Chapter XI: Part 11

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

Laurel oak seems to be little used. It is occasionally referred to as rather inferior to other members of the black oak group, but it is not apparent why it bears that reputation. It may be on account of its poor seasoning qualities. Like other southern oaks, it is very heavy when green, and it is inclined to shrink and warp while in the process of parting with its moisture. If this can be successfully overcome, the wood ought to be valuable. Tests made on four samples cut on St. John’s river, Florida, recorded in Sargent’s tables, show remarkable results. The wood is 34 per cent stronger and 37 per cent stiffer than white oak, and is only one pound heavier per cubic foot of dry wood. If these values are fairly representative of the wood of laurel oak, it should be exceptionally valuable in vehicle making. It would fall considerably below hickory, but would stand very high among other woods, and could be recommended for wagon axles, tongues, and other parts of heavy vehicles.

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

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

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

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

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

MOREHUS OAK (_Quercus morehus_) can never be important in the lumber
industry, but it fills a few places in California where the ground
needs a cover. Its range is in the northern coast range and the
Sierra foothills, extending as far south as Kings river. The edges
of the leaves bear bent hooks like saw teeth. The foliage falls in
late winter. Trees are occasionally a foot or more in diameter. The
wood has not the appearance of possessing much value, and is too
scarce to be important. The most interesting thing connected with
this tree is that it is supposed to be a hybrid--a cross between
highland oak and California black oak. It was first found in 1863,
and a considerable range has since been established for it.

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

PIN OAK

PIN OAK

(_Quercus Palustris_)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oak-apples or galls are the round excrescences formed on the limbs by gallflies and their eggs. They seem particularly fond of this species and specimens are often seen which are literally covered with them. The worms which live inside seem to flourish particularly well on the food they imbibe from pin oak. The primitive school teachers three or four generations ago turned these oak galls to account. They are rich in tannin, and were employed in manufacturing the local ink supply. The teachers were the ink makers as well as the pen cutters when the pens were whittled from quills. The process of making the ink was simple. The galls were soaked in a kettle of water and nails. The iron acted on the tannin and produced the desired blackness, but if special luster was desired, it was furnished by adding the fruit of the wild greenbrier (_Smilax rotundifolia_), which grew abundantly in the woods. It was well that steel pens were not then in use, for the schoolmaster’s oak ink would have eaten up such a pen in a single day.

CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK

CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK

(_Quercus Agrifolia_)

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

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

The wood is hard and brittle. A cubic foot weighs 51.43 pounds when thoroughly dry. The wood of mature trees is reddish-brown; but young and middle aged trunks are all sapwood, and are white from bark to center. When sapwood is exposed to the air a considerable time it changes color and becomes very dark brown. The medullary rays of this oak are broad, fairly numerous, and are darker than the surrounding wood. When the log is quarter-sawed, the exposed flecks of bright surface are the darkest parts. To that extent, it resembles quarter-sawed sycamore, but the woods do not look alike in any other particular. This oak is very porous, and the pores--as is usual with live oaks--are arranged in rows running from bark to center rather than parallel with the annual rings. No clear line is distinguishable between spring and summerwood.

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

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

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

When in its favorite habitat, the massive proportions and majestic
appearance of this tree are imposing, the crown sometimes being 150
feet across, the bole short and thick, and the great branches long
and horizontal. It is not clothed in the somber Spanish moss that is
often present on the great live oaks of the southeastern states, but
there is a similarity of appearance in the drooping slender twigs.
One hundred and fifty feet across is cited as an unusual width of
crown, one hundred feet being a good average size, and forty or
fifty feet the usual height, although it sometimes reaches 100. The
bole is vested in a gray-brown, reddish-tinged bark, about an inch
thick, and broken into numerous scales which in old age become flaky
and pliable and fall off.

The bark is light colored, and has the stringy character of white
oak. The tree would readily pass for a white oak were it not for its
two-year acorns which class it in the black oak group. The wood
resembles white oak, and weighs 52.93 pounds per cubic foot.

Few oaks, if any, retain their leaves a longer time than this. They
remain on the branches three or four years. Most evergreen oaks shed
theirs at the beginning of the second year. The leaves of this tree
are peculiar in another way. They assume various forms. That in
itself is not unusual and occurs with many species; but the canyon
live oak has one pattern of leaf for the young tree, another for the
old. One form has a margin with sharp, hooked teeth; another has
smooth-margined leaves, and there are various intermediate forms.
Sizes vary no less than shapes of both acorns and leaves. Some
acorns are half an inch in length, others two inches.

