Chapter VII: Part 7

BIGCONE SPRUCE (_Pseudotsuga macrocarpa_) is of the same genus as
Douglas fir and bears much resemblance to it, but is smaller, and
its range lies wholly outside that of its northern relative. It is a
southern California species, occupying mountain slopes and canyons
in Santa Barbara and San Diego counties. It is found from 3,000 to
5,000 feet above sea level. Trees average forty or fifty feet in
height and two or three in diameter. The leaves are approximately of
the same size as those of Douglas fir; but the cones are much
larger, hence the name by which the tree is known. It is called
hemlock as often as spruce. The cones are from four to seven inches
long, hang down, and usually occupy the topmost branches of trees.
The winged seeds are half an inch long. The bark is six inches or
less in thickness. The wood is inferior in most ways to that of
Douglas fir, lighter, weaker, and less elastic. Its color is reddish
brown. It has never contributed much lumber to the market and never
will. Its range is local and the form of the tree is not of the
best. An occasional log reaches a sawmill, but the principal demand
is for fuel.

BIGTREE

BIGTREE

(_Sequoia Washingtoniana_)

Botanists have had a hard time giving this tree a Latin name which will meet the requirements of technical classification, but an English name acceptable everywhere was early found for it--bigtree. No fewer than a dozen names have been proposed by botanists. Most of them attempt to express the idea of vastness or grandeur; but the simple English name comes directly to the point and ends the controversy as far as the common name is concerned.

Everything connected with this tree is interesting. Geologically, it is as old as the yellow poplar. There were five species of sequoias in the northern hemisphere, in Europe and America, before the ice age. They grew in the North, nearly to the Arctic circle, at a time when the climate of those regions was milder than it is now. The later advance of the ice southward overwhelmed three species of bigtrees, and pushed two survivors into the region which is now California. These are the bigtree and the redwood. It is not known how long ago it was that the ice sheet did its destructive work, but it antedated human history, and the gigantic trees have been in California since that time.

Long after the ice age ceased generally in North America it continued among the high Sierras of California, and the bigtrees to this day give a hint of it in the peculiar outlines of their range. They are scattered north and south along the face of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, a distance of 260 miles, and at elevations from 4,500 to 8,000 feet.

The aggregate of the total areas is about fifty square miles. The stand is not continuous, but consists of “groves,” that is, isolated stands with wide intervals between, where no trees of this species are found. The arrangement suggests that the bigtree forest was cut in sections by glaciers which descended from the high mountains to the plains, a distance of one hundred miles or more, crossing the belt of sequoias at right angles. The glaciers withdrew thousands of years ago, and their tracks down the mountain slopes have long been covered by forests; but the bigtree groves, for some unknown reason, never spread into the intervening spaces, but today are separated by wide tracts in which not a seedling or an old trunk or log of that species is to be found. This is one of the mysteries which add interest to those wonderful trees--why they cannot extend their range beyond the circumscribed limits which they occupied thousands of years ago.

It was claimed for a long time and was quite generally believed that bigtrees were not reproducing, that there “were no little bigtrees.” That was conclusively disproved by Fred G. Plummer, geographer of the United States Forest Service, who made a scientific study of a small grove, measured the trees, and actually counted and classified them. His work showed that there were in the area which he investigated:

Trees containing 100,000 to 120,000 feet each 2
Trees containing 80,000 to 100,000 feet each 13
Trees containing 60,000 to 80,000 feet each 49
Trees containing 40,000 to 60,000 feet each 112
Trees containing 20,000 to 40,000 feet each 251
Trees containing less than 20,000 feet each 353
“Little bigtrees” 2,682
-----
Total 3,462

Bigtree is distantly related to southern cypress, and the shapes of very old trees of both species bear some resemblance. Bigtree leaves do not fall annually as those of bald cypress do. They are from one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch long, and on the leading shoots they may be half an inch in length. Cones are from two to three and a half inches long, and they ripen their seeds the second year, but the empty cones may adhere to the branches several years. The seeds are a quarter of an inch long, and have wings sufficient to carry them a hundred yards or more. The trees bear abundance of seeds, in proportion to the small number of branches. Though shapely and well clothed with limbs when young, the crown contracts with age, and consists of a few enormous, crooked limbs, almost destitute of twigs and small branches. One of these trees may actually bear more twigs when the trunk is only a foot in diameter than will be on the same trunk when it is fifteen or twenty feet in diameter. The old tree trunks are often without limbs to a height of 100 or 150 feet.

The Douglas squirrel is the bigtree’s greatest enemy. In proportion to size, this little creature probably eats ten times as many tree seeds as the most ravenous hog that roams the forest. One of the first things that impresses a visitor in a grove of bigtrees is the rich brown of the bark of some of the trunks. All are not brown alike, or at all seasons. The trees on which the seed harvest is ready are the brownest, thanks to the sharp claws, the tireless energy, and keen appetite of the Douglas squirrel. He goes up and down the trunks for three square meals a day among the clusters of cone-bearing branches two hundred or three hundred feet above, and makes several extra trips for exercise; and at each scratch of his briery foot he kicks off scales of bark, until the whole trunk is “scratched raw.” The detached scales of bark accumulate in a mound about the base of the tree, where they have been so accumulating for centuries. It is fortunate that those old trees have bark from one to two feet thick. They can afford to be scratched for a month or two each year.

