Chapter XVIII: Part 18

Osage orange belongs to the mulberry family. There are fifty-four genera, three of which are found in the United States, the mulberries, the Osage orange, and the figs. Osage orange is known by several names, the principal one of which refers to the Osage Indians, who formerly lived in the region where the tree grows. It is called orange because the fruit, which is from two to five inches in diameter, looks like a green orange, but it is unfit for food. In its range most people call it bodark or bodock, that being a corruption of the name by which the French designated it, bois d’arc, which means bow wood. It was so called from the fact that Indians made bows of it when they could get nothing better. Its value as material for bows seems to be traditional and greatly overestimated. It is lower in elasticity than white oak and very much lower than hickory, and, theoretically, at least, it is not well suited for bows. The wood is known also as mock orange, bow-wood, Osage apple tree, yellow-wood, hedge, and hedge tree. The last name is given because many hedges have been made of it.

Osage orange has been planted in perhaps every state of the Union, and grows successfully in most of them. It is one of the most widely distributed of American forest trees, but its distribution has been chiefly artificial. It was found originally in a very restricted region, from which it was carried for hedge and ornamental planting far and wide. Its natural home, to which it was confined when first discovered, embraced little more than ten thousand square miles, and probably half of that small area produced no trees of commercial size. Its northern limit was near Atoka, Oklahoma, its southern a little south of Dallas, Texas; a range north and south of approximately one hundred miles. Its broadest extent east and west was along Red River, through Cooke, Grayson, Fanning, Lamar, and Red River counties, Texas, about 120 miles. Some Osage orange of commercial size grew outside the area thus delimited, but no large amount. Much of that region, particularly south of Red River, was prairie, without timber of any kind; but scattered here and there were belts, strips, thickets, and clumps of Osage orange mixed with other species. On the very best of its range, and before disturbed by white men, this wood seldom formed pure stands of as much as 100 acres in one body, and since the country’s settlement, the stands have become smaller or have been entirely cleared to make farms. All accounts agree that the Osage orange reaches its highest development on the fertile lands along Boggy and Blue rivers in Oklahoma, though fine bodies of it once grew south of the Red River in Texas, and much is still cut there though the choicest long ago disappeared. Few trees are less exacting in soil, yet when it can make choice it chooses the best. In its natural habitat it holds its place in the black, fertile flats and valleys, and is seldom found on sandy soil. It is not a swamp tree, though it is uninjured by occasional floods. The tracts where it grows are sometimes called “bodark swamps,” though marshy in wet weather only.

The tree attains a height of fifty or sixty feet when at its best, but specimens that tall are unusual. Trunks are occasionally two or three feet in diameter, but that size is very rare. At the present time probably ten trees under a foot in diameter are cut for every one over that size.

Rough and unshapely as Osage trees are, they have been more closely utilized than most timbers. Fence posts are the largest item. The board measure equivalent of the annual cut of posts has been placed at 18,400,000. The posts are shipped to surrounding states, in addition to fencing nearly 40,000 square miles of northern Texas and southern Oklahoma. Houseblocks constitute another important use. These are short posts set under the corners of buildings in place of stone foundations. The annual demand for this kind of material amounts to about 1,000,000 board feet. An equal amount goes into bridge piling. The principal demand comes from highway commissioners. Telephone poles take a considerable quantity, and insulator pins more.

One of the most important uses of Osage orange is found in the manufacture of wagon wheels, though the total quantity so used is smaller than that demanded for fence posts.

About 10,000 or 12,000 wagons with Osage orange felloes or rims are manufactured annually in the United States. That use of the wood is not new. It began in a small way soon after the settlement of the region. At first the work was hand-done by local blacksmiths and wheelwrights. They found the wood objectionable, from the workman’s standpoint, on account of its extreme hardness and the difficulty of cutting it. That objection is still urged against it though machines have taken the place of the hand tools of former times. Saws and bits are quickly dulled, and the cost of grinding, repair, and replacement increases the operator’s expense much above ordinary mill outlay for such purposes. On that account many prefer to work the wood green. It is then softer, and cuts more smoothly. If seasoned before it is passed through the machines it is liable to “pull.” That term is used to indicate a rough-breaking of the fibres by the impact of knives. The readiness with which the wood splits calls for extraordinary care in boring it, and many felloes are spoiled in finishing them to receive the tenoned ends of spokes.

A number of commodities are made of Osage orange but in quantities so small that the total wood used does not constitute a serious drain upon the supply. Police clubs are occasionally made as a by-product of the rim mill. Some years ago at the Texas state fair at Dallas, a piano was exhibited, all visible wood being Osage orange, handsomely polished. The rich color of this wood distinguishes it from all other American species. When oiled it retains the yellow color, but unoiled wood fades on long exposure. Clock cases of Osage have been manufactured locally, and gun stocks made of it are much admired, though the wood’s weight is an argument against it for gun stocks. Canes split from straight-grained blocks, and shaved and polished by hand, are occasionally met with, but none manufactured by machinery have been reported. Sawmills in the Osage orange region use the wood as rollers for carriages and off-bearing tables. Rustic rockers and benches of the wood, with the bark or without it, figure to a small extent in local trade. It has been tried experimentally for parquetry floors, with satisfactory results. Sections of streets have been paved with Osage orange blocks. The wood wears well and is nearly proof against decay, but no considerable demand for such blocks appears ever to have existed. Railroads which were built through the region years ago cut Osage for ties and culvert timber, but no such use is now reported. The demand for the wood for tobacco pipes is increasing, more than 100,000 blocks for such pipes having been sold during a single year.