The canyon live oak is believed to be long-lived, but further
information is desirable. The massive trunks represent centuries.
They usually occur in sheltered places which are measurably secure
from the ordinary perils which beset trees, notably the woodsman’s
ax and the periodic forest fire. The bottoms of canyons where this
oak makes choice of situation do not usually burn fiercely, and
trees sheltered there escape. Cordwood cutters are the most constant
peril to good fuel trees in California; but many a canyon is safe
from their invasions, because of lack of roads. There the most
magnificent oaks rear their crowns in security, while trees of
inferior size and character, which grow on exposed slopes and flats,
fall before the cordwood cutter, and go to the ricks in village
woodyards.

The wood of canyon live oak is superior to that of any other oak in
its range. It is of light brown color, and is tough, strong, stiff,
and heavy. The trunks are generally unsuitable for sawlogs, being
too short, but when a chance tree is found that may be cut into
lumber, it is considered a prize. Trunks are seldom good for more
than one sawlog. In that respect this oak may be compared with the
southern live oak. The scarcity of good hardwoods on the Pacific
coast adds to the value of what may be found there. If the canyon
live oak grew in the East, and developed a trunk of the same size
and shape as it has in its present home, it would attract no more
attention from the users of hardwoods than the live oak in the South
attracts now. But place makes great difference.

Factories in California do not report the use of much of this oak,
yet considerable quantities of it are in service. The most important
place found for it is in country and village blacksmith shops, where
wagons are repaired. Nearly every piece of wood which goes into a
wagon, except the bed, may be this oak. Many persons consider it the
best wagon timber on the Pacific coast, and it is particularly
valued for tongues, not only for wagons, but for heavy log trucks
which are operated by several yoke of oxen. The wood is likewise
made into singletrees. It has always been in use in California for
pack saddles. That article is small, but many saddles were formerly
made, and the pack saddle is still an important article in the
mountains. Trains of mules, horses, and burros thread the narrow
paths, where wheeled vehicles cannot go, and deliver supplies to
camps and mines in remote districts. The pack saddle’s strength is
frequently all that intervenes between the load and destruction; for
the snapping of a piece of wood may let the pack go over a precipice
beyond recovery. The pack trains are slowly passing out of use in
the West, as they long ago disappeared from the “bridle paths” of
eastern mountains and forests; but they are still to be seen among
the fastnesses of the Sierra Nevadas, as in the days when a western
poet burst into inspired song of the long pack trains going

“Up and down o’er the mountain trail
With one horse tied to another’s tail.”

HUCKLEBERRY OAK (_Quercus chrysolepis vaccinifolia_) is a variety of
canyon live oak, and is never large enough to supply wood for any
purpose, but is valuable as a covering to the ground on exposed
mountains. It is usually a shrub, and specimens no more than a foot
high are mature and bear acorns enormously out of proportion to the
size of the tree. If the canyon live oak of largest size in the low
hills bore acorns proportionately as large, they would be the size
of barrels. The huckleberry oak’s acorns are set in their golden
cups. The name huckleberry is applied because of a fancied
resemblance of the leaves to those of huckleberries. They are
generally less than one inch in length, sometimes not half an inch.
This unique variety of oak ranges on elevated slopes and ridges of
the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the traveler in climbing to the
peaks is often grateful for the privilege of pulling himself up the
steep slopes by grasping in his hands the tops of full grown trees.

PALMER OAK (_Quercus chrysolepis palmeri_) is considered a variety
of canyon live oak by some, but Sudworth believes it is a distinct
species, and draws his conclusion from forms of leaves, flowers, and
fruit. It forms large thickets on foothills and plateaus near the
southern boundary of California, eighty miles or more east of San
Diego. The trees do not attain sufficient size to give them
commercial importance.

CALIFORNIA TANBARK OAK

CALIFORNIA TANBARK OAK

(_Quercus Densiflora_)

Botanists dispute the right of this tree to the name of oak, and some of them refuse to call it an oak. It is admitted that it possesses characters not found in any other oak, but these are important to the botanist only, while laymen have never considered the tree anything but an oak. It has been variously called tanbark oak, chestnut oak, California chestnut oak, live oak, and peach oak. The trunk, branches, and foliage look much like chestnut. The leaf is like the chestnut’s, but it is evergreen. There are three or four crops on the tree at one time, and none fall until they are three or four years old. Young leaves are remarkably woolly, but late in their first summer they get rid of most of the fuzz, and become thick in texture.