These are the heaviest trees in America, notwithstanding their wood is light. It weighs less than northern white cedar. The largest bigtree trunks weigh more than 2,000,000 pounds. In order to stand at all, they must stand plumb. It is a provision of nature that the old trees are almost branchless, otherwise the wind would force them out of plumb and they would go down. It has been claimed that the overthrow of one of these giants is always brought about by one of two causes. The development of larger limbs on one side than on another unbalances them; or the wash of gullies undermines the roots on one side, and draws the tree that way. It is currently believed that no bigtree ever dies from natural causes.

A good deal of pure fiction has been published regarding the size and age of the largest of these trees. They are old enough and large enough without drawing upon the imagination. The tree’s base is greatly enlarged, but tapers rapidly the first few feet. There is little doubt that some of the trunks are over forty feet in diameter, one foot above ground, but that is not a fair measurement. The point should be five or six feet at least. Measured thus, about twenty-five feet inside the bark would represent the largest. With the bark added, the diameter would be nearly thirty feet. Probably not one tree in fifty, taking them as they occur in the whole range and counting veterans only, is fifteen feet in diameter five feet from the ground.

There is also some extravagant guessing as to height. Too many tourists measure with the unaided eye, or accept a guidebook’s figures. An authentic height of 365 feet--the measurement of a fallen trunk--is probably the greatest. Very few reach three hundred feet. Many unreliable figures have been published concerning the age of bigtrees. One thing can be accepted without question; size is no proof of age, in comparing one tree with another; neither is the number of annual rings in a block cut from the side of a tree a reliable factor to determine age. The only sure way to determine the age of one of these trees is by counting all the rings from the pith to bark. Care should be taken not to count the same ring twice, as may be done when the wood is curly. John Muir counted 4,000 rings in a bigtree stump. It is believed that no higher age is backed by the evidence of yearly rings. It was twenty-four feet in diameter. The count of another of like size made it 2,200 years old; and of still another of the same size placed its age at 1,300 years. The Forest Service has made accurate measurement and record of every ring of growth in a tree that was over twenty-four feet in diameter, and it is shown that during certain periods of years the tree grew three or four times as rapidly as during other periods.

The wood of bigtree is very light, soft, moderately strong, brittle, summerwood thin and dark rendering the rings of annual growth easily seen; the medullary rays are thin, numerous, and very obscure. The wood is light to dark red, the thin sapwood nearly white; it works easily, splits readily, and polishes well. It is very durable in contact with the soil. Trunks lie in the woods long periods before decay seriously attacks them; but forest fires hollow them, and finally burn them up. Enormous depressions are found in the forest where logs once lay, but which disappeared long ago, judging by the size of trees which have since grown in the depressions. The interior of some large trunks which have been worked up on sawmills showed the scars of forest fires centuries ago. The annual rings which covered one such scar showed that the burning took place 1,700 years ago.

Not much can be said for the commercial uses of bigtree. Many a species of insignificant size is much more useful. Considerable quantities have been cut by sawmills. The waste is great, heavy trunks crushing badly in fall. Logs are so large that many of them are split with gunpowder to facilitate handling them. Some of the wood has been exported for lead pencils; other has been used for fence posts, shingles, and grapevine stakes, while the soft bark has been worked into novelties.

MACNAB CYPRESS (_Cupressus macnabiana_) is a California tree of
limited range and little commercial value. It grows in Napa, Lake,
Mendocino, and Trinity counties; is often little more than a
branching shrub, but the largest specimens may be thirty feet high
and fifteen inches in diameter. The wood is light, soft, and usually
of slow growth. The medullary rays are numerous but thin, and the
bands of summerwood are distinct. The cones are generally less than
one inch long, and the seeds have narrow wings. The foliage is
grayish which is due to white glands in the leaves. Forest foliage
is fragrant. The tree is known as white cedar, Shasta cypress, and
California mountain cypress.

REDWOOD

REDWOOD

(_Sequoia Sempervirens_)

This tree’s color is responsible for its name. It is sometimes spoken of as coast redwood to distinguish it from bigtree which grows in the interior of California. In European markets it is known as California redwood to distinguish it from other redwoods growing in distant parts of the world. Its botanical name, _Sequoia sempervirens_, means evergreen sequoia. The other species of sequoia is also evergreen. In reality, the coast redwood is less of an evergreen than the bigtree is, because the leaves of redwood turn brown two years before they fall, but there are always plenty of green leaves on the branches. The leaves are from one-quarter to one-half inch in length.

The geographical range of redwood covers about 6,000 square miles, but the commercial range is scarcely one-fifth as much. The redwood belt extends 500 miles along the Pacific coast from southern Oregon to central California. It varies from ten to thirty miles in width. It is strictly a fog belt tree, and grows poorly outside the region of ocean fog, which seldom reaches an altitude more than 2,800 feet above sea level. Where fog is thick and frequent, and soil is moist and otherwise suitable, redwood forests have grown in such luxuriance that no species in this country exceeds it. Stands running much over 100,000 feet per acre are frequent, and it is said 1,000,000 feet have been cut from a single acre.

