American Forest Trees Part 19

EMORY OAK (_Quercus emoryi_) grows among the mountains of western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, attains a height from thirty to seventy feet, and a diameter from one to four. The largest size is found only in sheltered canyons, while on high mountains and in exposed situations the tree degenerates to a shrub. It always has a crop of leaves. The old do not fall until the new appear. In shape, the leaves somewhat resemble those of box elder. The acorns ripen from June to September, the exact time depending upon the tree's situation. Trunks large enough for use are not scarce, but the wood is not of high cla.s.s. Stair railing and bal.u.s.ters have been made of it in Texas, but the appearance is rather poor. The grain is coa.r.s.e, the figure common, the color unsatisfactory. The heart is very dark, but the tones are not uniform, and flat surfaces, such as boards and panels, show streaks which are not sufficiently attractive to be taken for figure. Trunks are apt to be full of black knots which mar the appearance of the lumber. The medullary rays are numerous and broad, and in quarter-sawing, the size and arrangement of the "mirrors" are all that could be desired, but they have a decidedly pink color which does not contrast very well with the rest of the wood. The weight of this oak exceeds per cubic foot white oak, by more than ten pounds; but it has scarcely half the strength or half the elasticity of white oak. The springwood is filled with large pores, the summerwood with smaller ones. It rates high as fuel, and that is its chief value. Large quant.i.ties are cut for cordwood.

Railroad ties are made of it, and more or less goes into mines as props and lagging. Stock ranches make fences, sheds, and corrals of this oak, and live stock eats the acorns. The human inhabitants likewise find the Emory oak acorn crop a source of food. Mexicans gather them in large quant.i.ties and sell what they can spare. The market for the acorns is found in towns in northwestern Mexico.

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CHESTNUT OAK

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CHESTNUT OAK

(_Quercus Prinus_)

This tree is known as rock oak in New York; as rock chestnut oak in Ma.s.sachusetts and Rhode Island; as rock oak and rock chestnut oak in Pennsylvania and Delaware; as tanbark oak and swampy chestnut oak in North Carolina and as rock chestnut oak and mountain oak in Alabama.

There is a pretty general disposition to call this tree rock oak. The name refers to the hardness of the wood, and is not confined to this species. Other oaks are also given that name, and the adjective "rock"

is applied to two or three species of elm which possess wood remarkable for its hardness. Cedar and pine are likewise in the cla.s.s. In all of these cla.s.ses "rock" is employed to denote hardness of wood. Iron as an adjective or ironwood as a noun is used in the same way for a number of trees. The name swampy chestnut oak as applied in some parts of the South to this tree, is hardly descriptive, for it is less a swamp tree than most of the oaks, though it does often grow along the banks of streams.

Its distribution ranges from the coast of southern Maine and the Blue Hills of eastern Ma.s.sachusetts southward to Delaware and the District of Columbia; along the Appalachian mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama; westward to the sh.o.r.es of Lake Champlain and the valley of the Genesee river, New York; along the northern sh.o.r.es of Lake Erie and to central Kentucky and Tennessee. It is rare and local in New England and Ontario, but plentiful on the banks of the lower Hudson river and on the Appalachian mountains from southern New York to Alabama. It reaches its best development in the region from West Virginia to North Carolina, pretty high on the ridges flanking the mountain ranges.

Leaves are alternate, from five to nine inches long, with coa.r.s.e teeth rounded at the top. At maturity, they are thick and firm, yellow-green and rather l.u.s.trous on the upper surface, paler and usually hairy beneath. In the autumn before falling, they turn a dull orange color or rusty-brown.

The flowers appear in May and are solitary or paired on short spurs. The fruit or acorn is solitary or in pairs, one or two and one-half inches long, very l.u.s.trous and of a bright chestnut-brown color. The acorn cup is thin, downy-lined and covered with small scales. The kernel is sweet and edible. The bark of the chestnut oak is thin, smooth, purplish-brown and often l.u.s.trous on young stems and small branches, becoming a thick, dark, reddish-brown, or nearly black on old trunks, and divided into broad rounded ridges, separating on the surface into small, closely appressed scales. The bark of the tree is so dark in color and so deeply furrowed that it has often been mistaken for one of the black oak group, although its wavy leaf margins and annual fruit clearly differentiate it from those species. The bark of the chestnut oak is thicker and rougher on old trunks than on any other oak.

