American Forest Trees Part 20

It weighs 46.17 pounds per cubic foot. The tree grows rapidly, and its wide, clearly defined annual rings are largely dense summerwood.

The springwood is perforated with large pores. The color of the wood is light brown, the sapwood lighter. Except as fuel, the uses found for valley oak hardly come up to what might be expected of a tree so large. It is not difficult, or at least was not difficult once, to cut logs sixteen feet long and from three to five in diameter. Such logs ought to make good lumber. The medullary rays indicate that the wood can be quarter-sawed to advantage; yet there is no account that any serious attempt was ever made to convert the valley oak into lumber. The wood has some objectionable properties, but it has escaped the sawmill chiefly because hardwood mills have never been numerous in California, and they have been especially few in the regions where the best valley oaks grow. The tree has been a great source of fuel. It usually divides twenty or thirty feet from the ground into large, wide-spreading branches, tempting to the woodchopper. In central California, twenty or thirty years ago, it was not unusual to haul this cordwood twenty-five miles to market.

Stockmen employed posts and rails split from valley oak to enclose corrals and pens on the open plains for holding cattle, sheep, and horses. The acorns are edible, and were formerly an article of food for Indians who gathered them in considerable quant.i.ties in the fall and stored them for winter in large baskets which were secured high in the forks of trees to be out of reach of all ordinary marauders.

The baskets were made rain proof by roofing and wrapping them with gra.s.s. When the time came for eating the acorns, they were prepared for use by hulling them and then pounding them into meal in stone mortars. The hulling was done with the teeth, and was the work of squaws. The custom of eating the acorns has largely ceased with the pa.s.sing of the wild Indians from their former camping places; but the stone mortars by hundreds remain in the vicinity of former stands of valley oak.

This splendid tree is highly ornamental, but it has not been planted, and perhaps it will not become popular. Nature seems to have confined it to a certain climate, and it is not known that it will thrive outside of it. It will certainly disappear from many of the valleys where the largest trees once grew. The land is being taken for fields and vineyards, and the oaks are removed. Some will remain in canyons and rough places where the land is not wanted, and one of the finest species of the United States will cease to pa.s.s entirely from earth. The largest of these oaks have a spread of branches covering more than one-third of an acre.

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LIVE OAK

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LIVE OAK

(_Quercus Virginiana_)

The history of this live oak is a reversal of the history of almost every other important forest tree of the United States. It seems to be the lone exception to the rule that the use of a certain wood never decreases until forced by scarcity. There was a time when hardly any wood in this country was in greater demand than this, and now there is hardly one in less demand. The decline has not been the result of scarcity, for there has never been a time when plenty was not in sight.

A few years ago, several fine live oaks were cut in making street changes in New Orleans, and a number of sound logs, over three feet in diameter, were rolled aside, and it was publicly announced that anyone who would take them away could have them. No one took them. It is doubtful if that could happen with timber of any other kind.

The situation was different 120 years ago. At that time live oak was in such demand that the government, soon after the adoption of the const.i.tution, became anxious lest enough could not be had to meet the requirements of the navy department. The keels of the first war vessels built by this government were about to be laid, and the most necessary material for their construction was live oak. The vessels were to be of wood, of course; and their strength and reliability depended upon the size and quality of the heavy braces used in the lower framework. These braces were called knees and were crooked at right angles. They were hewed in solid pieces, and the largest weighed nearly 1,000 pounds. No other wood was as suitable as live oak, which is very strong, and it grows knees in the form desired. The crooks produced by the junction of large roots with the base of the trunk were selected, and shipbuilders with saws, broadaxes, and adzes cut them in the desired sizes and shapes.

When the building of the first ships of the navy was undertaken, the alarm was sounded that live oak was scarce, and that speculators were buying it to sell to European governments. Congress appropriated large sums of money and bought islands and other lands along the south Atlantic and Gulf coast, where the best live oak grew. In Louisiana alone the government bought 37,000 live oak trees, as well as large numbers in Florida and Georgia. In some instances the land on which the trees stood was bought.

