American Forest Trees Part 7

(_Juniperus Virginiana_)

This widely distributed tree is called red cedar in New Hampshire, Vermont, Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario; cedar in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, South Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio; savin in Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota; juniper in New York and Pennsylvania; juniper bush in Minnesota; cedre in Louisiana.

The names as given above indicate the tree's commercial range. It appears as scattered growth and in doubtful forms outside of that range, particularly in the West where several cedars closely resemble the red cedar, yet differ sufficiently from it to give them places as separate species in the lists of some botanists. They are so listed by the United States Forest Service; and the following names are given: Western Juniper, Rocky Mountain Juniper, One Seed Juniper, Mountain Juniper, California Juniper, Utah Juniper, Drooping Juniper, Dwarf Juniper, and Alligator Juniper. These species are not of much importance from the lumberman's viewpoint, yet they are highly interesting trees, and in this book will be treated individually.

The red cedar grows slowly, and thrives in almost any soil and situation except deep swamps. It is often cla.s.sed as a poor-land species, yet it does not naturally seek poor land. That it is often found in such situations is because it has been crowded from better places by stronger trees, and has retreated to rocky ridges, dry slopes, and thin soils where compet.i.tors are unable to follow. The trees often stand wide apart or solitary, yet they can grow in thickets almost impenetrable, as they do in Texas and other southern states. It is an old-field tree in much of its range. Birds plant the seeds, particularly along fence rows. That is why long lines of cedars may often be seen extending across old fields or deserted plantations.

The extreme size attained by this cedar is four feet in diameter, and one hundred in height, but that size was never common, and at present the half of it is above the average. That which reaches market is more often under than over eighteen inches in diameter. The reddish-brown and fibrous bark may be peeled in long strips. Stringiness of bark is characteristic of all the cedars, and typical of red cedar.

The wood is medium light and is strong, considering that it is very brittle. Tests show it to be eighty per cent as strong as white oak. The grain is very fine, even, and h.o.m.ogeneous, except as interfered with by knots. The annual rings are narrow, the summerwood narrow and indistinct; medullary rays numerous but very obscure. The color is red, the thin sapwood nearly white. The heart and sap are sometimes intermingled, and this characteristic is prominent in the closely-related western species of red cedar. The wood is easily worked, gives little trouble because of warping and shrinking, and the heart is considered as durable as any other American wood. It has a delicate, agreeable fragrance, which is especially marked. This odor is disagreeable to insects, and for that reason chests and closets of cedar are highly appreciated as storage places for garments subject to the ravages of the moth and buffalo bug. An extract from the fruit and leaves is used in medicine, while oil of red cedar, distilled from the wood, is used in making perfume. Cedar has a sweet taste. It burns badly, scarcely being able to support a flame; it is exceedingly aromatic and noisy when burning and the embers glow long in still air.

Some of the bungalow owners in Florida buy cedar fuel in preference to all others for burning in open fireplaces.

Its representative uses are for posts, railway ties, pails, sills, cigar boxes, interior finish and cabinet making, but its most general use is in the manufacture of lead pencils, for which its fine, straight grain and soft texture are peculiarly adapted. The farther south cedar is found, the softer and clearer it is. In the North, in ornamental trees, it is very hard, slow-growing, and knotty. It shows but a small percentage of clear lumber. In eastern Tennessee there were considerable quant.i.ties of red cedar brake that were for years considered of little value. About the only way the wood was employed a few years ago was in fence rails and posts, fuel, and charcoal. Of late people in localities where cedar grows in any abundance have awakened to its value, and cedar fences are rapidly disappearing, owing to the high prices now paid for the wood, and the excellent demand. On no other southern wood has such depredation been practiced. Because of its lightness and the ease with which it can be worked, it has been used for purposes for which other and less valuable woods were well adapted. On account of its slow growth, its complete exhaustion has often been predicted, but a second growth has appeared which, though much inferior to the virgin timber, can be used in many ways to excellent advantage. Instead of the huge piles of cedar flooring, chest boards, and smooth railings of the old days, one now sees at points of distribution great piles of knotty, rough poles, ten to forty feet long, which years ago would have been discarded. Today they represent bridge piling, the better and smoother among them being used for telephone and telegraph poles.