The bark of chestnut oak has long been valuable for tanning. There is tannin in the bark of all oaks, and several of them contain it in paying quant.i.ties, but chestnut oak is more important to the leather industry than any other oak. In richness of tannin the tanbark oak of California occupies as high a place, but it is not supplying as much material as the eastern tree. Statistics showing the annual consumption of tanbark and tanning extracts in the United States, do not list the oaks separately, but it is well known that chestnut oak far surpa.s.ses all others in output. Hemlock bark is peeled in large quant.i.ties, but tanneries occasionally mix chestnut oak bark with it to lighten the deep red color imparted to leather when hemlock bark is the sole material employed.

Large quant.i.ties of chestnut oak timber have been destroyed to procure the bark. Fortunately, it is a practice not much indulged in at present, because the wood now has value, but it formerly had little. It was then abandoned in the forest after the bark was peeled and hauled away. The same practice obtained with hemlock years ago. Much chestnut oak is still cut primarily for the bark, but the logs are worth hauling to sawmills, unless in remote districts.

The chestnut oak is a vigorous tree and grows rapidly in dry soil, where it often forms a great part of the forest. It is not as large as the white oak or red oak, but is a splendid tree, its bole being very symmetrical and holding its size well. It grows usually to a height of from sixty to seventy feet and sometimes 100 feet, with a diameter of from two to five feet and occasionally as large as seven feet.

The form of the tree shows great variation, depending upon the situation in which it grows. Trees in open ground often divide into forks or large limbs, and the trunks are short and of poor form. Open-grown trees show a decided tendency to develop crooked boles, and unduly large branches.

No such objection can be urged against it when it grows under forest conditions. Trunks are straight and are otherwise of good form.

The wood of chestnut oak differs little from that of white oak in weight, strength, and stiffness. It is hard, rather tough, durable in contact with the soil, and is darker in color than white oak. It has few large, open pores, and requires less filler in finishing than most oaks. There are many pores, however, and those in the springwood are arranged in bands. The summerwood is broad and distinct, usually const.i.tuting three-fourths of the annual ring. The medullary rays are as broad and numerous as in the best furniture oaks. They are regularly arranged, and s.p.a.ces between them do not vary much in width. The wood quarter-saws well.

The wood has the fault of checking badly in seasoning, unless carefully attended to. In recent years, these difficulties have been largely overcome, both in air seasoning and in the drykiln.

Chestnut oak has a wide range of uses. It is cla.s.sed as white oak in many markets, but few users buy it believing it to be true white oak. It is coming year by year to stand more on its own merits. Some sawmills which formerly piled it and sold it with other oaks, now keep it separate, and some factories which once took it only because it came mixed with other oaks, now buy it for special uses, and make high-cla.s.s commodities of it. One of these is mission furniture, which has become fashionable in recent years. Chestnut oak possesses good fuming properties, and this const.i.tutes much of its value as furniture material.

The wood is found in factories where general furniture is made. It is largely frame material for furniture though some of it is for outside finish. It is employed as frames in Maryland in the construction of ca.n.a.l boats, and the annual demand for that purpose is about a quarter of a million feet in that state.

One of the most important places for chestnut oak is in the shop which makes vehicles. It goes into sills for both heavy and light bodies, bolsters, and wagon bottoms. It has become a favorite wagon wood in England and in continental Europe, and there pa.s.ses as white oak, though dealers well know that it is not the true white oak. There is no indication that demand for it will lessen, for it possesses many characters which fit it for vehicle making.

In Michigan more chestnut oak is reported by car builders than by any other cla.s.s of manufacturers, though wagon makers buy it. Car shops use about 220,000 feet a year, and work it into hand cars, push cars, track-laying cars, and cattle guards.

The large remaining area of timber growth in which chestnut oak appears is the Appalachian range through eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, and the fact that it is comparatively plentiful in the forests of the Appalachian range will tend to bring it more and more into prominence as a factor in the making of wagons, cars, boats, staves, and furniture as the other oaks become scarcer.

The probable future of chestnut oak is an interesting problem for study. Few steps have yet been taken looking toward providing for generations to come. Chestnut oak has been left to take care of itself.

