Chapter IV: Part 4

The value of the wood of western larch has been the subject of much controversy. In the tables compiled for the federal census of 1880, under direction of Charles S. Sargent, its strength and elasticity were shown to be remarkably high. The figures indicate that it is about thirty-nine per cent stronger than white oak and fifty-one per cent stiffer. This places it a little above longleaf pine in strength and nearly equal to it in stiffness or elasticity. Engineers have expressed doubts as to the correctness of Sargent’s figures. They believe them too high. The samples tested by Sargent were six in number, four of them collected in Washington and two in Montana.

The wood of western larch is heavier than longleaf pine, and approximately of the same weight as white oak. It is among the heaviest, if not actually the heaviest, of softwoods of the United States. Sargent thus described the physical properties of the wood: “Heavy, exceedingly hard and strong, rather coarse grained, compact, satiny, susceptible of a fine polish, very durable in contact with the soil; bands of small summer cells broad, occupying fully half the width of the annual growth, very resinous, dark-colored, conspicuous resin passages few, obscure; medullary rays few, thin; color, light bright red, the thin sapwood nearly white.” The wood is described by Sudworth: “Clear, reddish brown, heavy, and fine grained; commercially valuable; very durable in an unprotected state, differing greatly in this respect from the wood of the eastern larch.”

The seasoning of western larch has given lumbermen much trouble. It checks badly and splinters rise from the surface of boards. It is generally admitted that this is the most serious obstacle in the way of securing wide utilization for the wood. The structure of the annual ring is reason for believing that there is slight adhesion between the springwood and that of the late season. Checks are very numerous parallel with the growth rings, and splinters part from the board along the same lines. Standing timber is frequently windshaken, and the cracks follow the rings.

All of this is presumptive evidence that the principle defect of larch is a lack of adhesion between the early and the late wood. If that is correct, it is a fundamental defect in the growing tree, and is inherent in the wood. No artificial treatment can wholly remove it. It should not be considered impossible, however, to devise methods of seasoning which would not accentuate the weaknesses natural to the wood.

The form of the larch’s trunk is perfect, from the lumberman’s viewpoint, and its size is all that could be desired. It is amply able to perpetuate its species, though it consumes a great deal of time in the process. Abundant crops of seeds are borne, but only once in several years. It rarely bears seeds as early as its twenty-fifth year, and generally not until it passes forty; but its fruitful period is long, extending over several centuries. The seeds retain their vitality moderately well, which is an important consideration in view of the tree’s habit of opening and closing its cones alternately as the weather happens to be damp or dry. The dispersion of seeds extends over a considerable part of the season, and the changing winds scatter them in all directions. Many seeds fall on the snow in winter to be let down on the damp ground ready to germinate during the early spring. The best germination occurs on mineral soil, and this is often found in areas recently bared by fire. Lodgepole pine contends also for this ground; but the race between the two species is not swift after the process of scattering seeds has been completed; for both are of growth so exceedingly slow that a hundred years will scarcely tell which is gaining. In the long run, however, the larch outstrips the pine and becomes a larger tree. If both start at the same time, and there is not room for both, the pine will kill the larch by shading it. The latter’s thin foliage renders it incapable of casting a shadow dense enough to hurt the pine. The best areas for larch are those so thoroughly burned as to preclude the immediate heavy reproduction of lodgepole pine.

Much of the natural ranges of larch and lodgepole pine lie in the national forests owned by the government, and careful studies have been made in recent years to determine the requirements, and the actual and comparative values of the two species. It has been shown that larch is one of the most intolerant of the western forest trees. It cannot endure shade. Its own thin foliage, where it occurs in pure stands, is sufficient to shade off the lower limbs of boles, and produce tall, clean trunks; but if a larch happens to stand in the open, where light is abundant, it retains its branches almost to the ground. It is more intolerant, even, than western yellow pine, which so often grows in open, parklike stands.

ALPINE LARCH (_Larix lyallii_) never grows naturally below an altitude of 4,000 feet, and near the southern border of its range it climbs to 8,000, where it stands on the brink of precipices, faces of cliffs, and on windswept summits. It is too much exposed to storms, and has its roots in soil too sterile to develop symmetrical forms. It is found in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The finest trees are sometimes seventy-five feet high and three or four in diameter, but the average height ranges from forty to fifty, with diameters of twenty inches or less. Its leaves are one and a half inches or less in length; cones one and a half inches long, and bristling with hair; seeds one-eighth of an inch long with wings one-fourth inch; wood heavy, hard, and of a light, reddish brown color. It is seldom used except about mountain camps where it is sometimes burned for fuel or is employed in constructing corrals for sheep and cattle. It is impossible for lumbermen ever to make much use of it, because it is scarce and hard to get at.

RED CEDAR

RED CEDAR

(_Juniperus Virginiana_)

This widely distributed tree is called red cedar in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario; cedar in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, South Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio; savin in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota; juniper in New York and Pennsylvania; juniper bush in Minnesota; cedre in Louisiana.