Osage orange weighs 48.21 pounds per cubic foot. It is twenty-eight per cent stronger than white oak, but is not quite as stiff, is very brittle, and under heavy impact, will crumble. For that reason, Osage wagon felloes will not stand rocky roads. The bark is sometimes used for tanning, and the wood for dyeing.

RED MULBERRY (_Morus rubra_) is frequently spoken of simply as
mulberry, and is sometimes called black mulberry. The full grown
fruit is red, but turns black or very dark purple when ripe. The
berry is composed of a compact and adhering cluster of drupes, each
drupe about one thirty-second of an inch long. What seems to be a
single berry is really an aggregation of very small fruits, each
resembling a tiny cherry. The mulberry is naturally a forest tree,
but it is permitted to grow about the margins of fields, and is
often planted in door yards for its fruit and its shade. It is
looked upon by many as a tame species.

Two mulberries grow naturally in this country. The red species
ranges from Massachusetts west to Kansas, and south to Texas and
Florida. Its best growth is found in the lower Ohio valley and the
southern foot hills of the Appalachian mountains. The largest trees
are seventy feet high and three or four in diameter. If this tree
were abundant the wood’s place in furniture and finish would be
important. The heartwood is dark, of good figure, and fairly strong.
It takes a fine polish, and resembles black walnut, though usually
of a little lighter shade. Its largest use is as fence posts. It is
durable in contact with the soil. The effect when made into
furniture, finish, and various kinds of turnery, is pleasing. Farm
tools, particularly scythe snaths, are made of it, and it has been
reported for slack cooperage and boat building, but such uses are
apparently infrequent. The wood is evidently sold under some other
name, or without a name, for the total sawmill output in the United
States is given in government statistics at only 1,000 feet, which
is probably not one per cent of the cut.

MEXICAN MULBERRY (_Morus celtidifolia_) ranges from southern Texas
to Arizona. Trees are seldom more than thirty feet high and one in
diameter. The berry is about half an inch long, black, and made up
of a hundred or more very small drupes. It is edible, but its taste
is insipid. The wood is heavy and is of dark orange or dark brown
color. It is suitable for small turnery and other articles, but no
reports of uses for it have been found. The tree is occasionally
planted for its fruit by Mexicans, but Americans care little for it.

Two foreign mulberries have been extensively planted in this
country, and in some localities they are running wild and are
mistaken for native species. One is the white mulberry (_Morus
alba_), a native of China; the other is the paper mulberry
(_Broussonetia papyrifera_) a different genus, but of the same
family. It is a native of Japan, and has been naturalized in some of
the southern states. Nine varieties of the white mulberry have been
distinguished in cultivation.

PERSIMMON

PERSIMMON

(_Diospyros Virginiana_)

Persimmon belongs to the ebony family, and the family has contributed to the civilization of the human race since very early times. Some of the oldest furniture in existence, that which was found hidden in the ruins of ancient Egypt, is ebony, and there is evidence among the old records in the land of the Nile that the Egyptians made voyages southward through the Red sea and brought back cargoes of ebony from Punt, a region in eastern Africa. The name ebony is believed to be derived from a Hebrew word, probably brought to Palestine by some of Solomon’s captains who traded along the south coast of Asia or the east coast of Africa about the time of the building of the first temple. The botanical name for the genus (_diospyros_) is made up of two words meaning “Jupiter’s wheat”--supposed to be a reference to the value of persimmons as food. The name, however, is not as old as the Hebrew word, nor is the Hebrew as old as the references to ebony in the records of Egypt. A piece of the old furniture--not less than 4,000 years old--is still in existence. It probably matches in age the cedar of Lebanon coffins in the oldest Egyptian tombs.

The ebony family consists of five genera, one of which is persimmon (_diospyros_). This genus consists of 160 species, only two of them in the United States. Thus the persimmon trees of this country are a very small part of the family to which they belong, but they are a highly respectable part of it. The word persimmon is of Indian origin, and was used by the tribes near the Atlantic coast. The original spelling was “pessimin,” and that was probably about the pronunciation given it by the aborigines.

It has never been called by many names. It is known as date plum in New Jersey and Tennessee, and as possumwood in Florida. The avidity with which opossums feed on the fruit is responsible for the name.

The range of persimmon extends from Connecticut to Florida, and westward to Iowa, Missouri, and Texas. It reaches its largest size in the South. It is of vigorous growth, spreading by means of seeds, and also by roots. The latter is the most common method where the ground is open. Such situations as old, abandoned fields invite the spread of persimmons. Roots ramify under the ground, and sprouts spring up, often producing thickets of an acre or more. Trees do not generally reach large size if they grow in that way, but their crowded condition does not make them fruitless as can be attested to by many a boy who penetrates the persimmon thickets by means of devious paths that wind with many a labyrinthic turn which takes in all that is worth finding.

The variation in the quality of persimmons is greater than that of most wild fruits. Nature usually sets a standard and sticks closely to it, but the rule is not adhered to in the case of persimmons. Some are twice as large as others; some are never fit to eat, no matter how severely or how often they are frosted; others require at least one fierce frost to soften their austerity; but some may be eaten with relish without the ameliorating influence of frost.