Tanbark oaks are of all sizes, from mere shrubs on high mountains in the northern Sierra Nevadas to fine and symmetrical timber in the damp climate of the fog belt between San Francisco and the Oregon line. The average height of mature trees is from seventy to 100 feet, with diameters up to six feet in rare cases, though more trunks are under than over two feet in diameter.

The range of this oak reaches southern Oregon on the north, and runs southward three or four hundred miles along the Sierra Nevada mountains, to Mariposa county, and six hundred miles through the Coast range to Santa Barbara county. The tree is affected by climatic conditions, and where surroundings do not suit, it is small and shrubby, often less than ten feet high. It does best in the redwood belt where fogs from the Pacific ocean keep the air moist and the ground damp. It sometimes associates with Douglas fir, and at other times with California live oak. If it grows in dense side shade it loses its lower branches and develops a long, clean trunk; but in open ground it keeps its limbs until late in life.

This is the most important source of tanbark on the Pacific coast, and up to the present it has been procurable in large quantities. The annual output is nearly 40,000 tons, and it commands a higher price than the bark of any other oak or of hemlock. The absence of other adequate tanning materials on the Pacific coast gives this tree much importance. Its range covers several thousand square miles, and the stand is fairly good on much of it. But on the other hand, the destruction of timber to secure the bark has been excessive. What occurred with chestnut oak and hemlock in the East, is occurring with tanbark oak in the West. Trees are cut and peeled, and are left by thousands to rot in the woods, or to feed fires and make them more destructive. The bark peelers do their principal work in the California redwood region, because there the oak is at its best. Economic conditions make the salvage of the trunks impossible. The bark can be hauled to market, but the wood is unsalable at living prices, after the long haul. It has, therefore, been usually abandoned, and becomes a total loss. It cannot even be sold for fuel, because the country within reach of it is thinly settled, and wood is plentiful on every side.

Large oaks are felled, because the bark can not be stripped from the trunks in any other way, and small trees are not spared. The peelers often do not take the trouble to cut them down, but strip off the bark as high as a man can reach, and leave them standing. A future tree is thus destroyed for the sake of a strip of bark a few feet long. Such trees live a year or two, sometimes several years, before yielding to the inevitable. Usually, as a last expiring effort, they bear an abnormally large crop of acorns. That performance, in the language of the bark peelers, is “the last kick.” A tanbark slashing, when the peelers are ready to abandon it, is a sorry spectacle. The barkless and sun-cracked trunks strew the ground, the tops and limbs are piled in windrows, the small peeled trees stand dying, and the last ricks of bark have been sledded down the tote roads, marking the close of operations in that district. A few months later, when fire runs through, the end of the tanbark oak on that tract is accomplished.

Within recent years commendable efforts have been made to use the wood as well as the bark. One of the first steps in that direction was to overcome the prejudice against the wood. It was long considered to be valueless. That belief was founded on the single fact that this oak is difficult to season. Few woods in this country check as badly as this, when it is left exposed to sun and wind after the bark has been removed. It checks both radially and along the annual rings. The medullary rays are broad and extend much of the distance from the center to the outside. These are natural lines of cleavage when the log begins to season and the internal stresses develop. It must be admitted that the prospect of making anything out of timber of that character is discouraging; but it has been accomplished, and tanbark oak is now a material of considerable value.

The wood has about the strength and stiffness of white oak, while it is four pounds lighter per cubic foot. The structure is similar to that of California live oak, but the pores of tanbark oak are smaller. They run in rows from center to circumference. The medullary rays are broad enough to show well in quarter-sawing, but the wood’s appearance when so worked is not wholly satisfactory. The exposed flat surfaces of the rays show a faint purplish or violet tinge which is considered objectionable. But when the wood is worked plain it is dependable and substantial. It makes good flooring, fairly good furniture, finish, vehicles, and agricultural implements. It is perishable when placed in damp situations, and this detracts somewhat from its value as railway ties; but the wood’s porous nature indicates that it will readily yield to preservative treatment.

Since the value of the wood is coming to be understood it is to be expected that less of it will be destroyed than formerly, and that second growth will be given opportunity to hold the ground when old stands are cut. The tree is a prolific seeder, but not every year, and seedlings come up abundantly in sheltered places. Sprouts rise from stumps and grow to vigorous trees. It would seem, therefore, that the tanbark oak will hold at least part of the ground where nature planted it.