The names as given above indicate the tree’s commercial range. It appears as scattered growth and in doubtful forms outside of that range, particularly in the West where several cedars closely resemble the red cedar, yet differ sufficiently from it to give them places as separate species in the lists of some botanists. They are so listed by the United States Forest Service; and the following names are given: Western Juniper, Rocky Mountain Juniper, One Seed Juniper, Mountain Juniper, California Juniper, Utah Juniper, Drooping Juniper, Dwarf Juniper, and Alligator Juniper. These species are not of much importance from the lumberman’s viewpoint, yet they are highly interesting trees, and in this book will be treated individually.

The red cedar grows slowly, and thrives in almost any soil and situation except deep swamps. It is often classed as a poor-land species, yet it does not naturally seek poor land. That it is often found in such situations is because it has been crowded from better places by stronger trees, and has retreated to rocky ridges, dry slopes, and thin soils where competitors are unable to follow. The trees often stand wide apart or solitary, yet they can grow in thickets almost impenetrable, as they do in Texas and other southern states. It is an old-field tree in much of its range. Birds plant the seeds, particularly along fence rows. That is why long lines of cedars may often be seen extending across old fields or deserted plantations.

The extreme size attained by this cedar is four feet in diameter, and one hundred in height, but that size was never common, and at present the half of it is above the average. That which reaches market is more often under than over eighteen inches in diameter. The reddish-brown and fibrous bark may be peeled in long strips. Stringiness of bark is characteristic of all the cedars, and typical of red cedar.

The wood is medium light and is strong, considering that it is very brittle. Tests show it to be eighty per cent as strong as white oak. The grain is very fine, even, and homogeneous, except as interfered with by knots. The annual rings are narrow, the summerwood narrow and indistinct; medullary rays numerous but very obscure. The color is red, the thin sapwood nearly white. The heart and sap are sometimes intermingled, and this characteristic is prominent in the closely-related western species of red cedar. The wood is easily worked, gives little trouble because of warping and shrinking, and the heart is considered as durable as any other American wood. It has a delicate, agreeable fragrance, which is especially marked. This odor is disagreeable to insects, and for that reason chests and closets of cedar are highly appreciated as storage places for garments subject to the ravages of the moth and buffalo bug. An extract from the fruit and leaves is used in medicine, while oil of red cedar, distilled from the wood, is used in making perfume. Cedar has a sweet taste. It burns badly, scarcely being able to support a flame; it is exceedingly aromatic and noisy when burning and the embers glow long in still air. Some of the bungalow owners in Florida buy cedar fuel in preference to all others for burning in open fireplaces.

Its representative uses are for posts, railway ties, pails, sills, cigar boxes, interior finish and cabinet making, but its most general use is in the manufacture of lead pencils, for which its fine, straight grain and soft texture are peculiarly adapted. The farther south cedar is found, the softer and clearer it is. In the North, in ornamental trees, it is very hard, slow-growing, and knotty. It shows but a small percentage of clear lumber. In eastern Tennessee there were considerable quantities of red cedar brake that were for years considered of little value. About the only way the wood was employed a few years ago was in fence rails and posts, fuel, and charcoal. Of late people in localities where cedar grows in any abundance have awakened to its value, and cedar fences are rapidly disappearing, owing to the high prices now paid for the wood, and the excellent demand. On no other southern wood has such depredation been practiced. Because of its lightness and the ease with which it can be worked, it has been used for purposes for which other and less valuable woods were well adapted. On account of its slow growth, its complete exhaustion has often been predicted, but a second growth has appeared which, though much inferior to the virgin timber, can be used in many ways to excellent advantage. Instead of the huge piles of cedar flooring, chest boards, and smooth railings of the old days, one now sees at points of distribution great piles of knotty, rough poles, ten to forty feet long, which years ago would have been discarded. Today they represent bridge piling, the better and smoother among them being used for telephone and telegraph poles.

Middle Tennessee has produced more red cedar than any other part of the United States, but the bulk of production has been confined to a few counties, which produce a higher class and more aromatic variety of wood than that found elsewhere. A century ago these counties abounded in splendid forests of cedar. The early settlers built their cabins of cedar logs, sills, studding, and rafters; their smoke houses were built of them; their barns; even the roofs were shingled with cedar and the rooms and porches floored with the sweet-scented wood. Not many years ago trees three feet or more in diameter were often found, but the days are past when timber like that can be had anywhere.

Although the most general use at the present time is for lead pencils, few people who sharpen one and smell the fragrant wood, stop to wonder where it came from. One would smile were it suggested to him that perhaps his pencil was formerly part of some Tennessee farmer’s worm fence. The best timber obtained now is hewn into export logs and shipped to Europe, particularly Germany, where a great quantity is converted into pencils. The red wood is made into the higher grades and the sap or streaked wood is used for the cheaper varieties and for pen holders. The smaller and inferior logs are cut into slats, while odds and ends, cutoffs, etc., are collected and sold by the hundred pounds to pencil factories. There are many such factories in the United States now, as well as in Europe, and pencil men are scouring the cedar sections to buy all they can. The farmer who has a red cedar picket or worm fence can sell it to these companies at a round price. Pencil men are even going back over tracts from which the timber was cut twenty-five years ago, buying up the stumps. When the wood was plentiful lumbermen were not frugal, and usually cut down a tree about two feet above the ground, allowing the best part of it to be wasted.