Redwood cones are one inch or less in length. They ripen in one season. Seeds are quite small, and are equipped with wings. The bark is thick, but is much thinner than the bark of bigtrees, though it is in great ridges like the bark of that species. The habits of the two species, as to form of crown, are similar. Young redwoods, particularly if they grow in the open, develop symmetrical and conical crowns which they retain until the trunks are a foot or more in diameter. Lower limbs die and fall off after that, and old trees have crowns so small that it would seem impossible that they could supply the wood-building material for trunks so large. That the growth should be slow under such circumstances is to be expected. The ages of mature trees vary from 500 to 800 years, but an extreme age of 1,373 years is on record. The average is, therefore, considerably below that of bigtrees.

Redwoods grow as tall as bigtrees, but do not equal them in diameter of trunk, though trees twenty feet in diameter occur.

A noticeable feature of the forests is that, in a given stand, nearly all trees are of the same height, irrespective of size of trunk. The crowns go up to the light and when they reach the common level of others, and secure a share of light, they show no disposition to go higher. The doctrine which they silently put into practice is to live and let others live. That habit makes it possible for redwoods to grow in very dense stands, which they could not do if a few trees domineered over the others, and appropriated the light to themselves.

When old age overtakes the giant redwoods, they exhibit the first symptoms of weakened vitality by dying at the top. Most trees over five hundred years old are “stag-headed.” From that period they die slowly, but usually survive two or three hundred years after the visible signs of approaching death strike them.

Redwood has an advantage over nearly all other needle-leaf trees in that it propagates by both seeds and sprouts. Few softwoods send up sprouts from stumps or roots. Redwoods of large size are produced that way, and the stumps of very old trees send up many vigorous shoots. Sometimes a ring of large trees surrounds a depression in the ground where the parent tree grew, died, and decayed.

Sprouts are of course confined to the immediate proximity of the parent tree, but redwood seeds are scattered by the wind over vacant spaces. This results in dense stands where other conditions are favorable, but the species has never been able to establish itself far inland or high on mountains.

In 1880 the Federal census made a rough estimate of the available redwood, and placed it at 25,825,000,000 feet. More than twenty years later, with heavy cutting all the time, private estimates placed the remaining stand at over 50,000,000,000 feet. The second estimate was unquestionably nearer correct than the first. The stand of no important timber tree in this country is more easily estimated than redwood. The forests are compact, the trees large, the trunks similar in form, and the well-timbered area is comparatively small. Redwood has been called the most important timber tree of the Pacific coast. The title probably confers too much, though the tree’s importance is beyond question. The annual cut of Douglas fir is nearly ten times as large as of redwood, and the supply still in the forests is much greater than that of redwood. The cut of western yellow pine likewise exceeds the output of redwood, and the remaining supply is larger. The cut of western red cedar, including shingles, is about the same, and the remaining stand of cedar is very large. Western hemlock, too, exists in large quantity, and its importance as a source of timber supply may be equal to redwood.

Redwood is frequently referred to as one of the lightest in this country. Its weight per cubic foot, oven-dry, is 26.2 pounds. On the same basis, white pine is 24, southern white cedar 20.7, northern white cedar 19.7, and bigtree 18.2. There are woods in Florida lighter than any of these. Redwood is very soft, yet it dulls tools quickly. It is moderately strong, a little below white pine; it is brittle, again ranking below white pine; it splits and works easily and polishes well. Few, if any woods surpass this one in splitting properties. Boards twelve feet long and a foot wide may be rived from selected logs, and they present surfaces nearly as smooth as if cut with a saw. However, curly and wavy redwood is not uncommon, and that, too, splits well, but the surface is not smooth. The width of annual rings varies, usually wide in young timber and narrow in old. The bands of summerwood are narrow and clearly defined. The surface of redwood lumber absorbs water quickly, yet, for some reason, creosote and other preservatives can be forced into the wood only with the greatest difficulty. Fortunately, it is not necessary to treat this timber to prevent decay, for, in almost any position, it wears out before it rots. Shingles, and window and door frames of the old barracks buildings at Eureka, California, remained in place until fifty years of wind and driven sand wore them away. Railroads use the wood for ties until they wear out, not until they rot out. Farmers near some of the California railroads gather up the rejected worn ties by thousands and use them for fence posts. When redwood is employed as city paving blocks it is wear and not decay that puts them out of commission.

The medullary rays of redwood are thin and very obscure, but numerous. Few woods show them to less advantage in quarter-sawing. The lack of luster in the surface of polished panels is well known. The wood’s beauty is in its sameness and richness of color. Except curly specimens and burls, the wood may be said to have no figure, though in planks cut tangentially, the contrast of spring and summerwood displays some figure in a modest way. It is possible to wash much of the coloring matter out of the wood, if it is first chipped fine. It washes from the surface by ordinary exposure to weather. Red rainwater runs from a roof of new redwood shingles, and weatherboarding, posts, and picket fences fade perceptibly in a few months. This coloring matter when washed out in large amounts in the process of paper making has been manufactured into fuel gas.

