Chapter VIII: Part 8

Oaks belong to the beech family, that is, the “foodtrees,”[3] though most acorns are too bitter and contain too much tannin to be edible; some may be eaten, and for that reason the ancients classed them among the food trees. “Quercus,” which is the name of the genus, means oak in the language of northwestern Europe. The name white oak nearly always suffices, but in Arkansas it is often called stave oak because it is the best stave timber in that region. It could with equal reason be called stave oak nearly anywhere, for it is excellent material for tight cooperage. Formerly it was sometimes called Baltimore oak, because many of the staves of export were shipped from that city. That name, however, belonged more to post oak (_Quercus minor_) than to white oak, because the fine staves which went out of Chesapeake bay in the export trade, were largely post oak. It matters little now, for the name Baltimore oak is not much used, and white oak may be said to have only one trade name. After the wood is dressed, it has different names referring to the style of finish and not to the wood itself.

[3] The oaks of this country, which number more than fifty species,
have been classified in different ways, depending upon the purpose
in view. In the present treatment they will be divided in two
general groups, white oaks and black oaks. No effort will be made to
draw hard and fast lines, because it is not necessary. Oaks which
ripen their acorns in one year are listed as white oaks; those with
two year acorns, as black oaks. This is a botanical rather than a
lumberman’s classification; yet lumbermen recognize it in a general
way. White oak (_Quercus alba_) is clearly entitled to head the list
of white oaks, and red oak (_Quercus rubra_) should occupy a similar
position with regard to the black oak group. In numbers, the white
oaks and black oaks are nearly equally divided, one authority giving
twenty-seven species of white oak and twenty-five of black oak in
the United States; but botanists differ as to exact numbers of each.
The following species are usually classed as white oaks: White oak
(_Quercus alba_), valley oak (_Quercus lobata_), Brewer oak
(_Quercus breweri_), Sadler oak (_Quercus sadleri_), Pacific post
oak (_Quercus garryana_), Gambel oak (_Quercus gambelii_), post oak
(_Quercus minor_), Chapman oak (_Quercus chapmani_), bur oak
(_Quercus macrocarpa_), overcup oak (_Quercus lyrata_), swamp white
oak (_Quercus platanoides_), cow oak (_Quercus michauxii_), chestnut
oak (_Quercus prinus_), chinquapin oak (_Quercus acuminata_), dwarf
chinquapin oak (_Quercus prinoides_), Durand oak (_Quercus
breviloba_), Rocky Mountain oak (_Quercus undulata_), California
blue oak (_Quercus douglasii_), Engelmann oak (_Quercus
engelmanni_), Rocky Mountain blue oak (_Quercus oblongifolia_),
Arizona white oak (_Quercus arizonica_), Toumey oak (_Quercus
toumeyi_), netleaf oak (_Quercus reticulata_), California scrub oak
(_Quercus dumosa_), live oak (_Quercus virginiana_), Emory oak
(_Quercus emoryi_).

White oak grows in all the states east of the Mississippi river, and it crosses that stream two or three hundred miles in some places. It reaches eastern Nebraska and eastern Kansas, and runs southward through Oklahoma to the Brazos river, Texas. It is scarce in the northern parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Its total range covers an area of more than 1,000,000 square miles. Like all other important timber trees, it has regions where the species is best developed. The finest original stands of white oak were found in the upper Ohio valley, beginning in Indiana. The timber in many other districts was, and in some still is, very good, such as southern Michigan, eastern Arkansas, some of the Appalachian valleys and slopes, and in certain places along the upper tributaries of streams flowing into the Atlantic ocean.

This tree is in the very front rank in economic importance, and it has held that place since the earliest settlements in this country. No forest tree was more evenly distributed than white oak over the eastern half of the United States. It did not form pure forests of large extent, as some of the pines did, but white oaks were within reach of almost every part of the country. Conditions have greatly changed. The establishment of farms where woods originally occupied the whole country, lessened the abundance of oak long before lumbermen made it a commodity; and since then, the cutting of billions of feet of it has depleted or exhausted the supply in many regions. Still, white oak is as widely dispersed as ever. It has not been completely exterminated in any extensive region. White oak of as high grade goes to market now as ever in the past, but in smaller amounts, and the lower grades go in proportionately larger quantities. In other words, prime white oak has passed its best day. A hundred years of use and abuse in states west of the Alleghany mountains, and two hundred years in some of the regions east, have reduced original forests to remnants. But with all that, white oak remains undisputed king of American hardwoods.

At its best, white oak attains a height of 125 feet and a diameter of six, but that size is unusual. A diameter of three feet and a height of 100 is above the average. The leaves are peculiar in that they hang on the branches until late winter, sometimes dropping only in time to give place to the new crop. They turn brown after the first hard frost. In some sections of the Appalachian region white oak coppice (sprout growth) is known as “red brush,” because of the adherence of the brown leaves during winter. The leaves of some other species have the same habit.

The wood of white oak is very strong, stiff, heavy, and durable when exposed in all kinds of weather. Scarcely any other wood which can be had in merchantable quantities equals white oak in these qualities. It rates high in fuel value, and 6,000 pounds of dry wood when burned, leaves about 245 pounds of ashes. The color of the heartwood is light brown; the sapwood is thin; medullary rays are numerous and large; pores large; summerwood broad and dense.