The German and Austrian pencil makers foresaw a shortage in American red cedar, and many years ago planted large areas to provide for the time of scarcity. The planted timber is now large enough for use, but the wood has been a disappointment. It does not possess the softness and brittleness which give so high value to the forest cedar of this country. As far as can be seen, when present pencil cedar has been exhausted, there will be little more produced of like grade. It grows so slowly that owners will not wait for trees to become old, but sell them while young for posts and poles.

One of the earliest demands for red cedar was for woodenware made of staves, such as buckets, kegs, keelers, small tubs, and firkins. Material for the manufacture of such wares was among the exports to the West Indies before the Revolutionary war. The ware was no less popular in this country, and the home-made articles were in all neighborhoods in the red cedar’s range. Scarcity of suitable wood limits the manufacture of such wares now, but they are still in use.

Cedar was long one of the best woods for skiffs and other light boats, and it was occasionally employed in shipbuilding for the upper parts of vessels. A little of it is still used as trim and finish, particularly for canoes, motor boats, and yachts.

The early clothes chest makers selected clear lumber, because it could be had and was considered to be better; but modern chest manufacturers who cannot procure clear stock, make a merit of necessity, and use boards filled with knots. The wood is finished with oils, but the natural colors remain, and the knots give the chest a rustic and pleasing appearance.

SOUTHERN RED JUNIPER (_Juniperus barbadensis_) so closely resembles
the red cedar with which it is associated that the two were formerly
considered the same species, and most people familiar with both
notice no difference. However, botanists clearly distinguish the
two. The southern red cedar’s range is much smaller than the
other’s. It grows from Georgia to the Indian river, Florida, in
swamps. It is found in the vicinity of the Apalachicola river,
forming dense thickets. Its average size is much under that of the
red cedar, but its wood is not dissimilar. It has been used for the
same purposes as far as it has been used at all. One of the largest
demands upon it has been for lead pencils. Those who bought and sold
it, generally supposed they were dealing in the common red cedar.

NORTHERN WHITE CEDAR

NORTHERN WHITE CEDAR

(_Thuja Occidentalis_)

This tree is designated as northern white cedar because there is also a southern white cedar, (_Chamæcyparis thyoides_) and the boundaries of their ranges approach pretty closely. The name _occidentalis_, meaning western, applied to the northern white cedar is employed by botanists to distinguish it from a similar cedar in Asia, which is called _orientalis_, or eastern.

The American species has several names, as is usual with trees which grow in different regions. It is called arborvitæ in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario. White cedar is a name often used in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario. In Maine, Vermont, and New York it is called cedar. In New York, and where cultivated in England, American arborvitæ is the name applied to it. The Indians in New York knew it as feather-leaf. In Delaware the name is abridged to vitæ.

The tree has been widely planted, and under the influence of cultivation it runs quickly into varieties, of which forty-five are listed by nurserymen. It is a northern species which follows the Appalachian mountains southward to North Carolina and Tennessee. It grows from New Brunswick to Manitoba, and is abundant in the Lake States.

The bark of arborvitæ is light brown, tinged with red on the branchlets; it is thin, and cracks into ridges with stringy, rough edges; the branchlets are very smooth.

In general appearance the tree is conical and compact, with short branches; it attains a height of from twenty-five to seventy feet, and a diameter of from one to three feet. It thrives best in low, swampy land, along the borders of streams.

The wood of arborvitæ is soft, brittle, light and weak; it is very inflammable. The fact that it is durable, even in contact with the soil, permits its use for railway ties, telegraph poles, posts, fencing, shingles and boats. However, the trunk is so shaped that it is seldom used for lumber, but oftener for poles and posts, the lower section being flattened into ties. A cubic foot of the seasoned wood weighs approximately nineteen pounds. The heartwood is light brown, becoming darker with exposure; the sapwood is thin and nearly white, with fine grain.

The northern white cedar varies greatly in size and shape, depending on the soil, climate, and situation. Though it is usually associated with swamps in the North, it adapts itself to quite different situations. It grows in narrow, rocky ravines, on stony ridges, and it clings to the faces of cliffs, or hangs on their summits as tenaciously as the western juniper of the Sierra Nevada mountains. However, little good timber is produced by this species on rocky soils. Trees in such situations are short, crooked, and limby.

The wood of the northern white cedar possesses a peculiar toughness which is seen in its wearing qualities. A thin shaving, such as a carpenter’s plane makes, may be folded, laid on an anvil, and struck repeatedly with a hammer, without breaking. It is claimed for it that it will stand a severer test of that kind than any other American wood. Toughness and wearing qualities combined make it an admirable wood for planking and decking for small boats. Its exceptionally light weight is an additional factor as a boat building material. The Indians knew how to work it into frames for bark canoes. Its lightness appealed to them; but the ease with which they could work it with their primitive tools was more important. It is a characteristic of the wood to part readily along the rings of annual growth. The Indian was able to split canoe ribs with a stone maul, by pounding a cedar billet until it parted along the growth rings and was reduced to very thin slats.