The austerity of a green persimmon is due to tannin. It is supposed that cultivation might remove some of this objectionable quality, but no great success has thus far attended efforts in that direction. Japanese persimmons, which are of a different species, are cultivated with success in California.

The sizes of persimmon trees vary according to soil, climate, and situation. They average rather small, but occasionally reach a height of 100 feet and a diameter of nearly two. Mature trunks are usually little over twelve inches in diameter, and many never reach that size.

The dry wood weighs 49.28 pounds per cubic foot, which is about the weight of hickory. It is hard, strong, compact, and is susceptible of a high polish. The yearly rings are marked by one or more bands of open ducts, and scattered ducts occur in the rest of the wood. The medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous; color of heartwood dark brown, often nearly black; the sapwood is light brown, and frequently contains darker spots.

The value of persimmon depends largely upon the proportion of sapwood to heartwood. That was the case formerly more than it is now; for until recent years the heartwood of persimmon was generally thrown away, and the sapwood only was wanted; but demand for the heart has recently increased. There is much difference in the proportion of heartwood to sapwood in different trees. It does not seem to be a matter of size, nor wholly of age. Small trunks sometimes have more heart than large ones. A tree a hundred years old may have heartwood scarcely larger than a lead pencil, and occasionally there is none. In other instances the heart is comparatively large.

Persimmon has never been a wood of many uses, as hickory and oak have been. In early times it was considered valuable almost wholly on account of its fruit, and that had no commercial value, as it was seldom offered for sale in the market. In the language of the southern negroes who fully appreciated the fruit, it was “something good to run at”--meaning that the ripe persimmons were gathered and eaten from the trees while they lasted, but that few were preserved.

It is recorded that the “small wheel” of the pioneer cabins was occasionally made of persimmon wood. The wheel so designated was the machine on which wool and flax were spun by the people in their homes. Spinning wheels were of two kinds, one large, with the operator walking to and fro, the other small, with the operator sitting. It was the small wheel which was sometimes made of persimmon. There is no apparent reason why it should have been made of that wood in preference to any one of a dozen others.

The demand for persimmon in a serious way began with its use as shuttles in textile factories. Weavers had made shuttles of it for home use on hand looms for many years before the demand came from power looms where the shuttles were thrown to and fro by machinery. Up to some thirty years ago, shuttles for factories were generally made of Turkish boxwood, but the supply fell short and the advance in price caused a search for substitutes. Two satisfactory shuttlewoods were found in this country, persimmon and dogwood. The demand came not only from textile mills in America but from those of Europe. The manufacture of shuttle blocks became an industry of considerable importance.

Persimmon wood is suitable for shuttles because it wears smooth, is hard, strong, tough, and of proper weight. Most woods that have been tried for this article fail on account of splintering, splitting, quickly wearing out, or wearing rough. The shuttle is not regarded as satisfactory unless it stands 1,000 hours of actual work. Some woods which are satisfactory for many other purposes will not last an hour as a shuttle.

The manufacture of shuttles, after the square has been roughed out, requires twenty-two operations. Probably more shuttlewood comes from Arkansas than from any other section, though a dozen or more states contribute persimmon. The total sawmill cut of this wood in the United States is about 2,500,000 feet, but this does not include that which never passes through a sawmill.

The wood has other uses. It has lately met demand from manufacturers of golf heads. Skewers are made of it in North Carolina, and billiard cues and mallets in Massachusetts.

The heartwood is dark and shuttle makers and golfhead manufacturers will not have it. Until recently it was customary to throw it away, because no sale for it could be found. It is now known to be suitable for parquet flooring and for brush backs, and the demand for the heartwood is as reliable as for the sapwood. A little of the dark wood is cut in veneer and is employed in panel work, and other is used in turnery.

The seeds of persimmon furnished one of the early substitutes for coffee in backwoods settlements when the genuine article could not be obtained. They were parched and pounded until sufficiently pulverized. During the Civil war many a confederate camp in the South was fragrant with the aroma of persimmon seed coffee, after the soldiers had added the fruit to their rations of cornbread.

MEXICAN PERSIMMON (_Diospyros texana_) grows in Texas and Mexico. It is most abundant in southern and western Texas, where it suits itself to different soils, is found on rich moist ground near the borders of prairies, and also in rocky canyons and dry mesas. The largest trees are fifty feet high and twenty inches in diameter, but trunks that large are not abundant. The tree differs from the eastern persimmon in that the sapwood is thinner, and the heartwood makes up a much greater proportion of the trunk; the uses are consequently different, since it is taken for its dark wood, the eastern tree for its light-colored sap. The fruit of the Mexican persimmon is little esteemed. It is small, black, and the thin layer of pulp between the skin and the seed is insipid. Until fully ripe it is exceedingly austere. The Mexicans in the Rio Grande valley make a dye of the persimmons and use it to color sheep skins. The fruit’s supply of tannin probably contributes to the tanning as well as the dyeing of the sheep pelts. The wood is heavier than eastern persimmon, and has more than three fold more ashes in a cord of wood, amounting to about 160 pounds. The bark is thin and the trunk gnarled. The dark color of the wood gives it the name black persimmon in Texas. Mexicans call it chapote. Sargent pronounces it the best American substitute for boxwood for engraving purposes, but it does not appear to be used outside of Texas. The wood is irregular in color, even in the same piece, being variegated with lighter and darker streaks, and cloudy effects. It ought to be fine brush-back material. It is worked into tool handles, lodge furniture, canes, rules, pen holders, picture frames, curtain rings, door knobs, parasol handles, and maul sticks for artists.