TOUMEY OAK (_Quercus toumeyi_). No oak in this country has smaller leaves than this. They are usually less than three-fourths of an inch long and half an inch wide, and they hang on petioles one-sixteenth inch long. The leaves have no lobes or notches. They remain all winter and fall in the spring in time to make room for the new crop. The acorns are nearly as long as the leaves and ripen in June of the first year. Few persons ever see this oak, for its known range is restricted to Mule mountain, in Cochise county, southeastern Arizona. It attains a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of six or eight inches. The trunk is not only small, but is of form so poor that it can never be of value for anything but fuel. It divides near the ground into crooked branches. The heart of the tree is light brown, the thick sapwood is lighter.

WOOLLY OAK (_Quercus tomentella_) has apparently been crowded off
the American continent and has taken refuge on islands off the
southern California coast. As far as known, not a single tree stands
on the mainland, but several groves, with a few isolated specimens,
are found on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Catalina islands, where
they are huddled together in the bottoms of sheltered canyons. The
leaves are thick, leathery, and are toothed like holly. The trees
are evergreen. The acorns do not mature until the second season.
They are generally more than an inch long. The scarcity of this oak
relegates it to an unimportant place among commercial woods. This
seems unfortunate, for the appearance of the wood indicates that it
possesses excellent properties. No other oak looks like this wood.
It is decidedly yellow, and is dense and firm. The medullary rays
are different from those of any other oak. When seen in cross
section they are arranged in short, wavy lines, broadest in the
middle and tapering toward both ends. The pores are arranged between
the rays, and follow wavy lines also. Trees grow with fair rapidity,
and the largest on the islands are seventy-five feet high and two in
diameter.

BARREN OAK (_Quercus pumila_) is called dwarf black oak, or simply
scrub oak. Its habit of growing on barren land is responsible for
its common name which some people shorten to “bear” oak. It is one
of the poorest oaks of the East, and it seldom grows more than
twenty-five feet high and a few inches in diameter. Its range
follows the Atlantic coast southward from Mount Desert Island,
Maine, to North Carolina. It is probably more abundant on the pine
barrens of New Jersey than elsewhere. The trunks are too small to be
of use for anything but fuel.

PRICE OAK (_Quercus pricei_) is a California tree, supposed to be
very local in its range, since it has not been found outside the
drainage basin of a small stream in Monterey county. That locality
on the coast of California appears to be the starting place or
principal abiding place of several tree species, among which are
Monterey cypress and Monterey pine. The Price oak attains a height
of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of twelve inches or
less; consequently it is too small to be of value to lumbermen, even
if it were abundant. The leaves resemble those of California live
oak, and are believed to remain two summers on the tree. The acorns
mature the second season.

SHINGLE OAK

SHINGLE OAK

(_Quercus Imbricaria_)

The origin of this tree’s name has been the subject of considerable controversy. According to one account the name was first used by the French colonists at Kaskaskia, Illinois, nearly 150 years ago. They found that the wood rived well and it was abundant in the vicinity of their settlement. They split it for shingles and covered their cabins. It was the best wood obtainable for the purpose in that region, and they designated the tree shingle oak, a name translated into Latin by the botanist Michaux and still retained as the tree’s botanical name. The story of the name appears to be well authenticated, but the fact cannot be denied that as much reason exists for another theory. A person who sees a shingle oak tree in full leaf, particularly if it stands in open ground where its foliage has had opportunity to develop along natural lines, will at once notice the peculiar and characteristic overlapping of the leaves. They suggest the courses of shingles nailed on a roof. No other oak has that arrangement. The similitude is so striking that it would be surprising if the name shingle oak were not applied.

It is not a one-name tree, but following the fashion, it carries several names. It is called laurel oak in some regions. The form and appearance of the leaf give the name. The oak looks like a mammoth laurel tree more than like its own species. The shingle oak is known as jack oak in some parts of Illinois. That is a name liable to be applied to any tree when its real name is not known. In North Carolina they call the tree water oak, which name, like jack oak, is often used to conceal ignorance of the true name. Another southern species (_Quercus nigra_) is properly named water oak.

