Chapter XIII: Part 13

Shagbark is largest of the true hickories. The pecans are not usually regarded as true hickories from the wood-user’s viewpoint. Some shagbarks are 120 feet high and four feet in diameter, but the average size is about seventy-five tall, two in diameter. There is confusion of names among all the hickories, and shagbark is misnamed and over-named as often as any of the others. Many persons do not know shagbark and shellbark apart, though the ranges of the two species lie only partly in the same territory. Shagbark is known as shellbark hickory, shagbark hickory, shellbark, upland hickory, hickory, scaly bark hickory, white walnut, walnut, white hickory, and red heart hickory. Most of the names refer to the bark, which separates into thin strips, often a foot or more long, and six inches or more wide; and this remains more or less closely attached to the trunk by the middle, giving the shaggy appearance to which the tree owes its common name.

The leaf-buds are large and ovate, with yellowish-green and brown scales. The leaves are compound and alternate; they have rough stalks containing five or seven leaflets; they are sessile, tapering to a point and having a rounded base. The lower pair of leaflets is markedly different from the rest in shape; sharply serrate and thin; dark green and glabrous above; lighter below. The flowers do not appear until the leaves have fully matured. They grow in catkins; the staminate ones are light green, slender, and grow in groups of three on long peduncles; the pistillate ones grow in spikes of from two to five flowers. The fruit grows within a dense, green husk, shiny and smooth on the outside, opening in four parts. The nut is nearly white, four-angled, and flattened at the sides. The kernel is sweet and of a strong flavor.

This tree’s range is not much short of 1,000,000 square miles, but it is not equally abundant in all parts. It grows from southern Maine to western Florida; is found in Minnesota and Nebraska, and southward beyond the Mississippi. It is most common and of largest size on the western slopes of the southern Appalachian mountains and in the basin of the lower Ohio river. Its favorite habitat is on low hills, or near streams and swamps, in rich and moderately well drained soil.

The hickories have long tap roots, and they do best in soils which the tap roots can penetrate, going down like a radish. The root system makes most hickories difficult trees to transplant. Early in life they do a large part of their growing under ground, and when that growth is interrupted, as it must be in transplanting, the young tree seldom recovers. Those who would grow hickories for timber, nuts, or as ornaments, should plant the seed where the tree is expected to remain. Most of the planting of hickory in the forest is done by squirrels which bury nuts, with the apparent expectation of digging them up later. Occasionally one is missed, and a young tree starts.

The uses of this wood are typical of all the other hickories. Handles and light vehicles consume most of it. The markets are in all parts of this country, and in manufacturing centers in many foreign lands.

BITTERNUT HICKORY

BITTERNUT HICKORY

(_Hicoria Minima_)

The tannin in the thin shelled nuts which grow abundantly on this tree gives the name bitternut. The name is truly descriptive. Gall itself scarcely exceeds the intense bitterness of the kernel, when crushed between the teeth. The sense of taste does not immediately detect the bitterness in its full intensity. A little time seems to be necessary to dissolve the astringent principal and distribute it to the nerves of taste. When this has been accomplished, the bitterness remains a long time, seeming to persist after the last vestige of the cause has been removed. In that respect it may be likened to the resin of the incense cedar of California which is among tastes what musk is among odors, nearly everlasting. The bitterness of this hickory nut has much to do with the perpetuation of the species. No wild or tame animal will eat the fruit unless forced by famine. Consequently, the nuts are left to grow, provided they can get themselves planted. That is not always easy, for small quadrupeds which bury edible nuts for food, and then occasionally forget them, show no interest whatever in the unpalatable bitternut. It is left where it falls, unless running water, or some other method of locomotion, transports it to another locality. This happens with sufficient frequency to plant the nuts as widely as those of any other hickory. It is believed that this is the most abundant of the hickories.

The tree bears names other than bitternut. It is called swamp hickory, though that name is more applicable to a different species, the water hickory. Pig hickory or pignut are names used in several states, but without good reason. Hogs may sometimes eat the nuts, but never when anything better can be found. Besides, pignut is the accepted name of another species (_Hicoria glabra_). In Louisiana they call it the bitter pecan tree. Bitter hickory is a common name in many localities. In New Hampshire it is known as pig walnut, in Vermont as bitter walnut, and in Texas as white hickory. The names are so many, and so often apply as well to other hickories as to this, that the name alone is seldom a safe guide to identification. It has two or three characters which will help to pick it out from among others. Its leaves and bark bear considerable resemblance to ash. The leaves are the smallest among the hickories, and the bark is never shaggy. The small branches always carry yellow buds, no matter what the season of the year. The compound leaves are from six to ten inches long, and consist of from five to nine leaflets, always an odd number.

Bitternut hickory’s range covers pretty generally the eastern part of the United States. It is one of the largest and commonest hickories of New England, and is likewise the common hickory of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. It grows from Maine through southern Canada to Minnesota, follows down the western side of the Mississippi valley to Texas, and extends into western Florida.

