.

The range of sycamore extends from Maine to Nebraska, and south
to Texas and Florida. It is one of the largest of American hardwoods,
and in diameter of trunk it is exceeded by none. Trees are on record
that were from ten to fourteen feet in diameter, and it was not unusual in
the primeval forests for them to tower nearly or quite 125. In height a
number of hardwoods exceed it, the yellow poplar in particular; but
none of them has a larger trunk than the largest sycamores. However,
the mammoths are generally hollow. The heart decays as rings of new
growth are added to the outside of the shell. So large were the cavities
in some of the sycamores in the original forests that more than one case is
on record of their being used by early settlers as places of abode.

607

60S American Forest Trees

The tree thrives best in the immediate vicinity of rivers and creeks.
It needs abundance of water for its roots, but is not insistent in its de-
mand for deep, fertile soil, for it grows on gravel bars along water courses,
provided some soil and sand are mixed with the gravel. Great age is
doubtless attained, but records are necessarily lacking in cases where the
annual rings of growth must be depended upon; because the hollow
trunks have lost most of their rings by decay.

Sycamore bears abundance of light seed which is scattered short
distances by wind and much farther by running water. Its ideal place
for germinating is on muddy shores and wet flats. Here the seeds are
deposited by wind and water, and in a short time multitudes of seedlings
spring up. Though most of them are doomed to perish before they at-
tain a height of a few feet, survivors are sufficient to sssure thick stands
on small areas. The trunks grow tall rapidly, and until they reach
considerable size, they remain solid and make good sawlogs. but at an
age of seventy-five or 100 years, deterioration is apt to set in; some die,
others become hollow, and the result is a good stand of large sycamores
is unusual. The veterans are generally scattered through forests of
other species.

The statement has often been made in recent years that sycamore
is becoming very scarce and that the annual output is rapidly declining.
Statistics do not show a declining output. The cut of sycamore in 1909
was approximately twice as great as in 1899. It is true that the supply
is not very large, and it never was large compared with some other hard-
woods ; but it appears to be holding its own as well as most forest trees.
The cut in the United States in 1910 was 45,000,000, and it was credited
to twenty-six states. Indiana was the largest contributor, and it had
held that position a long time. States next below it in the order named
were Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois.
Doubtless some of the sycamore lumber now going to market has grown
since old settlers cut the primeval stands when they cleared their fields.
It will continue to grow, and since it usually occupies waste places, it
may be depended upon to contribute pretly regularly year by year
during time to come. It is one of the forest trees which have never
suffered much from fires, because it grows in dn.r^p situations.

The wood of sycamore weighs 3.5.39 pounds per cubic foot, is hard,
but not strong, difficult to split and work; the annual rings are limited by
narrow bands of dark summerwood. The rings are very porous. The
medullary rays are rather small, but can be ^asily seen without a glass.
They run in regular, radial lines, close together, and the pores are in
rows between. The rays of sycamore vary from the rule with most
woods, in that they are darker than the body of the wood.

American Forest Trees 609

One of the earliest uses of sycamore was by farmers who cut hollow
trunks, sawed them in lengths of three or four feet, nailed bottoms in
them, and used them for barrels for grain. They were called gums.
Solid logs two or three feet in diameter were cut in lengths of a foot or
less, bored through the center, and used as wheels for ox carts. The ox
yoke was often made of sycamore. Butchers used sycamore sections
about three feet high for meat blocks. The wood is tough, and continual
hacking fails to split it. The use for meat blocks continues at the present
time. In Illinois 1,600,000 feet were so employed in 1910.

One of the earliest employments of the wood for commercial pur-
poses was in the manufacture of boxes for plug tobacco; but it has
now been largely replaced by cheaper woods. Its freedom from stain
and odor is its chief recommendation for tobacco boxes. Some of it is in
demand for cigar boxes.

The modern uses of sycamore are many. It is made into ordinary
crates and shipping boxes in most regions where it grows. Rotary cut
veneer is worked into berry crates and baskets, and into barrels. Ice
boxes and refrigerators are among the products. Slack coopers are
among the largest users, but some of the manufactured stave articles
belong more properly to woodenware, such as tubs, washing machines,
candy buckets, and lard pails.

Furniture makers demand the best grades, and most of the quarter-
sawed stock goes to them, though the manufacturers of musical instru-
ments buy some of the finest. Use is pretty general from pipe organs
and pianos down to mandolins, guitars and phonographs. It enters
extensively into the making of miscellaneous commodities. As small
a toy as the stereoscope consumes much sycamore. Makers of trunks
find it suitable for slats, and it serves as small squares and borders in
parquetry. It is a choice wood for barber poles and saddle trees, and its
fine appearance when worked in broad panels leads to its employment
as interior finish for houses, boats, and passenger cars.

California Sycamore (Platanus raccmosa) is one of the three species of syca-
more now found growing naturally in the United States. They are survivors of t
very old family and appear to have been crowded down from the far North by the
cold, or to have made their way south for some other reason. Sycamores flourished
in Greenland in the Cretaceous age, some millions of years ago. as is shown by fossil
remains dug up in that land of ice and eternal winter. They grew in central Europe,
about the same time, but long ago disappeared from there. Sycamores were
growing in the United States an immense period of time ago, and were doubtless
lifting their giant white branches high above the banks of ancient rivers while the
gorgeous bloom of yellow poplars brightened the forests on the rich bottom lands
farther back. Several species of sycamores which grew in the United States during
the Tertiary age are now extinct. All seem to have been much like those which
have come down to the present day.

610

American Forest Trees

The California sycamore is found in the southern half of that state, and in
Lower California. It grows from sea level up to 5.000 feet, and has the same habits as
the larger sycamore of the East, and prefers the banks of streams and the wet land in
the bottoms of canyons. It attains a height of from forty to eighty feet, and a
diameter of from two to five. Some trees are larger, one in particular near Los
Angeles having a trunk diameter of nine feet. The tree is usually extremely distorted
and misshaped, leaning, twisted, and forking and reforking until a practical lumber-
man would pronounce it a hopeless proposition. This applies, however, to trunks
which grow in the open, and that is where most of them grow. When they are found
crowded in thick stands in the bottoms of canyons, their trunks are shapely enough for
short sawlogs. The wood is very similar to that of eastern sycamore, and it is used
lor similar purposes, when used at all. The balls are strung five on one tough stem,
which is from six to ten inches long. The eastern sycamore usually has a stem for
each ball. The seeding habits of both trees are the same.

Arizona Sycamore (Plaktnus -drightii) has its range in southern New Mexico,
southern Arizona, and neighboring regions in Mexico, where it grows in the bottoms
of canyons up to 6,000 feet above sea. The tree attains a height of from thirty to
eighty feet, and a diameter of two to five. The trunk is seldom shapely, but often
divides in large branches, some of which are fifty or sixty feet long. There are
usually three balls on a stem, and the leaf is shaped much like the leaf of red gum,
but there is considerable variation in form. The wood resembles eastern sycamore
in color and most other features, but when quarter-sawed the flecks produced by the
medullary rays are generally smaller, and give a mottled effect. The wood has not
been much used, but apparently it is not inferior to eastern sycamore.

P. LACK CHERRY

Black Cherry

BLACK CHERRY

{Primus Scrotina)

THIS widely distributed tree supplies the cherry wood of commerce.
Its natural range extends from Nova Scotia westward through the
Canadian provinces to the Kaministiquia river; south to Tampa bay in
Florida and west to Xorth Dakota, eastern Nebraska, Kansas, Okla-
homa, and eastern Texas. The tree is known as wild black cherry,
wild cherry, black cherry, rum cherry, whiskey cherry, and choke cherry.

Cherry belongs to a remarkably large family and the ordinary
observer would never suspect the relationship that exists between it and
other growths to which it bears little resemblance. It is in the rose
family (Rosacea). It has multitudes of small and large cousins, most
of them small, however. Among them are the crabapple, the service-
berry, the haws, thorns, plums, and the peach, besides plants which do
not rise to the dignity of trees.

The crown of black cherry is narrow and the branches are horizon-
tal. In height the tree ranges from fifty to one hundred or more feet.
The bark is a dark reddish-brown, rough and broken into plates, becom-
ing smoother toward the top. The branchlets are a rich reddish-brown,
and are marked with tiny orange-colored dots. The leaves are small,
alternate, oblong or oval lanceolate, taper-pointed at the apex and
pointed or rounded at the base, finely serrate ; at maturity glabrous, firm,
glossy, the light colored midrib being very distinct. The flowers are
wThite and grow on pedicels in long slender racemes, which terminate
leafy shoots. The fruit is almost black, showing deep red coloring
beneath and is a small round drupe; vinous, although not disagreeable
to the taste. In most instances a liking for it must be acquired, but
comparatively few people ever take the trouble to acquire it. The old
settlers among the Alleghany mountains had a way of pressing the juice
from the drupes and by some simple process converting it into "cherry
bounce," a beverage somewhat bitter but it never went begging when the
old-time mountaineers were around. This was doubtless what persons
had in mind who called it rum cherry. Few fruits, either mid or tame,
contain more juice in proportion to bulk. Ripe fruit is employed as a
flavor for alcoholic liquors. The bark contains hydrocyanic acid and is
used in medicine. The peculiar odor of cherry bark is due to this acid.

In early years the ripening of the cherry crop among the ranges
of the Appalachian mountains was a signal for bears to congregate
where cherry trees were thickest. The cubs were then large enough to
follow their mothers — in August — and it was considered a dangerous

613

614 American Forest Trees

season in the cherry woods, because the old bears would grow fierce if
molested while feeding. The mountaineers knew enough to stay away
from the danger points at that time, unless they went there purposely
to engage in a bear fight. It was a common saying among those people
that "cherry bears" should be let alone.

The cherry's chief importance in this country has been due to its
lumber. Unfortunately, that value lies chiefly in the past, for the supply
is running low. It never was very great, for, though the species has a
large range, it is sparingly dispersed through the forests. In many
parts of its range a person might travel all day in the woods and see few
cherry trees, and perhaps none. The best stands hardly ever cover
more than a few acres. Generally the trees grow singly or in clumps.
It appears to be nearly wholly a matter of soil and light, for the seeds,
which are carried by birds, are scattered in immense numbers, and only
those grow which chance to find conditions just right. The tree wants
rich ground and plenty of room, which is a combination not often found
in primeval forest regions; but, since the country has been largely cleared,
cherry trees spring up along fence rows and in nooks and corners. If
let alone they grow rapidly, but trunks so produced are of little value
for lumber, because too short and limby. In the forest the tree lifts its
light crown high on a slender trunk to reach the sunshine, and such
trunks supply the cherry lumber of commerce. Near the northern
limit of its range it seems to abandon its demand for good soil and is
content if it is supplied with light only. It betakes itself to the face of
cliffs, sometimes overhanging the sea, and so near it that the branches
are drenched in spray thrown up by breakers. It is needless to say that
no good lumber is produced under such circumstances.

The first loss of cherry occurred when the farms were cleared. It
stood on the best ground, and the land-hungry Anglo-Saxon wanted
that for himself. He cut the tall shapely cherry trees, built fences and
barns of some of the logs, and burned the balance in the clearing. Then
came the pioneer lumberman who did not take much, because his old
up-and-down saw, which was run by water, would cut only about a
thousand feet a day, and there was plenty of other kinds of timber.
But when the steam mill put in its appearance, cherry went fast. Its
price was high enough to pay for a long haul. From that day till this,
cherry has gone to market as rapidly as millmen could get to it.

Next to walnut, it is the highest priced lumber produced in the
United States. The average cut per mill, according to returns of those
who sawed it in 1909, was only 1 1,200 feet, and the total output that year
was only 24,594,000 feet, contributed by twenty-nine states. The five
leading producers were, in the order named, West Virginia, Pennsyl-

American Forest Trees 615

vania, New York, Ohio, and Indiana. The next year the total output
fell to 18,237,000 feet, and cherry went down to a place among the
"minor species," such as dogwood, alder, locust, and buckeye. The
day of its importance in the lumber industry is past. It has become
too scarce to attract much attention, but there will always be some
cherry in the market, though veteran trunks, three and four feet
through and good for four sixteen-foot logs, will be seldom seen in the
years to come.

While good taste ordinarily dictates that cherry be finished in a
tone approximating its natural color, it is quite frequent that it masquer-
ades as mahogany. A well-known and perfect method of making cherry
look like mahogany is to have the wood rubbed with diluted nitric acid,
which prepares it for the materials to be subsequently applied; after-
wards, to a filtered mixture of an ounce and a half of dragon's blood
dissolved in a pint of spirits of wine, is added one-third that quantity of
carbonate of soda, the whole constituting a very thin liquid which is
applied to the wood with a soft brush. This process is repeated at short
intervals until the wood assumes the external appearance of mahogany.
While cherry is employed as an imitation of mahogany, it is in its turn
imitated also. Sweet birch is finished to look like cherry, and for that
reason is sometimes known as cherry birch.

Cherry weighs 30.28 pounds per cubic foot; it is very porous, but
the pores are small and are diffused through all parts of the annual ring.
The wood has no figure. Its value is due to color and luster. The
medullary rays are numercus but small, and in quarter-sawing they do
not show as mirrors, like oak, but as a soft luster covering the whole
surface.

The principal uses of cherry have always been in furniture and
finish, but it has many minor uses, such as tool handles, boxes for garden
seeds, spirit levels and other tools, and implements, patterns, penholders,
actions for organs and piano players, baseblocks for electrotypes and
other printing plates, and cores for high-class panels. Aside from its
color, its chief value is due to its comparative freedom from checking
and warping. This cherry is one of the few trees that cross the equator.
It extends from Canada far down the west coast of South America.

Choke Cherry (Prunus virginiana) is widely distributed in North America
from Canada to Mexico. It is said to attain its largest size in the Southwest where
trees are sometimes forty feet high and a foot in diameter. The name is due to the
astringency of the half ripe fruit which can scarcely be eaten, When fully ripe it is a
little more tolerable, and is then black, but is red before it is ripe. The color of
immature cherries deceives the unsophisticated into believing they are ripe. In
Canada the fruit is made into pies and jelly, and it is said the tree is occasionally
planted for its fruit. The Indians of former times made food of it. The tree is

616

American Forest Trees

small, and bruised branches emit a disagreeable odor; leaves contain prussic acid, and
when partly withered, they are poisonous to cattle. The trunks are nearly always
too small for commercial purposes, and are apt to be affected with a fungous disease
known as black knot.

Western Choke Cherry {Prunus demissa) grows from the Rocky Mountains
to the Pacific in the United States. It is often regarded as the western form of choke
cherry, but it has more palatable fruit, and trees are a little larger, while trunks are
so crooked that no user of wood cares to have anything to do with them. The wood
is weak, but is hard and heavy.

Bitter Cherry {Prunus cmarginata) belongs to the far West, and is found from
British Columbia to southern California. In size it ranges from a low shrub to a tree
a foot in diameter and forty feet high. The largest sizes are found in western Wash-
ington and Oregon. The wood is soft and brittle, brown streaked with green. It is
not known that any attempt has been made to put the wood of this tree to any useful
purpose. The bark and the leaves are exceedingly bitter. Fruit ripens from June
to August, depending on region and elevation, and it is from one-fourth to one-half
inch in diameter, black, and intensely bitter.

Hollyleaf Cherry (Prunus ilicifolia) is a California species growing in the
bottoms of canyons from San Francisco bay to the Mexican line. It is rarely more
than thirty feet high, but has a large trunk, sometimes two feet in diameter. The
wood is heavy, hard, and strong, and it ought to be valuable in the manufacture of
small articles, but fuel is the only use reported for it. The fruit is insipid, and ripens
late in autumn. The foliage is much admired and has led to the planting of the
species for ornamental purposes.

k .<fM

WILD RED CHERRY

WILD RED CHERRY

(Prunus Pennsylvanica)

IN addition to the name wild red cherry by which this tree is known in
most parts of its range, it is called bird cherry in Maine, New Hamp-
shire, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa; red cherry in Maine
and Rhode Island; fire cherry in New York and many other localities;
pin cherry in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Michigan, Iowa, and
North Dakota; pigeon cherry in Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, New York, Ontario, and North Dakota; and wild cherry in
Tennessee and New York. Its range extends from Newfoundland to
Hudson bay, west to British Columbia, south through the Rocky
Mountains to Colorado, and in the East along the Appalachian ranges to
North Carolina and Tennessee. It reaches its largest size among the
Big Smoky mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina.

It is ordinarily a tree thirty or forty feet high, and from eight to
ten inches in diameter, though trunks are sometimes twenty inches
through. It grows fast, but is very short-lived. Many stands disappear
in thirty years or less, but individuals survive two or three times that
long, if they stand in open ground. One of its names is fire cherry, and
that fitly describes it. Like paper birch and lodgepole pine, it follows
forest fires where the ground is laid bare by the burning. Nature seems
to have made peculiar provisions whereby this tree clothes barren tracts
which have been recently burned. In the first place, it a prolific seeder.
Its small, red cherries are borne by bushels on very young trees. Birds
feed on them almost exclusively while they last, and the seeds are scatter-
ed over the surrounding country. They have such thick shells that
few germinate unless they pass through a moderate fire, which cracks the
shells, or at least they do not sprout until they come in direct contact
with mineral soil. When a fire burns a forest, thousands of the cherry
seedlings spring up. Many persons have wondered where they come
from so quickly. They were already scattered among the forest leaves
before the fire passed. The heat crazed their shells, and the burning
of the leaflitter let them down on the mineral soil where they germinated
and soon came up by thousands. The case is a little different with paper
birch and with aspen, which are also fire trees. Their seeds cannot
pass through fire without perishing, and when birches and aspens follow
a fire it means that the seeds were scattered by the wind after the passing
of the fire. Doubtless cherry seeds are often scattered after the fire has
passed; but it is believed that most of those which spring up so quickly
have passed through the fire without being destroyed.

620 American Forest Trees

This small cherry is one of the means by which damage by forest
fires is repaired. The tree is of little value for lumber or even for fuel;
but it acts as a nurse tree — that is, it shelters and protects the seedlings
of other species until they obtain a start. By the time the cherry trees
die, the seedlings which they have nursed are able to take care of them-
selves, and a young forest of valuable species is established.

Except in this indirect way, the wild red cherry is of little use to
man. The wood is soft, light, and of pleasing color, but trees are nearly
always too small to be worked into useful articles. About the only
industry of which there is any record, which draws supplies from this
source, is the manufacture of pipe stems. The straight, slender, bright-
barked branches are cut into requisite lengths and bored endwise, and
serve for stems of cheap pipes, and occasionally for those more expensive.
The bark, like that of most cherries, is marked by dark bands running
part way round the stems. These are known as lenticels, and exist in
the bark of most trees, but they are usually less conspicuous in others
than in cherry. It is this characteristic marking which gives the cherry
pipe stem its value.

Wild red cherry blooms from May to July, depending on latitude
and elevation, and the fruit ripens from July to September. The cherries
hang in bunches, are bright red, quite sour, and the seed is the largest
part. They are occasionally made into jelly, wine, and form the basis
of certain cough syrups.

West India Cherry (Primus spluBrocarpa) grows near the shores
of Biscayne bay, Florida. It there blooms in November and the fruit
ripens the next spring. The tree attains a height of from twenty-five
to thirty feet, and a diameter of five or six inches. When grown in the
open at Miami, Florida, it is larger, and is much liked as an ornament.
The thin, smooth bark is brown, tinged with red, and is marked by large
conspicuous lenticels. The wood is hard and light, and of light clear
red color. It is too scarce to be of much importance, but paper knives,
napkin rings, and other novelties made of it are sold in souvenir stores
in southern Florida. Its range extends south to Brazil.

Willowleaf Cherry (Prunus salicifolia) is a small tree, also
called Mexican cherry, is more common south of the United States than
in this country, ranging as far south as Peru. It is found on some of the
mountains of southern New Mexico and Arizona.

Laurel Cherry (Prunus caroliniana) is a southern species which
sticks close to the coast in most of its range from South Carolina to
Texas. It has many names, among them wild peach, wild orange, mock
orange, evergreen cherry, mock olive, and Carolina cherry. Leaves
hang two years, and the fruit remains nearly one. The latter is black

American Forest Trees 621

and about half an inch long. The withered leaves are poisonous if eaten
by cattle. The tree is thirty or forty feet high, and eight or ten inches
in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, color light brown
to dark, rich brown, sometimes of much beauty, but no record has been
found of any use for it. The tree is often planted for ornament.

Wild Plum (Prunus amcricana) is found from New Jersey to Montana, south-
ward to New Mexico and Texas, and extends to Florida and Mexico. Its range
covers about a million square miles. There are seven or more species of wild plums
in the United States. The fruit of all of them is edible. They have been planted
accidentally or otherwise in many localities where they were not found before the
country was settled. The plum was an important fruit in the country's early history.
The pioneers gathered wild fruits before planted orchards came into bearing, and the
plum was one of the best which nature supplied. Early travelers among the Indians
in the South frequently spoke of Indian peaches. Such references have led some to
believe that the peach was native in that region, but it is safe to conclude that what
was called the peach was really some species of wild plum. These fruits were among
the earliest to become domesticated. In fact, they were abundant about the sites
of Indian towns and old fields, where the savages had scattered seeds without any
purpose on their part of planting trees; and early settlers imitated the Indians, and
plums were soon growing in the vicinity of most of the cabins. As a forest tree, it
usually thrived best on the banks of streams, for there it could find more sunshine than
in the deep woods, and it bore much more fruit. The ranges of several species of
plums overlapped, and different sizes and colors of fruit were found in the same
locality even before white men assisted the spread of species. The common plum,
known to botanists as Prunus americana, is recognized under many names among
laymen ; among these names are yellow plum, red plum, horse plum, hog plum,
August plum, native plum, and goose plum. Usually the plum's skin is red, and the
flesh yellow, which accounts for its names, both red and yellow. The tree ranges in
height from twenty to thirty-five feet, and from five to ten inches in diameter. The
wood is heavy, hard, and strong, and dark rich-brown. It is suitable for turnery
and small novelties, but little of it has been used.

Canada Plum (Prunus nigra) appears to be the most northern member of the
plum group. It grows from Newfoundland to Manitoba, and south into the northern
tier of states. Its range has been much extended by planting, and a number of
varieties have appeared. It is twenty or thirty feet high, and five to eight inches
in diameter. Flowers appear in April and May, and the fruit is ripe in September
and October. The plums are about an inch long, orange-red in color, with yellow
flesh. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong. Those who cultivate this tree often
do so for the beauty of the flowers, rather than for the value of the fruit. The wood is
not used for commercial purposes.

Black Sloe (Prunus umbellate), known also as southern bullace plum, hog
plum, and wild plum, ranges from South Carolina, round the coast through Florida, to
Louisiana and up the Mississippi valley into Arkansas. The tree is fifteen or twenty
feet high and from six to ten inches in diameter. The fruit ripens from Jul)' to
September, is black when ripe, and often nearly an inch long. The people where
it grows use it for jelly. It is not reported that the wood is used for any purpose.

Western Plum (Prunus subcordata) grows west of the Cascade mountains
from southern Oregon to central California. It is often :i low bush, but at its best
forms a tree twenty feet high and six inches in diameter, but its wood is of no economic

622 American Forest Trees

importance. Its deep, purple-red plums ripen in autumn and are an excellent wild
fruit, juicy and tart. During the fruit season the plum thickets were formerly
infested by both bears and Indians, and many a fight for possession took place, with
victory sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. The white inhabitants now
make jam and jelly of the fruit.

Alleghany Sloe (Prunus allegheniensis) is so named because it is best de-
veloped among the Alleghany mountains of Pennsylvania. The tree is eighteen or
twenty feet high and six or eight inches in diameter. The wood is without value for
commercial purposes, but the tree's fruit has some local importance. It ripens about
the middle of August, and is somewhat less than an inch in diameter, with dark,
reddish-purple skin, covering yellow flesh.

Chikasaw Plum (Prunus angustifolia) is a well-known wild plum of the South
from Delaware to Texas, and north to Kansas. Its natural range is not known,
because it has been so widely planted, accidentally or otherwise, near farm houses and
in fence corners. Its bright, red fruit goes only to local markets. Negroes gather
most of the crop in the South. The wood is not considered to have any value, but,
in common with other plums, it possesses qualities which fit it for many small articles.

