American Forest Trees Part 4

Few trees have more names than this. The names, however, may be separated into groups, one group referring to the foliage, another to the situations in which the tree grows, and a third to certain characters or uses of the wood. Names descriptive of the leaves are longschat pine, longshucks pine, shortleaf pine, foxtail pine, and longstraw pine. The names which refer to locality or situation are loblolly pine, old-field pine, slash pine, black slash pine, Virginia pine, meadow pine and swamp pine. Names which refer to the character of the wood or of the standing tree are torch pine, rosemary pine, frankincense pine, cornstalk pine, spruce pine, and yellow pine. Not one of these names is applied to the tree in its entire range, and it has several names other than those listed. Sap pine is widely applied to the lumber, because the tree's sapwood is very thick, sometimes amounting to eighty per cent of a trunk. It has borne the name old-field pine for a hundred and fifty years in Virginia, and the name suggests a good deal of history. Some of the improvident early Virginia tobacco growers neglected to fertilize their fields, and the land wore out under constant cropping, and was abandoned. The pine quickly took possession, for the fields which were too far exhausted to produce tobacco or corn were amply able to grow dense stands of loblolly pine, and the farmers noticing this, called it old-field pine. It has been taking possession of abandoned fields in Virginia and North Carolina ever since, and the name still applies. The tree grows from New Jersey to Florida, west to Texas, north to Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia, but it does not cover the whole territory thus outlined. It is very scarce near its northern limit. There is evidence that the range of loblolly has extended in historic times, not into new or distant regions, but outside the borders which once marked its range. Since white men in Texas stopped the Indians' gra.s.s fires, the pine has encroached upon the prairie. Early writers in Virginia and North Carolina spoke of pine as scarce or totally wanting, except on the immediate coast. It is now found from one hundred to two hundred miles inland, and many sawmills now cut logs which have grown in fields abandoned since the Revolutionary war. This has occurred on the Atlantic coast rather than west of the Appalachian ranges of mountains. Virginia has more sawmills than any other state, and many of them are working on loblolly pine which has grown in the last hundred years.

The tree bears seeds abundantly and scatters them widely. It is vigorous, grows with great rapidity, and is able to fight its way if it finds conditions in any way favorable. Turpentine operators have not found the working of loblolly pine profitable, and this has relieved it of a drain which has done much to deplete the southern forests of longleaf pine.

Loblolly's leaves are from six to nine inches long, and fall the third year. This species, in common with other southern yellow pines, is disposed to grow tall, clear trunks, with a meager supply of limbs and foliage at the top. The lumber sawed from trunks of that kind is clear of knots. No other important forest tree of the United States comes as nearly being a cultivated tree as the loblolly pine. This is particularly true in the northeastern part of its range, in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Though nature has done the actual planting, men provided the seed beds by giving up old fields to that use; and many of the stands are as thick and even as if they had been planted and cared for by regular forestry methods. Trees are from eighty to one hundred feet tall, and from two to four in diameter, some very old ones being a little larger.

The annual rings of loblolly pine are broad, with good contrast between the spring and summer growth. The wood is light, not strong, brittle, not durable, very resinous, the resin pa.s.sages are few and not conspicuous; medullary rays are numerous and obscure; color, light brown, the thick sapwood orange or nearly white. When this tree is of slow growth it is lighter, less resinous, and has thinner sapwood. It is sometimes known as rosemary pine.

The use of loblolly pine lumber was greatly stimulated when the custom of drying it in kilns became general. It is largely sapwood and dries slowly in air. Its market is found in all eastern and central parts of the United States, and it is exported to Europe and Central and South America. It is a substantial material for many common purposes and its use is very large on the Atlantic coast. In quant.i.ty it exceeds any other species in the wood-using industries of Maryland, and all others combined in North Carolina. It is not as often employed in heavy structural timbers as longleaf pine, but in the market of which Baltimore is the center, much use is made of it for that purpose. It is ten pounds a cubic foot lighter than longleaf, has about three-fourths of the strength, and nearly four-fifths of longleaf's elasticity. It is thus seen to be considerably inferior to it as a structural timber where heavy loads must be sustained; but builders use it for many purposes in preference to or on an equality with longleaf. It is fine for interior finish and doors. Railroads employ large quant.i.ties in building freight cars, much for crossties, and bridge builders find many places for it.