Middle Tennessee has produced more red cedar than any other part of the United States, but the bulk of production has been confined to a few counties, which produce a higher cla.s.s and more aromatic variety of wood than that found elsewhere. A century ago these counties abounded in splendid forests of cedar. The early settlers built their cabins of cedar logs, sills, studding, and rafters; their smoke houses were built of them; their barns; even the roofs were shingled with cedar and the rooms and porches floored with the sweet-scented wood. Not many years ago trees three feet or more in diameter were often found, but the days are past when timber like that can be had anywhere.

Although the most general use at the present time is for lead pencils, few people who sharpen one and smell the fragrant wood, stop to wonder where it came from. One would smile were it suggested to him that perhaps his pencil was formerly part of some Tennessee farmer's worm fence. The best timber obtained now is hewn into export logs and shipped to Europe, particularly Germany, where a great quant.i.ty is converted into pencils. The red wood is made into the higher grades and the sap or streaked wood is used for the cheaper varieties and for pen holders. The smaller and inferior logs are cut into slats, while odds and ends, cutoffs, etc., are collected and sold by the hundred pounds to pencil factories. There are many such factories in the United States now, as well as in Europe, and pencil men are scouring the cedar sections to buy all they can. The farmer who has a red cedar picket or worm fence can sell it to these companies at a round price. Pencil men are even going back over tracts from which the timber was cut twenty-five years ago, buying up the stumps. When the wood was plentiful lumbermen were not frugal, and usually cut down a tree about two feet above the ground, allowing the best part of it to be wasted.

The German and Austrian pencil makers foresaw a shortage in American red cedar, and many years ago planted large areas to provide for the time of scarcity. The planted timber is now large enough for use, but the wood has been a disappointment. It does not possess the softness and brittleness which give so high value to the forest cedar of this country. As far as can be seen, when present pencil cedar has been exhausted, there will be little more produced of like grade. It grows so slowly that owners will not wait for trees to become old, but sell them while young for posts and poles.

One of the earliest demands for red cedar was for woodenware made of staves, such as buckets, kegs, keelers, small tubs, and firkins.

Material for the manufacture of such wares was among the exports to the West Indies before the Revolutionary war. The ware was no less popular in this country, and the home-made articles were in all neighborhoods in the red cedar's range. Scarcity of suitable wood limits the manufacture of such wares now, but they are still in use.

Cedar was long one of the best woods for skiffs and other light boats, and it was occasionally employed in shipbuilding for the upper parts of vessels. A little of it is still used as trim and finish, particularly for canoes, motor boats, and yachts.

The early clothes chest makers selected clear lumber, because it could be had and was considered to be better; but modern chest manufacturers who cannot procure clear stock, make a merit of necessity, and use boards filled with knots. The wood is finished with oils, but the natural colors remain, and the knots give the chest a rustic and pleasing appearance.

SOUTHERN RED JUNIPER (_Juniperus barbadensis_) so closely resembles the red cedar with which it is a.s.sociated that the two were formerly considered the same species, and most people familiar with both notice no difference. However, botanists clearly distinguish the two. The southern red cedar's range is much smaller than the other's. It grows from Georgia to the Indian river, Florida, in swamps. It is found in the vicinity of the Apalachicola river, forming dense thickets. Its average size is much under that of the red cedar, but its wood is not dissimilar. It has been used for the same purposes as far as it has been used at all. One of the largest demands upon it has been for lead pencils. Those who bought and sold it, generally supposed they were dealing in the common red cedar.

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NORTHERN WHITE CEDAR

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NORTHERN WHITE CEDAR

(_Thuja Occidentalis_)

This tree is designated as northern white cedar because there is also a southern white cedar, (_Chamaecyparis thyoides_) and the boundaries of their ranges approach pretty closely. The name _occidentalis_, meaning western, applied to the northern white cedar is employed by botanists to distinguish it from a similar cedar in Asia, which is called _orientalis_, or eastern.

The American species has several names, as is usual with trees which grow in different regions. It is called arborvitae in Maine, Vermont, Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario. White cedar is a name often used in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario. In Maine, Vermont, and New York it is called cedar. In New York, and where cultivated in England, American arborvitae is the name applied to it. The Indians in New York knew it as feather-leaf. In Delaware the name is abridged to vitae.