Garden Wild Plum (Prunus horiulana) is supposed to have originated in
Kentucky from a cross between the Chickasaw plum and the common wild plum
(Prunus americana). It has spread from Virginia to Texas. The largest trees are
thirty feet high and a foot in diameter. The fruit ripens in September and October,
is deep red or yellow, with hard, austere, thin flesh, quite sour. The fruit is called
wild goose or simply goose plum in Tennessee and Kentucky. Horticulturists
have made many experiments with this plum.

Cocoa Plum (Chrysobalanus icaco), also called gopher plum, grows in southern
Florida, and its insipid fruit is seldom eaten except by negroes and Seminole Indians.
There is little sale for it in the local markets. Trees are sometimes thirty feet high
and a foot in diameter. The light brown wood is heavy, hard, and strong, but it is
seldom used. The tree grows in Africa and South America as well as in Florida.

BEECH

Beech

BEECH

(Fagus Atropunicea)

THERE is only one beech in the United States, and four or five in
Europe and Asia. The southern portion of South America has
several species which usually pass for beech. One or more of them are
evergreen. Old world species are sometimes planted in parks and ceme-
teries in this country, but as forest trees they have no importance in the
United States and probably never will have. It becomes a simple
matter, therefore, to deal with the tree in this country. It is alone, and
has no nearer relatives than the chestnuts, chinquapins, and the oaks,
all of which are members of the same family, and the beech gives the
name to the family — Fagacecc. The blue beech, which is common in
most states east of the Mississippi river and in some west, is not a
member of the same family, though it looks enough like beech to be
closely related to it.

The name has come down from remote antiquity. It is one of the
oldest names in use. It is said to have descended through thousands
of years from old Aryan tribes of Asia which were among the earliest
to use a written language. For the want of better material, they cut the
letters on beech bark, and a piece of such writing was called "boc." It
was but a step from that word to book — a collection of writings. Both
beech and book came from the same word "boc" and the connection
between them is very evident. The pronunciation has been little
changed by the Germanic races during thousands of years, but the
Romans translated it into Latin and called it "liber," from which we
have the word library. Doubtless in very ancient times, say 5,000 years
before the building of Solomon's temple, the libraries beyond the
Euphrates river consisted of several cords of trimmed and lettered beech
bark. Such material being perishable, it has wholly disappeared. The
matter is not now directly connected with the lumber interests, but it
increases one's respect for beech to know how important a part it must
have played in the ancient world, whereby it stamped its name so
indelibly upon the language of the most intelligent portion of the human
race.

The word buckwheat has the same origin. It means beech wheat,
so named because the grains are triangular like beech nuts. The tree is
always known as beech in this country, though it may have a qualifying
word such as red, white, ridge.

It usually grows in mixed forests of hardwoods, but it is often
found in the immediate presence of hemlock and spruce, grows from

626 American Forest Trees

Maine to Florida, and west to Arkansas. Considerable areas are often
occupied by little else. This is attested by the frequency with which
such names as "beech flat," "beech ridge," "beech woods," and "beech
bottom" are encountered in local geography. Perhaps the finest
examplesof beechgrowthintheUnitedStates occur in thehigher altitudes
of the lower Appalachian range in eastern Tennessee, and western
North Carolina, where trees are frequently encountered, showing a bole
of perfectly symmetrical form, of from three to more than four feet in
diameter, and of a sheer height of seventy feet before a limb is en-
countered. The wood which grows in this section is nearly as hard as
that of the North, but that growing on lower levels in the South is of a
much softer texture and lighter color, the heart being pinkish rather than
reddish-brown.

Beech is one of the truly beautiful trees of the forest. In the eyes
of many, the beech is as much to be admired as the American elm or
sugar maple. Certainly in spring when it is covered with its staminate
blossoms, it is a splendid sight, and its perfect leaves are seldom spotted
or eaten by insects. In winter, it is particularly interesting. Its
beautiful bark then appears very bright. After its fine leaves have fallen,
though many of them, pale and dry, cling to the branches throughout the
winter, the structure of its massive head is seen to advantage. In the
Canadian markets and those of many of the middle and western states,
its nuts are gathered and sold in considerable quantities. These nuts
are favorite food of both the red and gray squirrel and these rodents
collect them in considerable quantities during the late fall, and store
them in tree hollows for their winter's supply of food. It often happens,
in felling beech trees in the winter, that shelled beech nuts to the
quantity of a quart or more will be found secreted in some hollow by
these provident little animals.

Formerly beech was little used for lumber, but was long ago given
an important place as firewood and material for charcoal. Its excellent
qualities as lumber have now made it popular in most markets. The
sapwood is comparatively thin and the heart is very much esteemed for
many purposes. Many millions of feet of it are converted into flooring
and the "pure red" product is very highly esteemed for ornamental
floors. It has not as good working qualities as maple, but still it stays
in place even better than does that famous flooring material. Nearly
all the large flooring factories of the North, whose principal output is
maple, have a side line of beech flooring, and in the South, notably in
Nashville, a considerable quantity of the wood is made into flooring.
In full growth this beautiful tree is round topped, with wide spreading
and horizontal branches, and shows a normal altitude of about sixty

American Forest Trees 627

feet. In this form of growth branches appear on the body very close to
the ground, and their ends often trail upon it. In its forest form, where
trees of any sort are of commercial importance, it often attains a height of
ninety or 100 feet, with smooth rounded bole as symmetrical as the pillar
of a cathedral, with a diameter of from two to four feet. Its time to
bloom is April or May, and its nuts ripen in October. The bark is a
light bluish-gray, and remarkably smooth; the leaves are simple, alter-
nate, with very short petioles, oblong with pointed apex and rounded
or narrowed base. The ribs are straight, unbranching, and terminate in
remote teeth. The fruit is a pair of three-sided nuts with a sweet and
edible kernel which grows in a four-celled prickly burr, splitting when
ripe.

Beech is an excellent fuel and it has long been used for that pur-
pose. It is so regularly dispersed over the country that most neighbor-
hoods were able to get it in the years when families cut their own fire-
wood. Later, when charcoal was burned to supply primitive iron
furnaces, before coke could be had, beech was always sought for. Still
later, when large commercial plants were built to carry on destructive
distillation of wood, beech was still a favorite. Its modern uses are
many. There is scarcely a plant east of the Rocky Mountains, engaged
in the manufacture of hardwood commodities, which does not use beech.
In Michigan alone nearly 30,000,000 feet a year are demanded by box
makers, and more than that much more by manufacturers of other
commodities. It is widely employed for furniture, filing cabinets,
vehicles, interior finish, agricultural implements, woodenware, and
musical instruments. It is one of the heaviest and strongest of the
common hardwoods, and gives long service when kept dry, but does not
last well in damp situations.

Beech is strictly a forest tree. This does not mean that it will not
grow in the open, but when it does grow there it makes poor lumber,
short and limb}'. The seedlings must have shade if they are to do any
good, but after they attain a certain size they can endure the light. The
roots lie close to the surface of the ground, and the trampling of cattle
often kills large trees.

Blue Beech (Carpinus caroliniana) is not in the beech family,
but the name by which it is commonly known, and its resemblance to
beech, justify its consideration with beech. The bluish color of the
bark is responsible for its common name, but it is known by several
others, among them being water beech, because it often grows on or near
the banks of streams, and it seldom seems more at home than when it is
hanging over the bank of a creek where shade is deep and moisture
plentiful. It is often called hornbeam and ironwood, and it is

628

American Forest Trees

related to hop hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana). It grows from Quebec,
to Florida and from Dakota to Texas, reaching its largest
size in eastern Texas where it is sometimes sixty feet high
and two in diameter, though this size is unusual. Few trees
develop a bole less acceptable to lumbermen. In addition to being
short, crooked, twisted, and covered with limbs, it is nearly always
ribbed and fluted, so that a log, even if but a few feet long, is apt to be
almost any shape except round. The thick sapwood is pale white,
heart pale brown. The annual rings are usually easily seen, but they
are vague, because of so little difference between the springwood and
summerwood; diffuse-porous ; medullary rays thin and usually seen only
in the aggregate as a white luster where wood is sawed radially. The
uses of this wood are many, but the amounts very small. It is made into
singletrees and ax and hammer handles in Michigan, wagon felloes in
Texas and other parts of the Southwest; levers and other parts of agri-
cultural implements in various localities. It seldom goes to sawmills,
is generally marketed in the form of bolts, and is hard, stiff, and strong.

CHESTNUT

CHES1 \r I

CHESTNUT

(Castanea Dentata)

FIVE species of chestnut are known, three of them in the United
States. One of these, Castanea alnifolia, is a shrub and has no
place in a list of trees. Chestnut and chinquapin are the two others.
They are in the beech family to which oaks belong also. The ancient
Greeks designated these as food trees (Fagacece), not an inappropriate
name for chestnut which probably furnishes more human food than any
other wild tree. Its range extends from Maine to Michigan and south-
ward to North Carolina and Tennessee. It attains its greatest size in
western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. It is one of the few
well-known woods of the United States that does not bear a half dozen
or more local names in the various localities of its growth, but the wood is
invariably known as chestnut.

Trees vary in size from sixty to 100 feet in height, and from two to
four in diameter. Trunks six feet through occur where trees have grown
in the open, but such are not tall, and are not valuable for lumber.
Chestnut trees are sometimes heard of in this country with trunks ten
and twelve feet through, but such must be very scarce, because no one
seems to know just where they are located. It is not improbable that
in rare cases such sizes have existed. In France and Italy trees much
larger are well authenticated, but that chestnut is of a species different
from ours.

Chestnut is a very long-lived tree where it is fortunate enough to
escape the attacks of worms and disease ; but as age comes on, it is almost
certain to be attacked. Insects bore the wood, and fungus induces
decay. Frequently the heartwood of large trunks is all gone, and the
trees stand mere shells with scarcely enough sound wood left to support
the diseased tops.

Few species sprout with more vigor than chestnut. In the moun-
tains of eastern Tennessee, W. W. Ashe found that ninety-nine per cent
of stumps sprout. This applies as well to veterans of three hundred
years as to young growth. Sprouts which rise from the top of a high
stump are liable to meet misfortune, because, under their disadvantage
they cannot develop adequate root systems; but sprouts which spring
from the root collar, or near it, may grow to large trees. It is claimed
by some that a chestnut which grows from a sprout has straighter grain
than one springing from seed. The latter's trunk is liable to develop a
spiral twist, not only of the wood, but also of the bark; but the sprout-
grown tree lacks the twist.

632 American Forest Trees

Chestnut blooms in midsummer, and the profusion of pale golden
catkins makes the isolated tree a conspicuous object at that time.
Bloom is nearly always abundant, but the nut crop fails frequently.
Several accidents may happen, but the most frequent cause of scarcity
in the chestnut crop is a spell of rainy weather while the trees are in
bloom. The rain hinders proper pollenization.

Many thousands of bushels of chestnuts are sent to market yearly
in the United States. The nuts are smaller but sweeter than those of
European chestnut. The largest part of the crop is collected from trees
in open ground. Those in dense forests bear only a few nuts at the top.
Open-grown trees develop enormous and shapely crowns; and it is not
unusual for farmers who value their nut bearing trees to pollard them.
This puts the tree out of consideration as a source of lumber. Its
branches multiply, but the trunk remains short. It is claimed that a
chestnut orchard of good form and in a region where large crops are
frequent, is more profitable than an apple orchard. The tree does not
demand rich land, but must have well-drained soil. It grows on rocky
slopes and ridges, and will prosper where most other valuable trees will
barely exist.

It grows rapidly in its early life, but does not maintain the rate
many decades. Large trees are old. In the southern Appalachians
the ages of telegraph poles forty feet long and six inches in diameter at the
top range from forty-five to sixty-five years. Trees of round fence-post
size may grow in fifteen years. Few trees will produce posts more
quickly or in larger numbers per acre. In some instances nearly a
thousand saplings large enough for posts stand on a single acre. Sprout-
growth chestnut often forms nearly pure stands of considerable extent.

The value of this tree is in its wood as well as its nuts. More
than 500,000,000 feet of lumber are cut from it yearly. Long before it
was much thought of as a sawmill proposition, it was manufactured in
large amounts into rails and posts by farmers, particularly in Xew
England and in the Appalachian region. Axes, crosscut saws, mauls,
and wedges were the means of manufacture. Untold millions of fence
rails were split before wire fences were thought of. It is a durable wood,
made so by the tannic acid it contains. As fence rails, it was more
durable than the best oak, and where both were equally convenient,
farmers nearly always chose chestnut. On high and dry ridges a chest-
nut rail fence would last from twenty-five to fifty years, and in extreme
cases very much longer, even a full century it is claimed.

Dry chestnut wood weighs 2S.07 pounds per cubic foot, which
makes it a light wood. Its annual rings are as clearly marked as those
of any tree in this country. The springwood is filled with large open

American Forest Trees 633

pores, the summerwood with small ones. The medullary rays are
minute, and of no value in giving figure to the wood. Nevertheless,
chestnut has strong figure, but it is due solely to the arrangement of
the spring and summerwood of the annual rings. It is commonly classed
as a course-grained wood. The finisher can greatly alter its appearance
by rubbing the pores full of coloring matter. The wood is likewise
susceptible to change in tone in the fumes of ammonia, and by similar
treatment with other chemicals. The light colors of mission furniture
are generally the result of treatment of that kind.

The largest cut of chestnut lumber comes from West Virginia,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Connecticut. The largest use by any
single industry is probably by the manufacturers of musical instruments,
though the honor may be divided with furniture, interior house finish,
and coffins and caskets. It is much employed as core or backing on
which to glue veneers. The lumber of old, mature trees is best liked for
this purpose, because it is not apt to shrink and swell, and it holds glue.
It is no detriment that it is riddled with worm holes the size of pins.
That kind of chestnut is known in the trade as "sound wormy." Some
persons claim that such lumber is better as backing for veneer than sound
pieces, because it is lighter, is sufficiently strong, and the small holes
seem to help the glue to stick. Wormy chestnut is frequently not ob-
jected to for outside work because the small holes are not hard to fill
and cover up. The uses of chestnut are many. Between 6,000,000 and
7,000,000 crossties go into railroad construction yearly. From 16,000
to 20,000 tons of wood are demanded annually for tanning extract.
Every part of the tree is available.

In recent years a disease due to fungus has attacked chestnut
forests of Pennsylvania and neighboring regions. It has destroyed the
timber on large areas, and the loss threatens to increase. A tree
usually dies in one or two years after it is attacked. The fungus works
beneath the bark and completely girdles the tree. The spores of the
fungus are believed to be carried from tree to tree on the feet of birds,
on the bodies of insects, and by the wind.

Goldenleaf CHINQUAPIN (Castanopsis chrysophylla) occurs on the Pacific coast
from the Columbia river to southern California. It is of its largest dimensions in the
coast valleys of northern California where it occasionally attains a size equal to the
chestnut tree of the eastern states, but in many other parts of its range it is shrubby.
It is an evergreen, and its name is descriptive of the underside of the leaf. Late in
summer, flowers and fruit in several stages of growth may be seen at the same time.
The nuts are sweet and edible. In northern California the bark is sometimes mixed
with that of tanbark oak and sold to tanneries. The wood is considerably heavier
than chestnut, and is sometimes employed in the making of agricultural implements.
It has small and obscure medullary rays, and its pores are arranged more like those

634

American Forest Trees

of live oak than of chestnut ; that is they run in wavy, radial lines and not in concen-
tric rings as in chestnut. The heartwood is darker than chestnut.

Chinquapin (Castanea pumila) is a little chestnut that grows from Pennsyl-
vania to Texas. It is generally a shrub or a bush ten or fifteen feet high east of the
Alleghany mountains, but in some of the southern states it reaches a height of fifty
feet and a diameter of two or more, and is of largest size in southern Arkansas and
eastern Texas. It has no name but chinquapin which is an Indian word supposed
to have the same meaning that it now has. The nut is from one-fourth to one-half
as large as a chestnut, and is fully as sweet. It is sold in the markets of the South
and Southwest, but is not an important article of commerce. Where the trees are
large enough, the wood is put to the same uses as chestnut. It is manufactured into
furniture in Texas, and is bought by railroads for ties.

BASSWOOD

BASSWOOD

(Tilia Americana)

THERE are about twenty species of basswood in the world, and from
three to six of them are in the United States. Authors do not
agree on the number of species in this country. There are at least three,
and they occupy, in part, the same range, with consequent confusion.
They are much alike in general appearance, and not one person in twenty
knows one from the other. The same names apply to all, when they
occur in the same region. Few trees carry more names, and with less
reason. Basswood is generally not difficult to identify in summer, but
in winter a person only slightly acquainted with different trees might
take it for cucumber, and if of small size, it might possibly be mistaken
for ash or mountain maple. When the tree is bearing leaves, flowers,
and fruit, there is no excuse for mistaking it for any other. The fruit,
a cluster of four or five berry-like globes, hangs under a leaf, fixed by a
short stem to the midrib. This feature alone should be sufficient to
identify the basswood in this country.

Among the many names by which this tree is known, in addition to
basswood, are American linden, linn, lynn, limetree, whitewood, bee-
tree, black limetree, wickup, whistle wood, and yellow basswood.

The range is extensive, its northeastern boundary lying in New
Brunswick, its southwestern in Texas. It reaches Lake Winnipeg, and
is found in Georgia. This delimited area is little short of a million square
miles. It reaches a height of from sixty to 120 feet, and a diameter
of from eighteen inches to four feet. It has a decided preference for
rich soil, and the best lumber is cut in fertile coves and flats, or in low
land near streams. The largest trees formerly grew in the forests of
the lower Ohio valley, but few of the giants of former times are to be
found in that region now. They went to market a generation or two
ago. The largest cut of basswood lumber now is in Wisconsin, Michigan,
and West Virginia, but most of that from West Virginia is white bass-
wood (Tilia heterophylla).

The wood weighs 28.20 pounds per cubic foot, which is more than
the other basswoods in this country weigh. The rings of annual growth
are not very clearly marked. They may be distinguished, in most cases,
by a narrow, light-colored line. This is the springwood. In some trees
it is much more distinct than in others. The wood is very porous, but
the pores are small, cannot readily be seen with the naked eye, and are
scattered pretty evenly through the yearly ring. The medullary rays
are small but numerous. They give quarter-sawed lumber a pleasing

637

638 American Forest Trees

luster, but are too minute to develop much figure. The general tone of
the wood is white. It is soft, works easily, holds its shape well, and is
tough, but is in no sense a competitor of oak and hickory in toughness,
though it shows the quality best in thin panels which resist splitting and
breaking.

In the days when it was customary to ceil houses with boards, both
overhead and the walls of rooms, carpenters were partial to basswood
because of its softness. Dressing lumber was then nearly always done
by hand, and the carpenter who pushed the jack plane ten or twelve
hours a day, looked pretty carefully to the softness of the wood he
handled. In tongued and grooved work, as in ceiling and wainscoting,
it was not necessary to dress the fitting edges as carefully when basswood
was used as in using some others, because it is so soft that fittings can be
forced, and cracks may be closed by driving the boards together.

Slack coopers have long employed basswood for barrel headings,
and also in the manufacture of various kinds of small stave ware, such
as pails, tubs, and kegs. In this use, as in ceiling, the softness of the wood
is a prime consideration, because the pressure of the hoops will close
any small openings. Its whiteness and its freedom from stains and
unpleasant odors are likewise important when vessels are to contain
food products. Box makers like the wood on that account, and large
quantities are manufactured into containers for articles of food.

Much basswood is cut into veneer, some of which serves in single
sheets as in making small baskets and cups for berries and small fruits,
but a large part of the output is devoted to ply work. Usually three
sheets are glued together, but sometimes there are five. By crossing
the sheets, to make the grain of one lie at right angles to the next, plies
of great strength and toughness are produced. Trunk makers are
large users of such, and many panels of that kind are employed by
manufacturers of furniture and musical instruments.

Woodenware factories find basswood one of their most serviceable
materials, and it is made into ironing boards, wash boards, bread boards,
and cutting boards for cobblers, saddlers, and glass cutters. Its lightness
and toughness make it serviceable as valves and other parts of bellows
for blacksmiths, organs, and piano players. Makers of gilt picture
frames prefer it for molding which is to be overlaid with the gilt or gold.
It is serviceable for advertising signs because its whiteness contrasts well
with printing. Makers of thermometers use it frequently for the wooden
body of the instrument, and yard sticks are made of it. Apiarists find
no wood more suitable for the small, light frames in which bees build the
comb.

The uses of this wood are so many and so various that lists would

American Forest Trees 639

prove monotonous. The annual cut in this country, exclusive of veneer,
is nearly 350,000,000 feet, and the demand for veneer takes many
millions more.

Basswood is named for the bark, and the spelling was formerly
bastwood. The manufacture of articles from the bark was once a
considerable industry, not so much in this country as in Europe. How-
ever, some use has been made of the bark here. Louisiana negroes make
horse collars of it by braiding many strands together, and chair bottoms
are woven of it in lieu of cane and rattan, and it is likewise woven into
baskets of coarse kinds. Bark is prepared for this use by soaking it in
water, by which the annual layers of the bark are separated, long, thin
sheets are produced, and these are reduced to strips of the desired width.

The annual cut of basswood lumber is declining with no probability
that it will ever again come up to past figures; but basswood is in no
immediate danger of disappearing from American forests. It is not
impossible that it may be planted for commercial purposes. In central
Europe, forests of basswood, there called linden, are maintained for the
honey which bees gather from the bloom. In this country it is often
called beetree because of the richness of its flowers in nectar. Possibly
bee owners may grow forests for the honey, and when trees are mature,
dispose of them for lumber.

White Basswood (Tilia heterophylla) attains a trunk diameter as great as that
of the common basswood, but is not as tall. Trees sixty or seventy feet high are
among the tallest. This species ranges from New York to Alabama, and is found as
far west as southern Illinois, and its best development is among the rich valleys and
fertile slopes of the Appalachian mountains from Pennsylvania southward. It is
the prevailing basswood of West Virginia, and reaches its largest size on the high
mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. It averages about two pounds lighter
per cubic foot than the common basswood, but ordinarily neither the lumber nor
the standing trees of the two species are distinguished. Only persons somewhat
skilled in botany are able to tell one species of basswood from another as they occur
in the forests of this country.

Downy Basswood (Tilia pubescens) is a southern member of the basswood
group, and is scarce. Its range extends from North Carolina to Arkansas and Texas.
Trees are rarely more than forty feet high and fifteen inches in diameter. The wood
is light brown, tinged with red, and the sap is hardly distinguishable from the heart.
As far as it is used at all, its uses are similar to those of other basswoods.

Southern Basswood (Tilia australis) is confined, as far as is now known, to a
small section of Alabama, where it attains a height of sixty feet in rich woodlands.
No reports on the quality of the wood have been published, and the species is too
scarce to possess much interest to others than systematic botanists.

Florida Basswood (Tilia floridana), as its name suggests, is a Florida species,
and has not been reported elsewhere. It seems to be the smallest of American
basswoods, the largest trees being little more than thirty feet high. No tests of the
wood have been made and no uses reported.

Michaux Basswood (Tilia michauxii) has been listed for a long time, but is

640

American Forest Trees

still not well known. Its range extends from Canada to Georgia and westward to
Texas. Trees three feet in diameter and eighty feet high have been reported. Only
botanists distinguish it from other species of basswood with which it is associated.

Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is of more value for its fruit than its
wood. It grows from New York to Texas, but in certain localities only.
It is the most northern species of the custard apple family, and is usually
of little importance above an altitude of 1,500 feet. In Arkansas and
some other southwestern regions it is called banana. It is usually a
shrub, but may reach a height of forty feet and a diameter of twelve
inches. The wood is light, soft, and weak. Pond apple (Annona
glabra), called custard apple in some parts of its range in Florida, is a
member of the same family. It attains the size of pawpaw, and the wood
is similar.

AMERICAN HOLLY

AMERICAN HOLLY

(Ilex Opaca)

HOLLY is a characteristic member of a large family scattered through
most temperate and tropical regions of the world. It belongs to
the family Aquifoliacece, a name which conveys little meaning to an
English reader until botanists explain that it means trees with needles
on their leaves, acus meaning needle, and folium leaf. How well holly,
with its spiny leaves, fits in that family is seen at once.

About 175 species of holly are dispersed in various parts of the
world, the largest number occurring in Brazil and Guiana. Ilex is the
classical name of the evergreen oak in southern Europe.

The glossy green foliage and the brilliant red berries of the holly
tree have long been associated in the popular mind with the Christmas
season. Mingled with the white berries and dull green foliage of the
mistletoe, it is the chief Yuletime decoration, and many hundred trees
are annually stripped of their branches to supply this demand. The
growth is still quite abundant, but if the destruction and waste continue,
American holly will soon be exhausted.