Shingle oak requires good soil for growth but is not partial either to uplands or bottoms. It is found at its best in the lower Ohio river basin and in Missouri, but is comparatively rare in the East. From middle Pennsylvania its range extends southward along the Alleghanies to northern Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and west Arkansas. It is found in Michigan, Wisconsin, and westward to Kansas.

It manifests a strong tendency to hybridize with other oaks, and it readily crosses with black jack oak, pin oak, and yellow oak. It is believed that a cross between yellow oak and shingle oak produced the species known as lea oak.

A mature tree may be one hundred feet high and three or four feet in diameter. It has a round or pyramidal attractive crown composed of many slender branches and twigs. The foliage is distinctively grouped at the ends of the twigs in star-like clusters. The leaves are four or six inches long, with wedge-shaped or rounded bases, and are deep green and shiny on the upper side, but lighter below. The acorns are short, stubby, and rounded, covered one-third of the way with thin shallow cups.

Shingle oak grows rapidly, and it is often sold by nurseries which deal in ornamental forest trees. It is hardy as far north as Massachusetts. Although it bears great abundance of leaves, they are so arranged that the crown seems open. One may see through the branches of a large shingle oak, and it suggests an airiness not common with oaks.

Differences of opinion exist concerning the value of shingle oak for commercial purposes. It belongs in the black oak group, and its wood goes to market as red oak, and apparently is never listed as anything else. It is never named in market reports; shops and factories never report it, and it has been pronounced inferior to red oak in strength and seasoning properties. Tests have been made of some of its physical properties, and the results do not indicate that the wood belongs with inferior timbers. Its breaking strength is given at 39 per cent greater than white oak, and its stiffness at 28 per cent greater. However, these values, which are calculated from Sargent’s tables, are based on tests of only a few specimens of the wood, and fuller investigation might make revision necessary.

The wood is heavy, hard, and is said to check badly in drying. The pores are large and are arranged in rows; medullary rays are broad and conspicuous. The wood is light brown, tinged with red, the sapwood much lighter. The broad medullary rays, running radially, give the wood its good splitting qualities.

The tree is fairly abundant in different parts of its range, and is cut and manufactured with other oaks and hardwoods. Slack coopers use it for barrels; box makers employ it for crates; chair mills saw dimension stock and ship it to factories to be finished; some goes to furniture factories; some is turned for spindles for grills, and for balusters for stairs; other fills various places as interior finish and molding. But it all goes to market and passes through factories under names other than its own.

WATER OAK (_Quercus nigra_) has several names, some of them bestowed with little apparent reason. It is called possum oak and duck oak, but these names are neither descriptive nor definitive. Punk oak is another name. It may refer to a decayed condition of the wood, but this tree is no more affected by decay than others of the same region. In Texas it is sometimes known as spotted oak. It thrives in wet situations though not actually in swamps. It prefers margins of ponds, banks of rivers, and low swales where the ground water is just below the surface, but it is not confined to such situations. It does well, within its range, wherever willow oak flourishes, but willow oak has a wider range. The leaves take on various forms, and they change shape as they increase in size. Some have smooth margins, others are lobed. Some are wedge-shaped, others coffin-shaped. Their typical form, if it may be said of them that they have a typical form, is narrow at the stem end and wide at the other. To this is usually added rudimentary lobes, which are sometimes nearly as well developed as in any other oak. Their typical form is like the leaf of the black jack oak; but they are not half as large, and are thin and delicate, while the black jack’s leaf is thick and leathery.

The range of water oak begins in Delaware and follows the Atlantic coastal plain south to central Florida, and through the Gulf States to Texas. It grows as far north as Kentucky and Missouri. It keeps clear of the Appalachian mountain region, and other hilly districts. It is plentiful in some parts of its range, and trunks three feet in diameter and long enough for two or three logs are not unusual, yet large numbers of water oaks may be seen in the South which are not fit for sawlogs because they stand in open ground and are limby down to ten feet of the ground. Many have been planted for shade trees in streets and in parks, and are justly admired. They grow rapidly and are extremely graceful. Their leaves are deciduous, but adhere to the branches most of the year. South of the belt of severe frost, the old leaves frequently hang until the buds for the new crop are opening. The acorns are bitter, and even the southern pine hog passes them by until the pinch of famine edges up his appetite.