The medullary rays of no wood in this or any other country are more utilized to commercial advantage than those of white oak. Quarter-sawing is for the purpose of bringing them out. They are the bright streaks, clearly visible to the naked eye in the end of an oak log, radiating from the center outward like the spokes of a wheel. Many are too thin to be visible without a magnifying glass. By quarter-sawing, the rays are cut edgewise and appear as bright streaks or patches, often called “mirrors,” on the surface of boards. The woodworker knows how to finish the boards and treat them with fillers to bring out the figures.

White oak is a porous wood. Some of the pores are large enough to be visible without a glass, and twenty times as many more can be seen only when magnified. The direction of the pores is up and down the trunk of the tree, and they are seen to best advantage in the end of a stick, although they are always more or less visible on the side of a board when the cutting is a little across the grain. The pores thus cut diagonally across are taken advantage of by the finisher who works stains and fillers into them, and changes their natural color, thereby accentuating the wood’s figure.

The possibilities of white oak are almost infinite. It is good for nearly anything for which any wood is used. It is not the best for everything, but does well for most. Hickory is more resilient, ironwood is stronger, locust more durable, white pine warps and checks less; but white oak has so many good qualities in a fair degree that it can afford to fall below the highest in some, and still rank above competitors on general averages. It ranks high in shipbuilding, general construction, furniture manufacturing, finish and fixtures, the making of agricultural implements, car building, vehicle stock, cooperage, and many more.

It is one of the most important of American veneer woods. It is sawed very thin, and is glued upon cores of other wood, thus becoming the covering or outside part. The purpose of using oak veneer instead of the solid wood is twofold. First, it goes farther, and second, a well-built article with veneer outside and a core of other woods which stand well, is superior to a solid oak article, except in cases where great strength is the object sought, or where deep carving is desired.

The continued use of white oak is assured. It is not necessary to seek new uses for it. The demand is as great as the supply can meet, but the supply is not assured for the distant future. There will always be some white oak in the country; but the best has been or is being cut. The tree grows slowly, and good quarter-sawed white oak cannot be cut from young trees. An age of about 150 years is necessary. Most good white oak lumber today is cut from trees 200 or more years old. When the present supply of venerable oaks has been exhausted, prime oak lumber will be largely a thing of the past. Fortunately, that time has not yet arrived. About eighty years are required to grow a white oak of crosstie size. Those who will grow oak for market in the future will probably not wait much longer than eighty years to cut their trees, and the result will be a scarcity of mature trunks for lumber and veneer.

DURAND OAK (_Quercus breviloba_). In some parts of Alabama,
Mississippi, and Louisiana this tree goes to the lumber yard as
white oak, and no one is injured by the substitution, for it is
heavy, hard, and strong, and is of good color. The wood weighs 59.25
pounds per cubic foot, which places it above the average weight of
white oak. It is said to be less tough than white oak. The tree
varies greatly in different parts of its range which extends from
central Alabama across Texas and into Mexico. It is known as white
oak, Texas white oak, shin oak, pin oak, and basket oak. Its best
development is in the eastern part of its range where trees eighty
or ninety feet high are common; but in Texas the average is scarcely
thirty feet high and one in diameter. Westward in Texas it becomes
shrubby, and forms extensive thickets of brush.

CHAPMAN OAK (_Quercus chapmani_) is put to little use, because
trunks are too small. They are seldom more than a foot in diameter,
and are often little more than shrubs. The tree grows in the pine
barrens near the coast from South Carolina to Florida, and it is
found also in great abundance, but generally of small size, on the
west coast of Florida from Tampa to the Apalachicola river.

BUR OAK

BUR OAK

(_Quercus Macrocarpa_)

This splendid oak was named by Michaux, a French traveler and botanist who visited many parts of eastern and southeastern United States more than a century ago. The botanical name _macrocarpa_, means “large fruit.” The bur oak bears small acorns in the North, and very large ones in the South. They are sometimes two inches long and one and a half inches wide, and “large-fruit” oak is an appropriate name for the tree in the South, but would not be near the northern limit of its range.

It is known in different regions as bur oak, mossy cup oak, overcup oak, scrub oak, and mossy cup white oak. Bur oak is a name suggested by the acorn which has a fringe round the cup like a bur. This is the oak which gave name to James Fenimore Cooper’s book, “Oak Openings” a romance of early days in Michigan. Oak openings were areas where fires had killed the old timber, and a young growth had sprouted from stumps and roots, or had sprung up from seeds buried in the ground beyond the reach of the fire. Some of those tracts were very large, and they were not confined to any one state. They existed in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, and elsewhere. Bur oak, because it is a vigorous species, was able to take possession of such burned areas, to the exclusion of most others.

Few American oaks have a wider range. It extends from Nova Scotia to Manitoba, and in the United States is found in most states east of the Rocky Mountains. It extends farther west and northwest than any other commercial oak of the Atlantic states. In a range of so great geographical extent the bur oak finds it necessary to adapt itself to many kinds of land. It prefers low tracts where water is sufficient but not excessive, but it grows well in more elevated situations, provided the soil is fertile. It is not a poor-land tree. In the primeval forests it attained largest size in Indiana and Illinois. The largest trees were from 150 to 170 feet high and four to seven in diameter. Sizes varied from that extreme down to the other extreme near the outskirts of its range where the growth was stunted. Large quantities of very fine logs have been cut from trunks from two to four feet in diameter, and forty to sixty feet to the limbs.