Its range extends from Massachusetts to Texas and from Missouri
to Florida. In New England, the trees are few and small, and the same
holds true in many parts of the Appalachian region. The largest trees
are found in southern Arkansas and eastern Texas. In the North it
grows in rather dry, gravelly soil, often on the margins of oak woods, but
in the South it takes to swamps, and does best on river bottoms where
the soil is rich. It is often associated with evergreen magnolia, which it
resembles at a distance, though differences are plain enough on close
examination. The light, grayish-green barks of the two trees look much
alike; but the magnolia's leaves are larger, thicker, and lack the briers
on the margins.

Holly varies in size from small straggling bushes to well-formed
trees fifty or sixty feet high and two or three in diameter. The principal
value of holly is not in its wood, but in its leaves and berries. Some
persons suppose that holly leaves never fall. That is true of no tree that
attains any considerable age. An examination of a holly thicket, or a
single tree, in the spring of the year will reveal a fair sprinkling of dead
leaves on the ground, though none may be missed from the branches.
Those that fall are three years old, and they come down in the spring.
There are always two full years of leaves on the trees.

Flowers are the least attractive part of holly. Few people ever
notice the small, unobtrusive cymes, scattered along the base of the

644 American Forest Trees

young shoots in the early spring, with the crop of young leaves. Nothing
showy about them attracts attention.

The fruit is the well-known berry, the glory of winter decorations.
It is usually red, but sometimes yellow. The latter color is not often
seen in decorations because it is a poor contrast with the glossy green of
the leaves. The berries ripen late in autumn and hang until nearly
spring, provided they are let alone. That is seldom their fortune, for if
they escape the wreath hunter at Christmas, they remain subject to
incessant attacks by birds. Fortunately, the berries are not very choice
food for the feathered bevies that fly in winter; otherwise, the trees would
be stripped in a day or two. Birds are attracted by the color, and
they keep pecking away, taking one or two berries at a bait, and in the
course of a long winter they get most of them.

The gathering of holly leaves and berries is an industry of much
importance, taken as a whole; but it lasts only a short time, and is
carried on without much system. The greatest source of supply is
northern Alabama, and the neighboring parts of surrounding states; but
some holly is gathered in all regions where it is found. Those who collect
it for market make small wages, but the harvest comes at a season when
little else is doing, and the few dimes and dollars picked up are regarded
as clear gain — particularly since most of the holly harvesters have no
land of their own and forage for supplies on other people's possessions.

The seeds of holly are a long time in germinating, and those who
plant them without knowing this are apt to despair too soon. The great
differences in the germinating habits of trees are remarkable. Some
of the maples bear seeds which sprout within a few days after they come
in contact with damp soil, certain members of the black oak group of
trees drop their acorns with sprouts already bursting the hulls, and
mangroves are in a still greater hurry, and let fall their seeds with roots
several inches long ready to penetrate the mud at once. But holly is in
no hurry. Its seeds lie buried in soil until the second year before they
send their radicles into the soil. They are so slow that nurserymen
usually prefer to go into the woods and dig up seedlings which are
already of plantable size.

Users of woods find many places for holly but not in large amounts.
The reported output by all the sawmills in the United States in 1909 was
37,000 feet, and Maryland produced more than any other state. The
wood is employed for inlay work, parquetry, marquetry, small musical
instruments, and keys for pianos and organs. Engravers find it suit-
able for various classes of work, its whiteness giving the principal value.
It approaches ivory in color nearer than any other American wood.
Brush back manufacturers convert it into their choice wares. It is

American Forest Trees 645

occasionally worked into small articles of furniture, but probably never
is used in large pieces.

The wood is rather light, and the vague boundaries between the
annual rings, and the smallness and inconspicuousness of the medullary
rays, are responsible for the almost total absence of figure, no matter in
what way the wood is worked. The so-called California holly (Hetcrom-
cles arbutifolia) is of a different family, and is not a holly.

Dahoon Holly (Ilex cassine) grows in cold swamps and on their
borders in the coast region from southern Virginia to southern Florida,
and westward to Louisiana. It is often found on the borders of pine
barrens, is most common in western Florida and southern Alabama, and
when at its best, is from twenty-five to thirty feet high and a foot or more
in diameter. The leaves are nearly twice as long as those of common
holly, and are generally spineless or nearly so. The fruit ripens late in
autumn and hangs on the branches until the following spring. The
berries are sometimes bright red, oftener dull red, and those fully up to
size are a quarter of an inch in diameter. Some hang solitary, others in
clusters of three. The wood is light and soft, weighing less than thirty
pounds per cubic foot. The heart is pale brown, and the thick sapwood
nearly white. The tree is known locally as yaupon, dahoon, dahoon
holly, and Henderson wood. This species passes gradually into a form
designated as Ilex myrtifolia, which Sargent surmises may be a distinct
species. Another form, narrowleaf dahoon {Ilex cassine angnstifolia) , is
listed by Sudworth.

Yaupon Holly (Ilex ■vomitoria) is a small, much-branched tree,
often shrubby, and at its best is seldom more than twenty-five feet high
and six inches in diameter. Its range follows the coast from southern
Virginia to St. John's river, Florida, and westward to eastern Texas. It
sticks closely to tidewater in most parts of its habitat, but when it
reaches the Mississippi valley it runs north into Arkansas. It attains its
largest size in Texas, and is little more than a shrub elsewhere. Berries
are produced in great abundance, are red when ripe, but they usually fall
in a short time and are not much in demand for decorations. The wood
weighs over forty-five pounds per cubic foot, is hard, and nearly white,
but turns yellow with exposure. The leaves of this holly were once
gathered by Indians in the southeastern states for medicine. The
savages journeyed once a year to the coast where the holly was abundant,
boiled the leaves in water, and produced what they called the "black
drink." It was nauseating in the extreme, but they drank copious
draughts of it during several days, then departed for their homes, confi-
dent that good health was assured for another year.

Mountain Holly {Ilex moniicola) is so named because it grows among the

646 American Forest Trees

Appalachian ranges from New York to Alabama. It is best developed in the
elevated district where Tennessee and North and South Carolina meet near one
common boundary. It is elsewhere shrubby. The leaves are deciduous, and the
bright scarlet berries are nearly as large as cherries. They fall too early to make
them acceptable as Christmas decorations. The wood is hard, heavy, and creamy-
white, and if it could be had in adequate quantities, would be valuable. The trees
are sometimes a foot in diameter and forty feet high, but they are not abundant.
Their leaves bear small resemblance to the typical holly leaf, but look more like those
of cherry or plum.

Deciduous Holly (Ilex decidua) is called bearberry in Mississippi and possum
haw in Florida, while in other regions it is known as swamp holly because of its habit
of clinging to the banks of streams and betaking itself to swamps. It keeps away
from mountains, though it is found in a shrubby form between the Blue Ridge and
the sea in the Atlantic states, from Virginia southward. It runs west through the
Gulf region to Texas, and ascends the Mississippi valley to Illinois and Missouri,
attaining tree size only west of the Mississippi. The wood is as heavy as white oak,
hard, and creamy-white, both heart and sap. Doubtless small quantities are em-
ployed in different industries, but the only direct report of its use comes from Texas
where it is turned for drawer and door knobs in furniture factories. Most but not all
of the leaves fall in early winter. The berries obey the same rule, some fall and others
hang till spring. They are orange or orange-scarlet.

YELLOW BUCKEYE

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Yellov Buckeye

YELLOW BUCKEYE

(AZscidus Oclandra)

FOUR species and one variety of buckeye are native in the United
States, yellow buckeye, Ohio buckeye, California buckeye, small
buckeye, and purple buckeye. They belong in the horse chestnut family.
The so-called Texas buckeye is in a different family, and is not a true
buckeye, but is close kin to thf> soapberry. The buckeyes are named
for the large white spot on the smooth, brown nut, resembling the eye of
a deer. The yellow buckeye is the most important of the group, is the
largest and most abundant. It is known by the name of buckeye in
North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas,
and Kentucky. It is called sweet buckeye in West Virginia, Mississippi,
Texas, Missouri, and Indiana, probably owing to the fact that it does not
exhale the disagreeable odor characteristic of other members of the
family. Yellow buckeye is the term applied to it in South Carolina and
Alabama; large buckeye in Tennessee; big buckeye in Tennessee and
Texas. It nourishes from Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, southward
along the Alleghany mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama,
westward along the valley of the Ohio river to southern Iowa, through
Oklahoma and the valley of the Brazos river in eastern Texas. It
thrives best along streams and in dense, rich woods. It reaches its
fullest development on the slopes of the Alleghany mountains in North
Carolina and Tennessee.

The leaves of the buckeye are compound, with from five to seven
leaflets; flowers appear in May or June and are dull yellow; the fruit
is a large brown nut, one or two of which are enclosed in a rough, uneven
husk, about two inches or more in diameter. The tree grows from forty
to 100 feet in height, and attains a diameter of from one to three and a
half feet.

Buckeye grows intermingled with poplar, oak, maple, beech and a
variety of other hardwoods. From its comparatively limited growth
as compared with the totality of the average hardwood forest, it never
has been recognized, and probably never will be, as a distinctive type
of American commercial wood. The timber is felled with the other
valuable trees surrounding it, and its appearance, when manufactured
into lumber is so similar to that of the sap of poplar or whitewood that
almost without exception it is assorted with poplar saps, and goes on the
market masquerading as that wood. There is probably not one lumber-
man in a thousand, handling poplar, that is able to distinguish buckeye
from sap poplar in his shipments of that wood.

650 American Forest Trees

Sawmills make no distinction between the different species. All
that comes is buckeye, but nearly all of it is the yellow species, though
doubtless a little of all the others is cut into lumber and veneer, or goes
to the slack cooperage shop, or to the pulp mill. The woods of all are
quite similar, and they are used for the same purposes. If one is em-
ployed in larger quantities than another, it is because it is more con-
venient, or of better form or larger size.

Early uses of buckeye were as important as those of the present
day, though amounts were smaller. Many an Ohio statesman of former
times boasted that, as a baby, he was rocked in a buckeye sugar trough
for a cradle. They claimed with pride that the prevalance of the custom
caused Ohio to be known as the buckeye state, a name which clings to it
still. Next to yellow poplar, buckeye was considered the best wood from
which to hew the small troughs which collected the sugar water from the
tapped maples in early spring; but the range of buckeye did not extend
northward into the real maple area, and the troughs like those which
rocked the inchoate Ohio statesmen were unknown in the North, but
were familiar along the mountain ranges southward. Dough trays,
bread boards, chopping bowls, and troughs in which to salt bacon and
pork, were hewed from buckeye by farmers and village woodworkers.

It weighs 27.24 pounds per cubic foot; is diffuse-porous, and the
slight difference between the wood grown in spring and that of late
summer renders the annual rings indistinct. It has little figure, no
matter how it is sawed ; medullar}' rays are thin and obscure. Softness
is one of the principal qualities, and it is also weak, and is wanting in
rigidity. These are its faults, but it has virtues. It is tasteless and
odorless, and these properties make it valuable in the manufacture of
boxes in which food products are shipped. The reported cut of buckeye
in the United States is from 11,000,000 to 13,000,000 feet a year. The
reports of factories which use the wood in making commodities throw
light on the question of actual use. North Carolina works 10,000 feet
a year into cabinets and office fixtures; Michigan 100,000 into candy
and chocolate boxes, dishes, and bowls; Maryland uses 200,000 feet
yearly for practically the same purposes, but with the added commodities
of spice drawers and tea chests. Makers of artificial limbs consider
buckeye one of their best materials, but it is second to willow. The
"cork legs" are usually either buckeye or willow. Pulp mills grind the
wood for paper, but it is not separately listed in pulp statistics, and the
total cut cannot be stated. It is converted into veneer and finds many
places of usefulness, but here, also, no separate figures are to be had.

The nuts are large and abundant, but almost wholly useless for
man or beast. Bookbinders make paste of them, as a substitute for

American Forest Trees 651

flour, and with satisfactory results. The paste resists ferments much
better than that manufactured from flour; but the demand upon the nut
supply for that purpose is very small. Squirrels and other small
animals leave buckeyes alone. Some writers, whose acquaintance with
this tree was apparently acquired at long range, state that the nuts are
food for cattle. No person with knowledge of the buckeye says that.
Cattle occasionally eat a few, but are poisoned thereby, and if they
recover, they never again have anything to do with buckeyes.

This tree is ornamental during a few months of the year. Its
flowers are attractive, and its large, vigorous leaves and conspicuous
fruit are admired in summer; but early in the fall the leaves come down,
the husks burst from the nuts and strew the ground with unsightly
fragments. The tree is seldom planted, but the horse chestnut, a foreign
species, takes its place.

Ohio Buckeye (/Esculus glabra) was once thought to be more
abundant in Ohio than elsewhere, hence the name; but its best develop-
ment is in Tennessee and northern Alabama. The disagreeable odor
emitted by the bark gives it the names fetid and stinking buckeye, and
it is known also as American horse chestnut. Its range is approximately
the same as that of yellow buckeye, but it is a smaller tree, rarely more
than thirty feet high, though it is seventy in exceptional cases. In
common with other trees of the species, it prefers rich soil along water
courses. The wood was formerly in demand for chip hats, but that use
has apparently ceased. The sap wood is darker than the heart which
is an exception to the general rule. Dark streaks, probably stains due to
fungus, occasionally run through the trunk. In weight, strength, and
stiffness the wood is approximately the same as yellow buckeye. Its
odor is sufficient to distinguish it from that species, and it associates with
no other except on rare occasions when it may be found with the small
buckeye in western Tennessee and southern Missouri.

California Buckeye (.Esculus californica) occurs only in the state
whose name it bears. It is a short, much-branched, ill-formed tree;
root large and shaped somewhat like an inverted tub, often standing a
foot or more above the ground, and the branches rising from it. A tree
so formed is without value to the general lumberman, but cabinet
makers sometimes grub out the root and saw it transversely into thin
lumber or veneer and make small articles which possess considerable
figure, due to the involved growth, but little variety of color. Its tone
is light yellow. The tree is found in the central part of California, from
near sea level up to 4,500 in the Sierra Nevadas. It gets away from the
immediate vicinity of water courses and grows on hillsides. It is heavier
than any other American buckeye, and has very thin sapwood. The

652

American Forest Trees

other properties of the wood, and the botanical characters of the tree
are common to other members of the species. The seeds depend for
their dispersal on running water, when the tree grows by a stream, or on
gravity, if situated on a hillside. The seed will not grow unless buried in
moist soil, and it retains its vitality only a few months. Few trees in the
United States have larger seeds than buckeyes. The tree is short-lived,
reaching maturity in most cases in less than a hundred years. It is
sometimes planted for ornament in this country and in Europe.

Small Buckeye (.-Esculus anstrina) is one of the latest recognized
members of the buckeye household. It seldom attains a diameter above
five or six inches, or a height of twenty-five feet. It is, therefore, too
small to be seriously considered as a source of lumber, and even if trunks
were large enough, the species is too scarce to furnish many logs. It
grows on rich uplands from western Tennessee and southern Missouri to
Texas. The bright red flowers open in April, the fruit falls in October.

Purple Buckeye (.-Esculus octandra hybrida) is a variety charac-
terized by red or purple flowers and by leaves woolly on the under sides,
and bark of lighter color than that of yellow buckeye. The range
follows the Appalachian mountains from West Virginia southward. It
has been reported in Texas also. If the wood is used at all, it goes for
the same purposes as yellow buckeye.

SASSAFRAS

:-

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y* <^i

Sassafras

SASSAFRAS

(Sassafras Sassafras)

THE French settlers in Florida were the first white men to give the
name sassafras to this tree, but the Indians called it by that name
long before. It was a tree which Indians were sure to name, because it
had an individuality which appealed to them. It is not known what
the real meaning of the word was, when the southern Indians used it.
After the French adopted the name in Florida, it passed to other colonies
and other languages, and has led to numerous disputes since. Many
have erroneously supposed that the name is of Latin origin. When the
English colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, the tree
was well known by that name, but it was pronounced so variously and
spelled in so many ways that it was often almost unrecognizable. It is
pronounced variously and spelled differently yet. It is called sassafras
in most regions, and in others is saxifrax, sassafas, sassafac, sassafrac,
and saxifrax tree.

Its range covers the territory from Massachusetts to Iowa and
Kansas, and south to Florida and Texas. Some of that range it has
occupied for vast periods of time, for sassafras leaves have been found
embedded in the Cretaceous formations of Long Island. Near the
northern limit of its range it is generally small, often of brush size; but
further south it becomes a tree which sometimes exceeds 100 feet in
height, and three or four in diameter. The best development of the
species is in Arkansas and Missouri.

Sassafras belongs to the laurel family. Strangely enough, the two
trees which are usually supposed to be typical laurels — namely, moun-
tain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) and great rhododendron, do not belong
to the laurel family, but the heath family. The laurel family to which
sassafras belongs includes many species in all parts of the world, some
are evergreen, others are not, but all characterized by the strong,
pungent odor of their wood or bark, and all having fruit with a single
seed like a plum or cherry. The camphor tree from the distillation of
whose wood commercial camphor (except synthetic camphor made
largely from turpentine) is derived, belongs to this family, as do certain
bay trees of the southern states. It was formerly supposed that
sassafras existed only in the eastern half of the United States; but a
species closely resembling ours, if not identical with it, has recently
been found in China. The California laurel (Umbellularia calif ornica)
is in the same family with sassafras.

This tree has had a peculiar history. It was once supposed to

656 American Forest Trees

possess miraculous healing powers, and was shipped from Virginia to
England in one of the first cargoes to go to that country from the present
territory of the United States. Its supposed value did not consist in its
use as lumber, but in some medicinal property which it was reputed to
possess. People appeared to believe that it would renew the youth of
the human race. Some portion of this superstition has clung round
sassafras to this day, and it is not entirely confined to ignorant people.
Bedsteads made of sassafras were supposed to drive away certain nightly
visitors which disturb slumber. In southeastern Arkansas and north-
western Mississippi, bedsteads are still made of this wood, with the
belief that sleep will be sounder. The same custom doubtless prevails
elsewhere. In northern Louisiana floors of sassafras are occasionally
laid in negro cabins because of the same superstition, and in the firm
belief that it will keep out animals as large as rats and mice. Some of
the mountaineers of Kentucky, where each family makes its own soap,
insist that the kettle must be stirred with a sassafras stick or it will
produce a poor quality of soap. Among the mountains of West Vir-
ginia many a farmer equips his henhouse with sassafras poles for roosts,
fully convinced that he has put an effective quietus on all tribes, shoals,
and kindred of menopon pallidum, and the hens will sleep better.

The production of sassafras oil is perhaps the largest industry
dependent upon this tree. Roots are grubbed by the ton and are sub-
jected to destructive distillation. Much of this work is carried on in
Virginia where sassafras spreads quickly into abandoned fields, springing
up from seeds carried by birds. Veritable thickets soon take possession.
Here is where the sassafras oil supply comes from. Contractors often
clear the old fields and make them ready for tillage, taking the roots
for pay.

The wood weighs 31.42 pounds per cubic foot; is very durable
when exposed to dampness; is slightly aromatic; inclined to check in
drying; the layers of annual growth are marked by rings of large pores;
summerwood is quite distinct from the earlier growth; medullary rays
are many and thin; color dull orange-brown, the thin sapwood light
yellow.

Sassafras goes to sawmills in all regions wtfere it is large enough for
lumber, but the total cut is small. Reports from sawmills in 1909
credited this species with only 25,000 feet in the United States, and it was
still less in 1910. It is evident that this is only a small portion of the
total output, and probably Tennessee alone produces that much. The
wood is sold with other species and losses its name, frequently passing
as ash. The wood bears considerable resemblance to ash, in grain and
color, but is lighter in weight, and much lower in strength.

American Forest Trees 657

Sassafras was one of the canoe woods of early times along the lower
Mississippi and its tributaries. Its two principal advantages over most
woods with which it was associated was its light weight and lasting
qualities. Canoes of this timber in Louisiana have given continued
service for a third of a century.

In all parts of its range, wherever it is of sufficient size, it has been
used for posts. It is generally considered good for about twenty years.
Large trunks were formerly split for rails, and a few are utilized in that
way still, but most timber large enough for rails, now goes to sawmills.
In Texas most of the sassafras supplied by sawmills is manufactured into
furniture, but is listed as ash. The same thing is done in Arkansas and
Missouri, but the use in the latter state is extended to interior house
finish and office and bank fixtures. Sometimes it is made the outside
wood, and the figure caused by sawing the logs tangentially is ac-
centuated by stains and fillers. The figure of quarter-sawed wood is not
attractive because the medullary rays are too small. It lasts well as
railroad ties and a few are found in service in many parts of the tree's
range, but those who see it in the track are liable to mistake it for chest-
nut.

A by-product of sassafras deserves mention — tea made from the
flowers or from the bark of the roots. It is relished in the early spring,
and is popular in most regions where the tree is known. The bark
is a commercial commodity. It is tied in small bundles, and the price
at retail ranges from a nickel to a dime each. Drug stores and grocers
sell it. In the city of Washington in early spring sassafras peddlers
canvas the city from center to circumference. They are generally
negro men and women who dig the roots on the neighboring hills of
Virginia and Maryland, strip the bark, tie it in small bundles, and by
diligence and perseverance, succeed in converting the merchandise into
money.

Sassafras is often cited as an example of a tree with leaves of differ-
ent forms. Three shapes are common, and all frequently occur on the
same tree, and even on the same twig. One has no lobes, another has
one lobe like the thumb of a mitten, and another has three.

Lancewood (Ocotea calesbyana) is a small evergreen tree, looks
much like laurel, and grows in southern Florida, on the islands and on the
mainland in the vicinity of Biscayne bay. It is closely related to sassa-
fras, and the bark has an aromatic odor. It belongs to a group of trees
with nearly 200 species scattered in hot regions of both hemispheres.
This is the only one belonging to the United States, and it appears to be
a newcomer on these shores, from the fact that it has succeeded in ob-
taining so limited a foothold. It keeps well south of the region where it

658

American Forest Trees

is likely to be frosted and it seldom exceeds a height of thirty feet and a
diameter of eighteen inches. The fruit ripens in autumn and is dark
blue with flesh thin and dry. The wood is hard, heavy, strong, checks
badly in drying, and has a rich brown color, the sapwood being yellow.
Rings of annual growth are marked with many small, regularly-dis-
tributed open ducts; medullary rays are thin and numerous; wood weighs
47.94 pounds per cubic foot; durable in contact with the soil, beautifully
colored, and is highly prized for small cabinet work and novelties. At
Miami, Florida, small trunks cut on neighboring hummocks, or brought
from the keys, are worked into souvenirs to be sold to visitors. Lance-
wood fishing rods are among the strongest and most expensive on the
market; but little of the material of which they are made grows in
Florida. It is also manufactured into billiard cues and small handles.

MADROXA

Madrona

MADRONA

(Arbutus Menziesii)

MADRONA is an interesting tree which ranges from British Colum-
bia southward to central California, attaining its greatest develop-
ment in the redwood forests of northern California, where trees are
sometimes one hundred feet high and six or seven feet in diameter. It is
not only an interesting tree itself, but it has many interesting relatives,
some of which are trees, others shrubs, and still others only small plants
or vines. It may be called a second cousin to the common huckleberry,
the mountain laurel, trailing arbutus, the azaleas, the tiny wintergreen,
and the great rhododendron. It has some poor relations, but many
that are highly respectable. It belongs to the heath family, of which
there are seventy genera, and more than a thousand species; but less
than half of them are in America, the others being scattered widely over
the world.

The madrona, when at its best, is one of the largest members of the
family; but it is not always at its best. It sometimes degenerates into
a sprawling shrub, where it grows on poor ground and on cold, dry
mountain tops. It is manifestly not fair to study any tree at its worst,
and it is particularly not fair to the madrona, which varies so greatly in
its appearance. At one place it may be scarcely large enough to shade
the lair of a jackrabbit, and at another it spreads its branches wide
enough to shade an army — a small army, however, say, about two
thousand men. A tree of that size may be found within a few hours' ride
of San Francisco. Its branches cover an area of from eight thousand
to ten thousand square feet.

When madrona grows in the open it throws out wide limbs like a
southern live oak, though not so large or long. Its crown is rounded
and graceful; but when it grows in forests, where other trees crowd it,
the trunk rises straight up to lift the crown into the sunlight and fresh
air. The madrona is seen in all its glory in northwestern California,
where it catches some of the warmth and the moist air from the Pacific.
It follows the ranges of the Siskiyou mountains eastward near the
boundary of California and Oregon. It is usually mixed with other
forest trees, but sometimes large stands nearly pure are encountered,
and there the long trunks, rather gray near the ground, but wine-
colored above, rise in imposing beauty and are lost in the evergreen
crowns.