A complete list of the uses of redwood is not practicable, for this material goes into most of the large wood-using factories of this country, and much is exported--nearly 60,000,000 feet annually going to foreign countries. It has been much employed in California cities and towns for picket fences, and as posts for wire and plank fences. It is, next to western red cedar, the most important shingle wood of the Pacific coast. One western railroad alone had in its tracks 12,000,000 redwood ties at one time. Builders of tanks, flumes, and water pipes procure some of their best material, and large quantities of it, from redwood sawmills. Few woods are more universally found in furniture factories.

GOWEN CYPRESS (_Cupressus goveniana_) follows the California coast
from Mendocino county, California, to San Diego, and ascends
mountains to the height of 3,000 feet in some localities. At its
best it is fifty feet high and two feet in diameter; but it extends
as a shrub over many sandy tracts. Specimens no more than a foot
high sometimes bear cones. The Gowen cypress sheds its leaves the
third and fourth years. Cones are from one-half to one inch long,
and each bears about 100 seeds. The wood is light, soft, weak, light
brown in color, the thick sapwood nearly white. The medullary rays
are numerous but obscure. The wood is used for posts and other ranch
purposes. Woodpeckers attack the trunks, picking holes through the
bark to suck the juice from the cambium layer beneath.

DWARF CYPRESS (_Cupressus pygmæa_) was formerly supposed to be a
stunted form of Gowen cypress. The ranges of both lie in the same
region, on the coast of California in Mendocino county. The average
height of dwarf cypress is from ten to twenty feet, with trunk
diameter from six to twelve inches; but in peat swamps and on
sterile sands it may not exceed three or four feet in height. It
bears abundant cones at that size, and sometimes a tree no more than
a foot high has mature cones. They ripen the second year, but remain
a long time on the branches. The trees thrive in the most forbidding
places, and are sometimes the only occupants of bogs or sand dunes.
The wood is necessarily of little value, because of the small size
of trees. There seems to be no record of a dwarf cypress over sixty
years of age; but it is believed that much older trees have fallen
victims to fire.

HEMLOCK

HEMLOCK

(_Tsuga Canadensis_)

Seven hemlocks are known in the world, four of them in America. Two of these are in the East, two in the West. The eastern species are the Canadian and Carolinian. The former is _Tsuga canadensis_, the latter _Tsuga caroliniana_. The western species are, mountain hemlock (_Tsuga mertensiana_), and western hemlock (_Tsuga heterophylla_). The word _tsuga_ is Japanese and means hemlock.

The hemlock lumber in eastern markets is practically all from one species, which is known as hemlock in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Ontario. In Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina; in England it is called hemlock spruce; spruce tree in Pennsylvania and West Virginia; spruce pine in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia; to the New York Indians it was known as oh-neh-tah, which being interpreted means “greens on the stick.”

The range of hemlock extends east and west more than fifteen hundred miles, from Nova Scotia to western Wisconsin; south to Delaware and southern Michigan, and along the Appalachian mountains to northern Alabama and Georgia. The original quantity of timber was enormous, for large areas were covered with dense stands. The largest trees are found near the southern part of its range, among the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina; but the bulk of the timber has always been in the North. It thrives best in well drained soil, but it likes cool situations and often develops dense forests on northern slopes or in deep ravines; but it maintains a foothold on ridges, on the banks of streams, and around the borders of swamps.

The cones are very small, about a half inch in length, growing singly from the lower side of the branchlet. Their scales are rounded and thin, light brown in color. The seeds are winged and even when ripe the cones do not spread apart perceptibly. The seeds escape, however, slowly during the winter following their maturity. They are very small, and their wings distribute them a hundred feet or more. The seeds germinate best on leaf mold, but the seedling takes several years to thrust its roots deep into the mineral soil. During that time, growth is very slow. A seedling five years old may not exceed five inches in height; but when its roots have developed, growth is fairly rapid. The distribution of seeds is often facilitated by the activities of red squirrels, and perhaps other small mammals, which climb the trees in winter and tear the cones apart to get at the seeds. Many of the seeds are devoured, but more escape and fly away on the winter winds.

Hemlock leaves are narrow and about half an inch long. Examined closely, particularly with a magnifying glass, rows of white dots extend from end to end on the under side. Small as these white points are separately, when seen in the aggregate they change the color of the whole crown of the tree. This is illustrated by looking at a hemlock from a distance--the upper sides of the leaves on the drooping twigs being then visible and the tree’s aspect dark green. Approach the tree, and look up from its base--the under side of the leaves being then visible--and the dark color changes to a light silvery tint. The whiteness is due to the white spots on the leaves. The spots are stomata (mouths), and are parts of the chemical laboratory which carries on the tree’s living processes. All tree leaves have stomata, but all are not arranged in the same way and are not visible alike. Few trees have them as prominent as the hemlocks.

Hemlock attains a height from sixty to 100 feet and a diameter from two to four. When it grows in the open, it is one of the handsomest and most symmetrical evergreens of any country. Its dark, dense foliage will permit scarcely any sunlight to filter through. When forest-grown, it loses its lower limbs. In the forester’s language, they are “shaded off,” and long, smooth trunks are developed; but the stubs from which the branches fall remain buried deep inside the smoothest bole, and the saws will find them when the logs are converted into lumber.