The trees, produced in nature's way, have been ample to supply all needs in the past, and they will be for the near future. Chestnut oak possesses some advantages over most of the other oaks. Large trees will grow on very poor soil, where most other oaks are little more than shrubs. Trees so grown are little more susceptible to disease than if produced in good soil, though they develop more slowly and are smaller.

There are many poor flats and sterile ridges in the chestnut oak's range, and they will produce timber of fairly good kind, if the chestnut oaks are permitted to have them. Nature gave this tree facilities for taking possession. Its acorns will grow without being buried. They do not depend on blue jays to carry them to sunny openings or squirrels to plant them; but they will sprout where they fall, whether on hard gravelly soil or dry leaves; and they at once set about getting the tap roots of the future trees into the ground. In many instances the chestnut oak's acorns do not wait to fall from the tree before they sprout. Like the seed of the Florida mangrove, they are often ready to take root the day they touch the ground. The large acorn is stored with plantfood which sustains the growing germ for some time, and the ground must be very hard and exceedingly dry if a young chestnut oak is not soon firmly established, and good for two or three hundred years, if let alone.

The forester who may undertake to grow chestnut oaks must exercise great care in transplanting the seedlings, or the tap roots will be broken and the young trees will die. The best plan is to drop acorns on the ground where trees are expected to grow, and nature will do the rest, provided birds and beasts leave the acorns alone.

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CHINQUAPIN OAK

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHINQUAPIN OAK]

CHINQUAPIN OAK

(_Quercus Ac.u.minata_)

This tree is known as yellow chestnut oak, chinquapin oak, chestnut oak, pin oak, yellow oak, scrub oak, dwarf chestnut oak, shrub oak, and rock oak. It should not be confused with _Quercus prinus_, the true chestnut oak, although it is commonly known in so many sections of the country by the latter name; the names yellow oak, pin oak, and scrub oak are likewise applied to many species, so that the only way to accurately designate members of this great family is to employ their botanical names. However, this species should always be known as the chinquapin oak, which is a distinctive term, and not applied to any other.

The bark of this tree is light gray and is broken into thin flakes, silvery-white, sometimes slightly tinted with brown, rarely half an inch thick. The branchlets are marked with pale lenticels.

The leaves of the chinquapin oak are from five to seven inches long, simple and alternate; they have a taper-pointed apex and blunt, wedge-shaped or pointed base; are sharply toothed. When unfolding they show bright bronze-green above, tinged with purple, and are covered underneath with light silvery down; at maturity they become thick and firm, showing greenish-yellow on the upper surface and silvery-white below. The midrib is conspicuous and the veins extending outward to the points of the teeth are well-defined. In autumn the leaves turn orange and scarlet and are very showy. The leaves are narrow, hardly two inches wide, and more nearly resemble those of the chestnut than do any other oak leaves. In their broadest forms they are also similar to those of the true chestnut oak, although the difference in the quality and color of the bark, and of the leaves, would prevent either tree from being mistaken for the other. They are crowded at the ends of the branches and hang in such a manner as to show their under surfaces with every touch of breeze. This characteristic gives the chinquapin oak a peculiar effect of constantly shifting color which is one of its most attractive features and which puts the observer in mind of the trembling aspen, although the shading and coloring of the oak is much more striking.

This tree's range extends from northern New York, along Lake Champlain and the Hudson river westward through southern Ontario, and southward into parts of Nebraska and Kansas; on its eastern boundary it extends as far south as the District of Columbia and along the upper Potomac; the growth west of the Alleghany mountains reaches into central Alabama and Mississippi, through Arkansas and the northern portion of Louisiana to the eastern part of Oklahoma and parts of Texas even to the canyons of the Guadalupe mountains, in the extreme western part of that state. It is a timber tree of much importance in Texas, and in 1910 manufacturers reported the use of 1,152,000 feet in that state, largely for making furniture and vegetable crates.

The chinquapin oak is named from the form of its leaf. Its acorn bears no resemblance to the nut of chinquapin. Trees average smaller in size than white oak, but when all circ.u.mstances are favorable they compare well with any of the other oaks. In the lower Wabash valley, trees of this species were found in the original forests 160 feet high and four or five in diameter. When it grows in crowded stands it develops a tall, symmetrical trunk, clear of limbs; but it is shorter in open growth. The base is often much b.u.t.tressed.