Ship carpenters were sent from New England to hew knees for the first vessels of the navy. The story of the troubles and triumphs of the contractors and knee cutters is an interesting one, but too long for even a summary here; suffice it that in due time the vessels were finished. The history of those vessels is almost a history of the early United States navy. Among their first duties when they put to sea was to fight French warships, when this country was about to get into trouble with Napoleon. They then fought the pirates of North Africa, and there one of the ships was burned by its own men to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. "Old Ironsides," another of the live oak vessels, fought fourteen ships, one at a time, during the war of 1812, and whipped them all. Another of the vessels was less fortunate. It was lost in battle, in which its commander, Lawrence, was killed, whose last words have become historic: "Don't give up the ship." Another came down to the Civil war and was sunk in Chesapeake bay.

The invention of iron vessels ended the demand for live oak knees. The government held its land where this timber grew for a long time, but finally disposed of most of it. Part of that owned in Florida was recently incorporated in one of the National Forests of that state.

Live oak is a tree of striking appearance. It prefers the open, and when of large size its spread of branches often is twice the height of the tree. Its trunk is short, but ma.s.sy, and of enormous strength; otherwise it could not sustain the great weight of its heavy branches. Some of the largest limbs are nearly two feet in diameter where they leave the trunk, and are fifty feet long, and some are seventy-five feet in length. Probably the only tree in this country with a wider spread of branches is the valley oak of California. The live oak's trunk is too short for more than one sawlog, and that of moderate length. The largest specimens may be seventy feet high and six or seven feet in diameter, and yet not good for a sixteen-foot log. The enormous roots are of no use now. When land is cleared of this oak, the stumps are left to rot.

The range of live oak extends 4,000 miles or more northeast and southwest. It begins on the coast of Virginia and ends in Central America. It is found in Lower California and in Cuba. In southern United States it sticks pretty closely to the coastal plains, though large trees grow 200 or 300 feet above tide level. In Texas it is inclined to rise higher on the mountains, but live oak in Texas seldom measures up to that which grows further east. In southern Texas, where the land is poor and dry, live oak degenerates into a shrub. Trees only a foot high sometimes bear acorns. In all its range in this country, it is known by but one English name, given it because it is evergreen. The leaves remain on the tree about thirteen months, following the habit of a number of other oaks. When new leaves appear, the old ones get out of the way.

The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, and tough. In strength and stiffness it rates higher than white oak, and it is twelve pounds a cubic foot heavier. The sapwood is light in color, the heartwood brown, sometimes quite dark. The pores in the sapwood are open, but many of them are closed in heartwood. The annual rings are moderately well defined. The large pores are in the springwood, and those of the summerwood are smaller, but numerous. The medullary rays are numerous and dark. Measured radially, they are shorter than those of many other oaks. They show well in quarter-sawed lumber, but are arranged peculiarly, and do not form large groups of figures; but the wood presents a rather flecked or wavy appearance. The general tone is dark brown and very rich. It takes a smooth polish. When the wood is worked into spindles and small articles, and brightly polished, its appearance suggests dark polished granite, but the similitude is not sustained under close examination. Grills composed of small spindles and scrollwork are strikingly beautiful if displayed in light which does the wood justice. Composite panels are manufactured by joining narrow strips edge to edge. Selected pieces of dressed live oak suggest Circa.s.sian walnut, but would not pa.s.s as an imitation on close inspection. It may be stated generally that live oak is far from being a dead, flat wood, but is capable of being worked for various effects. Its value as a cabinet material has not been appreciated in the past, nor have its possibilities been suspected. It dropped out of notice when shipbuilders dispensed with it, and people seem to have taken for granted that it had no value for anything else. The form of the trunks makes possible the cutting of short stock only; but there is abundance of it. It fringes a thousand miles of coast. Many a trunk, short though it is, will cut easily a thousand feet of lumber. Working the large roots in veneer has not been undertaken, but good judges of veneers, who know what the stumps and roots contain, have expressed the opinion that a field is there awaiting development.

Published reports of the uses of woods of various states seldom mention live oak. In Texas some of it is employed in the manufacture of parquet flooring. It is dark and contrasts with the blocks or strips of maple or some other light wood. It is turned in the lathe for newel posts for stairs, and contributes to other parts of stair work. In Louisiana it is occasionally found in shops where vehicles are made. It meets requirements as axles for heavy wagons. Stone masons' mauls are made of live oak knots. They stand nearly as much pounding as lignum-vitae. More live oak is cut for fuel than for all other purposes. It develops much heat, but a large quant.i.ty of ashes remains.