The tree has been widely planted, and under the influence of cultivation it runs quickly into varieties, of which forty-five are listed by nurserymen. It is a northern species which follows the Appalachian mountains southward to North Carolina and Tennessee. It grows from New Brunswick to Manitoba, and is abundant in the Lake States.

The bark of arborvitae is light brown, tinged with red on the branchlets; it is thin, and cracks into ridges with stringy, rough edges; the branchlets are very smooth.

In general appearance the tree is conical and compact, with short branches; it attains a height of from twenty-five to seventy feet, and a diameter of from one to three feet. It thrives best in low, swampy land, along the borders of streams.

The wood of arborvitae is soft, brittle, light and weak; it is very inflammable. The fact that it is durable, even in contact with the soil, permits its use for railway ties, telegraph poles, posts, fencing, shingles and boats. However, the trunk is so shaped that it is seldom used for lumber, but oftener for poles and posts, the lower section being flattened into ties. A cubic foot of the seasoned wood weighs approximately nineteen pounds. The heartwood is light brown, becoming darker with exposure; the sapwood is thin and nearly white, with fine grain.

The northern white cedar varies greatly in size and shape, depending on the soil, climate, and situation. Though it is usually a.s.sociated with swamps in the North, it adapts itself to quite different situations. It grows in narrow, rocky ravines, on stony ridges, and it clings to the faces of cliffs, or hangs on their summits as tenaciously as the western juniper of the Sierra Nevada mountains. However, little good timber is produced by this species on rocky soils. Trees in such situations are short, crooked, and limby.

The wood of the northern white cedar possesses a peculiar toughness which is seen in its wearing qualities. A thin shaving, such as a carpenter's plane makes, may be folded, laid on an anvil, and struck repeatedly with a hammer, without breaking. It is claimed for it that it will stand a severer test of that kind than any other American wood.

Toughness and wearing qualities combined make it an admirable wood for planking and decking for small boats. Its exceptionally light weight is an additional factor as a boat building material. The Indians knew how to work it into frames for bark canoes. Its lightness appealed to them; but the ease with which they could work it with their primitive tools was more important. It is a characteristic of the wood to part readily along the rings of annual growth. The Indian was able to split canoe ribs with a stone maul, by pounding a cedar billet until it parted along the growth rings and was reduced to very thin slats.

The property of this cedar which appealed to the Indians is disliked by the sawmill man. It is hard to make thin lumber that will hang together.

The tendency to part along the growth rings develops wind-shake while the tree is standing. About nine trees in ten are so defective from shake that little good lumber can be made from them. It is a common saying, which probably applies in certain localities only, that a thousand feet of white cedar must be sawed to get one hundred feet of good lumber.

It is good material for small cooperage such as buckets, pails, and tubs, and has been long used for that purpose in the northern states.

It was once laid in large quant.i.ties for paving blocks. Hundreds of miles of streets of northern cities were paved with round blocks sawed from trunks of trees from five to ten inches in diameter. They were not usually treated with chemicals to prevent decay, but they gave service ranging from six to twelve years. They are less used now than formerly.

Southern yellow pine has largely taken the cedar's place as paving material. Much northern cedar has been used in the manufacture of bored pipe for munic.i.p.al waterworks, shops, salt works, paper mills, and other factories.

The early settlers of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania made a rheumatism ointment by bruising the leaves and molding them with lard.

This is probably not made now, but pharmacists distill an oil from twigs and wood, and make a tincture of the leaves which they use in the manufacture of pulmonary and other medicines.

There is little likelihood that northern white cedar will ever cease to be a commercial wood in this country. It will become scarcer, but its manner of growth is the best guarantee that it will hold its place. It lives in swamps, and the land is not in demand for any other purpose.