Reference has been made to hemlock’s slow growth during the seedling’s first four or five years. That takes place in the dense shade of the hemlock forest. If the seed falls on open ground, in full sunlight, the chance is that it will not germinate; but if it does, the seedling is doomed to an early death. It cannot endure strong light. This fact is of great importance, for it means the end of hemlock forests. When a stand is cut and the sunshine reaches the ground, no seedlings bring on a new forest. White pine seeds grow in open ground, in old fields, in burnt woods, wherever they reach soil, but hemlock must scatter its seeds in cool, deep shade or they will do little good. Strong, vigorous, and healthy as hemlock trees are, they are killed more easily than almost any other. Cut a few trees from the center of a mature hemlock clump, and the chance is that several trees next to the open space thus made will die. The unusual light proves too much for their roots which had always been cool and damp; but when young hemlocks are protected until they get a start, they thrive nicely in the open.

The wood of hemlock is light, soft, not strong, brittle, coarse and crooked grained, difficult to work, liable to windshake, splinters badly, not durable. The summerwood of the annual ring is conspicuous; and the thin medullary rays are numerous. The color of hemlock heartwood is light brown, tinged with red, often nearly white. The sapwood is darker. Lumbermen recognize two varieties, red and white, but botanists do not recognize them.

The physical characters of hemlock are nearly all unfavorable, yet it has become a useful and widely used wood. It is largely manufactured into coarse lumber and used for outside work--railway ties, joists, rafters, sheathing, plank walks, laths, etc. It is rarely used for inside finishing, owing to its brittle and splintery character. Clean boards made into panels or similar work and finished in the natural color often present a very handsome appearance, owing to the peculiar pinkish tint of the wood, ripening and improving with age.

With the growing scarcity of white and Norway pine, hemlock has become the natural substitute for these woods for many purposes. It has never been conceded that hemlock possesses the intrinsic merit of either of the northern pines for structural purposes, but it has proven a suitable substitute for a variety of uses, notably for framing and sheathing of medium priced structures.

In 1910 hemlock lumber was cut in twenty-one states, the total output exceeding 2,500,000,000 feet. Only four species or groups of species exceeded it in amount. They were southern yellow pines, Douglas fir, the oaks, and white pine. The principal cut of hemlock lumber was in the following states in the order named: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Maine, Vermont, Virginia, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Ten other states produced smaller amounts.

Hemlock possesses remarkable holding power on nails and spikes, and that is one reason for its large use for railroad ties. It does not easily split, and there is no likelihood that spikes will work loose; but the wood decays quickly in damp situations, and unless given preservative treatment, hemlock ties do not last long. They are pretty soft anyway, and where traffic is heavy, rails cut them badly.

Manufacturers of boxes and crates use much hemlock. The annual use for that purpose in Massachusetts is about 27,000,000 feet, in Michigan practically the same quantity, in Illinois 34,000,000, and varying quantities in many other states. Michigan converts nearly 100,000,000 feet a year into flooring and other planing mill products, and Wisconsin and other hemlock states follow it in lesser amounts. The wood is employed by car builders, slack coopers, manufacturers of refrigerators, silos, and farm implements; but the largest demand comes from those who use the rough lumber.

Hemlock bark is the most important tanning material in this country. It has long been used by leather makers who generally mix it with some other bark or extract because leather tanned with hemlock alone has a redder color than is desired.

Large areas of hemlock forests have been cut for the bark alone. Formerly the wood was of so little value that it was cheaper to leave it in the forest than to take it out. The peelers worked in early summer, cutting trees and removing the bark in four-foot lengths, which was measured by the cord, though often sold by weight. Care was taken that the bark be removed from the slashings before the dry weather of autumn, for fire was to be expected then, and anything combustible in the woods at that time was likely to be lost. The tracts on which bark peelers worked were called “slashings,” and they were fire traps of the worst kind with their tangled masses of tops and branches.

Large quantities of hemlock bark are still peeled every summer, but the practice is less destructive than formerly. The trunks are worth taking out, and when the fire comes late in the season it consumes little valuable hemlock. A permanent decline in the annual production of this wood has not yet begun, but it must soon set in, for the demand cannot be indefinitely met.

WESTERN HEMLOCK

WESTERN HEMLOCK

(_Tsuga Heterophylla_)

When this wood began to go to market, its promoters found difficulties in securing a trial for it in eastern states, because of its name. The eastern hemlock was known to be a substantial wood, but a rough one with many faults linked with its virtues. It was naturally supposed that the western hemlock had all the faults of its eastern relative with possibly some of the good qualities left out; and there was general hesitancy to put the new comer to a trial. That caused a movement among western lumbermen to sell their hemlock under some other name. They were confident the wood had only to be given a trial and it would win its way, after which the name would make little difference. Accordingly, it was started to market under the name of Alaska pine, although Alaska has no pine large enough for good lumber. Other lumbermen thought it advisable to choose a name less likely to excite suspicion, and they called it Washington pine. Others designated it as spruce, and still others as fir. It was more likely to pass for fir than for pine or spruce.