FLOWERING DOGWOOD

FLOWERING DOGWOOD

(_Cornus Florida_)

The dogwood or cornel family is old but not numerous. It originated several hundred thousand years ago and spread over much of the world, but preferred the temperate latitudes. One species at least crossed the equator and established itself in the highlands of Peru. There are forty or fifty species in all, about one-third of them in the United States, but most are shrubs. Black gum and tupelo are members of the family, and are giants compared with the dogwoods. In Europe the tree is usually called cornel, and that has been made the family name. It is a very old word, coined by the Romans before the days of Caesar. They so named it because it was hard like horn (_cornus_ meaning horn in the Latin language). They used it as shafts of spears, and so common was that use that when a speaker referred to a spear he simply called it by the name of the wood of the handle or shaft, as when Virgil described a combat which was supposed to have occurred 800 years before the Christian era, and used the words: “Clogged in the wound the Italian _cornel_ stood.”

The qualities of this wood which led to important uses among the Romans, have always made dogwood a valuable material. Civilized nations do not need it for spear shafts, but they have other demands which call for large amounts.

The flowering dogwood has other names in this country. It is generally known simply as dogwood, but it is called boxwood in Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Mississippi, Michigan, Kentucky, and Indiana; false box-dogwood in Kentucky; New England boxwood in Tennessee; flowering cornel in Rhode Island; and cornel in Texas.

Its range extends from Massachusetts through Ontario and Michigan to Missouri, south to Florida, and west to Texas. The area where it grows includes about 800,000 square miles. It is most common and of largest size in the South, comparatively rare in the North, generally occurs in the shade of taller trees, and prefers well-drained soil, but is not particular whether it is fertile or thin.

The dogwood is valuable as ornament and for its wood. It was formerly a source of medicine, from roots, bark, and flowers; but it seems to have been largely displaced by other drugs; was once considered a good substitute for quinine, that use having been learned from Indian doctors. The Indians dug roots for a scarlet dye with which the vain warrior stained escutcheons on buckskin, and colored porcupine quills and bald eagle feathers for decorating his moccasins and his hair.

The dogwood varies in size from a shrub with many branches to a tree forty feet high, eighteen inches in diameter, and with a flat but shapely crown. The trunk rises as a shaft with little taper, until the first branches are reached. All the branches start at the same place, and the trunk ends abruptly--divides into branches. Flowers are an important part of the tree, as might be inferred from the prominence given them in the tree’s names. In the South the flowers appear in March, in the North in May, and in both regions before the opening of the leaves. The flowers on vigorous trees are three or four inches across, white, and very showy. A dogwood tree in full bloom against a hillside in spring is a most conspicuous object, and is justly admired by all who have appreciation of beauty. The flowers fall as leaves appear, and for some months the tree occupies its little space in the forest unobserved; but in the autumn it bursts again into glory, and while not quite as conspicuous an object as when in bloom, it is no less worthy of admiration. The fall of the leaves reveals the brilliant scarlet fruit which ladens the branches. The berries are just large enough for a good mouthful for a bird, but birds spare them until fully ripe to the harvest, and they then harvest them very rapidly. The tree is thus permitted to display its fruit a considerable time before yielding it to the feathered inhabitants of the air whose mission in forest economy is to scatter the seeds of trees, when nature provides the seeds themselves with no wings for flying.

The two periods in the year when dogwood is highly ornamental, the flowers in spring before leaves appear, and fruit in autumn after leaves fall, are responsible for this tree’s importance in ornamental planting. It is a common park tree, but it is small, generally not more than fifteen feet high, and it occupies subordinate places in the plans of the landscape garden. It is a filler between oaks, pines, and spruces, and it passes unnoticed, except when in bloom and in fruit.

Dogwood is about four pounds per cubic foot heavier than white oak, has the same breaking strength, and is lower in elasticity. It is quite commonly believed that this tree has no heartwood, but the belief is erroneous. It seldom has much, and small trunks often none; but when dogwood reaches maturity it develops heart. Sometimes the heartwood is no larger than a lead pencil in trunks forty or fifty years old. The heart is brown, sapwood is white, and is the part wanted by the users of dogwood. Annual rings are obscure and it is a tree of slow growth. The wood is as nearly without figure as any in this country. It seldom or never goes to sawmills. The logs are too small. Most of the supply is bought by manufacturers of shuttles and golf stick heads, in this country and Europe. They purchase it by the cord or piece. It does not figure much in any part of the lumber business, but is cut and marketed in ways peculiar to itself. Log cutters in hardwood forests pay little attention to it. The dogwood harvest comes principally from southern states. Village merchants are the chief collectors, and they sell to contractors who ship to buyers in the manufacturing centers. The village merchants buy from farmers, who cut a stick here and there as they find it in woodlots, forests, or by the wayside, on their own land or somebody else’s. When the cutter next drives to town he throws his few dogwoods in the wagon, and trades them to the store keeper for groceries or other merchandise. It is small business, but in the aggregate it brings together enough dogwood to supply the trade.

