Chapter X: Part 10

The average size of red oak in the best part of its range is a little under that of white oak, but some specimens are 150 feet high and six feet in diameter. Heights of seventy and eighty feet are usual, and diameters of three and four are frequent. The forest grown tree disposes of its lower limbs early in life, and develops a long, smooth trunk, with a narrow crown. The bark on young stems and on the upper parts of limbs of old trees is smooth and light gray. All leaves do not have the same number of lobes, and they are sharp pointed, and fall early in autumn.

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

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

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

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

TEXAN RED OAK

TEXAN RED OAK

(_Quercus Texana_)

The line between red oak (_Quercus rubra_) and Texan red oak is closely drawn by botanists, but lumbermen do not recognize much difference except toward the extreme ranges of each. Some call one simply red oak and the other southern red oak, but that leaves doubtful the timber on a large area occupied by both species. Their ranges overlap two or three hundred miles in the Ohio valley and on the southern tributaries of the Ohio river in Kentucky and Tennessee. A large amount of red oak from that region goes to market, and no one knows, and few care, whether it is of the northern or southern species. It is usually a mixture of both. But outside of the common zone where both trees grow, the woods of the two are kept fairly well separate. Thirty years ago Texan red oak received slight recognition from botanists. When Charles S. Sargent compiled in 1880 a volume of over 600 pages, “Forest Trees of North America,” for the United States government, and which was published as volume 9 of the Tenth Census, he did not so much as accord this tree the dignity of a species, but called it a variety of the common red oak. Its range and its great importance were little understood at that time. Sargent thus described its range: “Western Texas, valley of the Colorado river with the species and replacing it south and west, extending to the valley of the Neuces river and the Limpia mountains.”

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

This quotation is given in full because it shows how scientific men change their opinions to conform to new evidence. The range of that particular species was as wide in 1880 as in 1905, but botanists had not yet worked it out. Thus knowledge increases constantly, and year by year the resources of American forests are better understood. In this instance, what in 1880 was supposed to be a rather insignificant variety, occupying a restricted area in Texas, was found by 1905 to be a separate species, covering sixteen states in whole or in part. Similar progress concerning the forests has been made all over the country, not only by botanists but by lumbermen. Trees which were formerly considered so nearly alike that no distinctions were made, are now recognized to be quite different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

YELLOW OAK

YELLOW OAK

(_Quercus Velutina_)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Slack coopers convert this wood into their wares in many regions. The pores are too open to permit its use as tight cooperage, where liquids are to be contained, but for barrels and kegs of many kinds, as well as for boxes, baskets, and crates, it meets all requirements. It is good fuel. Many burners of brick and pottery show it preference, and charcoal burners make a clean sweep of it when it occurs in the course of their operations; though when it is desirable to save the by-products of charcoal kilns or retorts, yellow oak is considered less valuable than birch, beech, and maple.

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

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

WHITELEAF OAK (_Quercus hypoleuca_). The beauty of this small
evergreen oak of the mountains of western Texas, New Mexico, and
Arizona, is in its foliage rather than its wood. Large trunks--that
is, those twenty inches or more in diameter--are apt to be hollow,
but the sound wood is employed in repairing wagons in local shops,
and in rough ranch timbers. Its importance will never extend beyond
the region where it grows, but in that region it will continue to be
used where nothing better can be obtained. The largest trees are
sixty feet high, and two in diameter, but few reach those
dimensions. It is an arid land oak. It grows at from 4,000 to 6,000
feet elevations on mountains and plateaus. The leaves remain
thirteen months on the twigs. They are of the willow form, ranging
from two to four inches in length and one-half to one in width. The
acorns are small and bitter. The strength of this oak is remarkable,
if it may be judged by the figures given by Sargent. Two samples of
wood procured by himself and Dr. Engelmann on a dry, gravelly ground
among the Santa Rita mountains in Arizona, showed breaking strength
sixty-one per cent greater than the average given by the same author
for white oak. The stiffness of the specimens was a little above
white oak, and the weight three pounds more per cubic foot. It
should be borne in mind, however, that results derived from a test
of only two samples are not a safe basis for concluding that the
wood generally will average of so great strength. The annual rings
of growth are not clearly marked. The wood is porous, but the pores
are not generally arranged in bands, although they occasionally
follow that arrangement. The medullary rays are broad and abundant,
but are rather short, measured along the radial lines. They are of
pink color, a characteristic not unusual with oaks in semi-arid
regions. The foliage is doubtless the most valuable characteristic
of whiteleaf oak. The leaves are silver white below, and dark green
above. When they are agitated by wind the flashing of the different
tones and tints in the sunshine presents an attractive picture. It
belongs to the willow oak branch of the red oak group, and bears
two-year acorns.

SCARLET OAK

SCARLET OAK

(_Quercus Coccinea_)

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

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

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

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

Its range comprises the northeastern quarter of the United States. Beginning in southern Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, it grows through middle New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa to eastern Nebraska. Southward it extends along the coast through Virginia and inland along the mountains to South Carolina and Georgia. The growth is abundant over most of the range, the favorite habitat being dry, gravelly uplands. It seems to be most abundant along the northern part of the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to New Jersey, and is less common in the interior, and on the prairies skirting the western margins of the eastern forests. The average size of the tree is from seventy to eighty feet high and two or three in diameter. In many regions it is much smaller, while no very large trees have been reported.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TURKEY OAK

TURKEY OAK

(_Quercus Catesbæi_)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SPANISH OAK

SPANISH OAK

(_Quercus Digitata_)

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

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

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

The tree is often called red oak, particularly by lumbermen who cut it and send it to market with red oak. In Louisiana it is known as Spanish water oak, there being much resemblance between it and water oak (_Quercus nigra_) with which it is associated. Its range covers more than 200,000 square miles, beginning at the north in New Jersey and following down the coast regions to central Florida. It extends westward into Texas to the valley of the Brazos river; northward to Missouri and southern Indiana and Illinois. It does not grow far inland from the coast in the north Atlantic states, but further south it is common on the coast plain between the sea and the base of the mountains. It is often found on dry sand hills in that region. The largest Spanish oaks on record grew in the lower Ohio valley, particularly along the Wabash river. It is usually of medium size and large trunks are seldom seen. The average height is seventy or eighty feet, diameter two or three. In the open, the crown is broad and low, but in forests the trunk prunes itself fairly well, and makes good saw timber, as far as form and size are concerned. The acorns ripen in two years, and are bitter. The bark is rich in tannin, but tanneries do not use much of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEA OAK (_Quercus leana_), which is believed to be a hybrid between
yellow oak (_Quercus velutina_) and shingle oak (_Quercus
imbricaria_), is interesting but not important. Trees are apt to
stand alone, and far apart. They occur from District of Columbia to
Missouri, and south to North Carolina. The range is imperfectly
known.

LAUREL OAK

LAUREL OAK

(_Quercus Laurifolia_)

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

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

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