The leaves suggest those of laurel, but are broader. The large
clusters of white flowers are among the glories of the vegetable kingdom.

d62 American Forest Trees

George B. Sudworth, dendrologist of the United States Forest Service,
who usually describes in strictly prosaic terms, breaks away from that
habit long enough to compare madrona flowers to lilies of the valley,
in his "Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope." The flowers appear from
March to May, depending on latitude and elevation.

The brilliant orange-red fruit ripens in the fall, and is often borne
in great abundance. It renders the crowns of the trees very beautiful.
The fruit is about half an inch long and contains many small angular
seeds. The fruit is said to contain a substance which puts to sleep wild
creatures that feed on it. The claim is probably mythical, for birds
breakfast extravagantly on it in the morning, and apparently do not do
any sleeping until after sunset.

This tree was discovered by and named for Archibald Menzies, a
Scotch botanist who traveled in the Northwest more than a hundred
years ago. It has several local names, among them being madrove,
laurel wood, madrone-tree, laurel, and manzanita. The last is the
proper name of another small tree which is associated with madrona and
is closely related to it.

The wood weighs 43.95 pounds per cubic foot. It is a little below
eastern white oak in fuel value, a little above it in strength, and some-
what under it in stiffness. The color is pale reddish-brown, resembling
applewood in tone, but generally not quite so dark. The wood is porous,
but the pores are very small. Medullary rays are numerous but thin.
On account of the rays being of a little deeper red than the other wood,
quarter-sawed stock is handsome and of somewhat peculiar appear-
ance. The figure is much like quarter-sawed beech, but of deeper,
more handsome color. The contrast between springwood and sum-
merwood is not strong, though easily seen. Generally, the summer-
wood constitutes about one-fourth of the annual ring. The tree grows
slowly, but with much irregularity. The increase in one season may
be four or five times as great as in another. The bark exfoliates, and
is quite thin.

Madrona has never been put to much use. Difficulties in seasoning
it have stood in the way. The wood warps and checks. Similar
difficulties with other woods have been overcome, and such troubles
should not be unduly discouraging. The beauty of the wood is unques-
tioned. It presents a fine appearance when worked into furniture,
particularly in small panels and turned work, like spindles, knobs, and
small posts. When made into grills it shows a surprising richness of
tone. The wood polishes almost to the smoothness of holly. Small
quantities are made into flooring; a little goes to the furniture makers;
lathes turn some of it for novelties and souvenirs; fuel cutters sell it as

American Forest Trees 663

cordwood; and tanbark peelers cut the trees for the thin, papery bark.
In that case the trunks are left to decay, unless they happen to be con-
venient to a cordwood market.

One of the most extensive uses for the wood of madrona is for
charcoal burning. Blacksmiths buy it because it is cheaper than coal,
and some is used in shops where soldering and welding are done ; but the
most exacting demand comes from gunpowder manufacturers. They
find this wood almost equal to alder and willow as a source of charcoal
suitable for powder.

Mexican Madrona (Arbutus xalapensis) might properly be called
Texas madrona as it occurs in that state and probably in no other, but
its range extends southward into Mexico. It produces a poorly shaped
trunk seldom much more than twenty feet high and one foot in diameter,
and usually divided into several branches near the ground. It blooms
in March and ripens its fruit in midsummer. The tree is found on dry
limestone hills, and in the valley of the Rio Blanco, and among the Eagle
mountains. Cabinet makers in Texas put the wood to rather exacting
uses after they have carefully seasoned it to overcome its natural ten-
dency to check. It is very hard; its color is a little lighter than apple-
wood which it resembles; annual rings are scarcely visible, so regular and
even is the year's growth. In Texas the wood is made into plane stocks,
tool handles, and mathematical instruments.

Arizona Madrona {Arbutus arizonica) has a restricted range on
the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita mountains of southern Arizona, where
it ascends to an altitude of 8,000 feet The species extends southward
into Mexico. The largest trees attain a height of fifty feet and a
diameter of two. Trunks are usually straight and shapely, and show
the thin, red bark common to the genus. The wood resembles that of
the species in Texas, and doubtless is suited to the same purposes, but no
utilization of it has been reported, except for fuel, and for fences and
sheds on mountain ranches. When the region becomes more thickly
settled, the value of the wood will be appreciated.

Manzanita (Arctostaphylos manzanila) is not generally welcomed by botanists
into the tree class. They say it is too small; but it is as large as some of the laurels
which go as trees without question, and is shaped much like them. There are several
species of manzanita. The word is Spanish and means "little apple." The name
is natural, for one of the most noticeable things about manzanita is the fruit, the size
of well-grown huckleberries. It is shaped like an apple, and its tart taste suggests
that fruit. The Digger Indians along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in
California gather the berries by the sack, dry them, and keep them for winter — if
they can. It is often impossible to keep them because, like other fruit, they are apt
to become wormy. When the Indians discover them in thai conditi in they display
rare thrift and economy for savages, by soaking the fruit and pressing out the juice,
which is said to pass for a pretty fair quality of cider, but it must be quickly con-

664 American Forest Trees

sumed or it will mother and change to vinegar. Indians now put the berries to use
less frequently than in early times when they were nearly always hungry.

Manzanita is of the same family as madrona. Its range extends along the
mountains of the Pacific coast ranges from Oregon to Mexico, and inland to Utah.
The largest trees are about twenty feet high and a foot or less in diameter; very much
divided and branched, with limbs crooked in more ways, perhaps, than those of any
other representative of the vegetable kingdom. Thousands of canes are cut from the
branches, and if any living man ever saw a straight one he failed to report it. Manza-
nita grows in almost impenetrable thickets on dry slopes and ridges. Its thin foliage
casts so pale a shadow that the tree's shade is little cooler than the boiling sun upon
the open naked ground and rocks. The bark is a reddish-chocolate color, and ex-
foliates in scales of papery thinness. The heart is nearly of the same color as the
bark, but the sap is white and very thin. The wood is hard, strong, stiff, but ex-
ceedingly brittle. If a branch is sharply bent it will fly into splinters.

The uses of the wood are numerous, but the total quantity demanded is moder-
ate. Novelty stores sell small articles to tourists in California, sometimes passing
the wood off as mountain mahogany which does not so much as belong to the same
family. The most common articles manufactured by novelty shops from manzanita
are canes, paper weights, paper knives, rulers, spoons, napkin rings, curtain rings,
cuff buttons, dominos, manicure sticks, jewel boxes, match safes, pin trays, and
photo frames.

COTTONWOOD

Coi n inwood

COTTONWOOD*

{Populus Delloides)

ELEVEN species of eottonwood are found in the United States, if all
trees of the genus Populus are classed as cottonwoods. It is not
universally admitted, however, that they should be so classed. The
common eottonwood is the most widely known of all of them, but it is
recognized under different names in different regions, viz. : Big cotton-
wood, yellow cottonwood, cotton tree, Carolina poplar, necklace poplar,
broadleaf poplar, and whitewood.

Its range covers practically all of the United States east of the
Rocky Mountains. It is rare or missing in eastern New England and
southern Florida, and most abundant in the Mississippi valley, and there
the largest trees are found. Some exceed 100 feet in height, and four
in diameter. Extreme sizes of 140 feet in height with diameters of from
seven to nine have been reported. The cottonwood was a frontier tree
on the western plains when settlers began to push into the region. It
grew as far west as any hardwood of the eastern forests, and was found
beyond meridian 100, which was supposed to be the boundary between
the region of rains and the semi-arid country. The cottonwood clung
to the river banks and to islands in the rivers, and by that means escaped
the Indian's prairie and forest fires which he kindled every year to im-
prove the range for the buffalo. It is supposed that most of the open
country east of meridian 100 was originally timbered, and that the
Indians destroyed the forests by their long-continued habit of burning
the woods and prairies ever}' year to improve the pasture. Cottonwood
was the longest survivor, because it grew in damp places where fires did
not burn fiercely. Black willow was its most frequent companion on the
western outposts of the forests.

The cottonwood was fitted for holding its ground, and pushing
forward. Its light seeds are carried by millions on the wind and by
water. The tree bears large quantities of cotton (hence the name), and
when the wind whips it from the tree, seeds are caught among the fibers
and carried along, to be scattered miles away.

*The following species grow in the United States: Cottonwood (Populus
delloides), Aspen (Populus tremuloides) , Largetooth aspen (Populus grandidentata) ,
Swamp Cottonwood (Populus heterophylla), Balm of Gilead (Populus balsamifcra) ,
I.aneeleaf Cottonwood (Populus acuminata), Narrowleaf Cottonwood (Populus
angustifolia), Black Cottonwood (Populus tricltocarpa) , Fremont Cottonwood
(Populus fremontii), Mexican Cottonwood (Populus mexicano), Texas Cottonwood
(Populus •ivislizeni).

66S American Forest Trees

This tree was not much thought of by eastern people who had
plenty of other kinds of wood, but pioneers on the plains who had a hard
time to get any, found cottonwood useful. It made fences, corncribs,
stables, cabins, ox yokes, and fuel. The first canoes made by white
men on the upper Missouri river were of cottonwood. Lumber cut from
this tree is inclined to warp and check unless carefully handled, and this
prejudiced it in the eyes of many; but difficulties of that kind were
easily mastered, and instead of being a neglected wood it became
popular. Some of the largest early orders came from Germany. Vehicle
makers in this country employed it for wagon beds, as a substitute for
yellow poplar when that wood's cost advanced. Manufacturers of
agricultural implements were pioneers in its use, it being excellent ma-
terial for hoppers, chutes, and boxes.

Cottonwood weighs 24.24 pounds per cubic foot, which is approx-
imately the weight of white pine. It has about the stiffness of white
oak, but only about eighty per cent of white oak's strength, and fifty
per cent of its fuel value. The wood is very porous, but the pores are
small, usually invisible to the naked eye. The medullar}- rays are small
and obscure. The appearance of the wood is not improved by quarter-
sawing. The surnmerwood forms a thin, dark line, so faint that the
annual rings are often scarcely distinguishable. # The tree is generally a
rapid grower; heartwood is brown, sapwood fighter, but as a whole, this
tree produces white wood.

The annual cut is declining. It was little more than half in 1910
what it was in 1S99. Some regions where large trees were once abundant
now have few. The sawmill output in 1910 for the United States —
including several species — was 220,000,000 feet. The veneer cut was
33,000,000 feet, log measure; the slack cooperage staves, chiefly for
flour barrels, numbered 44,000,000; and pulpwood amounted to about
18,000,000 feet. The lumber cut was largest in the following states in
the order named : Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee,
Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Minnesota. The tree was
lumbered in forty-one states.

Cottonwood is a standard material in several lines of manu-
facturing. It is made into nearly every kind of box that goes on the
market, from the cigar box to those in which pianos are shipped.
Manufacturers of food products are particularly anxious to procure this
wood, and it is one of the best for woodenware, such as dough boards,
ironing boards, and cloth boards. It is used by manufacturers of agri-
cultural implements, interior finish, bank and office fixtures, musical
instruments, furniture, vehicle tops, trunks, excelsior, saddle trees,
caskets and coffins, and numerous others.

American Forest Trees 669

There is no danger that Cottonwood will disappear from this
country, but it will become scarce. It is being cut much faster than it is
growing, and is losing favor as a planted shade and park tree, because of
its habit of shedding cotton in the spring and its leaves in the early
autumn.

Swamp Cottonwood (Populus heterophylla) is known also as river
Cottonwood, black cottonwood, downy poplar, and swamp poplar. Its
range describes a crude horseshoe, running from Rhode Island down the
Atlantic coast in a narrow strip, where it is neither abundant nor of large
size; touching northern Florida ; running westward to eastern Texas and
thence up the Mississippi basin and the Ohio river to southwestern Ohio.
There is nothing handsome about its appearance with its heavy limbs
and sparse, rounded crown. In the eastern range the average height is
probably not more than fifty feet but in the fertile Mississippi valley it
reaches 100 and has a long merchantable bole three feet in diameter.
Its bark is rugged, dirty-brown and broken into loose, conspicuous
ridges. It is easily distinguished from the other cottonwoods by the
orange-colored pith in the twigs. The buds are rounded and red and
have a resinous odor. Sawmills and factories never list this wood
separately. It comes and goes as cottonwood. Its uses are the same
as those of common cottonwood. The two species grow in mixture
throughout the entire range of the swamp cottonwood.

Texas Cottonwood (Populus wislizeni) is a rather large tree and
is the common cottonwood in the upper valley of the Rio Grande in New
Mexico and western Texas. The yellowish color of the twigs
is apt to attract attention. The wood is used about ranches and oc-
casionally a log finds its way to local sawmills; but its importance is
limited to the region where it grows.

Mexican Cottonwood (Populus mexicana) extends its range
north of the Mexican boundary into southern Arizona and southwestern
New Mexico. It is abundant in Mexico where the largest trees are
eighty feet high and three or four in diameter. It is smaller near the
northern limits of its range, and there it hugs the banks of mountain
streams. Stockmen use the trunks, which are usually small enough to
be called poles, to make fences and sheds.

Narrowleaf Cottonwood (Populus angustifolia) is a mountain
species which manages to live in the semi-arid regions from the Rocky
Mountains of Canada to Arizona, but is seldom found below an elevation
of 5,000 feet, and it ranges up to 10,000. Trunks are eighteen inches
or less in diameter, and fifty or sixty feet high. The seeds are larger
than those of most other cottonwoods. It being a semi-desert species,
its wood is appreciated where it is accessible, and it has local uses only.

670

American Forest Trees

Lanceleaf Cottonwood (Populus acuminata) is a small tree with
limited range, growing in the arid region along the eastern base of the
Rocky Mountains, southward from the Black Hills. It is found also
north of the Canadian border. It is usually fifteen or eighteen inches
in diameter, and thirty or forty feet high. Trunks seldom go to saw-
mills, but some local use is made of the wood. Trees are occasionally
planted for shade in towns of western Nebraska and Wyoming.

Fremont Cottonwood (Populus fremontii), called white cotton-
wood in New Mexico, but elsewhere simply cottonwood, grows from
western Texas to California, and as far north as Utah and Colorado. It
sometimes attains a diameter of five or six feet and a height of 100. The
Indians in New Mexico formerly made rude, clumsy ox carts of this
wood, without a scrap of iron or other metal in the vehicles. One of the
carts is preserved in the National Museum, Washington, D. C. The
wood is tough and light, but it is dull white, with no attractive figure.
Even the annual rings are hardly distinguishable. Logs are occasionally
sawed into lumber, and fanners in western Texas make wagon beds of it.

BALM OF GILEAD

BALM OF GILEAD

(Populus Balsamifera)

THIS tree is known in different regions by the following names:
Balsam, balm of Gilead, cottonwood, poplar, balsam poplar, and
tacamahac. The usual name, balm of Gilead, is applied in recognition
of the supposed healing virtue of the wax which covers the buds and
young leaves. It has long been used in medicine, but its exact value
is still a matter of discussion. The wile'. Indians of the North discovered
a use for the balsam in mending their bark dishes, and plugging knot
holes in the wooden trenchers. The wax is slow to dissolve in water,
and it resisted for a long time such soups as were known to the redman's
culinary art. Bees know the value of the wax and use it to seal cracks
and crevices in their hives and to hold the comb in place. It is popularly
believed that the economy of the wax on the buds is to keep them from
freezing. That view is erroneous, for it would take more than a coating
of wax to keep the buds warm with the thermometer from fifty to seventy
degrees below zero, as it is every winter in some parts of this tree's range.

Balm of Gilead is a native of the North from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, but its finest growth is about the headwaters of the Mackenzie
river, on Peace and Laird rivers, and the lower valley of the Athabaska.
Sixty years ago Sir John Franklin reported that most of the driftwood
of the Arctic ocean was this species. Since that time the range has been
more definitely determined, and it is now known that the tree grows
so far north that it is for some weeks in darkness, and again in summer
for some weeks in unbroken sunshine. It grows in Alaska nearly 200
miles north of the Arctic circle. Its natural range southward reaches
New England, New York, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, and Oregon.

Trees of all sizes abound, from mere shrubs in the outskirts of its
range to trunks 100 feet high and six feet in diameter in favored localities.
In the United States the best timber seldom exceeds thirty inches in
diameter and sixty or seventy feet in height. The bark on limbs and
young trunks is brownish-gray, frequently so tinged with green that it is
noticeable at a considerable distance; but usually large trees have
reddish-gray bark with deep furrows and wide ridges. Year-old twigs
are clear, shiny reddish-brown ; end buds are about an inch long, the side
buds somewhat shorter.

The wood is not distinguishable in appearance from that of the
other poplars or cottonwoods, but it is lighter than most of them,
weighing 22.65 pounds per cubic foot, has a breaking strength which
places it among the weakest woods, but in stiffness making a much

673

674 American Forest Trees

better showing. The pores tire small, numerous, and are distributed
equally through all parts of the wood.

Balm of Gilead bears seeds abundantly and scatters them widely.
It must do its planting quickly in the short summers of the cold North.
It sticks close to alluvial flats, banks of rivers, borders of lakes and
swamps, and gravelly soils. It grows to a diameter of fifteen inches in
about forty-five years.

Though balm of Gilead is not one of the most important timber
trees of this country, its place is by no means obscure. No separate
tally is kept of it among woods cut for pulp, but it goes with aspen and
other similar species as "poplar." A little better account is kept of the
amount passing through wood-using factories. The annual quantity
so reported in Illinois is 2,775,000 feetr and it is made into boxes and
crates. The lumber is shipped from the North, since it does not grow
as far south as Illinois. The situation is different in Michigan, for
balm of Gilead grows there. The amount going yearly into factories in
that state is reported at 4,912,000 feet. It is made into many com-
modities, but boxes and crates take most of it. The wood is reduced
to veneer and converted into berry buckets, grape baskets, fruit and egg
crates, and other small shipping containers. It is made into excelsior
and woodwool which are used as packing material. Druggist's barrels
are manufactured from this wood. These are small, two-piece vessels,
bored hollow, with a closely fitting lid, and varying in size from a couple
of inches high, to nearly a foot. They contain powders, perfumes, pills,
and other commodities in small bulk. The wood is worked into pails,
tubs, and kegs. Furniture makers put balm of Gilead to use in several
ways. It is cut thin for shelving; it is made into panels, and is em-
ployed as cores over which to lay veneers of more expensive materials.
Woodenware factories generally keep it in stock in the northern states.

The supply is ample at present to meet all demands. Cutters of
pulpwood probably take more than sawmills, and are satisfied with
smaller timber. Trees are often planted for ornament, but few if any
have yet been propagated for forestry purposes.

Hairy Balm of Gilead (Popidus balsamifera candicans) is not a
species but a variety, and it is so different from balm of Gilead that it is
entitled to a place of its own. Ordinarily it passes under the common
names applied to balm of Gilead. It is a cultivated tree in eastern
Canada and northeastern United States, where it has escaped from
cultivation and is running wild. Both Sargent and Sudworth say that
nothing is definitely known of the tree's native range; while it has been
claimed by others that it once grew wild in Michigan but was destroyed
by lumbermen. Probably most planted balm of Gileads are of this

American- Forest Trees 675

variety, as they are very ornamental. It is a large tree with branches less
upright and crowns more open than in the wild species. The leaves are
wide, heart-shaped, and are usually silvery white beneath with minute
hairs on the margins, on the veins, and leaf stems. It is not improbable
that this variety could be more profitably planted for forestry purposes
than the species which grows wild; but there is no present indication
that foresters favorably consider either of them.

Largetooth Aspen (Poputus grandidentata) is named on account
of the shape of the leaves. It is sometimes called aspen, popple, white
poplar, and large poplar. The wood weighs 28.87 pounds per cubic
foot, and is the heaviest of the poplar group except Fremont cottonwood
of the arid southwestern regions. The wood is white, attractive, but not
strong. It was formerly manufactured into chip hats and shoe heels in
New England, and is now used for baskets, crates, boxes, buckets, re-
frigerators, excelsior, and pulp. Northern factories usually give it the
general name "poplar," and for that reason its importance in the lumber
trade is underestimated. Trees may reach a height of seventy feet with
a diameter of two; but a height of forty or fifty is more usual. The
species' range extends from Nova Scotia to Minnesota, southward to
Delaware and Illinois, and along the Appalachian mountains to North
Carolina and Tennessee.

Gumbo Limbo (Bursera simaruba) is a south Florida species and is
known also as West Indian birch. It is in a family by itself with no near
relative. It is not a birch. The wood is spongy and very light, weigh-
ing less than nineteen pounds per cubic foot. It decays with remarkable
rapidity. Branches thrust in the ground take root and grow. An
aromatic resin, exuding from wounds in the bark, is manufactured into
varnish. The leaves are substituted for tea, and gout remedies are made
from the resin. Large trees are fifty feet high and two feet or more in
diameter. Another Florida tree, not in the same family as this, is also
called gumbo limbo (Simaruba glauca), paradise tree, and bitter
wood. Ailanthus (Ailanthus glandidosa) is in the same family as
paradise tree, but is not native in this country, though extensively
planted here.

Angelica Tree (Aralia spinosa) . This is a small tree, which usually
develops little or no heartwood. The springwood, or the inner and por-
ous part of the ring, is broad and yellow, the summerwood, or exterior
part of the ring, is narrow and dark. The wood's figure, due to the
marked contrast between the outer and inner portions of the rings, is
Strong. When finished it shows a rich yellow, but somewhat lighter than
dwarf sumach which it resembles. It is made into small shop articles,
like button boxes, photograph frames, pen racks, stools, and arms for

676 American Forest Trees

rocking chairs. Its range extends from Pennsylvania to Texas. It is
sometimes known as Hercules' club.

Aspen (Populus tremuloides) is widely known but not everywhere by the same
name. It is called quaking asp, mountain asp, aspen leaf, white poplar, popple,
poplar, and trembling poplar. The peculiarity of the tree which is apt to attract
attention, and which gives it most of the names it carries, is the leaf's habit of being
nearly always in motion. The day is remarkably still if aspen foliage is not stirring.
This is due to the long, flat leaf stem, which is so limber that it offers little resistance
to air currents. The difference in color between the upper and lower sides of the
leaves affords sufficient contrast to attract notice, and for that reason a person will
observe the motion of aspen leaves when he might fail to see a similar movement
among the leaves of other species where the contrast of colors is not so marked.
Aspen is credited with being the most widely distributed tree of North America. It
grows from Tennessee to the Arctic ocean, from Mexico to northern Alaska, from
Labrador to Bering strait. It is found at sea level, and at 10,000 feet elevation among
the mountains of California. Its very small seeds grow in enormous numbers.
Winds carry them miles, and scatter them by millions. They spring up quickly when
they fall on mineral soil, litis places it in the class with "fire trees" — those which take
possession of burned tracts. Paper birch is in this class. Aspen has replaced pines
over large burned areas of the Rocky Mountains. It grows quickly but is weak if
it has to contend with other trees. If crowded it speedily gives up the fight and dies.
The wood is not strong, but is useful for several purposes. Next to spruce and hem-
lock, it is the most important pulpwood in this country, and it is coming into con-
siderable use as lumber. The whiteness of the wood — it looks much like holly —
makes it a favorite for small boxes and vessels for shipping and containing foods.
It is made into jelly buckets, lard pails, fish kits, spice kegs, sugar buckets and a long
line of similar articles. It turns well, and is made into wooden dishes. Michigan
alone uses two and a half million feet of it a year; and it is in demand along the whole
northern tier of states from Maine to Washington, but because it is not separately
listed in lumber output, it is difficult to say how much is used. Trees are usually
small, though trunks three feet in diameter are not unknown. It grows rapidly, and
may be expected to fill an important place in this country's future timber supply.
There will be no occasion to plant it by artificial means, for nature will attend to the
planting.

black corn >\WOOD

Black Cottonwood

BLACK COTTONWOOD

(Popidus Trichocarpa)

THIS member of the cottonwood group is a strong tree that holds
its ground in various latitudes and at many elevations, ranging
from sea level up to eight or nine thousand feet, and in latitude from
Alaska to southern California, a distance of nearly three thousand
miles. Its east and west extension is more restricted and seldom
exceeds four hundred miles. Its habitat covers an area of half a
million square miles, and in that space it finds conditions which vary
so greatly that the tree which can meet them must possess remarkable
powers of adaptation.