Dogwood has many uses, but none other approaches shuttle making and golfhead manufacture in importance. The wood is made into brush blocks, wedges, engraver’s blocks, tool handles, machinery bearings as a substitute for lignum-vitæ, small hubs, and many kinds of turnery and other small articles.

WESTERN DOGWOOD (_Cornus nuttallii_) is a larger, taller tree than the eastern flowering dogwood. A height of 100 feet is claimed for it in the low country along the coast of British Columbia, but there are no authentic reports of trees so large anywhere south of the boundary between Canada and the United States. Its height ranges from twenty to fifty feet, and its diameter from six to twenty inches. The appearance is much the same as its eastern relative. Its berries are red, and grow in clusters of forty or less; the bark on old trunks is rough, but is smooth on those of medium size; the flowers are generally described as very large and showy, but the true flower is quite an inconspicuous affair, being a small, greenish-yellow, button-like cluster, surrounded by four or six snowy-white or sometimes pinkish scales which are popularly but erroneously supposed to form a portion of the real flower. The western dogwood in its native forest often puts out flowers in autumn; is well supplied with foliage which assumes red and orange colors in the fall when the showy berries are at their best. However, the tree has not yet won its way into the good graces of landscape gardeners, and has not been much planted in parks. It wants some of the good points possessed by the flowering dogwood. The western tree shows to best advantage in its native forest where it thrives on gentle mountain slopes and in low bottoms, valleys, and gulches, provided the soil is well drained and rich. It runs southward fifteen hundred miles from Vancouver island to southern California. It cares little for sunshine, and often is found growing nicely in dense shade. Seedlings do better where shade is deep. The wood is lighter but somewhat stronger than that of the flowering dogwood; is pale reddish-brown, with thick sapwood; is hard, and checks badly in seasoning. Mature trees are from 100 to 150 years.

BLUE DOGWOOD (_Cornus alternifolia_) is given that name because of the blue fruit it bears. It has a number of other names, among them being purple dogwood, green osier, umbrella tree, pigeonberry, and alternate-leaved dogwood, the last being simply a translation of its botanical name. It grows in more northern latitudes than the flowering dogwood, and does not range as far south. It is found from Nova Scotia to Alabama, and westward to Minnesota, but its southern habitat lies along the Appalachian mountain ranges. It attains size and assumes form similar to the flowering dogwood. The wood is heavy, hard, brown, tinged with red, the sapwood white. It is a deep forest tree, but has been domesticated in a few instances where it has been planted as ornament. The wood seems to possess the good qualities of flowering dogwood, but no reports of uses for it have been made.

Two varieties of flowering dogwood have been produced by cultivation, weeping dogwood (_Cornus florida pendula_), and red-bract dogwood (_Cornus florida rubra_). English cornel or dogwood (_Cornus mas_) has been planted in many parts of this country. The so-called Jamaica dogwood is not in the dogwood family.

ANDROMEDA (_Andromeda ferruginea_) is a small southern tree of South
Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and in the latter state is sometimes
known as titi, though other trees also bear that name. The largest
are thirty feet high, if by chance one can be found standing erect,
for most of them prefer to sprawl at full length on the ground. The
fruit is a small berry of no value. The wood is weak, but hard and
sufficiently compact to receive fine polish. The heartwood is light
brown, tinged with red.

CALIFORNIA LAUREL

CALIFORNIA LAUREL

(_Umbellularia Californica_)

This tree’s range lies in southern Oregon and in California. It is a member of the laurel family and is closely related to the eastern sassafras and the red and the swamp bays of the southern states; but it is not near kin to the eastern laurels which, strange as it may appear, do not belong to the laurel family, notwithstanding the names they bear.

The people of California and Oregon have several names for this interesting tree. It is known as mountain laurel, California bay tree, myrtle tree, cajeput, California olive, spice tree, laurel, bay tree, oreodaphne, and California sassafras.

Those who call it laurel name it on account of its large, lustrous, thick leaves which adhere to the branches from two to six years. All new leaves do not come at once, as with most trees, but appear a few at a time during the whole summer.

The names which connect this tree with sassafras, spice and cajeput are based on odor and taste. All members of the laurel family in this country are characterized by pungent, aromatic odor and taste, and the one under consideration shares these properties in a remarkable degree. When the leaves and the green bark are crushed, they give off a light, volatile oil in follicles which float in the air, like those of an onion, and when inhaled it produces severe pain over the eyes, and may induce dizziness and violent sneezing. Though the symptoms are alarming to one who is undergoing the experience for the first time, no serious inconvenience follows. Dried leaves are capable of producing a similar effect but with less violence. The California laurel’s close relationship to the camphor tree is readily believed by persons who inhale some of the oily spray from the crushed leaves.

Attempts have been made to produce the commercial oil of cajeput, or a substitute for it, by distilling the leaves and bark of this laurel. A passable substitute has been manufactured, but it cannot be marketed as the genuine article. By distilling the fruit a product known as umbellulic acid has been obtained.

The California laurel carries a very dense crown of leaves. This is due partly to the old crops which hang so long, and to the tree’s habit of lengthening its leading shoots during the growing season, and the constant appearance of young leaves on the lengthening shoots. It can stand an almost unlimited amount of shade itself, and is by no means backward in giving abundance of shade to small growth which is trying to struggle up to light from below. It delights in dense thickets, but it prefers thickets of its own species.