It is not a long lasting wood when exposed to weather, unless it has been treated with creosote to preserve it from decay. It is one of the most easily treated woods.

In North Carolina and Virginia loblolly tobacco hogsheads are common; and box factories within easy reach of it use much. A list of its uses, compiled from reports of factory operations in Maryland, will give an idea of the range it covers: Basket bottoms, beer bottle boxes, boats, cart bodies, crates, flooring, frames for doors and windows, fruit boxes, interior finish, nail kegs, oyster boxes, seats for boats, siding for houses, staves for slack cooperage, store fixtures, wagon beds, bal.u.s.ters, brackets, chiffoniers, mantels, molding, picture frames, stair railing, sash, scrollwork, sideboards, tables.

The amount of loblolly pine timber in this country is not known. No other important species comes so near growing as much as is cut from year to year. It covers 200,000 square miles with stands ranging from little or nothing in some parts to 20,000 feet per acre in others, or more in exceptional cases. The area of fully stocked loblolly pine is believed to be as large now as it ever was. Before the Civil war it was predicted that its period of greatest production was over; but large tracts are now being logged on which the pine seeds had not been sown in 1860.

POND PINE (_Pinus serotina_). Sargent's table of weights of woods shows this to be the heaviest pine of the United States; but, as his calculations were made from a single sample which grew in Duval county, Florida, further data should be secured before his figures, 49.5 pounds per cubic foot, are accepted as an average weight for the species. It is rated in strength about equal to longleaf and Cuban pine. Its structure shows a large percentage of dense summerwood in the yearly ring. The leaves are in cl.u.s.ters of three, rarely four, and are six or eight inches long, and fall in their third and fourth years. The name suggests that the cones are tightly closed, and that they adhere tenaciously to the twigs on which they grow. This is found true. The princ.i.p.al impression made on a person who sees the pond pine for the first time is that it is overloaded with cones, and that it must be a prolific seeder.

Better acquaintance modifies the latter part of that impression. It is overloaded with cones, but most of them are many years old, and have long been seedless, although most of the trees have the seed crops of two years on the branches at one time. Enough seed is shed to perpetuate the species, but too little to insure an aggressive spread into surrounding vacant ground. The pond pine may reach a diameter of three feet and a height of eighty, but that is twice the average size. The wood is very resinous, and is brittle.

SCRUB PINE (_Pinus virginiana_). This tree is often called Jersey pine because it is a prominent feature of the landscapes in the southern part of that state where it has spread extensively since the settlement of the country. Its short needles have been responsible for several of its names, among them being shortshuck pine in Maryland and Virginia, shortshat pine in Delaware, shortleaved pine in North Carolina, and spruce pine and cedar pine in some parts of the South. In Tennessee it is known as n.i.g.g.e.r pine, and in some parts of North Carolina as river pine. The range is fairly well outlined by the above discussion of its names. It grows from New York to South Carolina, and west of the mountains it is found in northern Alabama and middle Tennessee, in Kentucky and West Virginia. It reaches its largest size in southern Indiana where it is sometimes 100 feet high and three in diameter. It is there a valuable tree for many purposes, but is not abundant. Its average size is small in the eastern states, usually not over fifty feet high, and often little more than half of that. Few trunks east of the Allegheny mountains are more than eighteen inches in diameter.