The property of this cedar which appealed to the Indians is disliked by the sawmill man. It is hard to make thin lumber that will hang together. The tendency to part along the growth rings develops wind-shake while the tree is standing. About nine trees in ten are so defective from shake that little good lumber can be made from them. It is a common saying, which probably applies in certain localities only, that a thousand feet of white cedar must be sawed to get one hundred feet of good lumber.

It is good material for small cooperage such as buckets, pails, and tubs, and has been long used for that purpose in the northern states.

It was once laid in large quantities for paving blocks. Hundreds of miles of streets of northern cities were paved with round blocks sawed from trunks of trees from five to ten inches in diameter. They were not usually treated with chemicals to prevent decay, but they gave service ranging from six to twelve years. They are less used now than formerly. Southern yellow pine has largely taken the cedar’s place as paving material. Much northern cedar has been used in the manufacture of bored pipe for municipal waterworks, shops, salt works, paper mills, and other factories.

The early settlers of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania made a rheumatism ointment by bruising the leaves and molding them with lard. This is probably not made now, but pharmacists distill an oil from twigs and wood, and make a tincture of the leaves which they use in the manufacture of pulmonary and other medicines.

There is little likelihood that northern white cedar will ever cease to be a commercial wood in this country. It will become scarcer, but its manner of growth is the best guarantee that it will hold its place. It lives in swamps, and the land is not in demand for any other purpose.

ONE-SEED JUNIPER (_Juniperus monosperma_) is also called naked-seed
juniper. Its range lies in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and
Arizona. It attains its greatest development in the bottoms of
canyons in northern Arizona. It is a scrawny desert tree which lives
in adversity but holds its ground for centuries, if fire does not
cut its career short. Its growth is too scattered to attract
lumbermen, and the form of its trunk is uninviting. It may reach a
height of forty or fifty feet, and a diameter of three, but that is
above the average in the best of its range. The desert Indians make
the most of one-seed juniper. They weave its stringy bark into
sleeping mats, rough blankets, and saddle girts. They make cords and
ropes of it for use where great strength is not required, such as
leashes for leading dogs, strands with which to tie bundles on the
backs of their squaws, and cords for fastening their wigwam poles
together. They likewise weave the bark into pokes and pouches for
storing and carrying their dried meat and mesquite beans. The
juniper berries are an article of diet and commerce with the
Indians, who mix them with divers ingredients, pulp them in stone
mortars, and bake them in cakes which become the greatest delicacy
on their bill of fare. White men, when driven to it by starvation,
have sustained life by making food of the berries. A small quantity
of one-seed juniper reaches woodworkers in Texas. The lumber is
short and rough. The numerous knots are generally much darker than
the body of the wood. That is not necessarily a defect, for in
making clothes chests, the striking contrast in color between the
knots, and the other wood gives the article a peculiar and
attractive appearance. The trunks are sharply buttressed and deeply
creased. Sometimes the folds of bark within the creases almost reach
the center of the tree. The sapwood is thin, the heartwood irregular
in color. Some is darker than the heartwood of southern red cedar,
other is clouded and mottled, pale yellow, cream-colored, the shade
of slate, or streaked with various tints. The wood can be
economically worked only as small pieces. It takes a soft and
pleasing finish. It is a lathe wood and shows to best advantage as
balusters, ornaments, grill spindles and small posts, Indian clubs,
dumb-bells, balls, and lodge gavels. It has been made into small
game boards with fine effect, and it is an excellent material for
small picture frames. Furniture makers put it to use in several
ways, and it has been recommended for small musical instruments
where the variegated colors can be displayed to excellent advantage.
At the best it can never be more than a minor species, because it is
difficult of access in the remote deserts, and it is not abundant.