Its fruiting habits and its disposition to occupy the damp, rich soil along the banks of small water courses, are responsible for the thick stands. The fruit itself is an interesting thing. It is yellowish-green in color, as large as a good-sized olive, and looks much like it. The fruit ripens in October, and falls in time to get the benefit of the autumn rains which visit the Pacific coast. Since the trees generally grow along gulches, the fruit falls and rolls to the bottom. The first dashing rain sends a flood down the gulches, the laurel drupes are carried along and are buried in mud wherever they can find a resting place. Germination takes place soon after. The fruit remains under the mud, attached to the roots of the young plants, until the following summer.

The result is that if a laurel gets a foothold in a gulch through which water occasionally flows, lines of young laurels will eventually cover the banks of the gulch as far down stream as conditions are favorable.

The wood of California laurel weighs 40.60 pounds per cubic foot when kiln-dried. That is nine pounds heavier than sassafras. It is very heavy when green and sinks when placed in water. It is hard and very firm, rich yellowish brown in color, often beautifully mottled; but this applies to the heartwood only, and not to the thick sapwood.

Lumbermen have discovered that the wood’s color can be materially changed by immersing the logs when green, and leaving them submerged a long time. The beautiful “black myrtle,” which has been so much admired, is nothing more than California laurel which has undergone the cold water treatment.

The annual rings of growth are clearly marked by dark bands of summerwood. The rings are often wide, but not always, for sometimes the growth is very slow. The wood is diffuse-porous, and the pores are small and not numerous. The wood’s figure is brought out best by tangential sawing, as is the case with so many woods which have clearly-marked rings but small and obscure medullary rays. Figure is not uniform; that is, one trunk may produce a pattern quite different from another. The figure of some logs is particularly beautiful; these logs are selected for special purposes. Sudworth says that none of our hardwoods excels it in beautiful grain when finished, and Sargent is still more emphatic when he declares that it is “the most valuable wood produced in the forests of Pacific North America for interior finish of houses and for furniture.”

The wood of this tree has more than ninety per cent of the strength of white oak, is considerably stiffer, and contains a smaller amount of ash, weight for weight of wood. The species reaches its best development in the rich valleys of southwestern Oregon, where, with the broadleaf maple, it forms a considerable part of the forest growth. The largest trees are from sixty to eighty feet high, and two to four in diameter. In crowded stands the trunks are shapely, and often measure thirty or forty feet to the first limbs; but more commonly the trunk is short.

The boat yards in southwestern Oregon were the first to use California laurel for commercial purposes, but early settlers made a point of procuring it for fuel when they could. The oil in the wood causes it to burn with a cheerful blaze, and campers in the mountains consider themselves fortunate when they find a supply for the evening bonfire.

Shipbuilders have drawn upon this wood for fifty years for material. It is made into pilot wheels, interior finish, cleats, crossties, and sometimes deck planking. Furniture makers long ago made a specialty of the wood for their San Francisco trade. For thirty years travelers admired the superb furniture of the Palace hotel in that city, and wondered of what wood it was made. It was the California laurel. The hotel’s furniture was hand-made, or largely so, at a time when woodworking factories were few on the Pacific coast. The furniture was finally destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. Furniture is still one of the products made of the wood, but the quantity is small. Other products are interior finish; fixtures for banks, stores and offices; musical instruments, including organs; mathematical instruments, and carpenters’ tools, including rulers, straight-edges, spirit levels, bench screws and clamps, and handles of many kinds.

Makers of novelties and small turnery find it serviceable for paper knives, pin trays, match safes, brush backs, and many articles of like kind. One of the largest uses for it is as walking beams for pumping oilwells in central and southern California. The beauty of grain has nothing to do with this use.

Country blacksmiths repair wagons and agricultural implements with this wood. Farmers have long employed it about their premises for posts, gates, floors, and building material. Cooks flavor soup with the leaves, and poultrymen make henroosts of poles, believing that the wood’s odor will keep insects away. This is probably the old sassafras superstition carried west by early California settlers.

RED BAY (_Persea borbonia_) is a southern member of the laurel
family, and close akin to sassafras and the California laurel. The
bark is red, hence the name; but it is known also as bay galls,
laurel tree, Florida mahogany, false mahogany, and sweet bay. It
grows from Virginia to Texas, but is most abundant near the coast,
yet it ascends the Mississippi valley to Arkansas. The leaves remain
on the tree a full year, but turn yellow toward the last, in
consequence of which the species is not evergreen. In shape and
color the leaves resemble laurel. The fruit is a small, dark blue
drupe, with thin flesh. The wood is heavy, hard, very strong,
rather brittle, bright red, with thin, lighter-colored sapwood. It
was once very popular in the South for furniture. Rare pieces, some
150 years old, are still found in southern homes. The wood was
exported prior to 1741 from the Carolinas, and the quantity seems to
have been considerable. It was then regarded as a finer wood than
mahogany. It was exported to the West Indies, where mahogany was
abundant, and was made into furniture and finish for the homes of
wealthy planters and merchants. An old report describes the wood as
resembling “watered satin.” It was in early demand by shipbuilders,
but it has now ceased to go to boat yards. Except in rare instances,
it is not reported by any wood-using industries. In Texas a little
is made into pin trays, small picture frames, canes, and shelves. It
deserves a more important place, for when polished and finished, it
is one of the handsomest woods of this country. Trees attain a
height of sixty or seventy feet, and a diameter of two or three.