Beginning in Alaska and the interior of Yukon territory, it has an
arctic climate. It there not only grows on the coast, but it strikes the
interior. It appears on the headwaters of several streams which flow
into the Mackenzie or Hudson bay. It passes south through British
Columbia and enters the United States west of the Rocky Mountains.
It has been reported as far east as Idaho and Montana, but further
information is needed before its limits in that direction can be definitely
fixed.

When it enters California it prefers the elevated valleys and can-
yons of the Sierra Nevadas, though it occurs sparingly among the coast
ranges. It is generally found in the Sierras at elevations of from 3,000
to 6,000 feet, though it occurs between 8,000 and 9,000. Among the
San Jacinto mountains of southern California it grows at an altitude of
6,000 feet.

When it occurs at low levels it is usually found on river bottoms
and sand bars, in sandy and humous soils, and there the largest trees
are found. At higher elevations it is more apt to occur in canyon bot-
toms and gulches, in moist, sandy or gravelly soil, and in such situations
the black cottonwood is smaller. The best growth occurs where the
climate is humid and the precipitation is great. Beyond the reach of
sea fogs, where the tree depends on soil moisture chiefly, it is smaller.

It is an intolerant tree. It must have light. When it is crowded a
tall, slender trunk is developed and the small crown is lifted clear above
its competitors into the full light. If it cannot succeed in gaining that
position its growth is stunted or the tree meets an early death.

The black cottonwood is the greatest of the cottonwoods. This
country produces no other to match it, and, as far as known, the
whole world has none. The Pacific coast is remarkable for the giant
trees it produces, but most of them are softwoods — the redwoods, the

679

ggO American Forest Trees

bi°tree, the sugar pine, Douglas fir, western larch, noble fir, Sitka
spruce and western red cedar. This Cottonwood is the largest of the
Pacific coast hardwoods. In trunk diameter it is excelled by the weep-
ing oak in the interior valleys of California, but when both height and
diameter are considered, the black cottonwood is in the West what
yellow poplar is in the East, the largest of the hardwoods.

Sargent says this Lree reaches a height of two hundred feet and a
diameter of eight, but Sudworth is more conservative and places the
trunk limit at six feet. The average size is much below the figures
given, but abundance of logs exceeding three feet in diameter reach the
sawmills of Washington and Oregon.

Old trees range from 150 to 200 years in age, but trees under 100
years old are large enough for saw timber. Records of the ages of the
largest trunks have not been reported.

Black cottonwood is a prolific seeder, but the seeds do not long
retain their vitality. If they find lodgment in damp situations, where
other conditions are favorable, the rate of germination is high. Seed-
lings are often very numerous on wet bars.

The excellent quality of the wood and its suitability for many pur-
poses bring it much demand on the Pacific coast. In the state of Wash-
ington more than 30,000,000 feet were used by wood-using industries
in 1910. Smaller quantities were reported in Oregon and California.

In strength the wood is approximately the same as common cotton-
wood, but in stiffness it much exceeds the eastern species. Its elasticity
rates high, and compares favorably with some of the valuable eastern
hardwoods. In weight it is slightly under common cottonwood.
Trees are of fine form, nearly always straight, and are generally free
from limbs to a considerable height.

The wood is grayish-white, soft, tough, odorless, tasteless, long-
fibered, nails well, is easily glued, and cuts into excellent rotary veneer
with comparatively small expenditure of power. It does not split
easily after it has undergone seasoning, and this property commends
it to box makers. It is little disposed to shrink and swell in atmospheric
changes. The absence of odor and taste gives it much of its value for
box making, because foods are not contaminated by contact with it.

It is manufactured into veneer berry baskets and is one of the
most suitable woods on the Pacific coast for that purpose. Candy
barrel makers use it in preference to most others, and a long line of
woodenware articles draw much of their material from this source.
Many thousands of cords are cut yearly for the pulp mills, where material
for paper is produced. Black cottonwood and white fir are the principal
woods used for pulp on the Pacific coast.

American Forest Trees 681

Not only is it used for rotary-cut veneer, but it is made into cores
or backing on which veneers of costly woods are glued in the manu-
facture of furniture, interior finish and fixtures for banks, stores and
offices. It serves in the same way in casket making, and is demanded in
millions of feet.

It is employed in amounts larger than any other wood by excelsior
mills in the northern Pacific coast region. It is the only wood demanded
by that industry in Washington and 6,400,000 feet were cut into that
product in 1910.

Slack coopers find it as valuable in their business in the far West
as the common cottonwood is in the East, and hundreds of thousands
of staves are made yearly. It is in demand for the manufacture of
flour barrels and those intended for other food products.

Trunk makers use it in three-ply veneers for the bodies, trays,
boxes and compartments of trunks and for suit cases. Though soft
and light, it is very tough, and sheets of veneer with the grains placed
transversely resist strains much better than solid wood of the same
thickness.

Vehicle makers employ black cottonwood for the tops and shelves
of business wagons. Another of its uses is as bottoms of drawers for
bureaus, wardrobes, and chiffoniers, and as partitions in desk compart-
ments. A full line of kitchen and pantry furniture is made wholly
or in part of this wood in the regions where it is cheap and abundant.

The cottonwoods belong to a very ancient race of broadleaf trees,
and like several others, they seem to have had their origin, or at least a
very early home, in the far North, where intense cold now excludes
almost every form of vegetable growth except the lowest orders. The
Cretaceous age saw cottonwoods growing in Greenland. The cotton
which then, as now, carried the seeds and planted them fell on more
hospitable shores then than can now be found in the far frozen North.
The genus was not confined to the arctic and subarctic regions, how-
ever, for there were cottonwoods at that time, or later, in more southern
latitudes. There were many species in the central portion of this
country, and also in Europe, long before the ice age destroyed all the
forests north of the Ohio and the Missouri rivers. Some of the old
species long ago ceased to exist, but others appear to have come down to
the present time without great change.

The cottonwood shows wonderful vitality, which is doubtless a sur-
vival of the characteristic which enabled it to come down from former
geologic epochs to the present time. A damaged and mutilated tree
will recover. A broken limb, thrust in the ground, will grow.

Black Poplar (Populus nig>a) is quite distinct from black cottonwood, though

682

American Forest Tre£S

both belong to the same family. The latter is a Pacific coast species, while the former
belongs in Europe, although it may have been introduced into that country from
Persia or some other eastern region. It is common in the United States, on account
of having escaped from cultivation. The best known variety of this tree is the Lom-
bard)" poplar (Populus nigra italica). It is easily recognized by the characteristic
attitude of the branches which grow upward close against the trunk. The crowns
of the trees are very long and slender, sometimes not ten feet across though fifty feet
high. Their slimness gives the trees the appearance of being much taller than they
really are. They were formerly popular for planting along lanes and in door yards.
Their slender and pointed spires cut the horizon with a peculiar effect. Planting is
less common now than formerly, because people have come to know the trees better.
They are probably the most limby of all the members of the Cottonwood group.
The long trunks are masses of knots when the limbs have been trimmed away, and
any desire to make lumber of the trees is apt to be discouraged, though not in-
frequently logs go to local sawmills, and farmers haul the boards home to put them
to some use about the place. In Michigan and Ohio, box makers use the lumber
for the rougher and cheaper articles which they turn out.

The most discouraging thing about Lombardy poplar is the tendency of the
trees to send up sprouts. The living trees do it, and the stumps are worse. The
sprouts are not confined to the ground immediately round the base of the tree, but
spring up many feet or many yards distant, until they produce a veritable jungle.
Years are often required to complete their extermination by grubbing and cutting.

White Poplar {Populus alba) is a European species but has become naturaliz-
ed in the United States. It is widely planted as a shade tree, and has escaped from
cultivation. It may be known by the white undersides of its small leaves, and by its
yellowish-green bark which remains smooth, except on large trunks. It is not yet
important as a source of lumber, but the vigor of its growth indicates that it may
sometime become so. The wood is soft, white, and light. Some persons consider
the tree objectionable as an ornament because of its habit of sending up sprouts
from the roots, and because its woolly leaves collect dust and smoke until they are
almost black by the end of summer.

MANGROVE

MANGROVE

(Rhizophora Mangle)

THE mangrove family is large and widely scattered, but only one
member has gained a foothold in the United States, and it occupies
only limited areas in south Florida, at the delta of the Mississippi, and
on the coast of Texas. The family's fifteen genera are confined to the
tropics, with a little overlapping on the temperate zones. The botanical
name Rhizophora refers to the tree's peculiar roots, and mangle is the
Spanish for mangrove. This is one of the few trees in this country which
are known by a single name. It is always called mangrove, and attains
its best development in Florida.

The leaves hang two years, are from three to five inches long and
one or two wide. Flowers are not showy, but they are nearly always
present, blooming the year round, the yellow blossom about an inch in
diameter. The fruit proper is about an inch long, but its habit of sprout-
ing while still on the tree and sending down a long stem-like root, gives
the impression that the fruit is several inches long, sometimes a foot.

It is not an easy matter to state the average size of mangrove
trees. Peculiar habits of growth make measurements difficult. Neither
is it easy to tell where a tree begins and where it ends. Mangrove
thickets along some of the rivers of south Florida, within the influence
of tide water, are strange forms of vegetation. If the foliage alone is
considered from a little distance, it reminds one of a row of fig trees in
Louisiana or California. The color and general appearance suggests
fig trees. A nearer approach reveals beneath the crowns a mass of
roots, stems, and limbs, joined with the ground beneath and the crowns
above. In addition to these, there are many others that dangle from
above, like rope ends, some nearly touching the ground, others several
feet above. These are roots or limbs, by whichever name one cares to
call them. They grow from overhead branches, and strike for the
ground. When they touch the soil, they quickly anchor themselves,
and become stems. They then look like slender poles set as props
under the branches of an overladen fruit tree.

This strange habit of growth gives the tree its character. Most
mangroves stand in water. They fringe the banks of rivers and bayous,
extending the fringe as far as the water is shallow. Growth of that
kind is generally from ten to twenty feet high, and the largest stems
from an inch in diameter up to three or four; but these dimensions
cannot be taken as limits to size. Sometimes the trees are sixty or
seventy feet high, but those which stand in water seldom reach that size.

685

686 American Forest Trees

Trees which have their beginning in the water sometimes end their days
high and dry on the land.

The mangrove is a land builder. The sycamore and willow are
land builders on a small scale, along northern water-courses, but man-
grove excels them a hundred or a thousand fold where it grows on the
low shores of Florida. The seed is prepared for land-building work
before it drops from the tree. It sprouts a long, peculiar root — it looks
like a very slender, big-ended cucumber — the large, heavy end down.
This attains a length of several inches or a foot. When it drops from
the branch, the end sticks in the mud and takes root, grows, and pro-
duces a tree. But generally it falls in water, and not on a mud bank.
In that case it floats away, the heavy end down, the light end barely
appearing on the surface. Winds and currents drive it about until the
lower tip finally touches bottom in some shallow place. There it takes
root, and unless circumstances are extremely adverse, it holds fast,
finally becomes a tree, sends branches down from above to take root at
the bottom of the water, and a clump is produced. The tangled mass of
stems and roots catches driftwood and mud, resulting finally in a little
island, and later the island is joined to the mainland. Thus the land is
built. Many large flats in Florida owe their origin to this tree. When
land is permanently above water, the mangrove loses, to some extent, its
ability to send roots down from the limbs. Nature seldom does some-
thing for nothing, and since the mangrove's aerial roots no longer serve
a useful purpose in nature's economy, they are dispensed with. Trunks
then reach much larger size, and become timber instead of thickets.
The accompanying picture shows a mangrove that no longer stands in
water, and its habit of growth is changing.

Thickets of mangrove are useful, not only in building new land, but
in protecting that already built. Frequently the force of waves is
broken, which otherwise would destroy low shores. Tremendous seas,
in time of storms, will roll over thickets of mangrove without uprooting
them or breaking the stems. Again nature's fine engineering is apparent.
When men build lighthouses which must endure the shocks of waves,
the}' have learned to construct them of open beams and lattice work.
The wave passes through without delivering the full impact of the blow
to the structure. No solid masonry will stand what a comparatively
light open frame will endure without injury, because it allows the waves
to pass on. A large wave may strike with a force of 6,000 pounds to the
square foot. The mangrove thickets are like the open-framed light-
house— they let the waves pass through and spend their force gradually
beyond, but they hold the shore against washing.

Admirable and wonderful as is nature's provision for protecting the

American Forest Trees 687

land by a fringe of lattice work of branches and stems, the marvelous
efficiency of the provision has been greatly increased in another way.
Suppose, for illustration, that cottonwood instead of mangrove formed
the protective thickets along stormy shores. The first hour of heavy
seas would reduce the trees to fragments. The weak, brittle trunks and
limbs would quickly break to pieces. But mangrove passes through
storm after storm unharmed. It is scarcely believable that accident
accounts for the fact that the best wood for the place is in the place ; but
it is probable, rather, that ages of development and natural selection
gave to mangrove the qualities which make possible the accomplish-
ment of its work. It is one of the strongest, and as far as available data
may be depended upon, it is absolutely the most elastic wood in the
United States. Shellbark hickory is rated high in both strength and
elasticity; but mangrove rates higher. Sargent gives hickory's measure
of elasticity at 1,925,000 pounds per square inch; but mangrove's is
2,333,000 pounds.

It is thus fitted in the highest manner to perform the work needed.
It plants itself in the right place; develops stems which will endure most
and suffer least ; possesses enormous strength for resisting force, yet is so
extremely elastic that the force of waves is exhausted upon the trunks
and branches without flattening them upon the ground or crushing them.
Few things of the vegetable world show more perfect adaptation to
environment. The wood's very heaviness seems to add one more
quality fitting it for its place. When a trunk falls in the water, it does
not float away as most trees would, but sinks like iron, lies on the bottom,
helps to hold the forming island or bar in place, and in its death as in its
life it is a land-builder. Its efficiency in that particular is increased by
the fact that it is little affected by marine borers which, in the warm,
brackish waters, usually destroy wood in a short time.

Mangrove is not important commercially, though it is used for a
number of purposes. The wood weighs 72.4 pounds per cubic foot, takes
good polish, though it is inclined to check in drying; it contains many
small pores; medullary rays numerous and thin; color reddish-brown
streaked with lighter brown. The principal use of the bark is for tanning
and the trunks for piles. It is well fitted for fence posts, but not many
have been used in the region where it grows. It rates high as fuel, but
its great weight increases transportation charges if the haul is long.

Tanbark peelers in Florida have cut much of the large mangrove
forest. They took the bark, and abandoned the trunks. There is no
likelihood that the species will be exterminated. Much of the growth
is practically inaccessible, and the trunks are too small to tempt bark
peelers, and cordwood cutters find plenty of material more convenient.

6S8

American Forest Trees

Other Species. — Two other trees of this country are called mangrove though
they are not even in the same family. One is the black mangrove (Avicennia n%iidj.h
called also blackwood and black tree. It is a Florida species of the family Verbenacecz,
and has some of the mangrove's habits. It takes root and grows on muddy shores
and is a land builder. The largest trees are sixty or seventy feet high and two in
diameter, but are usually less than thirty feet high. The bark is used in tanning, and
no use for the wood is reported, except for fuel. White mangrove (Laguncuiaria
racemosa), known also as white buttonwood, is a Florida species. It attains a height
of thirty or forty feet and a diameter of a foot or more. It reaches its largest size
on the shores of Shark river, Florida. The wood is dark yellow-brown, and the bark
is rich in tannin, and the tree may become valuable as a source of tanbark.

Near akin to white mangrove is Florida buttonwood (Conocarpus erecta)
which is highly esteemed as fuel. It burns slowly like charcoal. Trees are from
twenty to fifty feet high. Its range lies in southern Florida. Black olive tree
(Terminalia buceras) belongs in the south Florida group, and the wood is exceedingly
hard and heavy. The trunk is often two or three feet in diameter, but lies on the
ground like a log, with upright stems growing from it. Tanners make use of the bark.

CABBAGE PALMKTTO

THE PALMS

LUMBERMEN in this country could get along very well without the
palms, as they are little used for ordinary lumber. Their wood does
not grow in concentric rings, like that of the ordinary tree. The stems
are usually single, cylindrical, and unbranched. The fruit is berry -like,
and is usually one seeded, though sometimes there are two or three.
When a seed sprouts, it puts out at first a single leaf, like a grain of corn.
About 130 genera of palms are recognized in the world, most of them in
the tropics, but several in the United States are of tree size. Botanists
divide the palms of the United States into two groups, the palm family
and the lily family. The yuccas belong in the lily family. In the very
brief treatment that can be given the subject here, it is not necessary to
recognize strict family divisions.

Cabbage Palmetto (Sabal palmetto) grows in the coast region
from North Carolina to southern Florida, and west to the Apalachicola
river. It is sometimes called Bank's palmetto, cabbage tree, and tree
palmetto. The name cabbage is due to the large leaf-bud in the top of
the stem which is cooked as a substitute for cabbage. A sharp hatchet
and some experience are necessary to a successful operation in extracting
the bud from the tough fibers which surround it.

This palm is a familiar sight in the coast region within its range.
The tall trunks, with tufts of leaves at the tops, suggest the supposed
scenery of the Carboniferous age. Usually the trunks, in thick stands,
rise straight like columns from twenty to forty feet high, but occasionally
they bend in long, graceful curves, as if the weight of the tops caused
them to careen, which is probably what does happen. They vary in
diameter from eight inches to two feet.

The leaves are five or six feet long, and seven or eight wide, with
stems six or seven feet long. Flowers occur in racemes two feet or more
in length. The fruit is spherical and about a third of an inch in diameter.
The roots are an important part of this palm, and are adapted to their
environment, forming a rounded mass four or five feet in diameter, while
small rope-like roots, half an inch in diameter, penetrate the wet marshy
soil fifteen or twenty feet. The large, globe-like mass gives support in
the soft soil, and the stringy roots supply water and mineral substances
essential to growth. The wood is light, soft, pale-brown, with numerous
hard, fibro-vascular bundles, the outer rim about two inches thick and
much lighter and softer than the interior. The most important use for
the wood at present is as wharf piles. It lasts well and is ideal in form.
It is of historical interest that Fort Moultrie which defended Charleston,

692 American Forest Trees

South Carolina, in the Revolutionary war, was built of palmetto logs.
When the British made their memorable attack in 1776, their cannon
balls buried in the spongy logs without dislodging them, and the fort
successfully withstood the bombardment of ten hours, and disabled
nine of the ten British ships taking part in the assault.

The wood is employed to a small extent in furniture making, and
the bark for scrubbing brushes. Some of the finest forests of palmetto
in Florida are much injured by fire that runs up the trunks to feed on
stubs of leaves.

Silktop Palmetto (Thrinax parviflora) and silvertop palmetto
(Thrinax microcarpa) are species met with on some of the islands off the
coast of southern Florida.

Mexican Palmetto (Sabal mexicana) is much like cabbage
palmetto in size and general appearance, and is put to similar uses, except
that the leaf -bud does not appear to be used as food. The tree occurs in
Texas along the lower Rio Grande, and southward into Mexico where the
leaves are employed as house thatch by improvident Mexicans and
Indians who do not care to exert themselves to procure better roofing
material. In the vicinity of Brownsville, Texas, trunks of this palm
are employed as porch posts and present a rustic appearance. They
are said to last many years. The average size of trunks in Texas is
fifteen or twenty feet high and a foot or less in diameter, but some much
larger are found in Mexico. Some of the wharfs along the Texas coast
are built on palmetto piles. It is said the trunks are not as strong as
those of the cabbage palmetto in Florida.

Sargent Palm (Pseudophacnix sargentii) is interesting but not
commercially important, but may become so as an ornamental plant.
It is occasionally planted on lawns in south Florida. Leaves are five or
six feet long with stems still longer. The clusters of flowers are some-
times three feet in length. A single species is known, occurring on certain
keys in southern Florida, and is so limited in its range that it would be
possible to count every tree in existence. A grove of 200 or 300 trees
occurs on Key Largo.

Royal Palm (Oreodoxa regia) is one of the largest palms of this
country. It is said to reach a height of eighty feet, but such sizes are
rare. The trunk rises from an enlarged base, and may be two feet in
diameter. Bark is light gray in color, and its appearance suggests a
column of cement. Leaves are ten or twelve feet long, and the stems
increase the total length to twenty feet or more. Flowers are two feet
in length, and in Florida open in January and February. The fruit is
smaller than would be expected of a tree so large. It is a drupe about
the size of a half-grown grape. The wood is spongy, but the outer

American Forest Trees 693

portion of the stem is strong and is made into canes and other small
articles. Trunks are sometimes used as wharf piles. This palm's
range is confined to south Florida in this country, but it is common in
the West Indies. In Miami and other towns of southern Florida it is
much planted for ornament.

Fanleaf Palm (Neo-washingtoniafilamcntosa) also called Washing-
ton palm, California fan palm, Arizona palm, and wild date, ranges
through southern California, and occupies depressions in the desert
west of the Colorado river. There are said to be several forms and
varieties. It ranges in height from thirty-five to seventy feet and in
diameter from twenty to thirty inches. Trunks are of nearly the same
diameter from bottom to top, or taper very gradually. They usually
lean a little. Dead leaves hang about the trunks and blaze quickly
when fire touches them, but the palm is seldom killed by fire. The
small black fruit is about a third of an inch in diameter, and of no com-
mercial importance; wood is little used; and the tree is chiefly orna-
mental, and has been much planted in California.

Mohave Yucca ( Yucca mohavensis) is one of a half dozen or more
palms of the yucca genus and the lily family. Trees of this group are
characterized by their stiff, sharp-pointed leaves, some of which are
called daggers and others bayonets. Both names are appropriate. The
Mohave yucca takes its name from the Mahave desert in California,
where it is occasionally an important feature of the doleful landscape.
The ragged, leather-like leaves, forming the tops of the short, weird
trees, rattle in the wind, or resound with the patter of pebbles when
sandstorms sweep across the dry wastes. It is believed to be one of the
most slowly-growing trees of this country. Trunks are seldom more
than fifteen feet high and eight or ten inches in diameter. The vvcod is
spongy and interlaced with tough, stringy fibers. Stockmen whose
ranges include this tree, make corrals of the stems by setting them in
the ground as palisades. When weathered by wind and made bone dry
by the sun's fierce heat, the trunks are reduced to almost cork-lightness.
Other yuccas are the Spanish bayonet {Yucca trcculcana) of Texas;
Joshua-tree (Yucca arborescens), which ranges from Utah to California
and is known as tree yucca, yucca cactus, and the Joshua ; Schott yucca
(Yucca brcvifolia) of southern Arizona; broadfruit yucca (Yucca maao-
carpa) of southwestern Texas; aloe-leaf yucca (Yucca aloifolia) with a
range from North Carolina near the coast to Louisiana; and Spanish
dagger (Yucca gloriosa), on the coast and islands of South Carolina.

Giant Cactus (Ccreus giganteus) is a leafless tree of Arizona and attains a
height of forty or sixty feet, diameter of one or two. About twenty genera of cactus
are known in the world and a large number of species. Two genera, the ccreuses and

694

American Forest Trees

opuntias, have representatives of tree size in this country. The two genera differ
in form. Cereus in the Latin language means a candle, and the cactuses of that
genus stand up in straight stems like candles, or have branches like old-fashioned
candlesticks. The opunitas have flat, jointed stems, like thick leaves. Giant cactus
bears flowers four inches long and two wide; fruit two inches long and one wide, and
edible. Indians derive a considerable part of their food from this cactus. They
use the wood for rafters, fences, fuel, lances, and bows. The trunks consist of
bundles of fiber, very hard and strong. In the dry region where this cactus grows,
the woody parts of fallen stems last long periods, some say for centuries, but there are
no records. Schott cactus (Cereus schottii) and Thurber cactus (Cereus thurberi) are
found in southern Arizona and southward in Mexico.

Cholla (Opuntia fulgida) ranges from Nevada southward into Mexico. It is
popularly called "divil's tongue cactus," but there are other species with the same .
name. Trunks are occasionally ten or twelve feet high, and the wood is made into
canes and small articles of furniture, but as lumber it is not important. The fruit is
not eaten. A closely-related species is known as tassajo (Opuntia sponsior). It is
found on the dry mesas of southern Arizona where trunks may be ten feet high and a
few inches in diameter. It has the same uses as cholla. A third species is Opuntia
versicolor of southern Arizona. It is similar to the other opuntias. Attempts have
been made to grow spineless varieties of this group of cactuses. It is believed that
cattle, sheep, and goats would thrive on the pulpy growth, if the thorns could be
gotten rid of. The semi-desert regions of the Southwest produce enormous quan-
tities of cactus of many kinds, and if those worthless species could be made way with
and thornless varieties substituted, it is probable that much land now worthless
would become valuable.