Hickory is often lumbered in ways not common with other hardwoods. It is not generally found in ordinary lumber yards, and is not cut into lumber as most other woods are. It is in a class by itself. The person who would consult statistics of lumber cut in the United States to ascertain the quantity of hickory going to market, would utterly fail to obtain the desired information. The statistics of lumber cut in the United States for the year 1910 listed the total for hickory at 272,252,000 feet, distributed among 33 states, and cut by 6,349 mills. Reports by users of this wood in a number of states show that probably twice as much goes to factories to be manufactured into finished commodities, as all the sawmills cut. This means that much hickory goes to factories without having passed through sawmills to be first converted into lumber. It goes as bolts and billets, and as logs of various lengths. Some sawmills in the hickory region cut dimension stock and sell it to factories to be further worked up; but that is a comparatively small part of the hickory that finds its way to factories of various kinds. Many sawmills refuse to cut hickory, claiming that it does not pay them to specialize on a scarce wood. Scattered trees occur among other timber, but these are left when the other logging is done. Special operators go after the hickory, and distribute it among various industries which are in the market for it. That method often results in much waste, because the man who is specializing in one commodity, such as wagon poles, ax handles, sucker-rods, wheel stock, or the like, is apt to cut out only what meets his requirements, and abandon the rest. Some of the hickory camps where such stock is roughed out are spectacles of carelessness and waste, with heaps of rejected hickory which, though not meeting requirements for the special articles in view, are valuable for many other things. Few woods contribute to the trash heap more in proportion to the total cut than hickory; but the waste nearly all occurs before the factories which finally work up the products are reached. These factories are often hundreds of miles from the forests where the hickory grows.

Hickory was not a useful farm timber in early times, as oak and chestnut were. It decayed quickly when exposed to weather, and was not suitable for fence rails, posts, house logs, or general lumber. It was sometimes used for barn floors, but when seasoned it was so hard to nail that it was not well liked. The pioneers were not able to use this wood to advantage, because it is a manufacturer’s material, not a farmer’s or a villager’s standby. It can be said to the credit of the pioneers, however, that they knew its value for certain purposes, and employed as much of it as they needed.

Fuel was the most important place for hickory on the farm. All things considered, it is probably the best firewood of the American forest. The yawning fireplaces called for cords of wood every month of winter in the northern states. Enough to make a modern buggy would go up the chimney in a rich red blaze in an hour, and no one thought that it was waste; and it was not waste then, because farms had to be cleared, and firewood was the best use possible for the hickory at that time. Every cord burned in the chimney was that much less to be rolled into logheaps and consumed in the clearing for the new cornfield.

Hickory has always been considered the best material for smoking meat. More than 30,000 cords a year are now used that way. It was so used in early times, when every farmer smoked and packed his own meat. Hickory smoke was supposed to give bacon a flavor equalled by no other wood; and in addition to that it was believed to keep the skippers out.

The nuts were made into oil which was thought to be efficacious as a liniment employed as a remedy against rheumatism to which pioneers were susceptible because their moccasins were porous and their feet were often wet. The oil was used also for illuminating purposes. It fed the flame of a crude lamp.

No other wood equalled hickory for “split brooms,” the kind that swept the cabins before broom corn was known or carpet sweepers and vacuum cleaners were invented. The toughness, smoothness, and strength of hickory made it the best oxbow wood, and the same property fitted it for barrel hoops. Thousands of fish casks in New England and tobacco hogsheads in Maryland and Virginia were hooped with hickory before George Washington was born. The wood’s value for ax handles was learned early. The Indians used it for the long, slender handles of their stone hammers with which they barked trees in their clearings, and broke the skulls of enemies in war.

Bitternut hickory has about ninety-two per cent of the strength of shagbark, and seventy-three per cent of its stiffness. It yields considerably more ash when burned, and is rated a little lower in fuel value.

MOCKER NUT HICKORY (_Hicoria alba_) has many names. It is called
mocker nut in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey,
Delaware, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas,
Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas; white heart hickory, Rhode Island, New
York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, Texas, Illinois,
Ontario, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Nebraska; black hickory,
Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri; big bud and red hickory,
Florida; hardback hickory, Illinois; white hickory, Pennsylvania,
South Carolina; big hickory nut, West Virginia; hognut, Delaware.
The name mocker nut is supposed to refer to the thick shell and
disappointingly small kernel within. The range is not as extensive
as some of the other hickories. Beginning in southern Ontario, it
extends westward and southward to eastern Kansas and the eastern
half of Texas. The region of its most abundant growth is in the
basin of the lower Ohio and in Arkansas, the best specimens
appearing in fertile uplands. This is said to be the only hickory
that invades the southern maritime pinebelt, growing on the low
country along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in abundance. The leaves
are fragrant with a powerful, resinous odor; they have five or seven
leaflets with hairy petioles or stems. The bark resembles that of
bitternut, and is not scaly like that of shagbark. The wood weighs
51.21 pounds per cubic foot. It is hard, strong, tough, flexible. It
has about ninety-four per cent of the strength of shagbark, and
eighty per cent of its stiffness. Certain selected specimens of this
species are probably as strong as any hickory; but, as is the case
with all woods, there is great difference between specimens, and
general averages only are to be relied upon. G. W. Letterman, who
collected woods for Sargent’s tests, procured a sample of this
hickory near Allenton, Missouri, which showed strength sufficient to
sustain 20,000 pounds per square inch, and its measure of stiffness
was the enormous figure of 2,208,000 pounds per square inch.