MOUNTAIN JUNIPER (_Juniperus sabinoides_) is a Texas tree, occupying
a range southward and westward of the Colorado river. It has several
local names, rock cedar being a favorite. This name is due to the
tree’s habit of growing on rocky ridges and among ledges where soil
is scarce. It is called juniper cedar, and juniper. Under the most
favorable circumstances the tree may attain a height of 100 feet and
a diameter of two, but it nearly always grows where conditions are
adverse, and its size and form change to conform to circumstances.
It is often small and ragged. Its lead-colored bark is apt to
attract attention on account of its woeful appearance, hanging in
strings and tatters which persistently cling to the trunk in spite
of whipping winds. When the tree is cut for fuel, or for any other
purpose, the ragged bark is occasionally pulled off and is tied in
bales or bundles to be sold for kindling. When the mountain juniper
is taken from its native wilds and planted where environments are
different, it sometimes assumes fantastic forms. It has been planted
for ornament on the low, flat coast in the vicinity of the Gulf of
Mexico, and though it lives and grows, it often takes on a peculiar
appearance. The trunks resemble twisted and interwoven bundles of
lead-colored vines, buttressed, fluted, and gnarled. The branches
lose their upright position, and hang in careless abandon, with
drooping festoons. In winter the wind whips most of the foliage from
them. The leaves become brittle and may be easily brushed from the
twigs by a stroke of the hand. Some of the planted trees have trunks
so deeply creased as to be divided in two separate stems. This very
nearly happens with some of the wild trees among the western
mountains. The sapwood of mountain juniper is very thin. The average
tree cannot be profitably cut into lumber of the usual dimensions
because of the odd-shaped and irregular trunk. It lends itself more
economically to the manufacture of articles made up of small pieces.
Some of the wood is extremely beautiful, having the color and figure
of French walnut; but there is great difference in the figure and
color, and the wood of one tree is not a sure guide to what another
may be. Boards a foot wide, or even less, may show several figures
and colors. Some pieces suggest variegated marble; others are like
plain red cedar; some are light red in color, others have a tinge of
blue. It varies greatly in hardness, even in the same tree. Part of
it may be soft and brittle enough for lead pencils; another part may
be hard and tough. Clothes chests have been made of it, of most
peculiar appearance--resembling crazy quilts of subdued colors.
Sometimes the heartwood and the sapwood are inextricably mixed, both
being found in all parts of the trunk from the heart out. On the
whole, the tree can never have much importance as a source of
lumber, but it is a most interesting member of the cedar group.

SOUTHERN WHITE CEDAR

SOUTHERN WHITE CEDAR

(_Chamæcyparis Thyoides_)

This tree is called southern white cedar to distinguish it from northern white cedar or arborvitæ. When there is little likelihood of confusion, the name white cedar is applied locally in different parts of its range from Massachusetts to Florida. It is a persistent swamp tree and on that account has been called swamp cedar; but that name alone would not distinguish it from the northern white cedar, for both grow in swamps; but it does separate it from red cedar which keeps away from swamps. The ranges of the two are side by side from New England to Florida. Post cedar is a common name for it in Delaware and New Jersey, because of the important place it has long filled as fence material; but again, the name does not set it apart from red cedar or northern white cedar, for both are used for posts. The only name thus far applied, which clearly distinguishes it from associated cedars, is southern white cedar. Its range extends northward to Maine, but the tree’s chief commercial importance has been in New Jersey and southward to North Carolina, very near the coast. Somehow, it seems to skip Georgia where no one has reported it for many years, though there is historical evidence that it once grew in that state. It grows as far west as Mississippi, but is scarce.

The small leaves remain green two years and then turn brown but adhere to the branches several years longer. The fruit is about one-fourth inch in diameter, and the small seeds are equipped with wings.

The wood is among the lightest in this country. It is only moderately strong and stiff. The tree usually grows slowly. Fifty years may be required to produce a fence post, but under favorable conditions results somewhat better than that may be expected. The summerwood of the yearly ring is narrow, dark in color, and conspicuous, making the counting of the rings an easy matter. The medullary rays are numerous but thin. When the sap is cut tangentially in very thin layers it is white and semi-transparent, presenting somewhat the appearance of oiled paper. The heartwood is light brown, tinged with red, growing darker with exposure. The wood is easily worked, and is very durable in contact with the soil. Fence posts of this wood have been reported to stand fifty years, and shingles are said to last longer. Trees reach a height of eighty feet and diameter of four; but such are of the largest size. Great numbers are cut for poles and posts which are little more than a foot in diameter. Few forest trees grow in denser stands than this. It often takes possession of swamps, crowds out all other trees, and develops thickets so dense as to be almost impenetrable. Southern white cedar is cut in ten or twelve states, but the annual supply is not known, because mills generally report all cedars as one, and the regions which produce this, produce one or more other species of cedar also. It has held its place nearly three hundred years, and much interesting history is connected with it. A considerable part of the Revolutionary war was fought with powder made from white cedar charcoal burned in New Jersey and Delaware. However, that was by no means the earliest place filled by this wood.

Two hundred years ago in North Carolina John Lawson wrote of its use for “yards, topmasts, booms, bowsprits for boats, shingles, and poles.” It was cut for practically the same purposes in New Jersey at an earlier period, and 160 years ago Gottlieb Mittelberger, when he visited Philadelphia, declared that white cedar was being cut at a rate which would soon exhaust the supply. But that prophecy, like similar predictions that oak and red cedar were about gone, proved not well founded. Seventy years after the imminent exhaustion of this wood was foretold, William Cobbett, an English traveler, declared with evident exaggeration that “all good houses in the United States” were roofed with white cedar shingles.