The lumber is now generally known as western hemlock, but in California some call it hemlock spruce or California hemlock spruce. In Idaho, Washington, and Oregon the name hemlock usually suffices; while western hemlock spruce, and western hemlock fir, and Prince Albert’s fir are names used in speaking of lumber and of the tree in the forest.

Western hemlock’s range extends north and south a thousand miles, from southern Alaska to California south of San Francisco. It grows from the Pacific coast eastward to Montana, five hundred miles or more. It ascends to altitudes of 6,000 feet, but it is not at its best on high mountains, but in the warm, damp region near the coast in Washington and Oregon. Trees 200 feet high and eight or ten in diameter are found, but the average size is much less.

The leaves of western hemlock are dark green and very lustrous above. The flowers are yellow and purple. Cones are one inch or less in length, and the small seeds are equipped with wings which carry them some distance from the base of the parent tree. The seeds will germinate and develop a root system without touching mineral soil. Their ability to do so assists them greatly in maintaining the tree’s position in the damp climate where this hemlock reaches its best development. The ground in the forest, with all objects that lie upon it, is often covered with wet moss a foot or more thick. The seeds of most trees would inevitably perish if they fell upon such a bed of moss; but the seeds of western hemlock germinate, and the rootlets strike through the moss until they reach the soil beneath, and seedling trees are soon growing vigorously. Seeds often germinate in the moss on logs and stumps, but the roots strike for the ground, and generally reach it. In this habit the western hemlock resembles the yellow birch of the East whose seeds seem to germinate best on mossy logs and stumps.

Western hemlock has one of the bad habits of its eastern relative: it does not prune itself very well, even in dense forests, and the lumber is apt to be knotty, but the knots are usually sound, though dark in color.

The wood of western hemlock is moderately light, but twenty per cent heavier than eastern hemlock; stronger than the wood of other American hemlocks, and nearly twenty-five per cent stronger than the eastern commercial species, and nearly fifty per cent stiffer. It is tough and hard, but has little of the flinty texture of other hemlocks. Its color is pale brown, tinged with yellow, the thin sapwood nearly white. It is fairly durable in contact with the soil. Its growth is usually rapid, and trees live to a great age. Some of the largest are said to reach 800 years. The summerwood often constitutes half of the yearly ring, and is dark yellow. The medullary rays are numerous and rather prominent. When cut radially, the appearance, size, and arrangement of the exposed medullary rays suggest those of sugar maple when exposed in the same way.

The annual sawmill output of western hemlock is about 170,000,000 feet. The largest market for it is in the region where it grows, and it is used as rough lumber for ranch purposes and for buildings in towns; but a considerable quantity is further manufactured. About one-fourth of the entire sawmill output goes to the factories of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. A list of the wood’s principal uses in those states shows its intrinsic value. The largest quantity is demanded by box factories. The wood’s nail-holding power commends it for that use, but of no less importance is its strength. Eighty-three per cent of all the wood used for boxes in Washington is western hemlock. Cooperage calls for much of this wood also. Fruit and vegetable barrels are made of it. Its place in furniture manufacture corresponds to that of the other hemlock in the East. The pulp business is not very extensive on the Pacific coast, but western hemlock is a respectable contributor. It is suitable for burial boxes, and probably ranks about third among the woods within its range, those used in larger amounts being Sitka spruce and western red cedar. It is coming into use as interior finish, particularly as door and window frame material. Fixture manufacturers employ it for drawers and shelves. It is made into flooring, ceiling, molding, and wainscoting. Door makers use a little of it as core material over which to glue veneers. It is made into veneer, but of the cheaper sorts, such as are suitable for crates and berry boxes.

The Pacific coast is so abundantly supplied with excellent softwoods that only those of good quality have any chance in the local markets. The fact that western hemlock has won and is holding an important place in active competition with such woods as western red cedar, yellow cedar, Sitka spruce, and Douglas fir, is proof that it is valuable material. It is winning its way in the central part of the United States also, but not as rapidly as it has won in the West.

The bark of western hemlock is rated high as a tanning material. The bark on young trees is thin, but as the trunks increase in size and age the bark thickens. It is richer in tannin than the bark of eastern hemlock, but is not so extensively used because the demand is less on the Pacific coast.

The future of the western hemlock is fairly well assured. Its range is extensive and varied, and lumbermen will be a long time in cutting the last of the present stand. Reproduction is satisfactory. It will be important in future forestry, when people will grow much of the timber they need; but this tree will stick pretty close to the range where nature planted it.

