Part 13 (2/2)
The extraordinary size of squared beams cut from this species has led to great demand for it for heavy construction in Europe and this country.
The pines from the Baltic sea region of northern Europe, which held undisputed place in heavy work during centuries, has now yielded that place to Douglas fir and longleaf pine.
No other single species in the United States or in the world equals the annual sawmill cut of Douglas fir. The four species of southern yellow pines, if counted as one, surpa.s.s it; but singly, not one comes up to it. In 1910 the lumber cut from this fir amounted to 5,203,644,000 feet, which exceeded one-eighth of the total lumber cut in the United States.
The importance of such a timber tree can scarcely be estimated. The available supply in the western forests is very large and will last many years, even if the demand for more than 5,000,000,000 feet a year continues to be met.
The timber is exported to practically every civilized nation in the world. s.h.i.+pbuilding creates a heavy demand. Some of the leading European nations use it as deck lining for battles.h.i.+ps, and except mahogany and teak, it is said to have no equal for that purpose. Its cheapness gives it a decided advantage over those woods.
Every important lumber market in the United States handles Douglas fir, and its uses are so many that it would be easier to list industries which do not use it than those which do. It is manufactured into more than fifty cla.s.ses of commodities, in Illinois alone. Among these are boats, railroad cars, electrical apparatus, farm machinery, laundry supplies, ladders, refrigerators, musical instruments, fixtures for offices, stores, and banks, and sash, doors, and blinds. This list of uses shows that its place in the country's industries includes much more than rough construction. It may be stained in imitation of valuable foreign and domestic woods, including walnut, mahogany, and oak. The natural grain and figure of the wood may be deepened and improved by stains, and this is much done by manufacturers of interior finish, panels, and store and office fixtures. There is practically no limit to the size of panels which may be cut in single pieces. It is easy to procure planks large enough for whole counter tops.
The best grain of Douglas fir is not brought out by quarter-sawing. The figures desired are not those produced by the medullary rays, but by the rings of annual growth. Therefore, the sawyer at the mill cuts his best logs--if intended for figured lumber--tangentially, as far as possible.
In the state of Was.h.i.+ngton, which leads all other states in the production of Douglas fir, its chief use as a manufactured product is for doors, sash, and blinds, and the annual consumption in that industry exceeds 50,000,000 feet. It is cut in veneers, and it is likewise used as corewood to back veneers. Crossarms for telegraph and telephone poles demand 35,000,000 feet yearly in Was.h.i.+ngton alone, and many thousands of poles are of this wood. It is third among the crosstie woods of the United States, the combined cut of oaks standing first, and the pine second. It is rapidly taking high position as material for large water pipes and for braces, props, stulls, and lagging in mines and for paving blocks for streets.
BRISTLECONE FIR (_Abies venusta_) is p.r.o.nounced by George B.
Sudworth to be ”the most curious fir tree in the world.” It is found almost exclusively in Monterey county, California, but a few trees grow outside of that circ.u.mscribed area. It has been called Santa Lucia fir, because it was once supposed to exist only in canyons of Santa Lucia mountains, but its range is now known to be more extensive. Monterey county, California, is of peculiar interest to dendrologists. Three species of trees are either confined to that area, or have their best development there. They are Monterey cypress (_Cupressus macrocarpa_), Monterey pine (_Pinus radiata_), and bristlecone fir. All are peculiar trees: the cypress because of its ragged form and extremely limited range, the pine because of its exceedingly rapid growth when given a chance, and the fir, because of its peculiar form of crown, odd appearance of cone, and extraordinary weight of wood. No reason is apparent why that particular point on the California coast should have brought into existence--or at least should have gathered to itself--three peculiar tree species. Bristlecone fir is well named from the bristles an inch long covering the cone. The leaves, too, are peculiar, bearing much resemblance to small willow leaves. Their upper sides are deep yellow-green and the under sides silvery. The largest leaves are two inches long, cones three inches. They ripen in August, and soon afterwards scatter their seeds. The tree is not a prolific seeder, and it is believed that its range is becoming smaller. Bristlecone's form of crown has been compared to an Indian club, the large end on the ground and the handle pointing upward.