After boat building, the first general use of the southern white cedar was for fences and farm buildings, and doubtless twenty times as much went to the farms as to the boat yards. In all regions where the wood was convenient, little other was employed as fencing material, and many of the earliest houses in New Jersey and some in Pennsylvania were constructed almost wholly of this wood. Small trees which would split two, three, and four rails to the cut, were mauled by thousands to enclose the farms. The bark soon dropped off, or was removed, and the light rails quickly air-dried, and decay made little impression on them for many years. The larger trunks were rived for shingles or were sawed into lumber. About 1750 the use of round cedar logs for houses and barns began to give way to sawed lumber. It was an ideal milling timber, for the logs were symmetrical, clear, and easily handled. North Carolina sawmills were at work on this timber many years before the Revolution. It was acceptable material for doors, window frames, rafters, and floors, but especially for shingles which were split with frow and mallet, and were from twenty-four to twenty-seven inches long. They were known in market as juniper shingles and sold at four and five dollars a thousand. About 1750 builders in Philadelphia were criticized because they constructed houses with no provision for other than white cedar roofs; the walls being too weak for heavier material which would have to be substituted when cedar could be no longer procured. Philadelphia was not alone in its preference for cedar roofs. Large shipments of shingles were going from New Jersey to New York, and even to the West Indies earlier than 1750.

Southern white cedar is said to have been the first American wood used for organ pipes. The resonance of cedar shingles under a pattering rain suggested this use to Mittelberger when he visited America, and he tried the wood with such success that he pronounced it the best that he knew of for organ pipes.

Coopers were among the early users of white cedar. The “cedar coopers of Philadelphia” were famous in their day. They used this wood and also red cedar (_Juniperus virginiana_), and their wares occupied an important place in domestic and some foreign markets. Small vessels prevailed, such as pails, churns, firkins, tubs, keelers, piggins, noggins, and kegs. The ware was handsome, strong, durable, and light in weight. Oil merchants, particularly those who dealt in whale oil which was once an important commodity, bought tanks of southern white cedar. It is a dense wood and seepage is small.

A peculiar superstition once prevailed, and has not wholly disappeared at this day, that white cedar possessed powerful healing properties. It was thought that water was purified by standing in a cedar bucket, and even that a liquid was improved by simply running through a spigot of this wood. Some eastern towns at an early period laid cedar water mains, partly because the wood was known to be durable, and partly because it was supposed to exercise some favorable influence upon the water flowing through the pipes. It was even believed that standing trees purified the swamps in which they grew. Vessels putting to sea from Chesapeake bay, sometimes made special effort to fill their water casks with water from the Dismal swamp, where cedars grew abundantly in the stagnant lagoons.

About 100 years ago it was found that whole forests of cedar had been submerged in New Jersey during prehistoric times, and that deep in swamps the trunks of trees were buried out of sight. No one knows how long the prostrate trees had lain beneath the accumulation of peat and mud, but the wood was sound. Mining the cedar became an important industry in some of the large swamps, and it has not ended yet. The wood is sound enough for shingles and lumber, though it has been buried for centuries, as is proved by the age of the forests which grew over the submerged logs. Sometimes a log which has lain under water hundreds of years, rises to the surface by its own buoyancy when pressure from above is removed. This is remarkable and shows how long a time this cedar resists complete waterlogging. The wood of green cedar has a strong odor, and that characteristic remains with the submerged trunks. Experienced men who have been long engaged in mining the timber, are able to tell by the odor of a chip brought to the surface from a deeply submerged log whether the wood is sufficiently well preserved to be worth recovering and manufacturing. Trunks six feet in diameter have been brought to the surface. Few if any living white cedars of that size exist now.

Many of the early uses of southern white cedar have continued till the present time, but in much smaller quantities. Fence rails are no longer made of it; shingles and cooperage have declined. On the other hand, it now has some uses which were unknown in early times, such as telephone and telegraph poles, crossties, and piling for railroad bridges and culverts.

The supply of southern white cedar is not large, and it is being cut faster than it is growing. The deep swamps where it grows protect white cedar forests from fire, and for that reason it is more fortunate than many other species. Not even cypress can successfully compete with it for possession of water soaked morasses. It does not promise great things for the future, for it will never be extensively planted. Its range has been pretty definitely fixed by nature to deep swamps near the Atlantic coast. Within those limits it will be of some importance for a long time. Where it finds its most congenial surroundings, little else that is profitable to man will grow. This will save it from utter extermination, because much of the land which it occupies will never be wanted for anything else.

INCENSE CEDAR

INCENSE CEDAR

(_Libocedrus Decurrens_)

In California and Oregon this tree is known as white cedar, cedar, and incense cedar; in Nevada and California it is called post cedar and juniper, and in other localities it is red cedar and California post cedar. It is a species of such strong characteristics that it is not likely to be confused with any other. Though different names may be applied to it, the identity of the tree is always clear.

Its range extends north and south nearly 1,000 miles, from Oregon to Lower California. It is a mountain species, and it faces the Pacific ocean in most of its range. In the North it occupies the western slope of the Cascade mountains in southern Oregon and northern California; and it grows on the western slope of the Sierras for five hundred miles, at altitudes of from 4,000 to 8,000 feet, where it is mixed with sugar pine, western yellow pine, white fir, and sequoias.

It is a fine, shapely tree, except that the butt is much enlarged. It has the characteristic form of a deep swamp tree, but it has nothing to do with swamps. Its best development is on the Sierra Nevada mountains, where swamps are few, and the incense cedar avoids them. It occupies dry ridges and slopes, but not sterile ones. It must have as good soil as the sugar pine demands. Its height when mature ranges from seventy-five to 125 feet, diameter four feet from the ground, from three to six feet, but some trees are larger. It is not a rapid grower, but it maintains its vigor a long time. As an average, it increases its diameter an inch in from seven to ten years.