■BMlMrM

MINOR SPECIES

A considerable number of trees grow in this country which, taken
singly, are of small importance, but in the aggregate they fill a place
which would be difficult to fill without them. Most of them are local,
and are seldom heard of outside of the regions where they grow. Some
are small, and for that reason are not demanded by the ordinary user
of lumber; but small size is not necessarily a bar to the use of a wood.
Many places may be filled by pieces too small for the sawmill. Some-
times a diminutive trunk contains material of extraordinary hardness,
or it may be polished to a rare smoothness, or the colors may be ex-
quisite. Numerous commodities can be successfully manufactured
from blocks or billets which are only a few inches in diameter and a foot
or two in length. This is particularly true of some of the rare hard-
woods of Florida and southern Texas where tropical species have ex-
tended their ranges northward over the borders of the United States.
Some of the small trees in that group are known by name in only the
immediate locality where they grow, and their qualities are scarcely
appreciated even there. In some instances railroad ties are hewed
from wood which is fit for the finest furniture.

It is no uncommon thing for Mexicans along the Rio Grande to
warm their huts and cook their meals with fuel chopped from trunks
of Texas ebony, algarita, cat's claw, bluewood, huisache, retama, and
junco. Those who have traveled among the Indian rancherias of New
Mexico and Utah have grown familiar with the peculiar odor filling the
air in the vicinity of camp fires. It is the smoke of the rare junipers
which the Indians burn for fuel ; and yet it is wood of such soft tones and
exquisite blending of colors that the shades of a Persian rug suffer by
comparison. Among the ten thousand islands which fringe the coasts
of south Florida, and also among the hummocks of the mainland, are
rare trees whose wood is unsurpassed in hardness, fineness of texture,
and beauty. These are not being used at all, or only as fuel to feed some
fisherman's or camper's fire, or to make a smoke to drive away mosquit-
oes. The time will come when small and scarce woods will be sought, if
they are valuable for any special purpose. In preceding pages of this
book many minor species have been listed and briefly described in
connection with those more important, and with which they are closely
related. There are more than a hundred others which were necessarily
omitted from former pages. A few of these deserve at least a brief
mention, and are listed in the following paragraphs.

Kceberlinia (Kceberlinia spinosa) is commonly considered a

697

698 American Forest Trees

curiosity; a tree without a relative in the world, and without leaves,
flowers, or fruit. The popular notion is wrong, of course, for no tree is
without relatives, and none without leaves, flowers, and fruit, or
something that takes their place. The flowers, leaves, and fruit of this
tree are small and escape notice of the casual observer, but they exist.
Its nearest relative in this country is the paradise tree of Florida and the
ailanthus introduced from China. It has a small, thorny, crooked trunk ;
the wood is dark, turning nearly black with exposure ; it is rich with oil ;
and it is very hard. The species grows in certain places along the Rio
Grande. The wood is made into canes, rulers, knife handles, turned
articles, and a little furniture of the smaller kinds. The trunks are too
small for ordinary sizes of lumber.

Gum Elastic (Bumelia lanuginosa) ranges from Georgia to Texas,
and in Florida is called black haw. Children in Texas mix its berries
with chewing gum, to increase the quantity, and the name which they
apply to it is "gum stretch it." An exuded resin is also used for chewing
gum. Trees are sometimes sixty feet high and two in diameter, and a
considerable number of logs go to hardwood mills, where they lose their
name, and possibly appear as ash lumber, or occasionally as maple.
The wood is white, tinged with yellow, and is manufactured into
agricultural implements. A scarce and smaller species, known as buck-
thorn bumelia and ironwood (Bumelia lycioides) covers nearly the same
range. From a tree of the same family in southern Asia the gutta percha
of commerce is obtained. Other woods of the same family in this
country are mastic (Sidcroxylon mastichodendrori) of south Florida, a
tree sometimes sixty feet high and three feet in diameter, useful for boat
building; satinleaf (Chrysophyllum monopyrenum) , also of Florida, a tree
twenty-five feet high and one in diameter, the wood very heavy, hard,
and strong; tough bumelia (Bumelia ienax), ranging from South Carolina
to Florida, a tree twenty feet high and six inches in diameter,
called black haw in some parts of its range; saffron plum or ant's wood
(Bumelia angustifolia), growing in Florida and Texas, the trunk twenty
feet high and six inches in diameter; wood orange colored, and the fruit
sweet; bustic (Dipholis salicifolia), in south Florida, a tree forty feet
high and eighteen inches in diameter, with wood exceedingly hard,
strong, and heavy, and dark brown or red in color; wild sapodilla or
dilly (Mimusops sieberi), a tree of south Florida with rich, very dark
brown wood, height of tree twenty feet, diameter one foot.

Dwarf Sumach (Rhus copallina) is known by many names. It is
distinguished from staghorn sumach by its smooth branches, those of
staghorn being hairy. Sumach's chief importance is due to its value as
tanning material. Leaves and small branches are used. The family has

American Forest Trees 699

some well-known members in other parts of the world, among them the
mangoes. The name dwarf sumach is not well selected, for the species is
nearly as large as any other sumach. Trees are sometimes thirty feet
high and ten inches in diameter. The tree's range extends from New
England to Florida and Texas. It reaches its largest size west of the
Mississippi river. In the East and North it is usually a shrub. Trees
of largest size are not believed to exceed fifty years in age. The wood
is richly striped with yellow and black. Balls turned of it, seven inches
in diameter, are used for newel-post ornaments, and smaller balls are
made for use in darning stockings. Cups are turned on the lathe, and
the bright stripes in the wood give the wares a striking appearance. It
was formerly much employed for spiles in tapping maple trees for sugar
making. Staghorn sumach (Rhus hirta) is of a different species but of
the same genus. Its range extends from New Brunswick nearly to the
Mississippi river. Its name refers to the down on the young branches
resembling the velvet on the horns of a deer at certain seasons. The tree
is known as Virginia sumach and hairy sumach. Its compound leaves
are sometimes two feet long — two or three times the size of dwarf
sumach's. Trunks have been reported forty feet high and more than a
foot through. The uses of this wood are the same as of dwarf sumach,
including tanning. It is more abundant east than west of the Alleghan-
ies. Poisonwood (Rhus mclopium) belongs to the same family. It is
known in Florida as doctor gum, hog plum, coral sumach, bumwood,
and mountain manchineel. The juice is exceedingly poisonous, and gum
produced by wounding the bark is reported to have medicinal value.
Trees are sometimes forty feet high and two feet in diameter. The
American smoke tree (Cotinus cotinoides) is another member of the
sumach family. It is found in the southern states from eastern Ten-
nessee to Texas. It is nowhere common, and its only reported use is as
fence posts. Trees may be a foot in diameter and thirty feet high. The
wood is a bright clear orange color, and a yellow dye has been manu-
factured from it. Poison sumach (Rhus vernix) is not the same as poison-
wood, though sometimes the two are confounded. It is usually a shrub,
and rarely twenty feet high. It is overloaded with names, as might be
expected of a plant considered as dangerous as this. Among its names
are poison elder, poison dogwood, swamp sumacn, poison oak, poison-
wood, poisontree, and thunderwood. It grows from New England to
Georgia, and west to Minnesota and Louisiana. It is apt to occur in wet
swamps, and Sargent pronounces it "one of the most dangerous plants of
the North American flora." A black, lustrous varnish can be made of
the acrid poisonous juice, and this may sometime give the species a
commercial value. When the skin is poisoned by contact with this tree,

700 American Forest Trees

an effective remedy may be found in a saturated alcoholic solution of
acetate of lead, if applied as a wash within an hour or two after the
poisoning occurs. A wash with pure alcohol is also effective if applied
within an hour. Following either treatment the skin should be thoroughly
washed with soap and water. Western sumach (Rhus integrifolia),
a closely related California species, is a small evergreen, seldom more
than twenty feet high and a foot in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard,
and red, is used as fuel, and occasionally in small turnery. The fruit is
a berry half an inch long.

Cascara Buckthorn (Rhamnus purshiana) is of the buckthorn
family, and is known by many names on the Pacific coast where the
species is best developed. It grows as far east as Colorado and Texas.
Cascara sagrada, its Mexican name, is often used for this tree. It is
known also as bearberry, bearwood, yellow-wood, pigeonberry, coffee-
berry, bayberry, and California coffee. The tree's usual size is from ten
to thirty feet high and twelve to twenty inches in diameter. It is often
shrubby, and is more valuable for its bark than its wood. Large quan-
tities are peeled for medicinal uses, and many trees are thus destroyed.
A little of the wood is burned as fuel, and some is made into
handles. Yellow buckthorn (Rhamnus caroliniana), with a range from
New York to Texas, and evergreen buckthorn (Rliamnus crocea), a
California species, are closely related to cascara buckthorn, but are of
comparatively little importance. Blue myrtle (Ccanoihus ihyrsiflorus) is
a California species, sometimes called wild lilac or blue blossoms. It
ranges in height from thirty-five feet, among the redwoods on the Santa
Cruz mountains, to only one foot high on some of the wind-swept coasts.
The wood is pale yellowish-brown, and is somewhat used for novelties.
Tree myrtle (Ceanothus arbor eus), often known as lilac, is also a Cali-
fornia tree, closely related to blue myrtle, but is of smaller size and of
very restricted range. Its prospective value lies more in its bloom than
in its wood. Naked- wood (Colubrina reclinata), a Florida species, is
of a kindred genus. Trees are sometimes fifty feet high and three in
diameter. The wood is hard, very strong, and is dark brown tinged
with yellow.

Lignum-vitje (Guajacum sanctum) grows in Florida, and a species
which is probably the same is found in south Texas along the Rio Grande.
In Texas the tree is known as guayacon, which name has come down
from the times when the Carib Indians ruled the West Indies. That
was their name for the tree. The annual rings are usually too vague
and too involved to be counted, but the tree is known to be of slow
growth. The wood is pitted and it contains cavities and creases; but
the clear wood is very hard and of fine and various colors. It is dark

American Forest Trees 701

green, brown, black, yellow and of mixed colors, and clouded effects, all
in the same block. Small pieces of furniture, like bureau cabinets,
present attractive combinations of colors. The wood is of such exceed-
ing hardness that it turns, breaks, or batters the carpenter's tools.
Candlesticks, egg cups, goblets, vases, checker pieces, dominos, boxes,
trays, canes, paper knives, and souvenirs are manufactured in a small
way. Trees attain a height of thirty feet and a diameter of two or
more. The compound leaves adhere to the branches until those of the
following season appear. The fruit is an orange-colored pod three-
fourths of an inch long.

Prickly Ash (Xanthoxylum clava-herculis). Some know this
species as toothache tree, tear-blanket, sting-tongue, and Hercules' club.
The wood shows little difference in color between heartwood and sap, and
bears some resemblance to buckeye. It takes good polish and some of
it looks like birdseye maple, but the figure does not seem to be due to
adventitious buds. It has been made into picture frames and looks
well. It is a rapid grower, and since its color fits it for the stencil, it
might be worthy of consideration for box material. Trees reach a height
of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of a foot or more. Its
range extends from Virginia to Texas. Satinwood {Xanthoxylum
cribrosum) is of the same genus, but it does not grow north of Florida
where it is sometimes called yellow-wood. Mature trees are a foot or
more in diameter and twenty-five or thirty-five feet high; wood heavy,
exceedingly hard and brittle, but not strong; color light orange. It has
some use as furniture material, and for certain classes of handles which
need not be strong. Wild lime {Xanthoxylum fagara) is a similar tree,
growing in both Florida and Texas, but it is of small size. Hoptree
{Ptelea trifoliata) is another member of the family. Its fruit is some-
times substituted for hops for brewing beer. It is known also as wafer
ash, wahoo, and quinine tree; the last name being due to its bitter bark.
It grows from Canada to Florida, and west to New Mexico, and seldom
exceeds twenty feet in height. Baretta {Hclictla parvifolia) which
occurs as a small tree in southern Texas, is a near relative. Torchwood
{Amyris maritima), so named because of its fine properties as fuel,
grows in southern Florida, sometimes reaching a height of forty feet and
a diameter of one. Canotia {Canotia holacantha) is a small, scarce tree
of Arizona and California and has fine-grained, rich brown wood.

Nannyberry {Viburnum priinifo/ium), known as black haw, sloe,
sheepberry, and stagbush, grows from Connecticut to Oklahoma and is
usually a shrub which springs up along highways and hedges, but it
sometimes reaches a height of twenty feet and a diameter of eight inches.
It is valuable in some localities in the manufacture of canes and um-

702 American Forest Trees

brella sticks. Rusty nannyberry (Viburnum rufotomcntosum) is a
similar species, but attains a larger size, and grows from Virginia to
Texas. The wood may be known by its disagreeable odor. Sheepberry
(Vibernum lentago) has a more northern range, from Quebec
to Saskatchewan, and south along the mountains to Georgia.

Blue Elder (Sambttcus glauca) is one of three tree elders in the
United States, the others being Mexican elder (Sambucus mcxicana) and
red-berried elder (Sambucus callicarpa). They are ornamental rather
than useful. The three species occur on the Pacific coast. The largest
recorded size of an elder was forty7 feet high and twenty-eight inches in
diameter. Its age was about fifty years.

Fringe Tree (Chionanihus virginica) is known also as white fringe,
American fringe, white ash, old man's beard, flowering ash, and sun-
flower tree. Its natural range extends from Pennsylvania to Florida
and west to Texas, but it has been widely planted in this country and
Europe. It is seldom more than twenty feet high and eight inches in
diameter. The bark possesses medicinal value. Devilwood (Osman-
thus americanus) belongs to the same family, but to a different genus.
It grows from North Carolina to Florida and west to Louisiana. The
largest trunks are a foot in diameter and forty feet high. The wood is
strong, heavy, hard, dark brown, and difficult to work.

Black Ironwood (Rhamnidium ferrcum) of Florida is among the
heaviest, probably is the heaviest, wood of the United States. It
weighs SI. 14 pounds per cubic foot, and when a hundred pounds of the
wood is burned, it leaves eight pounds of ashes — the highest in ash of all
woods of the United States. Its fuel value is very high. Trees are
small, seldom more than thirty feet high and six inches in diameter.
Bluewood (Condalia obovata) is a related Texas species, called also log-
wood and purple haw. It produces heavy, hard, close-grained wood,
light red in color. Trees six inches in diameter and twenty-five feet
high are fully up to the average. Along the lower Rio Grande it forms
dense, tangled thickets. Red ironwood (Reynosia latifolia) of southern
Florida belongs to a related species, and is sometimes called darling
plum, because its purple fruit is edible. The tree is small, the wood
heavy, hard, strong, and of rich brown color. White ironwood (Hypelate
trifoliata) belongs to a different family. It occurs in Florida where trees
are sometimes thirty-five feet high and eighteen inches in diameter.
The heavy, hard, rich brown wood is durable in contact with the ground,
and is used for fence posts, handles, and boats. Inkwood (Exothea
paniculata) is of the same family as white ironwood but of a different
genus. It is also a Florida species and is known in some localities as
ironwood. The tree is occasionally a foot in diameter and forty feet

American Forest Trees 703

high, wood very hard, heavy, and strong, and bright red in color. It is
Used by boat builders, for wharfs, and as handle wood.

Cinnamon Bark (Canella winter ana), also called white wood and
wild cinnamon, is a south Florida species seldom more than twenty-five
feet high and ten inches in diameter. The wood is exceedingly heavy,
hard, and strong, and of dark reddish-brown color. The wild cinnamon
bark of commerce comes from this tree.

Joewood {Jaquinia armillaris) grows in the Florida everglades.
The dark and beautiful medullary rays of this wood may sometime make
it valuable for turnery and small novelties. Trunks seldom exceed six
or seven inches in diameter. Marlberry (Icacorea paniculate) belongs
in the same family with joewood. Trunks are small, but the hard, rich
brown wood is beautifully marked with dark medullary rays.

Crabwood (Gymnanthcs lucida) is known chiefly by the fine canes
made of it. The tree occurs in southern Florida where it is sometimes
known as poisonwood. It is dark brown, streaked with yellow.
Trunks more than eight inches in diameter are unusual. Manchineel
(Hippomanc mancinclla) is of the same family, and occurs in Florida.
The wood is light and soft.

Singleleaf Pinon (Pinus monophyllo). This is the only pine in
this country with single needles. They are one and one-half inches
long, and are curved like the old fashioned sewing awl used by shoe-
makers. The needles fall during the fourth and fifth years. The cones
are one and one-half or two and one-half inches long. The trees are
small, averaging fifteen or twenty feet high and eight or twelve inches in
diameter. Its range covers portions of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and
California, but it occupies dry, sterile regions as nearly under desert
conditions as can be found in this country. The tree maintains a foot-
hold on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains at an altitude
of 9,000 feet and it descends into the Colorado desert in California at an
elevation of 2,000 feet. It endures winter cold below zero on the moun-
tains, and summer temperature of 122 in the Mojave desert. It is fitted
to live in a dry, sterile region. The leaves are small and the branches
bear few of them. The thin foliage uses little water, which is a fortunate
circumstance, for there is little to use. Slow growth is the result. The
trunk often adds less than an inch to its diameter in twenty years. The
trees form very open forest, resembling old orchards, ana the greenness
usually associated with pine landscapes is generally wanting. The
singleleaf pine has filled an important place in the development of the
region, and furnishes an example of the great service which a small,
crooked tree can give when it is the only one to be had. Mines worth
many millions of dollars have been worked with little of any other wood.

704 American Forest Trees

This has been the fuel for the kitchen, the engine house, the blacksmith
shop. It has supplied the props, posts, stulls, and lagging for the
underground operations. Fences for stock corrals, sheds, stables,
cabins, and bridges have been constructed of the small, crooked trunks
and the distorted limbs, when no other wood could be had in fifty or a
hundred miles. Extensive tracts have been cut clean in the vicinity of
mines. The product of the singleleaf pine forest cannot be measured in
board or log feet, because of the smallness of the trunks and branches,
but by the cord. The wood is medium heavy, rather high in fuel value,
very weak, brittle, and soft. The resin passages are few and small,
color yellow or light brown, the sapwood nearly white. In contact with
the soil the wood is not durable, but its principal use has been in a very
dry climate, and it lasts well there. It is the most important of the nut
pines.

It produces enormous crops which are larger some years than others.
John Muir believed that the singleleaf pinon's annual nut yield surpassed
California's yield of wheat. Only a small part of the nut crop is ever
put to use by man. Scattered over mountains, mesas, and deserts,
100,000 square miles in extent, most of the nuts fall and decay, though
the animals of the rocks and sands, and the birds of the air live on them
while they last. The Indians of the region long looked upon the nut
crop, as the Egyptians upon the overflow of the Nile — a guarantee
against famine. The Indians are not so dependent on the nuts now as
formerly because scattered settlements throughout the region supply
other sources of food. Many nuts are still gathered, and are sold in
stores from San Francisco to Denver. They look like peanuts, but are
richer in oil, and if eaten raw they speedily cloy the appetite. The
Indians usually roast them, and frequently crush them into meal.
When the harvest is ripe the Indians gather from all sides and camp
during a month or more, thrash the cones from the trees with poles,
extract the nuts, and keep up the operation until all present needs are
supplied, and every available basket is filled for future use. The pack-
horses and burros of the mining country in Nevada where this pine grows,
acquire a liking for the nuts. They are as nourishing as oats, and the
pack animals like them better. Indians do considerable business
collecting the nuts and selling them by the gunny sack to pack trains, for
horse feed. A single Indian will sometimes gather thirty or forty
bushels, for which he can get a dollar a bushel when he has carried them
to market.

The singleleaf pine's future will be about as its past has been, as
far as can now be foreseen. Little planting will ever be done, nor is it
necessary. Nature plants all that the sterile soil will support. It is of

American* Forest Trees 705

too slow growth to tempt the forester. A century is required to pro-
duce a fence post, and 200 years for a crosstie. Forest fires do little
injury, for the ground is generally so bare that fire dies out of its own
accord in a short distance. The tree can never be planted much for
ornament. Even if it would grow outside of its dry habitat, it possesses
no more beauty than a half-dead apple tree in a neglected orchard. The
trunks resemble mesquite in Texas; but the Texas tree is redeemed by
the beauty of its foliage in summer, while the foliage of the singleleaf
pine is so pale and thin that it attracts no attention.

Carolina Hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana) is of far less importance
than its northern neighbor which goes south along the Appalachian
mountains to meet it. The two species mingle on the mountain tops
from southwestern Virginia to northern Georgia. The Carolina hemlock
is usually confined to altitudes 2,500 or 3,000 feet above sea level, and
prefers rocky banks of streams. It does not usually occur in dense
stands of even moderate size, as the northern hemlock does. A few trees
in clumps or scattered solitary represent its habit of growth. Typical
development of the species occurs on the headwaters of the Savannah
river in South Carolina. For a long time this hemlock and its northern
relative were supposed to be the same. Botanists did not formerly
separate them, and the mountaineers do not generally do so now. There
are several differences, however, which may be observed upon close
examination, and by comparing the two species. The Carolina hem-
lock's leaves have more rows of stomata and therefore are a little whiter
on the under side. The leaves are also longer, and the cones are larger.
The tree does not attain the dimensions of the northern species, its
average size being forty or fifty feet in height, and two or less in diameter.
It is not abundant, and has never been and never can be much used for
commercial purposes. It is an attractive park tree and has been widely
planted.

Limber Pine (Pinus ficxilis) owes its name to its long, drooping
branches. It is often called white pine, Rocky Mountain white pine,
western white pine, and limber twig pine. It is not the tree usually
called western white pine (Pinus monticola) , but is a high mountain
species, ranging from the Rocky Mountains of Montana to western
Texas; it grows also on the mountains of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and
California. The upper limit of its range in the Sierra Nevadas is 12,000
feet. It descends to an altitude of only 4,000 feet in the Rocky Moun-
tains, and forms open, scattered stands of round-topped trees of little
commercial value, and is usually associated with western yellow pine or
Rocky Mountain cedar. At altitudes of 8,500 or 10,000 feet it is more
stunted, and associates with Lyall larch and other high mountain

706 American Forest Trees

species. Intermediate between its lower and its higher belts it produces
a little merchantable lumber. The wood is light, soft, medium brittle,
of slow growth and with narrow bands of summerwood. The resin
passages are large and numerous. The wood, when a choice trunk is
found, resembles that of eastern white pine ; but generally the trunks are
inferior in size and form. The heartwood is light, clear yellow, the sap-
wood nearly white. Trees range in height from thirty to fifty feet, and
one to three in diameter. A sawlog ten feet long is about as much as
can be had from a trunk, and of course, when compared with commercial
trees, it holds a low place ; but in some remote mountain regions it is the
principal wood available, and to that extent it is of importance. When
green, the wood is very heavy, and sometimes will sink. It is used for
posts and in the mines. The farmer seasons posts on the stump. He
peels the trees six months before cutting them. They immediately
exude resin over the whole peeled surface, and the tree quickly dies. At
the end of six months the trunk is seasoned, and is cut for posts. The
ends are smeared with resin. Such posts have lasted twenty years with
little decay. Railroads make ties of fire-killed limber pine. Charcoal
burners use it also. The growing trees resist the fumes of copper smelters
better than any other species associated with it.

Parry Pinon (Pinus quadrifolia). The names by which this tree is known in
the region where it grows indicate one of its leading features, a bearer of nuts. It is
called nut pine, Parry's nut pine, pinon, and Mexican pinon. The nuts exceed half an
inch in length, are reddish-brown, and the wings narrow and small. They cannot
carry the nuts far, and the species is not spreading. Reproduction takes place
beneath the parent tree, and frequently the old trunk dies without having succeeded
in planting a single seed to perpetuate the species. The nuts are nutritious, and are
eagerly sought by birds, rodents, and larger animals, including human beings. The
cones are seldom two inches long, and the leaves are little more than an inch. They
are usually in clusters of four, and fall the third year. The tree's characteristics
betray its environment. It is fitted for dry, sterile situations. Its abnormally large
seeds provide food for the seedling until it can get its rootlets deep enough in the poor
soil to get a start. The Parry pinon's range is confined to the extreme southern
part of California and to Lower California where it occupies arid mesas and low
mountain slopes. It is common on Santa Rosa mountains, California, at an elevation
of 5,000 feet. It is too small to be worth much for lumber, the usual height being less
than thirty feet, the trunk diameter from ten to sixteen inches. The wood is medium
heavy, weak, low in elasticity, but rather high in fuel value. The annual rings are
very narrow, and the thin bands of summerwood are not conspicuous. It is one of
the slowest-growing of the pines, and probably it is surpassed in that respect by
lodgepole pine alone. Its only uses are fuel, a few fence posts, and small ranch
timbers.