The uses of mocker nut hickory do not differ from those of other
hickories. The tree is frequently nearly all sapwood, to which the
name white hickory is due. Some persons suppose that the heartwood
is white, but that misconception is due to the fact that some pretty
large trees have no heartwood, but are sap clear through.

The term “black hickory” is sometimes applied to three species with
dark-colored bark which bears some resemblance to the bark of ash.
They are bitternut (_Hicoria minima_), pignut (_Hicoria glabra_),
and mocker nut (_Hicoria alba_). When the word black is thus used,
it refers to the bark and the general outward appearance of the
tree, and not to the wood, which is as white as that of any other
hickory.

PIGNUT HICKORY

PIGNUT HICKORY

(_Hicoria Glabra_)

The name of this tree is unfortunate, although so far as the nuts are concerned, no injustice is done. It is one of the best hickories in the quality of its wood, and also as an ornamental tree. It is likewise abundant in many parts of its range, which extends from Maine to Kansas, Texas, Florida, and throughout most of the territory enclosed by the boundary lines thus delimited.

The name pignut is common in New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota; bitternut in Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin; black hickory in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Indiana; broom hickory in Missouri; brown hickory in Mississippi, Delaware, Texas, Tennessee, Minnesota; hardshell in West Virginia; red hickory in Delaware; switch bud hickory in Alabama; and white hickory in New Hampshire and Iowa.

The nuts are generally bitter, but some trees bear fruit which is not very offensive to the taste. The avidity with which swine feed upon it gives the common name. This tree is doubtless confused many times with bitternut, though their differences are enough to distinguish them readily if they grow side by side. As far as the woods of the two species are concerned, there is little occasion to keep them separate. The pignut is a forked tree more frequently than any other species of hickory; and the nuts vary in shape and size more than those of any other. The tree is more remarkable for its variations than for its regularity. In one thing, however, it is pretty constant: the limbs and branches are smooth and clean, hence the botanical name _glabra_. As a name for this tree, smooth hickory would be preferable to pignut. Trunks attain a height of eighty or ninety feet and a diameter of three or four, but the extreme sizes are rare. The largest specimens are found in the lower Ohio valley, and the species is most common in Missouri and Arkansas. It grows farther south and farther west than any other hickory except pecan. Its southern limit is in Florida and its western in Texas.

The uses of hickory fall into general classes. More is manufactured into vehicles than into any other single class of commodities, but not more than into all other articles combined. The second largest users of hickory are the manufacturers of handles. The third largest demand comes from makers of agricultural implements and farm tools. Large amounts are required for athletic goods, meat smoking, and various miscellaneous purposes. The total amount used yearly in this country, and exported to foreign countries, is not accurately known, but it probably exceeds 500,000,000 feet, board measure. About half of this passes through sawmills in the usual manner, and the other half goes directly from the forest to the factory or to the consumer.

The superiority of American buggies, sulkies, and other light vehicles is due to the hickory in their construction. No other wood equals this in combination of desirable physical properties. Though heavy, it is so strong, tough, and resilient that small amounts suffice, and the weight of the vehicle can be reduced to a lower point, without sacrificing efficiency, than when any other wood is employed. It is preëminently a wood for light vehicles. Oak, ash, maple, and elm answer well enough for heavy wagons where strength is more essential than toughness and elasticity. Hickory is suitable for practically all wooden parts of light vehicles except the body. The slender spokes look like frail dowels, and seem unable to maintain the load, but appearances are deceptive. The bent rims are likewise very slender, but they last better than steel. The shafts and poles with which carriages and carts are equipped will stand severe strains and twists without starting a splinter. The manufacturing of the stock is little less than a fine art. In scarcely any other wood-using industry--probably excepting the making of handles--is the grain so closely watched. Hickory users generally speak of the annual growth rings as the grain. The grain must run straight in spokes, rims, shafts, and poles. If the grain crosses the stick, a break may occur by the simple process of splitting, and the hickory in that case is no more dependable than many other woods.

Handle makers observe the same rule, and must have straight grain. The more slender the handle, the more strictly the rule must be followed. A cross grained golf club handle would fail at the first stroke. An ax handle, if it has cross grain, will last a little longer, but it will speedily split. Many of the best slender handles are of split hickory. The line of cleavage follows the grain, but a saw does not always do so. Heavy handles, like those for picks and sledges, are not so strictly straight grained, because they are made strong enough to stand much more strain than is ever likely to be put on them. Red heartwood is frequently used in handles of that kind. Peavey and canthook handles are generally split from billets, because the grain must be straight. Though they are among the largest and heaviest of handles, breakage must be guarded against with extra care, for the snap of a peavey handle at a critical moment might cost the operator his life by precipitating a skidway of logs upon him.

