American Forest Trees

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[Illustration: HENRY H. GIBSON]

American Forest Trees

by

Henry H. Gibson

Edited by Hu Maxwell

Hardwood Record Chicago 1913

Copyright 1913 by Hardwood Record Chicago, Ill.

The Regan Printing House 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 misunderstanding and confusion in the discussion of species whose common names are not the same in different regions, and whose botanical names 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 customary, 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 who 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, hemlocks, 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. Softwoods 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 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 commercial 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 Heartwood_--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 heartwood, 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 eye can detect no other difference between it and the surrounding band of sapwood. There is 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, deadwood. 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 characterless; 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 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 circumstances 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 Summerwood_--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 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 distinctly. A good reading glass is sufficient.

Pores belong to hardwoods only. The resin ducts in some softwoods 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 differently 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 medullary or pith rays.

Oak is cited as an example because the rays are large and prominent, 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 medullary rays. In cross section, only the line-like ends are seen, but quarter-sawing exposes their sides to view.

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 sometimes 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 standpoints. 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 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 indicate 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 of 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 laboratories for its manufacture, goes down through the newly-formed (and forming), 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. 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 expansion 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 business. The moisture which most affects a wood’s strength is that absorbed 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 seasoning. 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 sometimes 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, warping, 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 workers in wood, is the opposite of stiffness. A brittle wood is not necessarily 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 them. 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 only, not absolute 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 springwood. For the same reason, summerwood gives weight, and a relationship 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, persimmon, 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 approximately 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 favorable, 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. No 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 wood, but depends on circumstances. However, the ability to resist decay varies greatly with different species, under similar circumstances. 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 consideration 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 consequently 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 inactive 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 may be 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 favorable.

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 deterioration; 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 situations 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

[Illustration: WHITE PINE]

White Pine[1]

(_Pinus Strobus_)

[1] 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 flexilis_); Whitebark Pine (_Pinus albicaulis_); Foxtail Pine (_Pinus balfouriana_); Parry Pine (_Pinus quadrifolia_); Mexican Pinon (_Pinus cembroides_); Pinon (_Pinus edulis_); Singleleaf Pinon (_Pinus monophylla_); Bristlecone Pine (_Pinus aristata_).

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 inappropriate. 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 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 southern 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 consequently 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 softwoods 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 ninety and 120 tall are a fair average for mature timber.

The wood of white pine is among the lightest of the commercial 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 transporting the logs and the lumber to market, and that method has continued 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; otherwise 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 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.

[Illustration]

Western White Pine

[Illustration: 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 Nevada 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 exactly 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 sometimes 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 prime 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 serviceable, 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 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 experiments 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.

PINON (_Pinus edulis_). 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. Charcoal 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.

[Illustration]

Sugar Pine

[Illustration: 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 consequence 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 15 inches. Cones open, shed their seeds the second year, and fall the third. 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 mountains, 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 wasteful. 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 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 satisfactory 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 throughout 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 occidentale_) and succumb or else are stunted in their growth.

MEXICAN PINON (_Pinus cembroides_) 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 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.

[Illustration]

Whitebark Pine

[Illustration: 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 California, 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 surroundings; but such is not the case. The willow and the cottonwood 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 because 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, sometimes 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 sometimes cut from it in the Mono basin, east of the Sierra Nevada mountains. In the Nez Perce National Forest trees forty feet high have merchantable 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 passages 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, 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 development 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 PINE (_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 mountains, at an altitude of 13,000. At high altitudes it is scrubby and distorted, but in 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.

[Illustration]

Longleaf Pine

[Illustration: LONGLEAF PINE]

Longleaf Pine

(_Pinus Palustris_)

Longleaf is generally considered to be the most important member of the group of hard or pitch pines in this country[2]. It is known by many names in different parts of its range, and outside of its range where the wood is well known.