The live oak is the most highly valued ornamental tree of the South, though it has seldom been planted. Nature placed these oaks where they are growing. Many an old southern homestead sits well back in groves of live oak. Parks and plazas in towns have them, and would not part with them on any terms. Tallaha.s.see, Florida, is almost buried under live oaks which in earlier years sheltered the wigwams of an Indian town.

Villages near the coasts of both the Gulf and the Atlantic in several southern states have their venerable trees large enough for half the people to find shade beneath the branches at one time. Many fine stands have been cut in recent years to make room for corn, cane, and rice.

Many persons a.s.sociate the live oak with Spanish moss which festoons its branches in the Gulf region. The moss is no part of the tree, and apparently draws no substance from it, though it may smother the leaves by acc.u.mulation, or break the branches by its weight. Strictly speaking, the beard-like growth is not moss at all, but a sort of pine apple (_Dendropogon usenoides_) which simply hangs on the limbs and draws its sustenance from water and air. It is found on other trees, besides live oak, and dealers in Louisiana alone sell half a million dollars worth of it a year to upholsterers in all the princ.i.p.al countries of the world.

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RED OAK

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RED OAK[4]

(_Quercus Rubra_)

[4] Red oak belongs to the black oak group. Other species usually listed as black oaks are Pin oak (_Quercus pal.u.s.tris_), Georgia oak (_Quercus georgiana_), Texan red oak (_Quercus texana_), Scarlet oak (_Quercus coccinea_), Yellow oak (_Quercus velutina_), California black oak (_Quercus californica_), Turkey oak (_Quercus catesbaei_), Spanish oak (_Quercus digitata_), Black Jack oak (_Quercus marilandica_), Water oak (_Quercus nigra_), Willow oak (_Quercus ph.e.l.los_), Laurel oak (_Quercus laurifolia_), Blue Jack oak (_Quercus brevifolia_), Shingle oak (_Quercus imbricaria_), Whiteleaf oak (_Quercus hypoleuca_), Highland oak (_Quercus wislizeni_), Myrtle oak (_Quercus myrtifolia_), California live oak (_Quercus agrifolia_--sometimes cla.s.sed with white oaks), Canyon live oak (_Quercus chrysolepis_), an evergreen oak with no English name, (_Quercus tomentella_), Price oak (_Quercus pricei_), Morehus oak (_Quercus morehus_), Tanbark oak (_Quercus densiflora_), Barren oak (_Quercus pumila_).

When a lumberman speaks of red oak he may mean any one of a good many kinds of trees, but when a botanist or forester uses that name he means one particular species and no other. For that reason there is much uncertainty as to what species is in the lumberman's mind when he speaks of red oak. It means more to him than a single species, depending to a considerable extent upon the part of the country where he is doing business. If he is in the Gulf states, and has in mind a tree which grows there, he does not refer to the tree known to botanists as red oak. He may mean the Texan or southern red oak (_Quercus texana_), or the willow oak (_Quercus ph.e.l.los_), or the yellow oak (_Quercus velutina_), or any one of several others which grow in that region; but the typical red oak does not grow farther south than the mountains of northern Georgia; and any one who is cutting oak south or southwest of there, is cutting other than the true red oak. That does not imply that he is handling something inferior, for very fine oak grows there; but in an effort to separate the commercial black oaks into respective species, it is necessary to define them by metes and bounds of ranges as well as to describe them by characteristics of leaves, acorns, and wood. The time will probably never come in this country when the sawmill man will pile each species of oak separately in his yard, and sell separately; but the tendency is in that direction. The twenty-five or more black oaks in this country all have some characteristics in common; but they are by no means all valuable alike, or all useful for the same purposes.

For that reason, the demands of trade require, and will require more and more as higher utilization is reached, that certain kinds of red oak or black oak be sold separately.