Water oak possesses value as a source of lumber, but it belongs with the large class of oaks which lose their names and their identity when they pass the threshold of the sawmill. They come out red oak. Only in rare instances is water oak called by its own name in the factory and lumber yard. Wagon makers employ it for bolsters, axles, spokes, tongues, sandboards, hounds, felloes and reaches. Entire dump carts, except the iron, are constructed of this wood. Furniture manufacturers use it as frame material, but seldom as the outside visible parts, though no reason for not doing so is offered. Objection is made to its seasoning qualities, but the same objection applies to most red oaks. A considerable amount of water oak is cut in the South into thick planks for bridge floors. It is strong and hard, and satisfactorily resists decay in that place; though, in common with the black oaks generally, it is liable to decay when exposed to dampness. The wood weighs a little less than white oak, and is not quite as strong or as stiff. It is porous, but the pores are small, except one or two rows in the springwood. The medullary rays are thin and not numerous, but they are conspicuous, and the wood may be successfully quarter-sawed. The lumber has the appearance of red oak, though the reddish color is not so pronounced.

BARTRAM OAK (_Quercus heterophylla_). This interesting but
commercially unimportant oak was named by Michaux from a single tree
found in a field belonging to John Bartram near Philadelphia more
than a century ago. A few trees have since been found in widely
scattered districts as far south as North Carolina and as far west
as Texas. Botanists believe it is a hybrid, one parent being the
willow oak (_Quercus phellos_) and the other yellow oak (_Quercus
velutina_). It is probable that here may be witnessed the origin of
a tree species. The leaves seem to be a compromise between the
deeply cut foliage of yellow oak and the entire leaf of willow oak.
The new species is so scarce that few people have ever seen it.

RED GUM

RED GUM

(_Liquidambar Styraciflua_)

This tree does not belong to the same group as black gum and tupelo, which are in the dogwood family, while red gum is of the witch hazel family. If a tree is to be judged and named by its character, red gum is more entitled to the name “gum” than any other tree of this country, because it exudes a yellow resin from wounds in the bark. The botanical name recognizes that fact. Storax is procured from a closely related tree is Asia, and has been known in commerce for many centuries. The other popular names of red gum are sweet gum, liquid-amber gum, gum tree, alligator wood, bilsted, starleaved gum, and satin walnut.

The last name originated in England where it was desirable to avoid the name gum when applied to the wood of this tree. Though botanically it is about as distantly related to walnut as any tree can be, the figure of the wood often suggests walnut. The name sweet gum refers to the pleasant odor of the resin which is sometimes used in France, and probably elsewhere, to perfume gloves. Alligator wood is descriptive of warty excrescences on the bark of some trees, but they are not common to all. Starleaved gum relates to the leaf. It is a lopsided star--a six point star with one point missing.

This tree’s range in the United States extends from Connecticut to Texas and as far northwest of the Alleghanies as Missouri and Illinois. It reaches its greatest size in the lower Mississippi valley in rich bottom land which is subject to repeated inundation. It is not, however, as purely a swamp tree as tupelo and cypress. It grows well on land which is never inundated, but it needs plenty of moisture. The largest specimens exceed a height of 120 feet and a diameter of four; but logs from eighteen inches to three feet are the usual sizes. The tree’s range extends southward through Mexico into Central America.

The rise of red gum lumber into prominence forms an interesting chapter in the industry. It was formerly considered so difficult to season that few mills cared to deal with it, but that difficulty has been largely overcome. In the past, gum, having no market value, was left standing after logging; or, where the land was cleared for farming, was girdled and allowed to rot, and then felled and burned. Not only were the trees a total loss to the farmer, but, from their great size and the labor required to handle them, they were so serious an obstruction as often to preclude the clearing of valuable land. Now that there is a market for the timber, it is profitable to cut gum with other hardwoods, and land can be cleared more cheaply. This increase in the value of gum timber will be of great benefit to the South in many ways.

Throughout its entire life red gum is intolerant of shade. As a rule seedlings appear only in clearings or in open spots in the forest. It is seldom that an overtopped tree is found, for the gum dies quickly if suppressed, and is consequently nearly always a dominant or intermediate tree. In a hardwood bottom forest, the timber trees are all of nearly the same age over considerable areas, and there is little young growth to be found in the older stands. The reason for this is the intolerance of most of the swamp species.

Red gum reproduces both by seed and by sprouts, fairly abundantly every year, but about once in three years there is a heavy production. In the Mississippi valley the abandoned fields on which young stands of red gum have sprung up are, for the most part, being rapidly cleared again. The second growth here is considered of little worth in comparison with the value of the land for agricultural purposes.