Trees from sixty to eighty feet high have such ”handles” twenty or thirty feet long. That peculiarity of shape makes the tree recognizable among a.s.sociated species at a distance of several miles. The recorded weight of the wood is 42.27 pounds per cubic foot, which is nearly twice the weight of some other firs. The wood is moderately soft, but very firm. Few uses for it have been reported. Trunks are very knotty, and are too few in number to be of importance as a source of lumber. The tree has been planted successfully for ornament in the south of Europe.
BIGCONE SPRUCE (_Pseudotsuga macrocarpa_) is of the same genus as Douglas fir and bears much resemblance to it, but is smaller, and its range lies wholly outside that of its northern relative. It is a southern California species, occupying mountain slopes and canyons in Santa Barbara and San Diego counties. It is found from 3,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level. Trees average forty or fifty feet in height and two or three in diameter. The leaves are approximately of the same size as those of Douglas fir; but the cones are much larger, hence the name by which the tree is known. It is called hemlock as often as spruce. The cones are from four to seven inches long, hang down, and usually occupy the topmost branches of trees.
The winged seeds are half an inch long. The bark is six inches or less in thickness. The wood is inferior in most ways to that of Douglas fir, lighter, weaker, and less elastic. Its color is reddish brown. It has never contributed much lumber to the market and never will. Its range is local and the form of the tree is not of the best. An occasional log reaches a sawmill, but the princ.i.p.al demand is for fuel.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
BIGTREE
[Ill.u.s.tration: BIGTREE]
BIGTREE
(_Sequoia Was.h.i.+ngtoniana_)
Botanists have had a hard time giving this tree a Latin name which will meet the requirements of technical cla.s.sification, but an English name acceptable everywhere was early found for it--bigtree. No fewer than a dozen names have been proposed by botanists. Most of them attempt to express the idea of vastness or grandeur; but the simple English name comes directly to the point and ends the controversy as far as the common name is concerned.
Everything connected with this tree is interesting. Geologically, it is as old as the yellow poplar. There were five species of sequoias in the northern hemisphere, in Europe and America, before the ice age. They grew in the North, nearly to the Arctic circle, at a time when the climate of those regions was milder than it is now. The later advance of the ice southward overwhelmed three species of bigtrees, and pushed two survivors into the region which is now California. These are the bigtree and the redwood. It is not known how long ago it was that the ice sheet did its destructive work, but it antedated human history, and the gigantic trees have been in California since that time.
Long after the ice age ceased generally in North America it continued among the high Sierras of California, and the bigtrees to this day give a hint of it in the peculiar outlines of their range. They are scattered north and south along the face of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, a distance of 260 miles, and at elevations from 4,500 to 8,000 feet.
The aggregate of the total areas is about fifty square miles. The stand is not continuous, but consists of ”groves,” that is, isolated stands with wide intervals between, where no trees of this species are found.
The arrangement suggests that the bigtree forest was cut in sections by glaciers which descended from the high mountains to the plains, a distance of one hundred miles or more, crossing the belt of sequoias at right angles. The glaciers withdrew thousands of years ago, and their tracks down the mountain slopes have long been covered by forests; but the bigtree groves, for some unknown reason, never spread into the intervening s.p.a.ces, but today are separated by wide tracts in which not a seedling or an old trunk or log of that species is to be found. This is one of the mysteries which add interest to those wonderful trees--why they cannot extend their range beyond the circ.u.mscribed limits which they occupied thousands of years ago.
It was claimed for a long time and was quite generally believed that bigtrees were not reproducing, that there ”were no little bigtrees.”
That was conclusively disproved by Fred G. Plummer, geographer of the United States Forest Service, who made a scientific study of a small grove, measured the trees, and actually counted and cla.s.sified them. His work showed that there were in the area which he investigated:
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