ONE-SEED JUNIPER (_Juniperus monosperma_) is also called naked-seed juniper. Its range lies in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Arizona. It attains its greatest development in the bottoms of canyons in northern Arizona. It is a scrawny desert tree which lives in adversity but holds its ground for centuries, if fire does not cut its career short. Its growth is too scattered to attract lumbermen, and the form of its trunk is uninviting. It may reach a height of forty or fifty feet, and a diameter of three, but that is above the average in the best of its range. The desert Indians make the most of one-seed juniper. They weave its stringy bark into sleeping mats, rough blankets, and saddle girts. They make cords and ropes of it for use where great strength is not required, such as leashes for leading dogs, strands with which to tie bundles on the backs of their squaws, and cords for fastening their wigwam poles together. They likewise weave the bark into pokes and pouches for storing and carrying their dried meat and mesquite beans. The juniper berries are an article of diet and commerce with the Indians, who mix them with divers ingredients, pulp them in stone mortars, and bake them in cakes which become the greatest delicacy on their bill of fare. White men, when driven to it by starvation, have sustained life by making food of the berries. A small quant.i.ty of one-seed juniper reaches woodworkers in Texas. The lumber is short and rough. The numerous knots are generally much darker than the body of the wood. That is not necessarily a defect, for in making clothes chests, the striking contrast in color between the knots, and the other wood gives the article a peculiar and attractive appearance. The trunks are sharply b.u.t.tressed and deeply creased. Sometimes the folds of bark within the creases almost reach the center of the tree. The sapwood is thin, the heartwood irregular in color. Some is darker than the heartwood of southern red cedar, other is clouded and mottled, pale yellow, cream-colored, the shade of slate, or streaked with various tints. The wood can be economically worked only as small pieces. It takes a soft and pleasing finish. It is a lathe wood and shows to best advantage as bal.u.s.ters, ornaments, grill spindles and small posts, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, b.a.l.l.s, and lodge gavels. It has been made into small game boards with fine effect, and it is an excellent material for small picture frames. Furniture makers put it to use in several ways, and it has been recommended for small musical instruments where the variegated colors can be displayed to excellent advantage.

At the best it can never be more than a minor species, because it is difficult of access in the remote deserts, and it is not abundant.

MOUNTAIN JUNIPER (_Juniperus sabinoides_) is a Texas tree, occupying a range southward and westward of the Colorado river. It has several local names, rock cedar being a favorite. This name is due to the tree's habit of growing on rocky ridges and among ledges where soil is scarce. It is called juniper cedar, and juniper. Under the most favorable circ.u.mstances the tree may attain a height of 100 feet and a diameter of two, but it nearly always grows where conditions are adverse, and its size and form change to conform to circ.u.mstances.

It is often small and ragged. Its lead-colored bark is apt to attract attention on account of its woeful appearance, hanging in strings and tatters which persistently cling to the trunk in spite of whipping winds. When the tree is cut for fuel, or for any other purpose, the ragged bark is occasionally pulled off and is tied in bales or bundles to be sold for kindling. When the mountain juniper is taken from its native wilds and planted where environments are different, it sometimes a.s.sumes fantastic forms. It has been planted for ornament on the low, flat coast in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, and though it lives and grows, it often takes on a peculiar appearance. The trunks resemble twisted and interwoven bundles of lead-colored vines, b.u.t.tressed, fluted, and gnarled. The branches lose their upright position, and hang in careless abandon, with drooping festoons. In winter the wind whips most of the foliage from them. The leaves become brittle and may be easily brushed from the twigs by a stroke of the hand. Some of the planted trees have trunks so deeply creased as to be divided in two separate stems. This very nearly happens with some of the wild trees among the western mountains. The sapwood of mountain juniper is very thin. The average tree cannot be profitably cut into lumber of the usual dimensions because of the odd-shaped and irregular trunk. It lends itself more economically to the manufacture of articles made up of small pieces.

Some of the wood is extremely beautiful, having the color and figure of French walnut; but there is great difference in the figure and color, and the wood of one tree is not a sure guide to what another may be. Boards a foot wide, or even less, may show several figures and colors. Some pieces suggest variegated marble; others are like plain red cedar; some are light red in color, others have a tinge of blue. It varies greatly in hardness, even in the same tree. Part of it may be soft and brittle enough for lead pencils; another part may be hard and tough. Clothes chests have been made of it, of most peculiar appearance--resembling crazy quilts of subdued colors.

Sometimes the heartwood and the sapwood are inextricably mixed, both being found in all parts of the trunk from the heart out. On the whole, the tree can never have much importance as a source of lumber, but it is a most interesting member of the cedar group.

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SOUTHERN WHITE CEDAR

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SOUTHERN WHITE CEDAR