MOUNTAIN HEMLOCK (_Tsuga mertensiana_) is a near relative of western hemlock, and occupies the same geographical ranges but higher on the mountains. Near Sitka, Alaska, it occurs at sea level, but southward it rises higher until on the Sierra Nevada mountains in California it is 10,000 feet above sea level. It is one of the timber line trees in many parts of its range, though it is nowhere above all others. It is a difficult matter to state what its average size is. That depends upon the particular region considered. At its best it is 100 feet high or even more; at its poorest it sprawls on the rocks like a shrub. Specimens of fair size are from twenty-five to sixty feet high, and ten to twenty inches in diameter. Cones vary in size fully as much as the trunks. Some are one-half inch in length, others are three inches. The leaves vary no less, some being a one-twelfth inch long, others one inch. The leaves stand out on all sides of the twig, and fall during the third and fourth years. They are bluish-green. The seeds fall in September and October, and are provided with large wings. The wood is light in weight, soft, and pale reddish-brown. The mountain hemlock is nearly always spoken of as spruce by persons who are not botanists. The arrangement of the leaves on the twigs gives the impression that it is a spruce, and among the names by which it is known in its native region are Williamson’s spruce, weeping spruce, alpine spruce, hemlock spruce, Patton’s spruce, and alpine western spruce. There is little prospect that this tree will ever become important as a source of lumber. It is nowhere very abundant, and what timber there is generally stands so remote from mills that little of it will ever be taken out. Botanists and mountain travelers who have made the acquaintance of the mountain hemlock in the wildness of its natural surroundings have spoken and written much in its praise. It has been called the loveliest cone-bearing tree of the American forest. That praise, however, applies only when the tree is at its best, with its broad, pyramidal crown, balanced and proportioned with geometrical accuracy, outlined against a background of rocks, peaks, snow, or sky. Its other form, prostrate and angular where the tree occurs on cold, bleak mountains, has never inspired praise from anybody, though its defiance of the elements and its persistence in spite of adversity, cannot but challenge the admiration of all who like a fair and square fighter. There are many intermediate forms. On mountains facing the Pacific, and at altitudes of 6,000 or 7,000 feet, the young hemlocks are buried under deep snow weeks or months at a time. They are pressed down by the weight of tons, and it might be supposed that not a whole branch would be left on them, and that the main stems would be deformed the rest of their lives. But when the early summer sun melts the snow, the young trees spring back to their former faultless forms, without a twig missing or a twisted branch.

WESTERN YEW

WESTERN YEW

(_Taxus Brevifolia_)

The Pacific yew is an interesting tree, useful for many minor purposes, but it is not procurable in large quantities. Its north and south range covers more than 1,000 miles, from Alaska to central California; while the species occurs from the Pacific coast eastward to Montana. It approaches sea level on some of the Alaskan islands, and toward the southern part of its range it reaches an altitude of 8,000 feet.

In Idaho it is called mountain mahogany, but apparently without good reason. Its color may bear some resemblance to that wood, but it is different in so many particulars that the name is not appropriate. The names western yew and Pacific yew are used interchangeably. Sometimes it bears the simple name yew; but since there is a yew in Florida, and another in Europe, it is well to give the western species a name which will distinguish it from others. The northwestern Indians called it “fighting wood,” which was the best description possible for them to give. They made bows of it, and it was superior to any other wood within their reach for that purpose. In fact, if they could have picked from all the woods of the United States they could scarcely have found its equal. It is very strong, though in elasticity its rating is under many other woods. It is of interest to note that five hundred or more years ago, the European yew (a closely related but different species) had nearly the same name in England that the northwestern Indians gave the western yew. It was called “the shooter yew,” because it was the bow wood of that time, and “bow staves,” which were rough pieces to be worked out by the bow makers, were articles of commerce. The search for it was so great, and so long-continued, that yew trees were well-nigh exterminated in the British Isles. It was, next to oak, and possibly above oak, the most indispensable wood in England at that time. It is instructive to observe that Indians who used the bow found the western yew as indispensable in their life as the English armies found the European yew at a time when the bow was the best weapon.

The northwestern Indians put this remarkable wood to other uses. They made spears of it, and sometimes employed them as weapons of war, but generally as implements of the chase, particularly in harpooning salmon which in summer ascend the northwestern rivers from the Pacific ocean in immense schools. The Indians whittled fishhooks of yew before they were able to buy steel hooks from traders. Some of those unique hooks are still in existence, and speak well of the inventive genius of the wild fisherman of the wilderness. A proper crook was selected where a branch joined the trunk, and serviceable fish hooks were made without any cross grain. They were strong enough to hold the largest fish that ascended the rivers. Sometimes a bone barb was skillfully inserted. The Indians found a further use for this wood as material for canoe paddles. It is so strong that handles can be made small and blades thin without passing the limit of safety. The manufacture of boat paddles from yew continues.

More is used for fence posts than for any other one purpose. It is one of the most durable woods known where it must resist conditions conducive to decay. The name yew is said to be derived from a word in a north Europe language meaning everlasting. Yew fence posts are not named in statistics, and it is impossible to quote numbers. Their use is confined to the districts where they grow.

The manufacturers of small cabinets draw supplies from this wood, but the fact is not mentioned in Pacific states wood-using statistics. It is particularly liked for turnery, such as small spindles used in furniture and in grill work. It takes an exceptionally fine polish, and the wood’s great strength makes the use of slender pieces practicable. Experiments have shown that this wood may be stained with success, but its natural color is so attractive that there is little need of staining unless the purpose is to imitate some more costly wood. If stained black it is an excellent substitute for ebony.