The name scrub pine is an index to the opinions held by most people regarding this tree. It is often considered an enc.u.mbrance rather than an a.s.set; yet statistics of wood-using industries hardly justify that view. Millions of feet of it are employed annually in each of the states of New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, for boxes, slack cooperage, and common lumber. The wood is moderately strong, but is not stiff. It is medium light, soft, brittle, with summerwood narrow and very resinous. Its color is light orange or yellow, the thick sapwood ivory white. The needles are from one and a half to three inches long, and fall in the third and fourth years. Cones are two or three inches long, and scatter their seeds in autumn. The wings are too small to carry the seeds far, yet the tree succeeds in quickly spreading into surrounding vacant s.p.a.ces. Cones adhere to the branches three or four years. Tar makers and charcoal burners utilized scrub pine in New Jersey, northeastern Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvania a century and a half ago. The tree seems to be as abundant now as it ever was.

Unless it occupies very poor land--which it generally does--the growth is liable to be suppressed and crowded to death by broadleaf trees before the stands become very old. As a species, it is weak in self-defense, and it owes its survival to its habit of retreating to poor soils where enemies cannot follow. It may be said of it as the Roman historian Tacitus said of certain men: "The cowards fly the farthest, and are the longest survivors."

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NORWAY PINE

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NORWAY PINE

(_Pinus Resinosa_)

Early explorers who were not botanists mistook this tree for Norway spruce, and gave it the name which has since remained in nearly all parts of its range. It is called red pine also, and this name is strictly descriptive. The brown or red color of the bark is instantly noticed by one who sees the tree for the first time. In the Lake States it has been called hard pine for the purpose of distinguishing it from the softer white pine with which it is a.s.sociated. In England they call it Canadian red pine, because the princ.i.p.al supply in England is imported from the Canadian provinces.

Its chief range lies in the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence river, which includes the Great Lakes and the rivers which flow into them.

Newfoundland forms the eastern and Manitoba the western outposts of this species. It is found as far south as Ma.s.sachusetts, Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, central Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It conforms pretty generally to the range of white pine but does not accompany that species southward along the Appalachian mountain ranges across West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Where it was left to compete in nature's way with white pine, the contest was friendly, but white pine got the best of it. The two species grew in intermixture, but in most instances white pine had from five to twenty trees to Norway's one. As a survivor under adversity, however, the Norway pine appears to surpa.s.s its great friendly rival, at least in the Lake States where the great pineries once flourished and have largely pa.s.sed away. Solitary or small clumps of Norway pines are occasionally found where not a white pine, large or small, is in sight.

The forest appearance of Norway pine resembles the southern yellow pines. The stand is open, the trunks are clean and tall, the branches are at the top. The Norway's leaves are in cl.u.s.ters of two, and are five or six inches long. They fall during the fourth or fifth year. Cones are two inches long, and when mature, closely resemble the color of the tree's bark, that is, light chestnut brown. Exceptionally tall Norway pines may reach a height of 150 feet, but the average is seventy or eighty, with diameters of from two to four. Young trees are limby, but early in life the lower branches die and fall, leaving few protruding stubs or knots. It appears to be a characteristic that trunks are seldom quite straight. They do not have the plumb appearance of forest grown white pine and spruce.

The wood of Norway pine is medium light, its strength and stiffness about twenty-five per cent greater than white pine, and it is moderately soft. The annual rings are rather wide, indicating rapid growth. The bands of summerwood are narrow compared with the springwood, which gives a generally light color to the wood, though not as light as the wood of white pine. The resin pa.s.sages are small and fairly numerous. The sapwood is thick, and the wood is not durable in contact with the soil.

Norway pine has always had a place of its own in the lumber trade, but large quant.i.ties have been marketed as white pine. If such had not been the case, Norway pine would have been much oftener heard of during the years when the Lake State pineries were sending their billions of feet of lumber to the markets of the world.