SWAMP BAY (_Persea pubescens_) attains a height of thirty or forty
feet, but is seldom more than a foot in diameter, and is too small
for saw timber. The wood is strong, heavy, rather soft, orange
colored, streaked with brown, and not as handsome as its larger
relative, red bay, which is associated with it from North Carolina
to Mississippi. It is an evergreen in some cases, but in others the
leaves turn yellow the second spring. The black fruit is a drupe
nearly an inch long. The wood is without attractive figure, since
its medullary rays are obscure, and the annual rings are indistinct
and produce little contrast when the trunks are sawed tangentially.
Color is the chief attraction that can be claimed for the wood. A
little is occasionally worked into interior finish.

LOCUST

LOCUST

(_Robinia Pseudacacia_)

Locust belongs to the pea family, known in botany as _Leguminosæ_.[6] In most parts of its range it is known simply as locust, but in some localities it is called black locust, an allusion to the color of the bark; yellow locust, descriptive of the heartwood; white locust, referring to the bloom; red locust, probably a reference to the wood, and green locust for the same reason; acacia and false acacia; honey locust, a name which belongs to another species; post locust, because it has always been a favorite tree for fence posts; and pea-flower locust, a reference to the bloom.

[6] This is a very large family, containing trees, shrubs, and
vines, such as locusts, acacias, beans, and clovers. There are 430
genera in the world, and many times that many species. The United
States has seventeen genera and thirty species of the pea family
that are large enough to be classed as trees. Their common names
follow: Florida Cat’s Claw, Huajillo, Texan Ebony, Wild Tamarind,
Huisache, Texas Cat’s Claw, Devil’s Claw, Leucæna, Chalky Leucæna,
Screwbean, Mesquite, Redbud, Texas Redbud, Honey Locust, Water
Locust, Coffeetree, Horsebean, Small-leaf Horsebean, Greenbark
Acacia, Palo Verde, Frijolito, Sophora, Yellow-wood, Eysenhardtia,
Indigo Thorn, Locust, New Mexican Locust, Clammy Locust, Sonora
Ironwood, Jamaica Dogwood. These species are treated separately in
the following pages, and are given space according to their relative
commercial importance in the particular regions where they grow.

Several of the names refer to the color of the wood, and seem contradictory, for yellow, green, and red are not the same; yet the names describe with fair accuracy. Color of the heartwood varies with different trees, yellow with some, tinged with red with others, and sometimes it might be appropriately called blue locust, for the heartwood is nearer that color than any other.

The natural range of locust seems to have been confined to the Appalachian mountain ranges from Pennsylvania to Georgia. It probably existed as a low shrub in parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Its range has been extended by planting until it now reaches practically all the states, but is running wild in only about half of them. It has received a great deal of attention from foresters and tree planters. It attracted notice very early, because of its hardness, strength, and lasting properties. At one time the planting of locust came nearly being a fad. In England it was supposed that it would rise to great importance in shipbuilding, and in France it was looked upon as no less important. Books were written on the subject in both English and French. All the details of planting and utilization were discussed. Its generic name, _Robinia_, is in honor of a Frenchman, Robin. Extravagant claims were once made for the wood. When American ships were gaining victory after victory over English vessels in the war of 1812, it was asserted in England that the cause of American success was the locust timber in their ships. The claim may have been partly true, but other factors contributed to the phenomenal series of successes.

The locust craze died a natural death. Too much was claimed for the wood. Possibilities in the way of growth were over estimated. It was assumed that the tree, if planted, would grow everywhere as vigorously as on its native mountains in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, where trees two or three feet in diameter and eighty feet high were found. Experience proved later that nature had planted the locust in the best place for it, and when transplanted elsewhere it was apt to fall short of expectations. Outside of its natural range it grows vigorously for a time, and occasionally reaches large size; but in recent years the locust borer has defeated the efforts of man to extend the range of this species and make it profitable in regions distant from its native home. The tree is often devoured piecemeal, branches and twigs breaking and falling, and trunks gradually disappearing beneath the attacks of the hungry borers. No effective method of combating the pest is known. The planting of locust trees, once so common, has now nearly ceased.

Within its native range, and beyond that range when it has a chance, locust is a valuable and beautiful tree. It is valuable at all times on account of the superior wood which it furnishes, and beautiful when in bloom and in leaf. A locust in full flower is not surpassed in ornamental qualities by any tree of this country. It is a mass of white, exceedingly rich in perfume. It blooms in May or June. During the summer its foliage shows tropical luxuriance with exquisite grace. Its compound leaves are from eight to fourteen inches long, with seven to nine leaflets. They come late in spring and go early in autumn. The tree’s thorns, resembling cat claws, are affixed to the bark only, and usually fall with the leaves. The fruit is a pod three or four inches long, and contains four or eight wingless seeds. They depend on animals to carry them to planting places. The pods dry on the branches, and rattle in the wind most of the autumn. The tree spreads by underground roots which send up sprouts. A locust in winter is not a thing of beauty. It appears to be dead; not a bud visible. Its black, angular branches lack every line of grace.