Western yew figures little in lumber output. It is not listed in the markets. The few logs which reach sawmills are never again heard of, but probably most of the lumber is disposed of locally to those who need it. The tree is not of good form for saw timber. Burls are said to make beautiful veneer. Trunks are seldom round, but usually grow lopsided. Most of them are too small for sawlogs. The largest are seldom two feet in diameter, and generally not half that large. They are short and branched, the tree often dividing near the ground in several stems. The average tree is scarcely thirty feet high, but a few are twice that. Its growth is very slow. A six-inch trunk is seventy-five or 100 years old, and the largest sizes are from 200 to 350 years. It is evident, therefore, that efforts to grow western yew for commercial purposes will be few. Wild trees will be occasionally cut as long as they last, and they will probably last as long as any of their associates, for they are scattered sparingly over several hundred thousand square miles of country, and some of it rough and almost inaccessible. The best development of the species is in western Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.

The leaves of western yew are one-half or five-eighths inch long. The fruit consists of red pulp enclosing a hard seed. Birds devour it eagerly. The fruit is not poisonous, as the yew berries of the Old World are. It ripens in September and falls in October. The wood is fine grained, clear rose red, becoming gradually duller on exposure. It weighs 39.83 pounds per cubic foot. Its fuel value is high.

FLORIDA YEW (_Taxus floridana_) is extremely local in its range, and small in size. Few trees are more than twenty-five feet high and one foot in diameter. They are bushy and of poor form for manufacturing. The only reported use is as fence posts. The wood’s durability fits it for that place. The species is found in Gadsden county, Florida. The leaves are one inch or less in length; flowers appear in March, and the fruit ripens in October. The wood is moderately heavy, hard, and narrow-ringed, for the trees grow slowly. Its color is dark, tinged with red, the thin sapwood being whiter. There is little prospect that the wood of this yew will ever be more important than it is now. It is often spoken of locally as savin, which name is likewise given to the red cedar (_Juniperus virginiana_), which is abundant in this yew’s range.

CALIFORNIA NUTMEG (_Tumion californicum_) is an interesting tree which ranges over a considerable portion of California, but is at its best in Mendocino county and the coast region north of San Francisco. It occurs also on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, in central California, at altitudes up to 5,000 feet. It receives its name from the resemblance of its seeds to nutmegs. Their surface is shriveled, but they do not have the nutmeg odor. The wood and the leaves, when bruised, give off an odor not altogether pleasing. On account of this, the tree has been called stinking cedar. In some localities it is called yew, and in others California false nutmeg, and coast nutmeg. Trees are generally small, with trunks of irregular form. The crown is open and usually extends to the ground; but in crowded situations, a rather shapely bole is developed, and the crown is small. The usual size of the tree does not exceed a height of fifty feet and a diameter of twenty inches. More trees are below than above that size; but in extreme cases the tree may reach a height of eighty-five feet and a diameter of four. The leaves in form and size resemble the foliage of yew, but their points are stiff and sharp, and if approached carelessly they will wound like cactus thorns. The fruit is an inch or more in length, a pulpy substance surrounding the seed. The wood possesses properties which ought to make it valuable, though reported uses are strictly local, such as small cabinet work and skiff making. It is bright lemon, yellow, rather hard, takes good polish, is of slow growth, with bands of summerwood thin but distinct, and medullary rays small, numerous, and obscure. Its weight is 29.66 pounds per cubic foot; it is not stiff or strong. It cannot attain high place as a manufacturing material, because it is too scarce, but it possesses a beauty which must bring it recognition as a fine furniture, finish, and novelty wood. A few sawlogs go to mills in the region north of San Francisco, but the lumber is probably mixed with other kinds and it goes to market without a name. It ought to be put to a better use.

FLORIDA TORREYA (_Tumion taxifolium_) is often called Chattahoochee pine in the region where it grows. That name is generally given to the tree when planted for ornament in yards, parks, and along streets of towns in northwestern Florida. It is known also as stinking cedar, stinking savin, and fetid yew. These names are generally applied to the forest-grown tree, particularly by those who cut it for fence posts, which is its principal use. Its range is local, being confined largely, if not wholly, to Gadsden county, Florida, where it grows on limestone soil. It can never have much importance as a commercial timber, because it is too scarce. In fact, it is in danger of extermination. Post cutters never spare it, and its range being so limited, there is not much hope for it. The interesting and beautiful tree is making a game fight for life. Many seedlings appear in the vicinity of old trees, while stumps, and even prostrate trunks, send up sprouts which, if let alone, grow to tree size. Sprouts on logs and stumps send roots to the ground as the seedling yellow birch does in damp northern woods. The yew-like leaves of Florida torreya are one and a half inch or less in length. The tree blooms in March and April, and the drupe-like fruit, an inch or more in length, is ripe by midsummer. The tree is from forty to sixty feet in height, and one to two feet in diameter. It is clothed in whorls of limbs, beginning near the ground, and tapering to the top. The wood is clear, bright yellow, the thin sapwood of lighter color; soft, easily worked, and susceptible of fine polish. It is very durable in contact with the soil. The green wood, and the bruised leaves and branches give off an odor suggesting the tomato vine. The texture and color of the wood indicate that it is well suited for fine cabinet work, but it is not a figured wood.

WHITE OAK

WHITE OAK

(_Quercus Alba_)