The leaves of bur oak are from six to twelve inches long, simple and alternate; the petioles are thick with flattened and enlarged bases; the leaves are wedge-shaped at the base, and have from five to seven long, irregular lobes, the terminal one very large and broad. They are dark green in color, and are smooth and shiny above, silvery white and pubescent below. The edge of the leaf is notched somewhat like chestnut, but the teeth or notches are not so sharp.

The twigs are provided with corky wings, or flattened keels of bark, along their sides. Some of the wings are an inch or more wide. They are apt to escape notice when the tree is in leaf, but in the winter the bare twigs look rough and ragged.

The weight of bur oak is approximately the same as white oak, and the two woods are much the same in strength and elasticity. The bands of summerwood are broad and dense, and the springwood is filled with large pores. The medullary rays are broad, but not numerous in comparison with white oak. They are sufficiently conspicuous to show well in quarter-sawing.

Bur oak nearly always goes to market as white oak, or simply as oak, and it is difficult to ascertain all the uses found for it. Some factories which make furniture, finish, vehicles, and other articles that figure in the country’s trade, attempt to identify the woods they use. That is done as carefully in Michigan as anywhere else, though comparatively few of the factories carry out the plan even in that state where many of the best wood-using establishments of the country are located. In a report issued in 1912 which gave statistics collected from more than eight hundred Michigan factories, bur oak received separate consideration. The uses there are doubtless representative, and will hold throughout the country wherever bur oak is fairly abundant. It is listed as baseboards, billiard table rims, bookcases, clay working machines, filing cabinets, furniture, hand sleds, hay balers, interior finish, molding, tinplate boxes, wagon sills, work benches. The amount of wood used in the state was nearly 900,000 feet, according to the reports; but it certainly does not include all. What it does show, however, is that bur oak is one of the substantial woods of that region, and that it possesses properties which fit it for many important places in the country’s industries.

Bur oak contributes to the output of cooper shops. Slack coopers class it with many other hardwoods for the manufacture of barrels for vegetables and various other commodities, while the makers of barrels for liquids put bur oak in with white oak.

The future of bur oak does not promise much after the trees which now remain have been cut. That does not mean that the species will become extinct, for that is improbable; but when the mature trees which developed during two or three hundred years of forest conditions have passed away, there is not much prospect of others being left to grow to the age and size which will make them valuable as lumber. Woodlot owners will not wait much longer than the seventy-five or one hundred years required to grow trees of crosstie size. Railroads pay good prices for this wood, for it lasts well, holds spikes in a satisfactory manner, and is strong and hard. As far as can be seen, bur oak will fare in the future about like white oak; that is, few trees will be left standing long enough to attain large size, because it will pay better to cut them while comparatively small.

CALIFORNIA BLUE OAK (_Quercus douglasii_) receives its name from the
color of its foliage in spring and early summer in the valleys and
on the rolling foothills of central California. Later in the summer,
when the dry season is on, the leaves lose some of their blue, on
account of age, but more from an accumulation of dust; but even then
the form of the tree, from its habit of growing in open formation
like an old apple orchard, presents an attractive picture. It is
often associated with the valley oak, which is larger and more
stately, but the blue oak loses nothing by the contrast. It is
occasionally called rock oak, but for what reason is not clear. It
is known, too, as mountain white oak, or simply white oak, and as
blue oak. Its range covers central California from Mendocino to the
Mojave desert, and from the immediate coast inland through the
valleys to the Sierras, and upward to an altitude of 4,000 feet
where the tree degenerates into a shrub which has neither beauty nor
utility. The species reaches its best development in the Salinas
valley from twenty to sixty miles from the coast. There the largest
trees are found, and also some that have assumed peculiar forms. In
positions exposed to the never-ceasing sea winds which sweep up the
valleys, the blue oaks lie prone like logs, their tops pointing away
from the wind. They grew in that unnatural position, having been
pressed flat by the wind since they were seedlings. This oak’s ashen
gray bark harmonizes well with the dry summer grass and dull sand
and gravel which surround it during the hot period. The branches are
often covered with green-gray lichens which somewhat modify the
aspect of the tree under close inspection. The leaves are irregular
in form. Some closely resemble leaves of the eastern white oak,
while others are almost or quite without lobes. During the growing
season the acorns are deep green, but when approaching maturity they
change to a chestnut-brown. They vary in shape as much as the
leaves. Some are almost eggshaped, bulging out above the cup which
seems too small; but all of them do not assume that form, but may be
short and symmetrical, or very long and slender. Woodpeckers store
these acorns in large numbers, and they search out peculiar places
for their hoards. A knot hole in the weatherboarding of an old barn,
granary, or school house is considered ideal, though when the acorns
are so disposed of, they are out of reach of the woodpecker forever.
Another method is to peck holes just large enough for an acorn in
fence posts or dead tree trunks, and hammer the acorns tightly in,
small end first. The surfaces of dead trees are sometimes absolutely
covered with such holes, each with its acorn. The woodpecker’s
purpose is to wait until the acorns become infested with larvæ. He
has no intention of eating the acorn itself.