[2] 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 tæda_), Cuban Pine (_Pinus heterophylla_), Norway Pine (_Pinus resinosa_), Western Yellow Pine (_Pinus ponderosa_), Chihuahua Pine (_Pinus chihuahuana_), Arizona Pine (_Pinus arizonica_), Pitch Pine (_Pinus rigida_), Pond Pine (_Pinus serotina_), Spruce Pine (_Pinus glabra_), Monterey Pine (_Pinus radiata_), Knobcone Pine (_Pinus attenuata_), Gray Pine (_Pinus sabiniana_), Coulter Pine (_Pinus coulteri_), Lodgepole Pine (_Pinus contorta_), Jack Pine (_Pinus divaricata_), Scrub Pine (_Pinus virginiana_), Sand Pine (_Pinus clausa_), Table Mountain Pine (_Pinus pungens_), California Swamp Pine (_Pinus muricata_), Torry Pine (_Pinus torreyana_).

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 lumbermen. 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 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 compared 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 sapwood 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 hard 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 proportion 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 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. Manufacturers 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 supplied 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 Alabama. 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 conspicuous, rich dark orange color, the sapwood often nearly white. The annual 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 second 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 conditions 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 third 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.

[Illustration]

Shortleaf Pine

[Illustration: 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 considerable 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 of 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 diameter of three or four. Squared timbers of large size were formerly exported from Virginia and North Carolina. Similar sizes cannot now be procured there.

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 numerous, conspicuous; color, orange, the sapwood nearly white. The thoroughly 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 millwork. 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 1880 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 estimated 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 1911 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 sprouts seldom or never develop into merchantable trees. In that respect it differs from the other well-known sprouting softwood of this country, the California redwood, 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 northwestern 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 bears considerable resemblance to spruce, which probably accounts for the name of the tree.

TABLE MOUNTAIN PINE (_Pinus pungens_). 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 _Pinus 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 irregularly 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.

[Illustration]

Loblolly Pine

[Illustration: LOBLOLLY PINE]

Loblolly Pine

(_Pinus Tæda_)

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 loblolly 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 sawmills 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 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. Railroads employ large quantities in building freight cars, much for crossties, 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.

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 cases. 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 impression 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 where it has spread extensively since the settlement of the country. Its short needles have been responsible for several of its names, among them being shortshuck pine in Maryland 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 diameter. 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 broadleaf 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.”

[Illustration]

Norway Pine

[Illustration: 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 conforms pretty generally to the range of white pine but does not accompany 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 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 oftener 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 constituted 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-distillation 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 14,783,000 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, 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 passed 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 seedlings 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 inches 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 localities. 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 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 torreyana_), 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 prohibiting the cutting of a Torrey pine under heavy penalty, and the tree was thus saved. A hundred and 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, moderately 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.

[Illustration]

Western Yellow Pine

[Illustration: WESTERN YELLOW PINE]

Western Yellow Pine

(_Pinus Ponderosa_)

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 springwood 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 extensively 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 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 (_Dendroctonus ponderosæ_), 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 construction, 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.

COULTER PINE (_Pinus coulteri_) 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 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, pricklecone 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 requirements 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 state.

JACK PINE (_Pinus divaricata_) is a far northern species which extends its range 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 circumstances. 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 handsome 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 moderately 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.

[Illustration]

Lodgepole Pine

[Illustration: LODGEPOLE PINE]

Lodgepole Pine

(_Pinus Contorta_)

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 construction 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, summerwood 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, 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, corrals, pens, and small bridges. Where it could be had at all, it was generally plentiful. Stock ranges high among the mountains frequently depend 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 southern states. It is aggressive, and takes possession of vacant ground. Although the wood is not as valuable as loblolly, it is useful, and has 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 enforcement 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 California, 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 lumbermen 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 a 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 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 _Dædalia 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 vicinity 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.

[Illustration]

Tamarack

[Illustration: 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 northwestward 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, Wisconsin, 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 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 Hampshire, 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 leaves 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. Silted-up 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 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 conspicuous; 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 tam