Because of the deposit of resinous materials in the wood, Norway pine stumps resist decay much better than white pine. In some of the early cuttings in Michigan, where only stumps remain to show how large the trees were and how thick they stood, the Norway stumps are much better preserved than the white pine. Using that fact as a basis of estimate, it may be shown that in many places the Norway pine const.i.tuted one-fifth or one-fourth of the original stand. The lumbermen cut clean, and statistics of that period do not show that the two pines were generally marketed separately. In recent years many of the Norway stumps have been pulled, and have been sold to wood-distillation plants where the rosin and turpentine are extracted.

At an early date Norway pine from Canada and northern New York was popular ship timber in this country and England. Slender, straight trunks were selected as masts, or were sawed for decking planks thirty or forty feet long. Shipbuilders insisted that planks be all heartwood, because when sapwood was exposed to rain and sun, it changed to a green color, due to the presence of fungus. The wood wears well as ship decking. The British navy was still using some Norway pine masts as late as 1875.

The scarcity of this timber has retired it from some of the places which it once filled, and the southern yellow pines have been subst.i.tuted. It is still employed for many important purposes, the chief of which is car building, if statistics for the state of Illinois are a criterion for the whole country. In 1909 in that state 24,794,000 feet of it were used for all purposes, and 14,783,000 feet in car construction.

For many years Chicago has been the center of the Norway pine trade. It is landed there by lake steamers and by rail, and is distributed to ultimate consumers. The uses for the wood, as reported by Illinois manufacturers, follow: Baskets, boxes, boats, brackets, casing and frames for doors and windows, crating, derricks for well-boring machines, doors, elevators, fixtures for stores and offices, foot or running boards for tank cars, foundry flasks, freight cars, hand rails, insulation for refrigerator cars, ladders, picture moldings, roofing, sash, siding for cattle cars, sign boards and advertising signs, tanks, and windmill towers.

As with white pine, Norway pine has pa.s.sed the period of greatest production, though much still goes to market every year and will long continue to do so. The land which lumbermen denuded in the Lake States, particularly Michigan and Wisconsin, years ago, did not reclothe itself with Norway seedlings. That would have taken place in most instances but for fires which ran periodically through the slashings until all seedlings were destroyed. In many places there are now few seedlings and few large trees to bear seeds, and consequently the pine forest in such places is a thing of the past. The outlook is better in other localities.

The Norway pine is much planted for ornament, and is rated one of the handsomest of northern park trees.

PITCH PINE (_Pinus rigida_). The name pitch pine is locally applied to almost every species of hard, resinous pine in this country. The _Pinus rigida_ has other names than pitch pine. In Delaware it is called longleaved pine, since its needles are longer than the scrub pine's with which it is a.s.sociated. For the same reason it is known in some localities as longschat pine. In Ma.s.sachusetts it is called hard pine, in Pennsylvania yellow pine, in North Carolina and eastern Tennessee black pine, and black Norway pine in New York. The botanical name is translated "rigid pine," but the rigid refers to the leaves, not the wood. Its range covers New England, New York, Pennsylvania, southern Canada, eastern Ohio, and southward along the mountains to northern Georgia. It has three leaves in a cl.u.s.ter, from three to five inches long, and they fall the second year. Cones range in length from one to three inches, and they hang on the branches ten or twelve years. The wood is medium light, moderately strong, but low in stiffness. It is soft and brittle. The annual rings are wide, the summerwood broad, distinct, and very resinous.

Medullary rays are few but prominent; color, light brown or red, the thick sapwood yellow or often nearly white. The difference in the hardness between springwood and summerwood renders it difficult to work, and causes uneven wear when used as flooring. It is fairly durable in contact with the soil.

The tree attains a height of from forty to eighty feet and a diameter of three. This pine is not found in extensive forests, but in scattered patches, nearly always on poor soil where other trees will not crowd it. Light and air are necessary to its existence. If it receives these, it will fight successfully against adversities which would be fatal to many other species. In resistance to forest fires, it is a salamander among trees. That is primarily due to its thick bark, but it is favored also by the situations in which it is generally found--open woods, and on soil so poor that ground litter is thin. It is a useful wood for many purposes, and wherever it is found in sufficient quant.i.ty, it goes to market, but under its own name only in restricted localities. Its resinous knots were once used in place of candles in frontier homes. Tar made locally from its rich wood was the pioneer wagoner's axle grease, and the ever-present tar bucket and tar paddle swung from the rear axle.