KnobconE Pine (Pinus attenuata). This pine is known as prickly-cone pine,
sun-loving pine, sunny-slope pine, narrow-cone pine, and knobcone pine. Its leaves
are in clusters of three, and are four and five inches long. The cones are from three
to six inches long. They often adhere to the branches thirty or forty years, and may

American- Forest Trees 707

become entirely overgrown and hidden by bark and wood — hence the name knobcone.
The wood is light, soft, weak, brittle; the growth is slow and the annual rings are
narrow. The resin passages are large and numerous. The average height of the
mature knobcone pine is from twenty-five to forty feet, and the trunk diameter eight
to twelve inches. It grows on dry mountain regions of California and Oregon, and is
not a valuable timber tree. A little is occasionally sawed in small dimensions, but
the principal use is for mine props. It is short lived, even when it does not fall a
victim to accidents. In accordance with the provisions of nature, it prepares for
early death by bearing seeds when only five or six feet high. The cones act as
storing places for seed, sometimes during the whole life of the tree. Thus a
knobcone pine may hold in its tightly closed cones the seeds produced during the
tree's whole life. When death overtakes it, the cones open and scatter the seeds.
The accumulated crops may total three or four pounds of seeds. Fire usually kills
the trees, but the heat is generally not sufficient to burn the cones. When they open
soon after the fire has passed, they find a bared mineral soil ready to receive them.
The knobcone pine lives in adversity and usually dies by violence.

Arizona Pine (Pinus arizonica). This tree is confined to the mountains of
southern Arizona at from 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level. It is the prevailing
pine near the summit of the Santa Catalina mountains. Much of the timber is of
small size and yields only inferior lumber; but when larger trunks are obtainable,
the lumber grades with western yellow pine, and goes to market with it. Arizona
pine is medium light, soft, not strong, rather brittle, of slow growth, with the summer-
wood comparatively broad and very resinous; color, fight red or often yellow, the
sapwood lighter yellow or white. The leaves are in clusters of five and are tufted at
the ends of the branches. They are from five to seven inches long, and are deciduous
the third year.

Dwarf Juniper (Juniperus communis) is an interesting tree because its range
practically runs round the world in the north temperate and frigid zones, but in the
United States the only reported use of the wood is in southern Illinois where it
grows on the limestone hills and is occasionally cut for fence posts. In nearly all
other parts of its range in this country it is little more than a shrub. Some trees
with a spread of limbs twenty feet across are only three or four feet high. The seeds
mature slowly, not ripening until the third year; and they often hang a year or two
after ripening. The wood is narrow-ringed, hard, very durable in contact with the
soil, of light brown color, with pale sapwood. In Europe the aromatic fruit of this
tree is used in large quantities to flavor gin, but there is no report that it has been so
employed in this country. In the United States it occurs in Pennsylvania and
northward, and northward from Illinois, and throughout the Rocky Mountains
north of Texas. It occurs on the Pacific coast north of California. It grows from
Greenland to Alaska, and through Siberia, and northern Europe.

Drooping Juniper (Juniperus flaccida) is confined in the United States to the
Chisos mountains in western Texas, but grows in Mexico. The tree attains a height
of thirty feet and a diameter of one. [Its name refers to its graceful branches. It has
been planted in this country less than in southern Europe and northern Africa. The
bark is light cinnamon-brown, and easily separates in loose, papery scales. The
lumberman will never go far to procure drooping juniper logs. They are too small,
scarce, and of form too poor. The wood has the usual characteristics of the junipers
which grow in western mountains. It looks more like alligator juniper than any
other. In Texas it goes to the lathe to be manufactured into candlesticks, pin boxes,
picture molding, and other articles of turnery.

708 American Forest Trees

Utah Juniper (Juniperus utakcnsis) is known also as juniper, desert juniper,
and western red cedar. The last name is properly applied to a different tree in
Washington and Oregon. The Utah juniper occupies the great basin between the
Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas, particularly in Utah, Nevada, California,
Arizona, and Colorado. It thrives best about 8,000 feet above the sea, but descends
to 5,000 feet or less. It is a desert tree, usually small, often a mere shrub, but
occasionally attaining a height of twenty feet or more and a diameter of one or two.
The trunk is irregular in shape, and is generally deeply fluted. The wood is light
brown in color, though it varies greatly in different specimens, and even in the same
tree. The sapwood is thick and nearly white. The tree has not been much used
except for fence posts and fuel. The Indians of the region eat the berries raw or
bake them in cakes.

INDEX TO COMMON NAMES

Acacia '

African mahogany

Ailanthus

Alaska cypress

Alaska pine

Alder

Algaroba

Alleghany sloe

Alligator juniper

Alligator-wood

Almondleaf willow

Aloe-leaf yucca

Alpine fir

Alpine larch

Alpine spruce

Alpine western spruce

Alpine whitebark pine . . .
Alternate-leaved dogwood

Alvord oak

Amabilis fir

American apple

American arborvitae

American ash

American crab

American fringe

American holly

American larch

American linden

American planertree

American smoke-tree

Andromeda

Angelica-tree

Ant's wood

Apple haw

Arborvitse

Arizona cork fir

Arizona cypress

Arizona madrona

Arizona palm

Arizona pine

Arizona spruce

Arizona sycamore

Arizona white oak

Arrow-wood

Ash-leaved maple

Aspen

Aspen-leaf

August plum

Bald cypress

Balm of Gilead 145, 667,

Balm of Gilead fir

Balsam 135. 136. 151, 166

Balsam fir 145,151

Balsam poplar

Baltimore oak

Banana

Baretta

Barren oak

.667

535
463
676
121
193
589
559
622
111
325
471
693
166

88
195
196

37
526
220
165
553

97
409
453
700
643

80
637
397
697
526
676
696
459

97
154
142
663
693
705
135
610
218
507
445
675
675
621
139
673
145
673
159
673
205
640
699
316

Barren scrub oak 283

Bartram oak ... 322

Basket elm . . 393

Basket oak 20.x, j_'i

Basket willow ... 472

Basswood . . 637

Bat-tree . . 494

Bayberry 698

Bay poplar 337

Bay-tree 529

Beaded locust 555

Bearberry 646, 698

Bear oak 315

Bearwood . . 698

Beaver-tree 495

Bebb willow . . 471

Beech .625

Beetree 637

Bell-tree ... 601

Bellwood .... 602

Berlandier ash 418

Big buckeye . 649

Big-bud 363

Big-bud hickory 363

Bigcone pine 68

Bigcone spruce 172

Big Cottonwood 667

Bigelow willow 472

Big hickory nut 363

Big laurel (94

Bigleaf laurel . . 507

Bigleaf maple 439

Big pine 31

Big shellbark 369

Bigtree 175

Big white birch 583

Biltmore ash 424

Birch . . 565

Bird cherry . . 619

Bishop's pine 69

Bitter cherry 616

Bitter hickory 361

Bittemut 367

Bitternut hickory .361

Bitter pecan 361,375

Bitter walnut . . 361

Bitter waternut 374

Bittenvood 676

Black ash 415, 416. 423, 445

Blackbark pine 75

Black birch 565, 577. 5S0

Black calabash 175

Black cherry 613

Black Cottonwood 667, 669, 679

Black gum 159. 331

Black haw 160

Black hickory 364, 367, 696, 699

Black ironwood 700

II

Index

Black jack 283

Black jack oak 291

Black larch 80

Black limetree 637

Black locust 535, 541

Black mangrove 688

Black maple 447

Black mulberry 513

Black oak 259, 260, 271, 277

Black olivetree 688

Black pine 03,67,70,75

Black poplar 681

Black slash pine 55

Black sloe 621

Black spruce 129

Black thorn 459

Blacktree 688

Black walnut 343

Black willow 469

Black wood 688

Bleeding-heart tree 500

Blister pine 145, 151

Blue ash 417,422

Blue beech 027

Blue birch 565, 577, 585

Blue blossoms 698

Blue dogwood 526

Blue elder 700

Blue jack oak 285

Blue myrtle 698

Blue oak 205,213,226

Blue spruce 136

Bluet 508

Bluewood 700

Bodark 511

Bodock 511

Bog spruce 130

Bois d'arc 511

Bois inconnu 405

Bottom shellbark 369

Bow- wood 511

Box elder 445,601

Box oak 223

Box white oak 223

Boxwood 523

Bracted fir 157

Brash oak 223

Brewer oak 220

Bristlecone fir 171

Bristlecone pine 19, 38

Broadfruit yucca 693

Broadleaf maple 439

Broadleaf willow 472

Broom hickory 367

Brown ash 423

Brown hickory 367

Brown pine 43

Buckeye 649

Buckthorn bumelia 696

Buckwheat-tree 502

Bullace plum 621

Bull bay 494

Bull pine 49, 75

Bumwood 697

Burning bush 499

Bumwood 502

Bur oak 211

Bustic 696

Butternut 349

Buttonball 607

Buttonwood 607

Cabbage palmetto 691

Cabbage-tree 691

Cactus 693

Cajeput 529

Calico-bush 505

Calicowood 601

California bay-tree 529

California black oak 285

California blue oak 229

California box elder 447

California buckeye 649, 651

California chestnut oak 313

California coffee 698

California fan palm 693

California hemlock spruce 193

California holly 645

California juniper 112

California laurel 529, 655

California live oak 307

California nutmeg 201

California olive 529

California post cedar 109

California red bud 549

California red fir 164

California sassafras 529

California scrub oak 237

California swamp pine 69

California sycamore 609

California tanbark oak 313

California walnut 351

California white oak 249

California white pine 67

Canada plum 621

Canadian Judas tree 548

Canadian red pine 61

Canoe birch 583

Canoe cedar 115

Canoewood 487

Canotia 699

Canyon birch 580

Canyon live oak 308

Carolina cherry 620

Carolina hemlock 703

Carolina pine 49

Carolina poplar 667

Cascara buckthorn 698

Cascara sagrada 698

Catalpa 475

Catawba 475

Catawba rhododendron 507

Cat spruce 130

Cedar 91, 97, 109, 118

Cedar elm 380, 392

Cedar pine 57

Cereuses 693

Index

Chalky leucsena 562

Chapman oak 208

Chattahoochee pine 202

Check pine 70

Checkered-barked juniper Ill

Cherry birch 565, 580

Chestnut 631

Chestnut oak 241, 313

Chickasaw plum 622

Chihuahua pine 76

Chinaberry 665

China-tree 664

Chinquapin 634

Chinquapin oak 247

Chittamwood 602

Cholla 691

Cigartree 476

Cinnamon bark 701

Cinnamon oak 286

Clammy locust 537

Cliff elm 385

Cockspur 459

Cocoa plum 622

Coffeebean 547

Coffee-berry 698

Coffeenut 547

Coffeetree 547

Colorado blue spruce 136

Common catalpa 475, 477

Common thorn 459

Cornel 523

Coral bean 554

Coral sumach 697

Cork-barked Douglas spruce 169

Cork elm 380, 385, 399

Cork pine 19

Corkwood 423

Corky elm 399

Cotton gum 337

Cottonwood 667, 673

Cotton-tree 667

Coulter pine 68

Cowlicks 604

Cow oak 229

Crab 453

Crab apple 453

Crabwood 701

Crack willow 472

Creeping pine 37

Cuban pine 45

Cucumber 481

Cucumber-tree 487

Currant-tree 451

Custard apple 640

Cut-leaved maple 445

Cypress 70,139

Dahoon holly 645

Darling plum 700

Darlington oak 295

Date plum 517

Deciduous holly 646

Deer tongue 507

Del mar pine 64

Desert juniper 705

Desert willow 477

Devil's claw 544

Devil's tongue cactus 694

Devilwood 700

Digger pine 75

Dilly 696

Doctor gum 697

Dogwood 523

Double fir 151

Double spruce 130

Douglas fir 169

Douglas spruce 169

Douglas-tree 169

Down-cone 166

Downy basswood 639

Downy-cone subalpine fir 166

Downy poplar 669

Drooping juniper 705

Drummond maple 436

Duck oak 320

Durand oak 208

Dwarf ash 412

Dwarf chestnut oak 247

Dwarf cypress 184

Dwarf juniper .... 705

Dwarf maple 442, 446

Dwarf marine pine 69

Dwarf rose bay 507

Dwarf sumach 696

Dwarf walnut 351

Dyer's oak 271

Ebony 517

Elder 700

Elderleaf ash 416

Emory oak 238

Engelmann oak 231

Engelmann spruce 135

English cornel 526

English dogwood 526

English hawthorn 460

European alder 592

Evergreen buckthorn 698

Evergreen cherry* 620

Evergreen magnolia 481, 493

Eysenhardtia 526

False acacia 535

False box-dogwood 523

False mahogany 531

False shagbark 346

Fanleaf palm 693

Farkleberry 508

Fat pine 43

Feather-cone red fir 157

Feather-leaf 97

Fetid buckeye 651

Fetid yew 202

Fighting wood 199

Finger-cone pine 25

Fir balsam 151

Fire cherry 619

Firewood 502

Fir pine 145

IXDEX

Florida ash *12

Florida basswood 639

Florida boxwood 501

Florida buttonwood 688

Florida cat's claw 538

Florida mahogany 531

Florida maple 435

Florida pine 43

Florida torreya 202

Florida yew 201

Flowering ash "00

Flowering cornel 523

Flowering dogwood 523

Flowering willow 477

Forked-leaf blackjack 283

Forked-leaf oak 217, 283

Forked-leaf white oak 217

Four-winged halesia 601

Foxtail pine 19, 3S, 39

Fragrant crab 453

Fraser fir 151

Fraser umbrella 481, 495

Fremont Cottonwood 667, 670

Fremontia 400

Frijolito 554

Fringe ash 412

Fringetree 700

Gambel oak 214

Garden wild plum 622

Georgia oak 267

Georgia pine 43

Giant arborvitE 115

Giant cactus 693

Gigantic cedar 115

Glaucus willow 472

Glossyleaf willow 496

Golden cup oak 308

Golden fir 164

Goldenleaf chinquapin 633

Gooseberry 50S

Goose plum 621,622

Gopherwood 553

Gowen cypress 184

Grand fir 163

Gray birch 585

Gray elm 380

Gray pine 75

Great California fir 163

Great laurel 494, 505

Great western larch 86

Green ash 422

Greenbark acacia 555

Green osier 526

Gregg ash 411

Guayacon 698

Gum 325

Gumbo limbo 676

Gum elastic 696

Gum stretch it 696

Gum-tree 325

Gyminda 49

Hackberry 403

Hackmatack 80, 80

Hack-tree 403

Hairy balm of Gilead 674

Hardbark hickory 363

Hardhack 595

Hard maple 427

Hard pine 43, 61, 63

Hardshell 363

Hardwoods 4

Hardy catalpa 475

Haw 459

Hawthorn 459

Healing balsam 151

Heart-leaved thorn 460

Heart pine 43

Heartwood 5

Heavy pine 67

Heavy-wooded pine 67

Hedge 511

Hedge-tree 511

Hemlock 187

Hemlock spruce 187, 193, 195

Hercules' club 676, 699

Hickory 357

Hickory elm 385

Hickory oak 308

Hickory pine 38, 52

Hickory poplar 487

High-ground willow oak 286

Highland oak 296

Hog haw 459

Hog plum 621, 697

Holly 643

Holly-leaf cherry 616

Honey locust 535, 541, 559

Honey-shucks locust 541

Honey pod 559

Hooker's oak 249

Hooker willow 472

Hoop ash 403,415

Hooptree 415

Hop hornbeam 595

Hoptree 699

Hornbeam 595, 627

Horsebean 549

Horse chestnut 651

Horse plum 621

Huajillo 538

Huckleberry 508

Huckleberry oak 309

Incense cedar 109

Indian bean 476

Indian cherry 451

Indian pear 451

Indigo thorn 556

Inkwood 700

Iowa crab 454

Iron oak 223,308

Ironwood. . .501, 502, 559, 595, 627, 696

Ivy 505

Jack oak 319

Jack pine 69

Jamaica dogwood 526, 550

Jeffrey pine 75

Index

Jersey pine 57

Joewood 701

Joshua-tree 093

Judas-tree 548

Juneberry 451

Juniper 70,91,99, 109, 1 IS, 706

Juniper-bush 91

Juniper cedar 99

Juniper-tree 403

Kalmia 505

Kenai birch 565, 585

Kingnut 369

Kingtree 51

Knobcone pine 704

Knowlton hornbeam 598

Koeberlinia 697

Lanceleaf alder 592

Lanceleaf Cottonwood 667, 670

Lancewood 657

Larch 79,165

Large buckeye 649

Largeleaf umbrella 481, 483

Large poplar 675

Largetooth aspen 667, 675

Laurel 494, 505, 507, 529

Laurel bay 494

Laurel cherry 620

Laurel-leaved magnolia 494

Laurel oak 295,319

Laurel'tree 531

Lea oak 292

Leatheileaf ash 418

Leatherwood 400, 502

Leucaena 562

Leverwood 595

Lignum- vita 698

Lilac 698

Limber pine 19, 703

Limber-twig pine 703

Linn 637

Liquidamber 325

Little shagbark 346

Little sugar pine 25

Little walnut 351

Live oak 2.53, 313

Loblolly pine 55

Locust 535

Lodgepole pine 73

Logwood 700

Lombardy poplar 682

Longcone pine 68

Longleaf pine 43

Longleaf service 452

Longleaf willow 496

Longleaved pine 63

Longchat 63

Longshucks pine 55

Longstalk willow 471

Longstraw pine 55

Lovely fir 165

Lovely red fir 165

Lowland spruce pine 51

Low maple 435

Lyall willow 496

Lynn 637

Mackenzie willow 472

Macnab cypress 178

Madrona 661

Magnificent fir 164

Magnolia I'M

Mahogany 463, 547

Mahogany birch 565

Manchineel 701

Mangrove 685

Manzanita 663

Maple 439

Marlberry . . 701

Mastic 696

Maul oak 308

May cherry 451

May haw 459

Meadow pine 45, 55

Menzies' spruce 133

Mesquite 559, 562

Mexican Cottonwood 067, 669

Mexican elder 700

Mexican madrona 663

Mexican mulberry 514

Mexican palmetto 692

Mexican persimmon 517

Mexican pinon 19, 33, 704

Mexican walnut 351

Mexican white pine 19

Michaux basswood 639

Mimosa 562

Minor species 695

Missouri willow 473

Mocker nut 356, 363

Mocker nut hickory 363

Mock olive 620

Mock orange 511, 620

Mohave yucca 693

Monterey cypress Ill

Monterey pine 69

Moose elm 391

Moose maple 135

Morehus oak 297

Mountain alder 592

Mountain ash 411, 454, 675

Mountain balsam 151, 166

Mountain birch 5S0

Mountain cedar Ill

Mountain elm 399

Mountain hemlock 195

Mountain holly 645

Mountain ivy 505

Mountain juniper 99

Mountain laurel 505, 529

Mountain mahogany 199. 165

Mountain manchineel 69,

Mountain maple 135, 111

Mountain pine 25

Mountain spruce 135

Mountain white oak 213

Mulberry 513

Myrtleberry 50S

Index

Myrtle-tree 529

Myrtle oak 297

Nakedwood 698

Narrowberry 699

Narrowcone pine 704

Narrowleaf Cottonwood 667, 669

Narrowleaf crab 453

Narrowleaf willow 496

Native plum 621

Necklace poplar 667

Netleaf oak 219

Nettle-tree 403

New England boxwood 523

Newcastle thorn 459

New Mexican locust 537

New Mexican pinon 28

Noble fir 157

Nootka cypress 121

North American red spruce 127

North Carolina pine 49

North Carolina shagbark hickory . 376

Northern cork elm 385

Northern spruce pine 19

Northern white cedar 97

Norway pine 61

Nutmeg hickory 374

Nutpine 28, 33, 68, 704

Nuttall willow 472

Oak-barked cedar Ill

Obispo pine 69

Ohio buckeye 049, 651

Oldfield birch 5S5

Oldfield pine 49

Old man's beard 700

Olivetree 337

One-berry 403

One-seed juniper 99

Opossum wood 601

Opuntias 694

Oregon ash 421

Oregon balsam 166

Oregon crabapple 454

Oregon fir 163

Oregon maple 439

Oregon oak 235

Oregon pine 169

Oregon white oak 235

Oreodaphne 529

Overcup oak 217. 223

Osage appletree 511

Osage orange 511

Osier willow 496

Pacific post oak 235

Pacific yew 1 99

Pale-leaf hickory 345

Palmer oak 310

Palms 691

Palmetto 691

Palo bianco 406

Palo verde 556

Paper birch 565, 583

Paper mulberry 514

Paradise-tree 676

Parrj- nut pine 19, 704

Parry pinon 703

Parry's spruce 136

Patton's spruce 196

Peach oak 313

Pea-flower locust 535

Peawood 602

Pear haw 459

Pear thorn 459

Pecan 357, 373

Pecan nut 373

Pecan tree 373

Persimmon 517

Pessimin 517

Pigeonberry 452, 526

Pigeon cherry 619

Pignut '. 356, 361, 367

Pignut hickory 367

Pig walnut 361

Pin cherry 619

Pine 19

Pink locust 555

Pin oak 208, 247, 301

Pinon 19, 28

Pinon pine 28, 33

Pin thorn 459

Pitch pine 43, 45, 49, 63

Planertree 397

Plane-tree 607

Plum 621,622

Poison dogwood 697

Poison elder 697

Poison ivy 505

Poison laurel 505

Poison oak 697

Poison sumach 697

Poisontree 697

Poisonwood 697, 701

Pond apple 640

Pond cypress 141

Pond pine 57

Poorfield pine 49

Poor pine 51

Poplar 487,673

Poplar-leaved birch 585

Popple 4s7, 675

Poppy ash 424

Possum haw 646

Possum oak 320

Possumwood 517

Port Orford cedar 123

Post cedar 103, 109

Post locust 535

Post oak 223

Poverty birch 585

Powcohiscora 355

Price oak 315

Pricklecone pine 69, 704

Prickly ash 699

Prickly pine 52

Prickly spruce 136

Prince's pine 70

Puget sound pine 169

Index

Pumpkin ash -123

Pumpkin pine 19

Pumpkin-tree loo

Punk oak 320

Purple buckeye 649,652

Purple dogwood 526

Purple haw > 00

Pyramidal magnolia 481, 49b

Quaking asp 675

Quinine-tree b JV

Rattlebox 601

Red alder 589

Red ash f23

Redbark fir 1*»

Redbark pine

Red bay

531

Red-berried elder '00

Red birch »77

Red-bract dogwood o2b

Redbud 548

Red cedar «. M»

Red elm _;. 39o, *»

Red fir 1<" ■ I"4- ^9

Red gum ■•_ ■••• fl

Red haw 4o/, 459, 460

Redheart hickory jg>

Red hickory 3b3

Red ironwood '00

Red larch °"

Red locust d)>?

Red maple **?

Red mulberry 61™

Red oak. . . . : . . 259, 265, 277. 280, 289

Red pine 01,169

Red plum °f£

Red silver fir

Red spruce

Red thorn

Red titi

Red willow

Redwood i°l

Retama **°

Rhododendron °0 '

River ash *W

River birch at)o, on

River Cottonwood 6b<

Rock chestnut oak ■■■ 241

Rock elm ...mi. 3*>

Rock maple 4~ '

Rock oak f41

Rocky Mountain juniper i24

Rocky Mountain oak 219, 226

Rocky Mountain white pine. .

Rose bay

Rosemary pine

Royal palm 09/

Rum cherry

Rusty nannyberry '00

Sadler oak --'!