The hickory which goes into agricultural implements fills many places, among the most important being connecting rods. It is often made into springs to take up or check oscillation. It is used for that purpose as picker sticks in textile mills.

Furniture makers could get along without hickory, and they do not need much. It is oftenest seen in dowels, slender spindles, and the rungs of chairs. The makers of sporting and athletic goods bend it for rackets, hoops, and rims, or make vaulting poles, bats, or trapezes.

SHELLBARK HICKORY (_Hicoria laciniosa_) is often mistaken for shagbark. The ranges of the two species coincide in part only. Shagbark grows farther east, north and south than shellbark. The latter occupies an island, as it were, inside the shagbark’s range. Shellbark is found from central New York and eastern Pennsylvania, westward to Kansas, and southward to North Carolina and middle Tennessee. The species is at its best in the lower Ohio valley and in Missouri. The largest trees are 120 feet high and three in diameter, and are often free from branches half or two-thirds of the length. The species prefers rich, deep bottom lands, and does not suffer from occasional inundation from overflowing rivers. The average tree is not quite as large as shagbark. The leaves are larger than those of any other hickory, ranging in length from fifteen to twenty-two inches. There are from five to nine leaflets, usually seven. The upper ones are largest, and may be eight or nine inches long and four or five wide. In the autumn the leaflets drop from the petioles which adhere to the branches and furnish means of identifying the tree in winter. The nuts including the hulls are as large as small apples. When ripe, the hulls open and the nuts fall out; but the hulls fall also. The nuts are as large as shagbark nuts, but the two are seldom distinguished in market, though the shagbark’s are a little richer in flavor. The bark’s roughness gives the tree its name. Strips three or four feet long and five or six inches wide curl up at the lower ends--sometimes at both ends--and adhere to the trunk several years. The species has other names. It is known as big shellbark in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas; bottom shellbark in Illinois; western shellbark or simply shellbark in Rhode Island and Kentucky; thick shellbark in South Carolina, Indiana, and Tennessee; kingnut in Tennessee.

The wood weighs 50.53 pounds per cubic foot, and is very hard, strong, tough, and flexible. The heartwood is dark brown, the sapwood nearly white. This hickory usually has less sapwood in proportion to heart than other members of the species; but the wood is not kept separate from the others when it goes to market, and its uses are as extensive as the other hickories’. It is believed by some foresters that shellbark hickory is worth cultivating for its nuts, as it is a vigorous bearer; but little planting has been done. East of the Alleghanies, particularly in Virginia, some planting has been carried out on old plantations for ornamental purposes. On account of its long taproot, the tree is difficult to transplant, and the nuts should be planted where the trees are expected to remain.

PECAN

PECAN

(_Hicoria Pecan_)

The name is pecan in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Kansas; pecan nut and pecan tree in Louisiana. The name is of Indian origin, and means walnut. The tree’s natural range is smaller than the present area in which the tree is found, for it has been extensively planted in recent years. It is found as far north as Iowa, south to Texas, and east to Alabama and Kentucky. The highest development of the wild tree is in the lower Ohio valley. Forest trees were once found there which were said to be six feet in diameter and 170 high. Specimens that large would be hard to find now.

The pecan is a hickory. As to wood, it is the poorest of the hickories, and as to nuts it is the best. Its compound leaves are from twelve to twenty inches long with from nine to seventeen leaflets. The latter are from four to eight inches in length, and from one to three wide. The first pairs on the petiole are smallest. The fruit grows in clusters of from three to eleven, the number exceeding any other hickory. The nuts are four-angled, and long for their width.

The wood of pecan has disappointed those who have attempted to use it like other hickories. It does not differ much from them in appearance, but it falls low in mechanical tests. In strength, toughness, and stiffness it is inferior to the poorest of the other hickories. It has less than half the strength and half the stiffness of shagbark hickory. It is a fairly good fuel, but is high in ash.

The inferior quality of the wood has saved many a pecan tree from the sawmill and the wagon shop. Fine trunks stand near public highways, along river banks, and in fields, while all merchantable hickories of other species have been sent to market. The uses of the wood are few. If some of it goes to wagon shops or to factories where agricultural vehicles are made, it is employed for parts which are not required to endure strain or sustain sudden jars.

Fortunately it is a tree with a value of another kind. It is the most important nut tree of the United States at this time, and it promises to remain so. The forest-grown pecans were an article of food for Indians who once lived in the region, and though white settlers who succeeded the Indians as occupants of the land, depended less upon forest fruits than the red men had done, yet the pecan was often of supreme importance in the early years of settlement. The nuts have constituted an article of commerce ever since the region had markets.

Nurserymen were not slow to recognize the value of the pecan tree for planting purposes, and nursery grown stock has been on the market many years. Extensive orchards have been planted in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and other southern states, and some of the earliest of these orchards are now in bearing. However, by far the largest part of pecans on the market is wild fruit from the forests. Many are shipped in from Mexico, but most grow in the rich woods of southern states. They are gathered like chestnuts in northern woods. The people who pick them sell to local stores at low prices, often taking pay in merchandise. Buyers collect the stock from country and village merchants, and put it on the general market, often at three or four times the price paid to the gatherers of the nuts.