California blue oaks range in height from shrubs to trees of ninety
feet, with diameters of three or four feet. The average height is
about forty-five and the diameter two or less. The trunk frequently
divides a few feet from the ground into large limbs. That form
excludes the wood from sawmills, and only in rare cases does any of
it find its way there. The lumber is of poor quality, brittle,
black, and otherwise defective. The sapwood is white and thick. A
cubic foot weighs 55.64 pounds, or nearly ten more than eastern
white oak. It is weak, and is low in elasticity. The annual rings
are often nearly invisible, because the pores are scattered evenly
and do not form bands. The medullary rays are broad, in the heart
black, in the sapwood white. If the wood were otherwise suitable,
pleasing effects might be produced by quarter-sawing, but as far as
known, no attempts have been made to do this. Now and then a
suitable log might be found. The importance of this oak lies in its
fuel value. It rates above white oak in theoretical tests, but it is
heavier in ash, and in practice it hardly measures up to white oak.
It grows slowly and is destined to disappear as a source of fuel
supply. Reproduction has nearly ceased in most parts of its range,
due largely to the perseverance of hogs in eating the acorns.
Cordwood cutters have stripped the last tree from large areas where
much once grew. This oak never forms forests. The trees seldom grow
as close together as apple trees in an orchard.

GAMBEL OAK (_Quercus gambelii_) was destined by nature to occupy an
inferior place in the country’s timber resources. It occupies a
region of stunted vegetation among the dry mountains and plateaus of
the Southwest, and except where it grows in better situations than
usual, it is too small to be properly called a tree. It is at its
best among the mountains of southeastern Arizona where it grows in
canyons that can maintain a little damp soil. There it occasionally
reaches a height of thirty feet and a diameter of a foot or less. In
most other parts of its range it is simply a tangled, sprawling
thicket of brush, covering the dry, rocky mountain ridges, and along
the bases of cliffs. It is found from Colorado to western Texas, and
westward into Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. The leaves are small,
thick, firm, and hairy, typical of desert foliage which must husband
the scant water supply. The acorns are pretty large for a tree so
stunted, and they are tempting bait for birds and rodents of the
region. The acorns are sweet. If this oak’s reproduction depended on
acorns alone it is doubtful if it would hold its ground in the face
of perpetual adversity; but its roots send up distorted and stunted
sprouts which cover the ground, affording hiding places for the few
acorns which escape their hungry enemies. Man puts this oak to few
uses. It affords a pretty good class of fuel for camp fires, but
cordwood cutters cannot make much out of it. In rare instances
frontier ranches use a few of the unshapely poles for corral fences,
but only as a case of last resort. The names bestowed upon the tree
by those who know it best are uncomplimentary. They call it shin
oak, pin oak, scrub oak, mountain oak, and Rocky Mountain oak.

FORKED-LEAF WHITE OAK

FORKED-LEAF WHITE OAK

(_Quercus Lyrata_)

The leaf gives this tree its name in the best part of its southern range. The tree bears much resemblance to the bur oak on the one hand, and swamp white oak on the other. The names by which it is known in different regions indicate as much.

In North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Illinois it is commonly known as overcup; in Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri it is called the swamp post oak; the name water white oak is applied to it in Mississippi and parts of South Carolina; swamp white oak in Texas; forked-leaf white oak among lumbermen in several of the southern states. The last name scarcely describes the leaf, for no one is apt to notice any fork, unless his attention is called to it. The fact is, the name forked-leaf oak is applied oftener to the turkey oak (_Quercus catesbæi_) than to this one. However, since the ranges of the two species are not the same, misunderstandings in practice are not apt to arise as to which is meant when the forked leaf is referred to. The fact that turkey oak belongs in the black oak group, ripening its acorns in two years, and this one is a white oak with one year acorns, is of further assistance in keeping the species separate.

The range of the forked-leaf white oak is from Maryland, along the Potomac river near the District of Columbia, southward to parts of Florida; westward through the Gulf states to the Trinity river in Texas; throughout Arkansas, sections of Missouri, central Tennessee, southern Illinois and Indiana.

It shows preference for river swamps, and small deep depressions in rich bottom lands where moisture is always abundant. It has never amounted to much in the Atlantic states, and its best development is found in the moist, fertile valley of Red river in Louisiana, and in certain parts of Arkansas and Texas. Its geographical range is pretty large, but as a timber tree it is confined to a comparatively restricted region west of the Mississippi. Good trees are found in other parts of its range. Lumbermen do not find it in extensive forests or pure stands, but isolated trees or small groups occur with other hardwoods.

This species of oak grows occasionally to a height of 100 feet, though its average is about seventy feet. It has a trunk two to three feet in diameter, which spreads out after attaining a height of fifteen or twenty feet, into small, often pendulous branches, forming a symmetrical round top. The branchlets are green, slightly tinged with red; covered with short hairs when first appearing, becoming grayish and shiny during their first winter, eventually turning ashen gray or brown.