Saffron plum 696

Salad-tree °,cu-

Sandbar willow 49b

Sand jack #*>

127

458
502
496

507

55

Sand pine 46

Sapwood pine 75

Sargent palm 092

Sarvice 451

Sassafac 055

Sassafas 055

Sassafrac 055

Sassafras 055

Satinleaf 096

Satin walnut 325

Satinwood 099

Savice 451,452

Savin 91

Saxifrax 055

Scalybark hickory 357

Scarlet haw 457

Scarlet maple 433

Scarlet oak ■ • 277

Schott cactus 694

Schott yucca 693

Screwbean 562

Screw-pod 562

Scrub oak 220/247, 283

Scrub pine 37, 5, , _ < 0

Seaside alder 592

Second growth 3o7

Serviceberry 451

Service-tree 451

Shadberry 451

Shagbark hickory 35o, 357

Shasta red fir 165

Shawneewood 4.0

She balsam 151

Sheepberry 099. 70 I

Sheepbush 554

Sheep laurel ■" •'

Shellbark 351

Shellbark hickory 309

Shingle cedar 1 15

Shingle oak

Shin oak

Shoepeg maple «

Short-flower mahogany 4bb

Shortleaf pine 49

Shortleaved pine °'

Shortshat 49

Shrub willow ->y0

Sierra brownbark pine

Silktop palmetto 692

Silky willow ■ 472

Silverbell tree 001. 004

Silver fir 159,1'

Silverleaf willow 471

Silver-leaved maple 129

Silver maple 41 J

Silver pine • • • }4?

.Silver spruce M"i ™

Silvertop palmetto MM

Single-leaf pinon 19. •<'!

Single spruce 130

Sir Joseph Hank's pine ■ '.'

Slash pine 45,

Sitka alder 592

vni

Index

Sitka spruce 133

Skunk spruce 130

Slippery elm 3S0, 391, 400

Sloe 699

Small buckeye 649, 652

Small fruit mountain ash 454

Small-leaf elm 399

Small-leaf horsebean 549

Small laurel 505

Small pignut 340

Small pignut hickory 346

Small white birch 585

Smooth cypress 142

Smooth-leaf willow 471

Snowdrop-tree 001, 603

Soapberry 465

Soap-tree 465

Soft maple 429

Soft pine 19, 25

Softwoods 4

Soledad pine 64

Sonora ironwood 568

Sophora 555

Sorrel-tree 507

Soulard crab 454

Sour gum 337, 339, 507

Sour gum bush 507

Sour tupelo 339

Sourwood 507

Southern basswood 639

Southern mountain pine 52

Southern red juniper 94

Southern red oak 265

Southern white cedar 103

Southern yellow pine "43

Spanish bayonet 693

Spanish dagger 693

Spanish moss 256

Spanish oak 260, 277, 289

Spanish red oak 289

Sparkleberry 508

Spice-tree 529

Spoon-hutch 507

Spoonwood 505

Springwood 7

Spotted oak 266, 271, 320

Spruce 127, 169

Spruce pine 45, 49, 51, 57, 187

Spruce-tree 187

Stackpole pine 151

Stagbush 699

Staghorn sumach ti97

Star-leaved gum 325

Stave oak 205

Stiffness of wood 11

Sting-tongue 699

Stinking ash 445

Stinking buckeye 651

Stinking cedar 201, 202

Stinking savin 202

Strength of wood 11

Striped maple 447

Stone-seed Mexican pinon 33

Stump tree 547

Sugar ash 445

Sugarberry 403, 405, 406

Sugar maple 427

Sugar pine 19, .31

Sugar-tree 427

Sumach 696

Summer haw 458

Summerwood 7

Sunflower-tree 700

Sun-loving pine 704

Sunny-slope pine 704

Swamp ash 416, 422

Swamp bay 531

Swamp cedar 103

Swamp chestnut oak 229

Swamp cottonwood 667, 669

Swamp hickory 361, 375

Swamp holly 646

Swamp laurel 495

Swamp magnolia 495

Swamp maple 429, 433

Swamp oak 225, 249, 301

Swamp poplar 669

Swamp sassafras 495

Swamp Spanish oak 301

Swamp tupelo 337

Swamp white oak 217, 229

Swampy chestnut oak 241

Sweet bay 531

Sweet birch 565, 580

Sweet crab 453

Sweet gum 325

Sweet locust 541

Sweet magnolia 481, 495

Sweet scented crab 453

Switch-bud hickory 367

Sycamore 397, 607

Table mountain pine 52

Tacamahac 673

Tamarack 79, 86

Tanbark oak 241, 271

Tassajo 694

Tear-blanket 699

Texan ebony 538

Texan red oak 265

Texas ash 411

Texas buckeye 649

Texas cottonwood 667, 669

Texas flowering willow 477

Texas redbud 549

Texas umbrella-tree 465

Thick shellbark 369

Thomas elm 385

Thorn apple 459

Thorn bush 459

Thorn locust 541

Thorn plum 459

Thorn-tree 541

Thorny acacia 541

Thorny locust 541

Three-leaved maple 445

Three-thorned acacia 541

Gj

Index

!X

Thunderwood 697

Thurber cactus 694

Tideland spruce 133

Tisswood 602

Titi 502, 526

Toothache-tree 699

Torch pine 55

Torchwood 699

Tornillo 562

Torrey pine 64

Tough bumelia 696

Tourney oak 315

Trask mahogany 466

Tree huckleberry 508

Tree myrtle '. 698

Tree palmetto 691

Tree yucca 693

Trident oak 292

Tuck-tuck 157

Tulip poplar 487

Tulip-tree 487

Tupelo 337

Turkey oak 283, 286

Umbrella tree 481, 484, 526

Upland hickory 357

Upland willow 285

Utah juniper 706

Valley mahogany 466

Valley oak 249

Valparaiso oak 308

Vauquelinia 466

Vine maple 441

Virgilia 547

Virginia pine 55

Virginia thorn 460

Wadsworth oak 225

Wafer ash 699

Wahoo 385, 399, 492, 499, 699

Wahooelm 399

Walnut 343

Walnut-tree 343

Washington haw 460

Washington palm 693

Washington pine 193

Washington thorn 460

Water ash 422, 424, 445

Water beech 607

Water birch 577, 580

Water bitternut 375

Water elm 380

Water hickory 375

Water maple 429, 433, 435

Water oak 295, 319, 320

Water Spanish oak 301

Water white oak 217

Weeping dogwood 526

Weeping oak 249

Weeping spruce 136, 195

Weeping willow 472

Western birch 565, 579

Western black willow 496

Western catalpa 476

Western cedar 115, 118

Western choke cherry 616

Western dogwood 525

Western hemlock 193

Western hemlock fir 193

Western hemlock spruce 193

Western juniper 118

Western larch 85

Western plum 621

Western red cedar 1 15, 118, 706

Western serviceberry 452

Western shellbark 369

Western spruce 133

Western sumach 698

Western walnut 351

Western white fir 163

Western white oak 235

Western white pine 19, 25, 703

Western yellow pine 67

Western yew 199

West Indian birch 676

West Indian cherry 620

Weymouth pine , 19

Whiskey cherry 613

Whistlewood 637

White alder 591

White Alaska birch 565, 579

White ash 409, 422, 700

White balsam 159, 166

White bark 37

Whitebark maple 436

Whitebark pine 19, 37

White basswood 639

White bay 495

White birch 565, 579, 585

Wllite buttonwood 688

White cedar 97, 103, 109

White Cottonwood 670

White elm 379, 385, 397

Whiteheart hickory 363

White hickory .. ." 357, 361, 367

White fir 159, 163, 166

White ironwood 700

White laurel 495

Whiteleaf oak 273

White locust 535

White mangrove 688

White maple 433, 439

White mulberry 514

White oak 205, 208, 213, 223, 235

White pine 19, 51, 703

White poplar 675, 682

White spruce 130, 135, 136

White stem pine 37

White thorn 459

White titi 502

White walnut 355, 357

White willow 472

Whitewood 487, 667, 701

Wickup 637

Wild apple 454

Wild black cherry 613

Wild cherry 613, 619

Wild china 466

Index

Wild cinnamon 701

Wild crab 453

Wild date 693

Wild lilac 698

Wild lime 699

Wild olive-tree 337, 601

Wild orange 620

Wild peach 620

Wild plum 621

Wild red cherry 619

Wild rose bay 507

Wild sapodilla 696

Wild tamarind 568

Wild thorn 459

Williamson's spruce 195

Willow 469

Willow-leaf cherry 620

Willow oak 279, 295

Wing elm 399

Witch elm 399

Witch hazel 328

Wood laurel 505

Woolly oak 315

Vaupon 645

Yaupon holly 645

Yellow ash 553

Yellow bark oak 271

Yellow basswood 637

Yellow birch 565, 571

Yellow buckeye 649

Yellow buckthorn 698

Yellow-butt oak 271

Yellow cedar 118, 121

Yellow chestnut oak 247

Yellow Cottonwood 667

Yellow cypress 121

Yellow fir 163, 169

Yellow-leaf willow 471

Yellow-flowered cucumber-tree . . 484

Yellow locust 535, 553

Yellow oak 247, 271

Yellow pine 43, 63

Yellow plum 621

Yellow poplar 481, 487

Yellow spruce 127

Yellow-wood 511, 553, 698, 699

Yew 199,201

Yucca. 693

INDEX TO LATIN NAMES

Abies amabilis 165

Abies arizoniea 154

Abies balsamea 145

Abies concolor 159

Abies frasert 151

Abies grandis 163

Abies lasiocarpa 166

Abies magnifica 164

Abies nobilis 79, 157

Abies shastensis 165

Abies venusta 171

Acacia farnesiana 543

Acacia greggii 544

Acacia wrightii 544

Acer circinatum 441

Acer floridanum 435

Acer glabrum 442, 446

Acer leucoderma 436

Acer macrophyllum 439

Acer negundo 445

Acer negundo californicum 447

Acer nigrum 447

Acer pennsylvanicura 447

Acer rubrum 433

Acer rubrum drummondii 436

Acer saccharinum 429

Acer saccharum 427

Acer spicatum 435

iEsculus austrina 652

jEsculus calif ornica 651

Jisculus glabra 651

.^isculus octandra 649

^Esculus octandra hybrida 652

Ailanthus glandulosa 676

Alnus acuminata 592

Alnus glutinosa 592

Alnus maritima 592

Alnus oregona 5S9

Alnus rhombifolia 591

Alnus rugosa 592

Alnus sitchensis 592

Alnus tennuifolia 596

Amelanchier alnifolia 452

Amelanchier canadensis 451

Amelanchier obovalis 452

Amyris maritima 699

Andromida ferruginea 526

Annona glabra 640

Aralia spinosa 675

Arbutus arizoniea 663

Arbutus menziesii 661

Arbutus xalapensis 663

Arctostaphylos manzanita 663

•X^imina triloba 640

Avicennia nitida 688

Betula alaskana 579

Retula ccerulea . . 565, 5S5

ISetula fontinalis 565, 580

Betula kenaica 565, 585

Betula lenta 565

Betula lutea 565, 571

Betula nigra 565, 577

Betula occidentalis 565, 579

Betula papyrifera 565, 583

Betula pendula 588

Betula populifolia 565, 585

Broussonetia papyrifera 514

Bumelia angustifolia 696

Bumelia lanuginosa 606

Bumelia lycoides 696

Bumelia tenax 696

Bursera simaruba 677

Camscyparis lawsoniana 123

Camaecyparis nootkatensis 121

Camaecyparis thyoides 103

Candalia obovata 700

Canella winterana 701

Canotia holocantha 699

Carpinus caroliniana 627

Castanea dentata 631

Castanea pumila 634

Castanopsis chrysophylla 633

Catalpa catalpa 475, 477

Catalpa speciosa 475

Celastracea; 499

Celtis mississippiensis 403, 405

Celtis occidentalis 403

Celtis reticulata 406

Cereidium floridum 555

Cercidium torreyanum 556

Cercis canadensis 548

Cercis occidentalis 549

Cercis reniformis 549

Cercocarpus ledifolius 466

Cercocarpus parvifolius 466

Cercocarpus parvifolius breviflorus 466

Cercocarpus traskia? 466

Cereus giganteus 693

Cereus schottii 604

Cereus thurberi 694

Chilopsis linearis 477

Chionanthus virginica 700

Chrysobalanus icaco 622

Chrysophyllum monopyrenum . . . 696

Cleanothus arboreus 698

Cleanothus thyrsiflorus 698

Cledrastis lutea 553

Cliftonia monophylla 502

Columbrina reclinata 698

Conocarpus erecta 688

Cornus alternifolia 526

Cornus florida 523

Cornus florida pendula 526

Cornus florida rubra 526

Cornus nuttallii 525

Cotinus cotinoides i ">1»7"

Index

Crataegus 457

Crataegus aestivalis 458

Crataegus brachyacantha 459

Crataegus coccinea 457

Crataegus cordata 460

Crataegus crus-galli 459

Crataegus douglasii 460

Crataegus oxycantha 460

Crataegus tomentosa 459

Cupressus arizonica 139, 142

Cupressus glabra 139, 142

Cupressus goveniana 139, 184

Cupressus macnabiana 139, 178

Cupressus macrocarpa 139, 141

Cupressus pygmaea 139, 184

Cyrilla racemlflora 501

Delea spinosa 556

Dendropogon usenoides 256

Diospyros texana 520

Diospyros virginiana 517

Dipholis salicif olia 696

Evonymus atropurpureus 499

Exothea paniculata 700

Eysenhardtia orthocarpa 556

Fagus atropunicea 625

Fraxinus americana 409

Fraxinus anomala 412

Fraxinus berlandieriana 418

Fraxinus biltmoreana 424

Fraxinus caroliniana 424

Fraxinus cuspidata 412

Fraxinus floridana 424

Fraxinus greggii 411

Fraxinus lanceolata 422

Fraxinus nigra 415

Fraxinus oregona 421

Fraxinus pennsylvanica 423

Fraxinus profunda 423

Fraxinus quadrangulata 417

Fraxinus texensis 411

Fraxinus velutina 418

Fremontodendron californicum . . 400

Gaultheria procumbens 566

Gleditsia aquatica 543

Gleditsia texana 543

Gleditsia triacanthos 541

Guajacum sanctum 698

Gyminda grisebachii 490

Gymnanthes lucida 701

Gymnocladus dioicus 547

Hamamelis virginiana 328

Helietta parvifolia 699

Heteromeles arbutifolia 645

Hicoria alba 356, 363, 364

Hicoria aquatica 375

Hicoria carolinae-septentrionalis .. 376

Hicoria glabra 356, 361, 364, 367

Hicoria laciniosa 369

Hicoria minima 361, 364

Hicoria myristicaeformis 374

Hicoria odorata 346

Hicoria ovata 355, 356

Hicoria texana 375

Hicoria villosa 345

Hippomane mancinella 701

Hypelate trifoliata 700

Icacorea paniculata 701

Ichthyomethia piscipula 550

Ilex cassine 645

Ilex cassine angustifolia 645

Ilex decidua 646

Ilex monticola 645

Ilex myrtifolia 645

Ilex opaca 643

Ilex vomitoria 645

Jaquinia armillaris 701

Juglans californica 351

Juglans cinera 359

Juglans nigra 243

Juglans rupestris 351

Juniperus barbadensis 94

Juniperus californica 112

Juniperus communis 705

Juniperus flaccida 705

Juniperus monosperma 99

Juniperus occidentals 118

Juniperus pachyphlcea Ill

Juniperus sabinoides 99

Juniperus scopulorum 124

Juniperus utahensis 706

Juniperus virginiana 91

Kalmia latifolia 505, 655

Khaya senegalensis 463

Koeberlinia spinosa 695

Laguncularia racemosa 688

Larix americana 80

Larix laricina 79

Larix lyallii 88

Larix occidentalis 85

Leitneria floridana 423

Leucaena glauca 562

Leucsena pulverulenta 562

Libocedrus decurrens 109

Liquidambar styraciflua 325

Linodendron tulipifera 481

Lysiloma latisiliqua 568

Magnolia acuminata 481

Magnolia acuminata cordata 4S4

Magnolia fcetida 481, 493

Magnolia fraseri 481

Magnolia glauca 481, 495

Magnolia macrophylla 481, 483

Magnolia pyramidata 4S1, 496

Magnolia tripetala 481, 484

Malus angustifolia 453

Malus coronaria 453

Malus ioensis 454

Malus malus 454

Malus rivularis 454

Malus soulardi 454

Meliaceae 463

Melia azedarach 464

Melia azedarach umbraculifera . . . 165

Mimusops sieberi 696

Mohrodendron carolinum 601

Mohrodendron dipterum 601

Index

Moms alba 514

Morus celtidifolia 514

Moras rubra 513

Neowashingtoniana filamentosa . . 693

Nyssa aquatica 337

Nyssa biflora 340

Nyssa ogeche 337, 339

Nyssa sylvatica 337

Ocotea catesbyana 657

Olneya tesota 568

Opuntia fulgida 694

Opuntia sponsior 694

Opuntia versicolor 694

Oreodoxa regia 692

Osmanthus americanus 700

Ostrya knowltoni 598

Ostrya virginiana 595

Oxydendron arboreum 507

Persea borbonia 531

Persea pubescens 532

Picea breweriana 136

Picea canadensis 130

Picea engelmanni 135

Picea mariana 129

Picea parryana 136

Picea rubens 127

Picea sitchensis 133

Pinus albicaulis 19, 37

Pinus aristata 19, 38, _43

Pinus arizonica 43, 705

Pinus attenuata 704

Pinus balfouriana 19, 38

Pinus cembroides 19, 33

Pinus chinuahuana 43, 76

Pinus clausa 43, 46

Pinus contorta 43, 73

Pinus coulteri 43, 68

Pinus divaricata 43, 69

Pinus echinata 43, 49

Pinus edulis 19, 28

Pinus flexilis 19, 703

Pinus glabra 43, 51

Pinus heterophylla 43, 45

Pinus jefferi '5

Pinus lambertiana 19, 25, __31

Pinus monophylla 19, 701

Pinus monticola 19. 25

Pinus muricata 43, 69

Pinus palustris 43

Pinus ponderosa 43, 67

Pinus pungens 43, _52

Pinus quadrifolia 19, 704

Pinus radiata 43, 69

Pinus resinosa 43, 61

Pinus rigida 43, 63

Pinus sabiniana 43, / 5

Pinus serotina 43, 57

Pinus strobifonnis 19, 27

Pinus strobus 19, 25

Pinus taeda 43, 55

Pinus torreyana 43, 64

Pinus virginiana 43, 57

Planera aquatica 397

Platanus occidentalis 607

Platanus racemosa 609

Platanus wrightii 610

Populus acuminata 667, 670

Populus alba 682

Populus angustifolia 667, 669

Populus balsamifera 667, 673

Populus balsamifera candicans . . . 673

Populus deltoides 667

Populus fremontii 667, 670

Populus grandidentata 667, 675

Populus heterophylla 667, 669

Populus mexicana 667, 669

Populus nigra 681

Populus nigra italica 682

Populus tremuloides 667, 676

Populus trichocarpa 667, 669

Populus wislizeni 667, 669

Park;nsonia aculeata 549

Parkinsonia microphylla 549

Prosopis juliflora 559

Prosopis juliflora glandulosa 562

Prosopis juliflora velutina 562

Prosopis odorata 562

Prunus allegheniensis 622

Prunus americana 621

Prunus angustifolia 622

Prunus caroliniana 620

Prunus demissa 616

Prunus emarginata 616

Prunus hortulana 622

Prunus ilicifolia 616

Prunus nigra 621

Prunus pennsylvanica 619

Prunus salicifolia 620

Prunus serotina 613

Prunus spha^rocarpa 620

Prunus subcordata 621

Prunus umbellata 621

Prunus virginiana 615

Pseudophoenix sargentii 692

Pseudotsuga macrocarpa 1 < 2

Pseudotsuga taxifolia 169

Ptelea trifohata 699

Pyrus americana I -J '

Pyrus microcarpa 4a4

Quercus acuminata 24^

Quercus agrifolia 307

Quercus alba 20o

Quercus alvordiana _ 220

Quercus arizonica 205, 218

Quercus brevifolia 2So

Quercus breviloba . 208

Quercus breweri 205, 220

Quercus californica ■_ . 2S5

Quercus catesbaei 259, 283

Quercus chapmani 208

Quercus chrysolepis 30S

Quercus chrysolepis palmeri 301

Quercus chry'solepis vacdnifolia. . 300

Quercus coccinea 277

Quercus densiflora

Quercus digitata 259, 2S9

Index

Quercus douglasii 213

Quercus dumosa 205, 237

Quercus emoryi 205, 238

Quercus engelmanni 205, 231

Quercus gambelii 205, 214

Quercus garryana 205, 235

Quercus georgiana 259, 267

Quercus heterophylla 322

Quercus hypoleuca 259, 273

Quercus imbricaria 259, 319

Quercus laurifolia 259, 319

Quercus leana 292

Quercus lobata 205, 249

Quercus lyrata 205, 217

Quercus macrocarpa 205, 211

Quercus marilandica 259, 291

Quercus michauxii 205, 229

Quercus minor 223, 241

Quercus morehus 259, 297

Quercus myrtifolia 259, 297

Quercus nigra 259, 320

Quercus oblongifolia 205, 226

Quercus palustris 259, 301

Quercus phellos 259, 279

Quercus platanoides 205, 225

Quercus pricei 259, 315

Quercus prinoides 205

Quercus prinus 205, 241

Quercus pumila 259, 315

Quercus reticulatr. 205, 219

Quercus rubra 259

Quercus sadleri 205, 220

Quercus texana 259, 265

Quercus tomentella 315

Quercus toumeyi 205, 315

Quercus tridentata 292

Quercus undulata 205, 219

Qurecus velutina 259, 271

Qercuus virginiana 205, 253

Quercus wislizeni 259, 296

Reynosia latifolia 700

Rhamnidium ferreum 700

Rhamnus caroliniana 698

Rhamnus crocea 698

Rhamnus purshiana 698

Rhizophora mangle 685

Rhododendron catawbiense 507

Rhododendron maximum 506

Rhus copallina 696

Rhus hirta 697

Rhus integrifolia 698

Rhus metopium 697

Rhus vernix 697

Robinia neomexicana 537

Robinia pseudacacia 535

Robinia viscosa 537

Sabal mexicana t>92

Sabal palmetto 691

Salix alba 472

Salix amplifolia 472

Salix amygdaloides 471

Salix babylonica 472

Salix bebbiana 471

Salix cordata mackenzieana 472

Salix discolor 472

Salix fluviatilis 496

Salix hookeriana, 472

Salix laevigata 471

Salix lasiandra 496

Salix lasiandra lyalli 496

Salix lasiolepis 472

Salix longipes 471

Salix lucida 496

Salix missouriensis 472

Salix nigra 496

Salix nuttallii 472

Salix sessifolia 471

Salix sitchensis 472

Salix taxifolia 471

Sambucus callicarpa 700

Sanbucus glauca 700

Sambucus mexicana 700

Sapindus drummondi 465

Sapindus marginatus 465

Sapindus saponaria 465

Sassafras sassafras 655

Schsfferia frutescens 501

Sequoia sempervirens 181

Sequoia washingtoniana 175

Sideroxylon mastichodendron .... 692

Simarouba glauca 676

Sophora aff inis 555

Sophora secundiflora 554

Swietenia mahagoni 463

Taxodium distichum 139

Taxodium imbricarium 139, 141

Taxus brevifolia 199

Taxus fioridana 201

Terminalia buceras 688

Thrinax microcarpa 692

Thrinax parvifiora 692

Thuja occidentalis 97 '

Thuja plicata 115

Tilia amerciana 637

Tilia australis 639

Tilia fioridana 639

Tilia heterophylla 637, 639

Tilia michauxii 639

Tilia pubescens 639

Toxylon pomiferum 511

Tsuga canadensis 1S7

Tsuga caroliniana 187, 703

Tsuga heterophylla 187, 193

Tsuga mertensiana 187, 195

Tumion californicum 201

Tumion taxifolium 202

Ulmus alata 379, 399

Ulmus americana 379

Ulmus crassifolia 379, 392

Ulmus pubescens 379, 391

Ulmus racemosa 379, 385

Ulmus serotina 379, 393

Umbellularia californica 529, 655

Vaccinium arboreum 508

Vauquelinia californica 466

Viburnum lentago 700

Index

xv

Viburnum prunifolium 699

Viburnum rufotomentosum 700

Xanthoxylum clava-herculis 699

Xanthoxylum cribrosum 699

Xanthoxylum fagara 699

Yucca aloifolia 693

Yucca arborescens 693

Yucca brevifolia 693

Yucca gloriosa 693

Yucca macrocarpa 693

Yucca mohavensis 693

Yucca treculeana 693

Zygia brevifolia 538

Zygia flexicaulis 538

Zygia unguis-cati 538

|y I\Aut

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Dee 3'35

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Mar 3' 41 71

Mtf 6 195

6

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Recto

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3 9424 02585 9601

STORAGE

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