One of the most important matters connected with pecan is the large number of horticultural varieties which have been produced by cultivation and selection. More than seventy have been listed in nursery catalogues and special reports. Some of the nuts are twice the size of those of the forest, and shells have been reduced in thinness until some of them are really thinner than they should be to stand the rough usage which comes to them in reaching markets.

Dealers occasionally polish pecans to impart the rich, brown color which is supposed to give them the appearance of being fresh and of high grade. The polishing is produced by friction, when the nuts in bulk are shaken violently. Last year’s stock takes on as bright a polish as fresh stock, and the color and smoothness alone are not sufficient to prove that pecans are fresh from the trees.

The planted pecan tree grows rapidly and is as easily raised as fruit trees. The wild tree is long-lived, and the cultivated varieties will probably be like it.

NUTMEG HICKORY (_Hicoria myristicæformis_) is so named because the
nut has the size and the wrinkled surface of a nutmeg, though the
shape is different. The husk enclosing the nut is almost as thin as
paper. The only other name by which it is known is bitter waternut,
in Louisiana. The name scarcely applies, for the kernel is said not
to be bitter. The range of nutmeg hickory extends from the coast of
South Carolina to Arkansas. It is rather abundant in Arkansas, but
scarce in most other parts of its range. The tree has several
interesting features. It was partly discovered a long time before
the discovery was complete. In 1802 Andre F. Michaux saw the nut and
to that extent the species was discovered, but many years passed
before a full description was given to the world by a competent
botanist. The wood rates among the strongest and stiffest of all the
hickories, according to present information; but the calculations
were based on too few tests to be considered final. Two samples of
wood procured near Bonneau’s depot, South Carolina, by W. H.
Revenel, showed the remarkable breaking strength of 19,822 pounds
per square inch, and the measure of stiffness exceeded 2,000,000
pounds to the square inch. That strength is sixteen per cent above
shagbark. The weight of nutmeg hickory is 46.96 pounds to the cubic
foot. The wood is hard, tough, and compact. The structure, including
pores, medullary rays, annual rings, springwood and summerwood, is
similar to the wood of other hickories. Trees grow best in sandy
soil but near swamps and rivers where there is plenty of water. The
largest trunks are eighty or one hundred feet in height and two in
diameter. When use is made of this hickory it serves the same
purposes as the wood of other trees of the group. It is never
reported separately in statistics of wood utilization. It is too
scarce to be important as a timber tree. It apparently has a future
as an ornament, though it has not yet been widely planted. It has
proved a success in the Carolinas and it thrives in the climate of
Washington, D. C. The luster of its foliage makes it the most
beautiful of the hickories. In common with other members of the
genus, its long taproot renders the transplanting of nursery stock
difficult.

WATER HICKORY (_Hicoria aquatica_) is known as swamp hickory in
South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana; bitter pecan in
Mississippi and Louisiana, and water bitternut in Tennessee and
South Carolina. The northern limit of this species is in Virginia
near Mobjack bay, the southern limit in the Caloosa valley, Florida,
west to the Brazos river, Texas, and north to southern Illinois. The
wood is hard, heavy, strong, but rather brittle; the sapwood is
thick and often is nearly white, while the heartwood is dark brown.
It is the most porous of the hickories, and the pores are
distributed generally through the annual rings of growth. In other
hickories they are largely restricted to the inner part of each
ring, though a few are dispersed through all parts. In swamp hickory
there is little difference in appearance between the wood grown
early in the season and that produced later. The tree is a rapid
grower. It is an inhabitant of deep swamps, and if the land is
inundated a considerable part of the year, the tree seems to grow
all the better. At its best it may attain a height of 100 feet, and
a diameter of two, but that size is unusual. The nut is small and
wrinkled, and when broken open, pockets of red bitter powder are
frequently found inside the shell. Usually the nuts are too bitter
to be eaten, but it is said that near the western limit of the
tree’s range, nuts are sometimes edible.

The only reported uses for the wood are fuel and fencing. It is poor
fence material, because, like other hickories, it decays in a short
time when exposed to weather. The wood of this genus is rich in
foods on which decay-producing fungi feed. Fungus is a low order of
plant life which sends its hair-like threads into the wood cells and
consumes the material found there; but numerous insects bore into
wood to procure food. Few woods suffer from such attacks more than
hickory. Even after it is seasoned and manufactured into
commodities, it is frequently attacked by various species of powder
post beetles, and much injury results. Water hickory while yet
standing is often greatly damaged by the larvæ of certain moths
which find their way into the soft wood just under the bark and
tunnel minute galleries which subsequently fill with brown
substance. According to R. B. Hough, these brown streaks in water
hickory are hard enough to turn the edge of steel tools. They not
only damage the structure of the wood but spoil its appearance.