The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, stiff, and durable. In color the heartwood is dark, the sapwood lighter. The springwood is narrow and filled with large pores, the summerwood broad and dense. Medullary rays are less numerous and scarcely as broad as in chestnut oak, which this wood resembles. It checks badly in drying, both by kiln and in the open air; but when properly seasoned it is an excellent wood for most purposes for which white oak is used. It shows fewer figures when quarter-sawed than white oak shows, but it is satisfactory for many kinds of furniture, particularly when finished in mission style.

Railroads throughout the region where this species is found have laid chinquapin oak ties in their tracks for many years and they give long service, because they resist decay and are hard enough to stand the wear of the rails. In early times in the Ohio valley it helped to fence many a farm when the material for such fences was the old style fence rail, eleven feet long, mauled from the straightest, clearest timber afforded by the primeval forest. It had for companions many other oaks which were abundant there, and it was on a par with the best of them. In the first years of steamboating on the Ohio river, when the engines used wood for fuel, they provided a market for many an old rail fence. The rails were the best obtainable fuel, and the chinquapin oak rails in the heaps were carefully looked for by the purchasers, because they were rated high in fuel value. It is now known that chinquapin oak in combustion develops considerably more heat than an equal quant.i.ty of white oak.

When southern Indiana and Illinois were furnishing coopers with their best staves, chinquapin oak was ricked with white oak, and no barrel maker ever complained. The pores in the wood seem large, but in old timber which is largely heartwood, the pores become clogged by the processes of nature, and the wood is made proof against leakage. That is what gives white oak its superiority as stave timber. It has as many pores as red oak, but upon close examination under a magnifying gla.s.s, they are found to be plugged, while red oak's pores are wide open. The result is that red oak barrels leak through the wood; those made of white oak do not. Chinquapin oak possesses the same properties, which account for its reputation as stave material.

The future for chinquapin oak is not quite as promising as that of chestnut oak. The former's choice growing place is on rich soil and in damp situations. These happen to be what the farmer wants, and he will not leave the chinquapin oak alone to grow in nature's method, nor will he plant its acorns in places where the trees will interfere with his cornfields and meadows. Consequently, the tree is apt to receive scant consideration after the original forests have disappeared; while its poor cousin, the chestnut oak, will be left to make its way on sterile ridges, and may even receive some help from the forester and woodlot owner.

VALLEY OAK (_Quercus lobata_) is often considered to be the largest hardwood of the Pacific coast. Trunk diameters of ten feet have been recorded, and heights more than 100; but such measurements belong only to rare and extraordinary individuals. The average size of the tree is less than half of that. The most famous tree of this species is the Sir Joseph Hooker oak, near Chico, California, though it is not the largest. It is seven feet in diameter and 100 high. It was named by the botanist Asa Gray in 1877. This species is commonly called California white oak, which name would be un.o.bjectionable if it were the only white oak in California. A more distinctive name is weeping oak, which refers to the appearance of the outer branches.

It is called swamp oak, but without good reason, though the ground on which it grows is often swampy during the rainy season. The name valley oak is specially appropriate, since its favorite habitat is in the broad valleys of central California. Its range does not go outside that state, neither does the tree grow very high on the mountains. Its range begins in the upper Sacramento valley and extends to Tejon, south of Lake Tulare, a distance north and south of about five hundred miles, while east and west the tree is found from the Sierra foothills to the sea, 150 or 200 miles. Its characteristic growth is in scattered stands. It does not form forests in the ordinary sense. Two or three large trees to the acre are an average, and often many acres are wholly missed. The form of trees, and the wide s.p.a.ces between them, resemble an old apple orchard, though few apple trees live to attain the dimensions of the valley oak of ordinary size. The best stands were originally in the Santa Clara valley and in the central part of the San Joaquin valley in the salt gra.s.s region north of Lake Tulare in Kings and Fresno counties. Most of the largest trees were cut long ago.

The leaves are lobed like white oak (_Quercus alba_) but are smaller, seldom more than four inches long and two wide. The acorns are uncommonly long, some of them being two and a half inches, sharp pointed, with shallow cups. The wood of this oak is brash and breaks easily. It is far below good eastern oak in strength and elasticity.