The wood is dense. It contains no pores large enough to be seen with an ordinary reading glass. The medullary rays are so small as to be generally invisible to the naked eye, but when magnified they are shown to be thin and numerous. The summerwood forms about one-fourth of the annual ring. The wood is nearly as light as white pine, is moderately strong, is brittle, straight grained, the heartwood is reddish, the thick sapwood nearly white. It is an easy wood to work, and in contact with the soil it is very durable.

The incense cedar is the only representative of its genus in the United States. It has many relatives in the pine family, but no near ones. Its kin are natives of Formosa, China, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Patagonia.

The name incense cedar refers to the odor of the wood rather than of the leaves. Those who work with freshly cut wood are liable to attacks of headache, due to the odor; but some men are not affected by it.

The forest grown tree is of beautiful proportions. Unless much crowded for room, it is a tall, graceful cone, the branches drooping slightly, and forming thick masses. In the Sierra Nevada mountains, within the range of this cedar, the winter snows are very heavy. It is not unusual for two or three feet of very wet snow to fall in a single day. The incense cedar’s drooping branches shed the snow like a tent roof, and a limb broken or seriously deformed by weight of snow is seldom seen. Deer and other wild animals, when surprised by a heavy fall of snow, seek the shelter of an incense cedar, if one can be found, and there lie in security until the storm passes.

It is a tree which does fairly well in cultivation, and several varieties have been developed. It lives through the cold of a New England winter. Its cones are about three-fourths inch in length, and ripen in the autumn.

Incense cedar has filled an important place in the development of the great central valley of California, where it has supplied more fence posts than any other tree. Posts of redwood have been its chief competitor, but generally the region has been divided, and each tree has supplied its part. The redwood’s field has been the coast, the cedar’s the inland valley within reach of the Sierras. It has been nothing unusual for ranchmen to haul cedar posts on wagons forty or fifty miles.

The manufacture of posts from incense cedar has entailed an enormous waste of timber. The thick sapwood is not wanted, and in the process of converting a trunk into posts, the woodsman first splits off the sap and throws it away. In trunks of small and medium size, the sapwood may amount to more than the heartwood, and is a total loss.

The tree’s bark is thick and stringy, and it is generally wasted; but in some instances it is used as a surface dressing for mountain roads. It wears to pieces and becomes a pulpy mass, and it protects the surface of the road from excessive wear, and from washing in time of heavy rain.

Approximately one-half of the incense cedar trees, as they stand in the woods, are defective. A fungus (_Dædalia vorax_) attacks them in the heartwood and excavates pits throughout the length of the trunks. The galleries resemble the work of ants, and as ants often take possession of them and probably enlarge them, it is quite generally believed that the pits are due to ants. The excavations are frequently filled with dry, brown dust, sometimes packed very hard and tight. The cedar thus affected resembles “pecky cypress,” and it is believed that the same species of fungus, or a closely related species, is responsible for the injury to both cypress in the South and incense cedar on the Pacific coast. It is not generally regarded by users of cedar posts that the honey-combed condition of the wood lessens the service which the post will give, unless by weakening it and causing it to break, or by rendering it less able to hold the staples of wire fences, or nails of plank and picket fences.

Post makers often prefer fire-killed timber. If a tree is found with the sapwood consumed, as is not unusual, it is nearly always free from fungous attack. The reason it stands through the fire which burns the sapwood off, is that the heart is sound--if it were not sound, the whole tree would be consumed.

The wood of the incense cedar is serviceable for many purposes. The rejection of the sapwood by so many users is the most discouraging feature. The heart, when free from fungus, is a fine, attractive material that does not suffer in comparison with the other cedars, though it may not equal some of them for particular purposes. Tests show it fit for lead pencils, and recent purchases of large quantities have been made by pencil makers. Clothes chests and wardrobes are manufactured from this wood on the assumption that the odor will keep moths out of furs and other clothing stored within. It has been used for cigar boxes, but has not in all instances proven satisfactory. The odor of the wood is objected to by some smokers. Another objection and a somewhat peculiar one, has been filed against incense cedar as a cigar box material. It is claimed that the boxes are attacked voraciously by rats which gnaw the wood, to which they are doubtless attracted by the odor.

Sawmills turn out incense cedar lumber which is worked into frames for doors and windows, and doors are made of it, and also interior finish. Shipments of inch boards are sold in New York and Boston, and exports go to London, Paris, and Berlin.

The long period during which incense cedar has been used and wasted, has reduced the supply in most regions, but there is yet much in the forest. It is never lumbered separately, but only in connection with pine and fir; but post makers have always gone about picking trees of this species and passing by the associated species.