BITTER PECAN (_Hicoria texana_) is a Texas species which has not
been reported elsewhere. The average size of the tree is from
fifteen to twenty-five feet in height and eight to ten inches in
diameter; but in rich bottom land, particularly along the Brazos
river, specimens sometimes attain a diameter of three feet and a
height of 100. The leaves are from ten to twelve inches in length,
with from seven to eleven leaflets. The nuts are very bitter, but
are of approximately the same size and shape as edible pecans. The
shells are thin and very brittle. The tree’s range extends inland
100 or 150 miles from the Texas coast.

NORTH CAROLINA SHAGBARK HICKORY (_Hicoria carolinæ-septentrionalis_)
is found in the neighboring parts of the four states: North
Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. In the best land this
tree is occasionally eighty feet high and two or three in diameter,
but when it occurs on dry hillsides its average height is twenty or
thirty feet, and its diameter about a foot. The compound leaves are
from four to eight inches long, with usually three, but occasionally
five leaflets. The sweet nuts are small and brown. The bark
separates into thick strips a foot or more in length and three or
four inches wide. The rough trunk resembles the northern shagbark
hickory. The wood is very tough, strong, and hard, the heart light
reddish-brown, the thin sapwood nearly white. It is not
distinguished from the other hickories in commerce, and it has the
same uses when any use is made of it.

WHITE ELM

WHITE ELM

(_Ulmus Americana_)

Six species of elm occur in the United States, not counting the planer tree as an elm, though lumbermen usually consider it as such.[5] The white elm is the most common, is distributed most widely, and is commercially the most important. More of it is used as lumber, slack cooperage, and other forms of forest products, than all other elms of this country combined. The statistics of sawmill output collected annually by the United States census are not compiled in a way to show the elms separately. All go in as one. The annual lumber cut of elm in the whole country is about 265,000,000 feet, distributed over thirty-four states, with Wisconsin leading, followed in the order named by Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, New York, and Minnesota. In addition to lumber, elm furnishes about 130,000,000 slack cooperage staves yearly.

[5] The elms are white elm (_Ulmus americana_), cork elm (_Ulmus
racemosa_), slippery elm (_Ulmus pubescens_), cedar elm (_Ulmus
crassifolia_), wing elm (_Ulmus alata_), and red elm (_Ulmus
serotina_). They are all confined to the region east of the Rocky
Mountains.

The elms, taken as a class, are much alike. There is more resemblance between the species than between species of oaks or pines, yet some difference exists between elms. This holds not only between different species, but between individuals of the same species. Climate, situation, and soil have much to do with the character of the wood of the same species. So great is the difference at times that fairly good judges of timber are deceived as to the species. A tree growing on dry, rocky soil produces wood quite different from one on rich, deep, well-watered soil. Not only is the wood of one different from that of the other, but the appearances of the standing trees are not alike. The differences may not show in leaves, flowers, and fruit as much as in the shapes and sizes of trees, and the habit of the branches.

White elm is by common consent the type of the genus, the standard by which the other species are measured. It is proper to compare certain properties and characters of other elms with white elm, in order that a general view of all may be had. The dry weights, per cubic foot, of wood are as follows: White elm 40.54 pounds, slippery elm 43.35, cedar elm 45.15, cork elm 45.26, and wing elm 46.69. Figures which show the weight of the southern red elm (_Ulmus serotina_) are not available. White elm is thus shown to be lightest of the group.

Its breaking strength averages 12,158 pounds per cubic inch, under the usual tests by which the strength of woods is determined. Reduced to everyday language that means that 12,158 pounds would just break a white elm stick, 2⅝ inches square, and resting on supports twelve inches apart. That is the meaning of “breaking strength,” or “modulus of rupture,” as the term is used in engineering text books relating to woods. The following figures for the breaking strength of other elms make comparisons with white elm easy: Cedar elm 11,000; wing elm 11,162; slippery elm 12,342; cork elm (often called rock elm) 15,172. It is shown that two elms are stronger and two weaker than white elm. This wood rates very little below white oak in strength.

The different species of elms vary considerably in stiffness, or the ability to spring back when bent. This factor is expressed by engineers in high figures, is purely technical, and is based on a wood’s ability to stretch and regain its former position. The only service which the figures can render to the layman is to furnish a basis for comparing one wood with another. The stiffer a wood, the greater its resistance to an effort to stretch it lengthwise. White elm’s measure of stiffness (modulus of elasticity) is 1,070,000 pounds per square inch; wing elm 853,000; cedar elm 981,000; slippery elm 1,318,000; cork elm 1,512,000. It is shown here, as was shown in the figures representing the strength of the elms, that two species rate above and two below white elm in stiffness.

White elm is known by several names. The color of the bark is responsible for the name gray elm among lumbermen and woodworkers of the Lake States. American elm is a translation of its botanical name, and is neither descriptive nor definitive, because there are other elms as truly American as this one. White elm distinguishes its wood from the redder wood of slippery elm, but it would often be difficult if not impossible to identify the elms, or any one of them, by the color of the wood alone. Some persons who call this elm white doubtless refer to the color of the bark, as is the case with those who speak of it as gray elm. It is known as water elm in several states, but that name is applied indiscriminately to any elm that frequents river banks, as most of them do in some part of their range. It is called rock elm when it is found on stony uplands, and swamp elm on low wet ground. In some parts of the Appalachian mountain ranges it is called astringent elm to distinguish it from slippery elm.