Torches made by tying splinters in bundles answered for lanterns in night travel. It was the best pine for floors in some localities.

It is probably used more for boxes than for anything else at present. In 1909 Ma.s.sachusetts box makers bought 600,000 feet, and a little more went to Maryland box factories. Its poor holding power on spikes limits its employment as railroad ties and in shipbuilding. Carpenters and furniture makers object to the numerous knots. Country blacksmiths who repair and make wagons as a side line, find it suitable for wagon beds. It is much used as fuel where it is convenient.

TORREY PINE (_Pinus torreyana_), called del mar pine and Soledad pine, is an interesting tree from the fact that its range is so restricted that the actual number of trees could be easily known to one who would take the trouble to count them. A rather large quant.i.ty formerly occupied a small area in San Diego county, California, but woodchoppers who did not appreciate the fact that they were exterminating a species of pine from the face of the earth, cut nearly all of the trees for fuel. Its range covered only a few square miles, and fortunately part of that was included in the city limits of San Diego. An ordinance was pa.s.sed prohibiting the cutting of a Torrey pine under heavy penalty, and the tree was thus saved. A hundred and fifty miles off the San Diego coast a few Torrey pines grow on the islands of Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, and owing to their isolated situation they bid fair to escape the cordwood cutter for years to come. Those who have seen this tree on its native hills have admired the gameness of its battle for existence against the elements. Standing in the full sweep of the ocean winds, its strong, short branches scarcely move, and all the agitation is in the thick tufts of needles which cling to the ends of the branches. Trees exposed to the seawinds are stunted, and are generally less than a foot in diameter and thirty feet high; but those which are so fortunate as to occupy sheltered valleys are three or four times that size. The needles are five in a cl.u.s.ter.

The cones persist on the branches three or four years. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, very brittle; the rings of yearly growth are broad, and the yellow bands of summerwood occupy nearly half. The sapwood is very thick and is nearly white.

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WESTERN YELLOW PINE

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WESTERN YELLOW PINE

(_Pinus Ponderosa_)

The range of western yellow pine covers a million square miles. Its eastern boundary is a line drawn from South Dakota to western Texas. The species covers much of the country between that line and the Pacific ocean. It is natural that it should have more names than one in a region so extensive. It is best known as western yellow pine, but lumbermen often call it California white pine. The standing timber is frequently designated bull pine, but that name is not often given to the lumber.

Where there is no likelihood of confusing it with southern pines, it is called simply yellow pine. The name heavy-wooded pine, sometimes applied to the lumber in England, is misleading. When well seasoned it weighs about thirty pounds per cubic foot, and ordinarily it would not be cla.s.sed heavy. In California it is called heavy pine, but that is to distinguish it from sugar pine which is considerably lighter. The color of its bark has given it the name Sierra brownbark pine. The same tree in Montana is called black pine.

The tree has developed two forms. Some botanists have held there are two species, but that is not the general opinion. In the warm, damp climate of the Pacific slope the tree is larger, and somewhat different in appearance from the form in the Rocky Mountain region. The same observation holds true of Douglas fir.

The wood of western yellow pine is medium light, not strong, is low in elasticity, medullary rays prominent but not numerous; resinous, color light to reddish, the thick sapwood almost white. The annual rings are variable in width, and the proportionate amounts of springwood and summerwood also vary. It is not durable in contact with the ground.

The wood is easy to work and some of the best of it resembles white pine, but as a whole it is inferior to that wood, though it is extensively employed as a subst.i.tute for it in the manufacture of doors, sash, and frames. It is darker than white pine, harder, heavier, stronger, almost exactly equal in stiffness, but the annual rings of the two woods do not bear close resemblance.