The bark is three-quarters or one inch thick, light gray in color, shedding in thick plates, its surface being divided into thin scales. The winter buds are about one-eighth of an inch long and have light colored scales. The staminate flowers grow in long, slender, hairy spikes from four to six inches long; the calyx is light yellow and hairy. The pistillate flowers are stalked and are also covered with hairs.

The fruit of forked-leaf white oak is often on slender, fuzzy stems, sometimes an inch or more in length, but is often closely attached to the twig that bears it; the acorn is about one inch long, broad at the base, light brown and covered with short, light hairs, and usually almost entirely enclosed in the deep, spherical cup, which is bright reddish-brown on its inside surface, and covered on the outside with scales; thickened at the base, becoming thinner and forming an irregular edge at the margin of the cup. The cup often almost completely envelopes the acorn. The fruit then looks somewhat like a rough, nearly spherical button.

This oak’s leaves are long and slender, and are divided in from five to nine lobes. When the leaves unfold they are brownish green and hairy above and below; at maturity they are thin and firm, darker green and shiny on the upper surface, silvery or light green and hairy below; from seven to eight inches long, one to four inches broad; in autumn turning a beautiful bright scarlet or vivid orange.

Commercially this wood is a white oak, and it is seldom or never sent to market under its own name. There are no statistics of cut at the mills or of stand in the forests. Lumbermen take the tree when they come to it in the course of their usual operations, but never go out of their way to get it. Though rather large stands occur in certain southern regions, and scattering trees are found in large areas, the total quantity in the country is known to be too small to give this tree an important place as a source of lumber. Neither is there expectation that the future has anything in store for this particular member of the tribe of oaks. The wood rates high in physical properties; is strong as white oak, if not stronger, tough, stiff, hard, and heavy. In contact with the ground it is very durable. The heartwood is rich, dark brown, the sapwood lighter.

It may be said, generally, that since it goes to market as white oak, and its buyers never object, it possesses the essential properties of that wood, and is used in the same way as far as it is used at all.

ARIZONA WHITE OAK (_Quercus arizonica_) is the common and most generally distributed white oak of southern New Mexico and Arizona where it covers the hillsides and occurs in canyons at altitudes from 5,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level. It occasionally ascends nearly or quite to the summits of the highest peaks. The form of the tree varies greatly, as might be expected from a range extending from one to two miles above sea level. On the dry, windswept summits the tree degenerates into a shrub, with stiff, harsh branches. Lower down, in canyons and in other situations where moisture may be had and the soil is fertile, trunks are fifty or sixty feet high and three or four in diameter; but these are not the usual sizes even in the best of the tree’s range, for it cannot be classed as a timber tree.

The hardships of the desert have stunted it, and its form is rough. It is important for fuel, and this has been its chief use. The region where it occurs is thinly settled, and demand for lumber is small, but stockmen build corrals and fences to enclose sheep and cattle, and the Arizona white oak supplies some of the rough poles and posts for that purpose. The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and the heartwood is almost black, but the sapwood is lighter. The grain and figure of the wood are not attractive, and what little may be sawed into lumber in the future will be rather low-grade. The branches are crooked and when cut into cordwood the ricks are so open that it is a common saying in the region that “you can throw a dog through.” The wood burns well, and the demand for fuel is large, in proportion to the population of the country.

The leaves of this oak are sometimes slightly lobed, and are sometimes nearly as smooth as willow leaves. They are light red and covered with hair when they unfold in the spring, but when mature they are dark green, and shiny. Acorns are one inch or less in length, and rather slender. They are very bitter, and wild animals are inclined to let them alone, unless pressed by hunger, and then eat them sparingly. This insures good reproduction, provided other conditions are favorable. Though cordwood cutters may strip the large trees from the hills and canyons, scrub growth may be expected to continue, particularly on high mountains, and in ravines where roads cannot be built.

NETLEAF OAK (_Quercus reticulata_) will never attract lumbermen in
this country, but sometime they may send to the Sierra Madre
mountains of Mexico to procure it. In that region it is a tree large
enough for lumber; but the portion of its range overlapping on the
United States lies in southern Arizona and New Mexico among
mountains from 7,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level. Conditions are
unfavorable and the netleaf oak shows it by its stunted size and
rough form. The wood is hard, heavy, dark brown in color, with
lighter sapwood. The medullary rays are numerous and very broad. The
tree seldom exceeds forty feet in height and one foot in diameter.
The leaf is netted somewhat like that of the elm. The acorn is
usually not more than half an inch in length.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN OAK (_Quercus undulata_) bears acorns which may be
eaten like chestnuts, and not much more may be said for the tree in
the way of usefulness to man, though it is the salvation of some of
the small mammals of the bleak Texas and New Mexico hills where
there is little to eat and few places for concealment from hawks and
other enemies. The tree is also called scrub oak and shin oak. It
grows in Colorado, New Mexico, western Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and
Utah. At its best it rarely exceeds thirty feet high and a foot in
diameter, and it often forms a jungle of shrubs through which the
traveler must wade waist deep or go miles out of his way to pass
round it. Its leaf is one of the smallest of the oaks, and is
notched much like the chestnut leaf.