White elm surpasses the others in extent of range. Its northern boundary stretches from Newfoundland, across Canada to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles. It runs south through the Atlantic states to Florida, a distance of 1,200 miles or more. Its southwestern limit is in Texas. The area thus bounded is about 2,500,000 square miles. A few other trees have ranges as large, but none much exceed it. It covers so much of America, and is so important in many parts of its range, that it is clearly the leading elm in this country. It is entitled to first place among elms for other reasons.

It is not easy to give any sure features or characteristics by which the layman may always distinguish this elm from others with which it is associated; however, by carefully observing certain features, the identity of white elm is generally easy to establish.

The leaves have teeth along the margins like beech and birch. They have straight primary veins running from the midrib to the points of the teeth. Before falling in autumn the leaves turn yellow. The foliage is not very thick, and most of it is near the ends of the limbs. The bloom comes early in the spring, ahead of the leaves, and the seeds are ripe and ready for flight before the leaves are grown. Sometimes the seeds are ripe almost before the leaves are out of the buds. The seeds are oblong, and about the size of a small lentil. The wing entirely surrounds the seed, and is about half an inch long. The flight of elm seeds is an interesting phenomenon. The individual seeds are so small that they are not easily seen as they sail away from the tall tree top but when they go in swarms, in fitful puffs of wind, they are not hard to see. It is chiefly by their fruits that they are known, that is, by the multitudes of seedlings that appear a few weeks later. If one seedling elm in a thousand should reach maturity, there would be little besides elms in the whole country. They spring up by highways and hedges, in gutters, fields, and even between cobbles and bricks of paved streets; but in a few days they have crowded one another to death, or have perished from other causes, and those which manage to live to maturity do not much more than make up for old trees which perish from natural causes.

The botanist Michaux pronounced the white elm “the most magnificent vegetable of the temperate zone.” A number of trees are larger, though this reaches great size. Sargent sets the limit of the tree at 120 feet high and eleven feet in trunk diameter. That size is, of course, unusual, but it has been surpassed at least in height. A tree in Jefferson county, Pennsylvania, was 140 feet high, and although forest grown, it had a spread of crown of seventy-six feet. It was sent to the sawmill where it made 8,820 feet of lumber. That trunk was only five feet in diameter.

Some of the finest forest grown elms in this country have been cut in Michigan. Their trunks were as tall, straight, and shapely as yellow poplars, and their crowns surpassed those of poplars. It was formerly not unusual for sawlogs to be cut from elm limbs which branched from the trunk fifty or more feet from the ground. The best of the forest grown elm of this country has been cut; but it is still lumbered throughout the whole eastern half of the United States.

The finest elms of this country, and doubtless the finest in the world, are the planted trees in some of the New England villages. The largest of them have been growing for two hundred years, and in many instances they still show the vigor of youth. Trunks six or seven feet through are not uncommon, but the glory of the trees is not alone in the trunks. Their spread and form of crown are magnificent. The largest are 150 feet across, and some of the splendid branches, rising in parabolic curves, are fully 100 feet long, from the junction with the tree to the tips of the twigs. The most apt comparison for that form of elm is the spray of a fountain. The upward jet of water corresponds to the trunk of the tree; the upward, outward, and downward curves of the spray represent the crown of the elm. Trees which take that form are grown in open ground where sunlight and air reach every side. Forest grown trees are less symmetrical, but even in dense woods, the elm frequently rises clear above the canopy of other trees, and develops the fountain form of crown. The new England street and park elms surpass those farther west only because they are older. The splendid trunks and crowns are the work of centuries.

CORK ELM

CORK ELM

(_Ulmus Racemosa_)

This tree is called cork elm in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Ohio; rock elm in Rhode Island, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska; hickory elm in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana; white elm in Ontario; Thomas elm in Tennessee; northern cork-barked elm in Tennessee; corkbark elm, New York; northern cork elm, Vermont; wahoo, Ohio; cliff elm in Wisconsin.

Cork elm is the natural name. It is a descriptive term which a stranger would be apt to apply on seeing the tree for the first time. The bark of the branches, after it has attained an age of three or four years, becomes rough by the growth of ridges and protuberances. This feature is sometimes so prominent that it at once attracts attention, particularly when the branches are bare of leaves; hence the name cork elm.

Lumbermen insist on naming the tree rock elm. They refer to the hardness of the wood, or they may have in mind the dry, stony situations where tough, strong elm grows. The latter is often the case, because the name is applied also to slippery elm and white elm if they grow on stony ground. A wide-spread opinion prevails that wood which grows among rocks is harder, tougher, stronger, and more durable than that produced by deep, fertile soil. It is possible to cite much evidence to support that view, and the case might be considered proved, but for the fact that an equal, or greater amount of evidence, in every way as trustworthy, may be cited on the other side. The strongest hickory, ash, and oak do not come from stony land. It sometimes happens that a species with tough, strong wood, is found on rocks, but it is not tough because it is there, but in spite of being there.