Locust wood is remarkable for strength, hardness, and durability. It is about one pound per cubic foot lighter than white oak, but is thirty-four per cent stiffer and forty-five per cent stronger. Its strength exceeds that of shagbark hickory, and it is doubtful whether a stronger wood exists in the United States. Its hardness is equally remarkable, and is said to be due to crystals formed in the wood cells, and known as “rhaphides.” Its durability is probably equal to that of Osage orange, mesquite, and catalpa, but it is not easy to fix a standard of durability by which to compare different woods. Locust is the best fence post wood in this country, because it is usually much straighter than other very durable woods. The posts are expected to last at least thirty years, and have been known to stand twice that long.

For more than 150 years locust was almost indispensable in shipbuilding, furnishing the tree nails or large pins which held the timbers together. It supplied material for other parts of ships also, but in smaller quantities. The substitution of steel ships for wooden lessened demand for locust pins, and in many instances large iron nails are used to fasten timbers together. In spite of this, the demand for locust tree nails is nearly always ahead of supply.

The wood’s figure is fairly strong, due to the contrast between the springwood and that grown later, but not to the medullary rays, which are small and inconspicuous. The wood is not in much demand for ornamental purposes. Small amounts are made into policemen’s clubs, rake teeth, hubs for buggy wheels, ladder rungs, and tool handles.

The tree grows rapidly where conditions are favorable, and very slowly when they are not. Usually trees of fence post size are twenty years old at least, but trunks thirty five years old have been known to produce a post for each two years of age, though that was exceptional. Railroads, especially in Pennsylvania, planted locust largely a few years ago for ties. It has been reported that in some instances expectations of growth have not been fully realized.

CLAMMY LOCUST (_Robinia viscosa_) was originally confined to the
mountains of North Carolina and South Carolina where its attractive
flowers brought it to the notice of nurserymen who have enlarged its
natural range a hundred if not a thousand fold. It is now grown in
parks and gardens not only in the United States east of the
Mississippi river and as far north as Massachusetts, but in most
foreign countries that have temperate climates. It is usually a
shrub, but on some of the North Carolina mountains it attains a
height of forty feet and a diameter of twelve inches. The wood is
seldom or never used for any commercial purpose. The leaves are from
seven to twelve inches long, and contain thirteen to twenty-one
leaflets. The flowers appear in June, possess little odor, and are
admired solely for their beauty. They are mingled red and rose
color. The pods are from two to three and a half inches long, and
contain small, mottled seeds. The wood is hard and heavy, the heart
brown and the sap yellow. In its wild haunts it is usually a shrub
five or six feet high.

NEW MEXICAN LOCUST (_Robinia neo-mexicana_) is a small southwestern
tree, seldom exceeding a height of twenty-five feet or a diameter of
eight inches. It ranges from Colorado to Arizona, and takes its name
from its presence in New Mexico. It reaches its largest size near
Trinidad, Colorado. It is found at elevations of 7,000 feet. Leaves
are from six to twelve inches long, and the leaflets number from
fifteen to twenty-one. The flowers appear in May and are less showy
than those of the eastern locust. The wood is heavy, exceedingly
hard, the heartwood yellow, streaked with brown, the thin sapwood
light yellow. This locust is occasionally used locally for small
posts or stakes, but is generally too small. It is sometimes met
with in cultivation in Europe and the eastern states.

TEXAN EBONY (_Zygia flexicaulis_) ranges from the Texas coast
through Mexico to Lower California. It reaches a height of thirty
feet or more, and a diameter of two or less. It is a beautiful tree
along the lower Rio Grande where it reaches its largest size. The
light yellow or cream-colored, very fragrant flowers bloom from June
till August; the fruit ripens in Autumn but adheres several months
to the branches. Mexicans roast the seeds as a substitute for
coffee. The color of the heartwood gives this tree its name, but it
is not a true ebony. The wood of the roots is blacker than that of
the trunk, and small articles made of roots resemble black ebony of
Ceylon. The trunk wood is liable to be streaked with black, brown,
and medium yellow. The rings of annual growth are frequently of
different colors. Considerable demand is made upon this wood in
Texas for crossties. It is very durable, but is so hard that holes
must be bored for the spikes. It is sold in large amounts as
cordwood, and it burns well. Other articles made of this so-called
ebony are foundation blocks for buildings and rollers for moving
houses. It is used also for small turnery.

HUAJILLO (_Zygia brevifolia_) has no English name, but Americans in
the Rio Grande valley where this tree grows call it by its Mexican
name. It is a larger tree in Mexico than on this side of the river.
It is not often more than thirty feet high and six inches in
diameter, and is generally a shrub. Its beautiful foliage looks like
masses of ferns, and the flowers range from white to violet-yellow.
The wood is dark, hard, heavy, and is seldom used for anything but
fuel.

FLORIDA CAT’S CLAW (_Zygia unguis-cati_), with a Latin name that
would make Julius Caesar stare and gasp, reaches its largest size in
the United States on Elliott’s Key, Florida. Its name refers to its
curved thorns. Trunks twenty-five feet high and eight inches in
diameter are the largest in this country. It bears pods, but the
leaves are not compound, thus differing from most trees of the pea
family. The wood is not put to any use, though it is very hard and
heavy, rich red, varying to purple, with clear yellow sapwood. It is
said to check badly in drying. The bark is used for medicine in some
of the islands of the West Indies.

HONEY LOCUST

HONEY LOCUST

(_Gleditsia Triacanthos_)