ALLIGATOR JUNIPER (_Juniperus pachyphlœa_) is so named from its bark which is patterned like the skin of an alligator. It is called oak-barked cedar in Arizona, mountain cedar in Texas, and checkered-barked juniper in other places. Its range lies in southwestern Texas, about Eagle pass and Limpia mountains, and westward on the desert ranges of New Mexico and Arizona, south of the Colorado plateau, and among the mountains of northern Arizona. Its range extends southward into Mexico. It is one of the largest of the junipers, but only when circumstances are wholly favorable. It is then sixty feet high, and four or five feet in diameter; but it is generally small and of poor form for lumber, because of its habit of separating into forks near the ground. It does best at elevations of from 4,000 to 6,000 feet in bottoms of canyons and ravines. The grayish green color of the foliage is due to the conspicuous white glands which dot the center of each leaf. The berries are small and blue, of sweetish taste which does not particularly appeal to the palate of civilized man, but the Indians of the region, whose normal state is one of semi-starvation, eat them with relish. The line separating heartwood from sap in alligator juniper is frequently irregular and vague, and like some of its kindred junipers of the West, patches of sap are sometimes buried deep in the heartwood, while streaks of heartwood occur in the sap. This heartwood is usually of a dirty color, suggesting red rocks and soil of the desert where it grows. Small articles which can be made of wood selected for its color are attractive. They may be highly polished, and the surface takes a satiny finish; but the wood does not show very well in panel or body work where wide pieces are used. The best utilization of alligator juniper appears to lie in small articles. It is fine for the lathe, and goblets, napkin rings, match safes, and handkerchief boxes are manufactured from the wood in Texas. Its rough uses are as fence posts and telephone poles. It is durable in contact with the soil.

CALIFORNIA JUNIPER (_Juniperus californica_) is called white cedar, juniper, sweet-fruited juniper, and sweet-berried cedar. Its range is in California south of Sacramento, among the ranges of the coast mountains, and the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Its height runs from twenty to forty feet, diameter one to two. The leaves fall in the second or third year. This tree is of poor form and size for lumber. Trunks frequently divide into branches near the ground. The wood resembles that of other western junipers, and usually the fine color which distinguishes the red cedar of the East is wanting, and in its stead is a dull brown, tinged with red. The wood is soft and durable, and is strongly odorous. The sapwood is thin and is nearly white. Fuel and fence posts are the most important uses of the California juniper. Indians eat the berries raw or dry them and pound them to flour.

WESTERN RED CEDAR

WESTERN RED CEDAR

(_Thuja Plicata_)

In the eastern markets the lumber from this tree is usually called western cedar without further description, but that name does not always sufficiently identify it. There are other western cedars, notably incense and yellow; but they have not generally appeared in eastern markets. Western red cedar is the name given it when the purpose is to separate it from other western cedars. It is the only red cedar in the far West, except the scarce junipers which are totally unknown as its competitors in lumber centers. Gigantic cedar is a name which takes size into account. It is the largest of American cedars. Trunks fifteen feet in diameter and 200 feet high are sometimes seen, but the usual size is 100 high, from two to four in diameter. Canoe cedar is a name bestowed upon this western tree for the same reason that canoe wood is one of the yellow poplar’s names in the East. It is one of the best woods for dugout canoes. Botanists have called the tree giant arborvitæ, but the name never got beyond books. When the people of Washington and Oregon speak of cedar without a qualifying term, they mean this species. It is widely known as shingle wood or shingle cedar, because more shingles are made of it than of all other kinds of timber in the United States combined.

The western red cedar’s range covers 300,000 square miles, not counting regions of small or scattered growth. For a timber tree, that range is large, but not nearly as large as some others. It exceeds one-hundred fold the commercial range of redwood, and probably a thousand fold that of Port Orford cedar, but its range is not one-third that of the eastern red cedar, though in total quantity of available lumber it surpasses the eastern tree a hundred fold. Its range begins in Alaska on the north, and follows the coast to northern California, and extends eastward into Idaho. The best development occurs in the regions of warm, moist Pacific winds, but not in the immediate fog belts. The largest quantity of this wood, and probably the largest trees also, are in Washington. Abundant rainfall is essential to western red cedar’s development. It would be difficult to approximate the amount of the remaining stand. This cedar does not form pure forests, and estimates of so many feet per acre or square mile cannot be based on fairly exact information as may be done with redwood, and some of the southern pines. Though the drain upon the cedar forests is heavy, it is generally believed there is enough of this species to meet demands for a long period of years.

Nature made ample provision for the spread and perpetuation of this tree. The seeds are fairly abundant, are light, have good wing power, and are great travelers in search of suitable places to germinate and take root. The tree’s greatest enemy is fire. The cedar’s bark is thin, even when trunks are mature, and a moderate blaze often proves fatal to large trees; but small ones, with all their branches close to the ground, have no chance when the fire burns the litter among them. Some tree seeds germinate readily on soil bared by fire--such as lodgepole pine, wild red cherry, and paper birch--but the western red cedar’s do not, if the humus is sufficiently burned to lessen the soil’s capacity to retain moisture. For that reason, this cedar seldom follows fire, and the result is that it constantly loses ground. Under normal conditions, it is not exacting in its requirements; but anything that disturbs natural conditions is more likely to harm than help this cedar. In that respect it is like beech and hemlock, which suffer when forest conditions are disturbed.