The name cliff elm which this tree bears in Wisconsin is but another form of the name rock elm, and clearly has reference to the situation where the tree grows in that part of the country. Hickory elm, on the other hand, a name applied to this tree much farther south, is a recognition of the wood’s toughness.

In some particulars it does not fall much below hickory in toughness, but is not as strong, elastic, or capable of as smooth polish. The latter property is one of the recommendations of hickory when used for handles. It is very smooth to the touch; cork elm is less so. In the northern woods, elm ax handles are in use, and some axmen prefer them to hickory. Such is probably the case when the best cork elm and a medium or poor quality of hickory are in competition.

The fibers of cork elm are interlaced, rendering the splitting of the wood difficult. For uses in which that is a desirable property, it is preferable to hickory. It is better for hubs for large wagons, and that is a very important use for this elm.

The wood of all the elms is ring-porous; that is, the springwood, or inner part of the annual ring, consists of one or more rows of large ducts. The summerwood contains pores in large numbers, but they are small, and are usually arranged in short curved lines. The medullary rays are not prominent in the wood of any of the elms, and quarter-sawing adds no beauty to the lumber. The wood is practically without figure, on account of either annual rings or medullary rays; but it may be stained, polished, and made very attractive. That is done oftener with white elm than with any other.

The strength of cork elm created demand for it in boat building at an early day. The tree is and always was scarce in the vicinity of the Atlantic sea board, and the earliest boat builders seem not to have been acquainted with the wood. It was most abundant in the forests of Michigan, though it extended westward to Nebraska. It was plentiful in the province of Ontario, and the timbers from that region acquainted English shipbuilders with the merits of the wood. They sent contractors into Michigan to buy cork elm, long before the other hardwoods of that region had attracted the attention of the outside world. The most convenient supplies of cork elm on the Lower Michigan peninsula thus passed through Canada to ship yards on the other side of the sea. The wood is reputed to be more durable than any of the other elms.

It is generally understood that the country’s supply of cork elm is running short, but there are no statistics which show how much is left or how much has been cut. It is doubtful if the original forests, including the whole country, had one tree of cork elm to twenty of white elm. The average size of cork elm is sixty feet high and two in diameter. The trunks are well shaped, if forest grown. They develop small crowns in proportion to the size of trunks; and the crowns are less graceful than those of white elm--lacking the long, sweeping curves of the latter. The general contour of the tree has been compared to white oak.

Cork elm grows well when planted on the Pacific coast, in environments quite different from its native habitat. In the forest it increases in size slowly; when planted it makes much better headway. It has a disagreeable habit of sprouting which puts it out of favor as a park tree.

The wood of the different elms is largely used for manufacturing purposes. They are sometimes kept separate, but generally not. The particular place where cork elm is preferred is in the manufacture of vehicles and boats, but it is by no means confined to those commodities.

The state of Michigan alone sends 50,000,000 feet of elm a year to its factories to be converted into articles of general utility. Furniture makers take over 2,000,000 feet of it, though elm is not classed as a furniture wood. In certain places it is superior to almost every other wood. No matter how discolored it becomes by weathering and the accumulation of foreign substances, a vigorous application of soap, water, and a scrubbing brush will whiten it. It is liked in certain parts of refrigerators which need constant scrubbing. Elm to the extent of 8,000,000 feet goes into refrigerators in Michigan alone.

The strength and toughness of elm make it suitable for frames of tables. When thus used, it is generally out of sight, but not infrequently it is made into table legs as well as frames. Statistics show that more than a million feet are manufactured yearly into handles in Michigan alone. All three of the northern elms--white, cork, and slippery--are listed in the handle industry.

Many millions of feet of elm are yearly converted into automobile stock--3,000,000 in Michigan. Horse-drawn vehicles take more. The most common place for it is the hub, but it serves also as shafts, poles, reaches, and even as spokes for wagons of the largest size.

The important place in the slack cooperage industry held by elm is well known. It is a flour barrel wood, but is employed for barrels of many other kinds. It stands high as veneer, not the kind of which the visible parts of furniture are made, but the invisible interior, built up of veneer sheets glued together. A similar kind of veneer forms the boxes or frames of trunks--the part to be covered by metal, leather, or cloth. The slats which strengthen the outside of trunks are frequently of elm.

This wood is not in favor for one important purpose, hardwood distillation. It has escaped pretty generally also from being employed as a farm material, on account of its poor lasting qualities. Some slippery elm was mauled into fence rails in the pioneer days of Ohio, Indiana, and southern Michigan, but that was only because it was plentiful and convenient. Cork elm probably never made a fence rail, because it is so unwedgeable that no rail splitter would have anything to do with it. At the best, it is but a temporary makeshift as fence posts, but by applying creosote and other preservative treatments to lessen decay, it measures up with most other post woods.

The elms are not indispensable woods in this country, but their exhaustion, should it ever come, will leave many places hard to fill. As far as known, no woodlots of any species of elm have been planted in this country, and there is little prospect that any will be planted, because the slow growth of the trees discourages foresters. A century or two is a long look ahead.