ALVORD OAK (_Quercus alvordiana_) is little known and will probably
never be of much importance. It grows in the region of Tehachapi
mountains, the northern border of the Mojave desert, in California,
and was named for William Alvord of that state. The leaf is toothed,
and the acorn smooth. No record has been found of any use of the
wood, and when Sudworth compiled his book, “Forest Trees of the
Pacific Slope,” he was unable to procure enough leaves, flowers, and
fruit to enable him to give a botanical description. It may
therefore be regarded as one of the scarcest oaks in the United
States, which fact gives it a certain interest.

SADLER OAK (_Quercus sadleriana_) is one of the minor oaks of the
Pacific coast, and is popularly and properly called scrub oak by
those who encounter it on high, dry slopes of northern California
and southern Oregon mountains, from 4,000 to 9,000 feet above the
sea. It forms dense thickets, and passes for an evergreen. Its
leaves remain on the branches only thirteen months. The leaves are
toothed like those of chestnut. The acorns are matured in one
season. The name Sadler oak was given it in honor of a Scottish
botanist. Trees are too scarce and too small to have much value,
except as a ground cover.

BREWER OAK (_Quercus breweri_) grows on the west slope of the Sierra
Nevada mountains in California, from Kaweah river northward to
Trinity mountains. It is often little more than a shrub, and its
usefulness to man lies less in the quantity of wood it produces than
in the protection the dense thickets, with their network of roots,
afford steep hillsides. Gullying in time of heavy rain cannot take
place where this oak’s matted masses of roots bind the soil. Sprouts
rise freely from the roots, and thickets are reproduced in that way
rather than from acorns, although in certain years crops of acorns
are bountiful. The trunks are too small to make any kind of lumber,
but are capable of supplying considerable quantities of fuel.

POST OAK

POST OAK

(_Quercus Minor_)

Post oak is the most common name for this tree but various sections of its range have given it their own names which probably have local significance. The following names are in use in the localities denoted: post oak in the eastern and Gulf states, Connecticut to Texas, and in Arkansas and West Virginia; box white oak in Rhode Island; iron oak in Delaware, Mississippi and Nebraska; chêne étoile in Quebec; overcup oak in Florida; white oak in Kentucky and Indiana; box oak and brash oak in Maryland.

Toward the northern portion of the range of this tree it is small, and in early times it was little used except for fence posts. Its durability fitted it for that use, and it is said the common name was due to that circumstance. The name iron oak was used by shipbuilders who sometimes bought small knees made of this wood. Baltimore oak was an early name which is not now in use. It was generally applied to white oak, but it included some post oak shipped from the Chesapeake bay region.

Post oak is botanically and commercially a white oak and is seldom distinguished from the true white oak, _Quercus alba_, in commerce. It is seen at its best in the uplands of the Mississippi basin and in the Gulf states west of the Mississippi, where it attains a considerable size. In the northeastern states and in Florida it is small, becoming shrubby in some localities, and more or less of local growth. Limestone uplands or dry, sandy or gravelly soils seem to offer the best conditions for its existence, where it grows in company with black jack, red and white oak, sassafras, dogwood, gums, and red cedar.

The range of growth of post oak extends from New Brunswick south through the Atlantic states into Florida; west through the Gulf states and throughout the Mississippi river system, growing west brokenly to Montana. It is the common oak of central Texas but in the North it is rather scarce, becoming more plentiful in the lower Appalachians.

The broad, dense, round-topped crown of the post oak with its peculiar foliage make it very noticeable in the woods, even to the casual observer. Its dark green looks almost black at a distance. The tree has an average height of sixty or eighty feet and is about two feet in diameter, but in exceptional cases it reaches one hundred feet in height and has a diameter of three feet. It has a moderately thick, dark brown bark with a reddish tinge and deep fissures, the broad ridges being covered with thin scales. On the branches it becomes much thinner, and lighter in color, the branchlets being unfissured and glabrous in the second year, although fuzzy at first. They are rather heavy and rounded and terminate in short round buds with conspicuous scales. A noticeable feature of the tree is the peculiar branching. The limbs are heavy and crooked, separating often, with wide angles, forming knees which when big enough, have a commercial value.

When the tree is in foliage the tufted appearance of the leaves grouped on the ends of the twigs gives it a distinctive look. They bear some resemblance to a star, and for that reason some botanists have named the species _stellata_. The leaves are five or seven inches long usually, but in some cases, especially on young specimens, they are ten or more inches long. They are dark, shiny-green and on a short petiole, the veins and midrib being heavy and conspicuous. The identification of these leaves is easy as they are heavy in texture, are bilaterally developed with a large, obtuse lobe on each side about in the middle, giving them a maltese cross effect. They are very persistent, staying on the tree until the new leaves push them off in the spring.

The form of post oak is not ideal from the lumberman’s viewpoint. The tree does not prune itself well. Straggling limbs adhere to the trunk and prevent the clean bole which often makes white oak so attractive.

The wood weighs 52.14 pounds per cubic foot. The name iron oak referred to the weight as well as the strength of the wood. It is rather difficult to season, and is inclined to check badly. The medullary rays are broad and numerous, and checking is apt to develop along the rays. The summerwood occupies about half of the annual ring, and is dense and dark colored. Large pores are abundant in the springwood, and smaller ones in the summerwood.