What lumbermen call red oaks, speaking in the plural, botanists prefer to call black oaks. The difference is only a difference in name for the same group of trees. The general dark color of the bark suggests the name to botanists, while the red tint of the wood appeals more to the lumberman, and he prefers the general name red oaks for the group. They mature their acorns the second year, while the trees belonging to the white oak group ripen theirs the first year. There are other differences, some of which are apparent to the casual observer, and others are seen only by the trained eye--often aided by the microscope--of the dendrologist. Several of the black oaks have leaves with sharp pointed lobes, ending in bristles. This helps to separate them from the white oaks, but not from one another, for the true red oak, the scarlet oak, the yellow oak, the pin oak, and others, have the sharp-pointed lobes on their leaves; while the willow oaks have no lobes or bristles on theirs, yet are as truly in the black oak group as any of the others. The identification of tree species, particularly when they are as much alike as some of the oaks are, is too difficult for the layman if he undertakes to carry it along the whole line; but it is comparatively easy if confined to the leading woods only. An understanding of the geographical range of a certain tree often helps to separate it from others. The knowledge that a tree does not grow in a particular part of the country, is proof at once that a tree in that region resembling it must be something else. If that princ.i.p.al is borne in mind it will greatly lessen mistakes in identifying trees. In accounts of the black oaks in the following pages, a careful delimiting of ranges will be attempted in the case of each.

The range of red oak extends from Nova Scotia and southern New Brunswick through Quebec and along the northern sh.o.r.e of Lake Huron, west to Nebraska. It covers the Ohio valley and reaches as far south as middle Tennessee. It runs south through the Atlantic states to Virginia, while among the Appalachian mountains the range is prolonged southward into northern Georgia. That is the tree's extreme southern limit. It reaches its largest size in the region north of the Ohio river, and among the mountain valleys of West Virginia, and southward to Tennessee and North Carolina. It is a northern species. Toward its southern limit it meets the northern part of the Texan red oak's range (_Quercus texana_). There is some overlapping, and in many localities the two species grow side by side.

The red oak is known by that name in all parts of its range, but in some regions it is called black oak, and in others Spanish oak. The latter name properly belongs to another oak (_Quercus digitata_) which touches it along the southern border of its range.

The average size of red oak in the best part of its range is a little under that of white oak, but some specimens are 150 feet high and six feet in diameter. Heights of seventy and eighty feet are usual, and diameters of three and four are frequent. The forest grown tree disposes of its lower limbs early in life, and develops a long, smooth trunk, with a narrow crown. The bark on young stems and on the upper parts of limbs of old trees is smooth and light gray. All leaves do not have the same number of lobes, and they are sharp pointed, and fall early in autumn.

The acorns are bitter, and are regarded as poor mast. Hogs will leave them alone if they can find white oak acorns, and squirrels will do likewise. The best red oak timber grows from acorns, though stumps will send up sprouts. The sprout growth may become trees of fairly large size, but they are apt to decay at the b.u.t.t. The acorn-grown tree is as free from defects as the average forest tree. Cracks sometimes develop in the trunk, extending up and down many feet. Unless the logs are carefully sawed, a considerable loss occurs where these cracks cross the boards. Trunks are occasionally bored by worms, as all other oaks may be.

Red oak grows rapidly. It will produce small sawlogs in the lifetime of a man. It is a favorite tree for crossties, and railroads have made large plantings for that purpose. The ties do not last well in their natural state, but they are easy to treat with preservatives by which several years are added to their period of service. It has been a favorite tree with European planters for the past two hundred years; but the most of the plantings beyond the sea have been for ornament in parks and private grounds.

The princ.i.p.al interest in red oak in this country is due to its value for lumber. That interest is of comparatively recent date. Some red oak has always been used for rails, clapboards, slack cooperage, and rough lumber; but while white oak was cheap and plentiful, sawmill men usually let red oak alone. It had a poor reputation, which is now known to have been undeserved.

Red oak is lighter than white oak, and it is generally regarded as possessing less strength and stiffness. The wide rings of annual growth, and the distinct layers of springwood and summerwood, give the basis for good figure. To this may be added broad and regular medullary rays which are nicely brought out by quarter-sawing. The tone of the wood is red, to which fact the name red oak is due. It has large, open pores. A magnifying gla.s.s is not required to see them in the end of a stick. It is said that smoke may be blown through a piece of red oak a foot in length. These open pores disqualify the wood for use in tight cooperage.

Liquids will leak through the pores. Statistics of sawmill output in this country do not separate the white and black oaks, and the quant.i.ty of lumber sawed from any one species is not known. Manufacturers are disposed to separate them. Some furniture makers use red oak exclusively for certain purposes, and the same rule is followed by makers of other commodities.

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TEXAN RED OAK

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TEXAN RED OAK