Formerly this tree was known in some sections as turkey oak, though the name is no longer heard, but is now applied to another oak in the South. The acorns are small enough to be eaten by turkeys, and when those game birds were wild in the woods they frequented parts of the forests where post oaks grew, and hunters knew where to find them. The uses of post oak for building and manufacturing purposes are the same as for white oak as far as they go, but post oak is not so extensively employed.

The earliest railroads in America were built in the region where post oak of excellent quality grew, and it saw service from the first as crossties, and car and bridge timbers. It is still used for those purposes. Its other important uses are as furniture material, both as solid stock and veneer; interior finish and fixtures for offices, banks, and stores; musical instruments, including frames, braces, and veneers; baskets, crates, and shipping boxes; vehicles, particularly tongues, axles, and hounds of heavy wagons; flooring, stair work, balusters.

Post oak will do well on land too gravelly and thin to sustain good white oak growth. To that extent the two species are not competitors for ground, and post oak is assured a place in future woodlots, but it cannot be expected ever to equal white oak in commercial importance, while as an ornamental tree it is not usually favored because the shape of its crown is not altogether pleasing. Its very dark foliage, however, is admired by many and gives the tree an individuality.

SWAMP WHITE OAK (_Quercus platanoides_). This tree’s botanical name means “broadleaf oak,” and that is a good description as far as it goes, but it does not apply solely to this species. The characteristic which fixes it best in the minds of most people is its preference for low, wet soil. Its two common names are swamp oak and swamp white oak, yet it is not really a swamp tree, such as the northern white cedar, southern white cedar, cypress, and tupelo are. It does not associate with any of those trees. It prefers river banks, and does not object to a good deal of water about its roots, though it grows nicely in situations out of reach of all overflow, and often side by side with silver maple, hickory, ash, and several other oaks. The leaf resembles that of chestnut oak, and the bark is somewhat like chestnut oak, but the wood passes in market for white oak, and is a good substitute for it, though the resemblance is not so close that one need be mistaken for the other. The tree averages about seventy feet high with a diameter of two feet, but much larger trunks are common. The famous “Wadsworth oak,” which stood on the bank of the Genesee river in western New York, about a mile from the village of Geneseo, was a swamp white oak. It had a trunk diameter of nine feet, but it was not tall in proportion. It met its overthrow by the undermining of the river bank in time of flood. That is a common fate for this tree, because of its preference for river banks. Its range is from Maine to Wisconsin and Iowa. It follows the mountains to northern Georgia; and west of the Mississippi it grows as far south as Arkansas. The species is best developed in western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and along the southern shores of Lakes Erie and Michigan.

Trees do not clear themselves of branches on their lower trunks very early in life, and lumber more or less knotty results. It is possible, however, to cut a fairly large proportion of clear boards. The wood is of about the same weight as white oak, and is hard, strong, and tough. Its color is light brown, and the thin sapwood is hardly distinguishable from the heart. The medullary rays are as large as those of white oak, but are few. For that reason, swamp white oak does not give very satisfactory results when quarter-sawed. The bright patches are too scarce. Neither does it show as many of these rays as chestnut oak. The wood is very porous, but the large pores are confined to the springwood, while the broad bands of summerwood are dense. The contrast between the two parts of annual rings forms a strong, but not particularly handsome figure when the lumber is sawed tangentially--that is, from the side of the log. The wood finisher can improve this oak’s natural appearance by employing fillers and stains to lighten shades or deepen tints. The uses of this oak are numerous. It is excellent fuel, and is rather low in ash; it is weaker and more brittle than white oak; but it is quite satisfactory for railroad ties, car building, house finish, furniture, some parts of heavy vehicles, certain kinds of cooperage, and for farm implements.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN BLUE OAK (_Quercus oblongifolia_) is named from the
blue color of its foliage, though what little lumber is cut from it,
is bought and sold as white oak. It is of little importance, yet in
the almost timberless mountains of western Texas it supplies some of
the urgent wants of a scattered population. It bears willow-like
leaves one or two inches long, and less than an inch wide; but on
vigorous shoots they are larger. The acorns are very small. Trees
seldom exceed thirty feet in height, and a diameter of twenty
inches; and often the trunk is divided near the ground in three or
four stout, crooked forks. Ordinarily, it is an impossible tree to
lumber, but sometimes a few logs find their way to sawmills and a
little passable lumber is produced. The wood weighs 58 pounds per
cubic foot. It is strong, but when it breaks, it snaps short. The
heartwood is darker than in most oaks, and the sapwood is brown. The
tree is useful for fuel. Charcoal for local blacksmith shops is
manufactured from the wood. It is abundant on many of the sterile
slopes and mesas of New Mexico and Arizona, but usually in the form
of brush about the heads of canyons.

COW OAK

COW OAK

(_Quercus Michauxii_)

This oak’s acorns are remarkably free from the bitterness due to tannin and are therefore pleasant to the taste. Herbivorous animals eat them when they are to be had, and the eagerness with which cattle gather them in the fall is doubtless the reason for calling the tree cow oak. Hogs and sheep are as eager hunters for the acorns as cattle are, and the half-wild swine in the southern forests become marketable during the two months of the acorn season. Children know the excellency of the cow oak acorns, and gather them in large quantities during the early weeks of autumn in the South. The tree is widely known as basket oak, and the name refers to a prevailing use for the wood in early times, and a rather common use yet. Long before anyone had made a study of the structure of this wood, it was learned that it splits nicely into long, slender bands, and these were employed by basket weavers for all sorts of wares in that line. Tens of thousands of baskets were in use before the war in the southern cottonfields, and they have not gone out of use there yet. It is safe to say that millions of dollars worth of cotton has been picked and “toted” in baskets made of this oak. It was natural, therefore, that the name basket oak should be given it. Large, coarse baskets are still made of splits of this wood, and china and other merchandise are packed in them; while baskets of finer pattern and workmanship are doing service about the farms and homes of thousands of people.

When the structure of wood became a subject of study among dendrologists, the secret of the cow oak’s adaptability to basket making was discovered. The annual rings of growth are broad, and the bands of springwood and summerwood are distinct. The springwood is so perforated with large pores that it contains comparatively little real wood substance. The early basket maker did not notice that but he found by experimenting that the wood split along the rings of growth into fine ribbons. The splitting occurs along the springwood. Ribbons may be pulled off as thin as the rings of annual growth, that is, from an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch thick. These are the “splits” of which baskets are made. When subjected to rough usage, such as being dragged and hauled about cornfields and cotton plantations, such a basket will outlast two or three of willow.

The tree is sometimes called swamp white oak, and swamp chestnut oak. It bears some resemblance to the swamp white oak (_Quercus platanoides_) and some people believe that both are of one species, but of slightly different forms. It is not surprising that there should be a conflict of names and confusion in identification. The leaf resembles that of the chestnut oak, and to that fact is due the belief which some hold that the chief difference between the trees is that the chestnut oak (_Quercus prinus_) grows on dry land and cow oak in damp situations. Botanists make a clear distinction between cow oak and all other species, though it closely resembles some of them in several particulars.

From the northern limits of its growth in Delaware, where it is not of any considerable size, it extends south through the Atlantic states and into Florida, west in the Gulf states to the Trinity river in Texas, and up the Mississippi valley, including in its range Arkansas, eastern Missouri, southern Indiana and Illinois and western Kentucky and Tennessee. It is distinctly of the South and may be considered the best southern representative of the white oak group. It does best in swampy localities where it is found in company with water hickory, sweet magnolia, planer tree, water oak, willow oak, red maple, and red and black gum.

In general appearance the tree gives the impression of massiveness and strength, offset by the delicate, silvery effect of the bark and the lining of the foliage. The usual height is sixty or eighty feet, but it often exceeds a hundred feet, the bole attaining a diameter of as high as seven feet and showing three log lengths clear. The characteristic light gray, scaly, white oak bark covers trunk and heavy limbs, which rise at narrow angles, forming a rounded head and dividing into stout branches and twigs. The winter buds are not characteristic of white oak, being long and pointed rather than rounded. They are about a half inch in length, scaly, with red hairs and usually in threes on the ends of the twigs. The general texture of the leaves is thick and heavy, their upper surfaces being dark, lustrous green and the lower white and covered with hairs. They are from five to seven inches long with petioles an inch in length and of the general outline of the chestnut leaf. Their rich crimson color is conspicuous in the fall after turning.

The wood of cow oak is hard, heavy, very tough, strong, and durable. The heartwood is light brown, the sapwood darker colored. It weighs 50.10 pounds per cubic foot, and is not quite up to white oak in strength and elasticity. In quarter-sawing it does not equal white oak, because the medullary rays, though broad, are not regularly distributed, and the surface of the quarter-sawed board has a splotchy appearance, and it is not as easy to match figures as with white oak.

Cow oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the South. Its uses are much the same as those for white oak farther north. The custom of calling it white oak when it goes to market renders the collection of statistics of uses difficult. Sawmills seldom or never list cow oak in making reports of cut. Factories which further manufacture lumber, after it leaves the mill, sometimes distinguish between cow oak and other oaks. It has been found suitable material in the South for canthook handles where it takes the place of hickory which is more expensive. It is reported for that use in considerable quantity in Louisiana. The handles are subjected to great strain and violent shocks. The billets are split to the proper size, because if they are sawed they are liable to contain cross grain which is a fatal defect. The wood is cut in dimensions for chair stock and furniture, the better grades usually going to furniture factories. Defective logs, short lengths, and odds and ends may be worked into chair stock which contains a large proportion of small pieces. The making of large plantation baskets of this wood is still a fairly large business in Louisiana and Mississippi. Braided bottoms of cheap chairs are of the same workmanship as baskets.

Vehicle makers in the South are large users of this wood. It is employed in heavy wagons chiefly, and is worked into many parts, including axles, bolsters, felloes, hubs, hounds, tongues, reaches, spokes, and bedbottoms.

This tree is classed as white oak by coopers who accept it as stave material. The amount used is much less than of the true white oak, but the exact quantity taken yearly by barrel makers is not known because statistics do not list the different white oaks separately. Cow oak rives well when a trunk is found clear of knots. The trees are usually smaller and less perfect than true white oak in the North.