Part 16 (1/2)
Western yew figures little in lumber output. It is not listed in the markets. The few logs which reach sawmills are never again heard of, but probably most of the lumber is disposed of locally to those who need it.
The tree is not of good form for saw timber. Burls are said to make beautiful veneer. Trunks are seldom round, but usually grow lopsided.
Most of them are too small for sawlogs. The largest are seldom two feet in diameter, and generally not half that large. They are short and branched, the tree often dividing near the ground in several stems. The average tree is scarcely thirty feet high, but a few are twice that. Its growth is very slow. A six-inch trunk is seventy-five or 100 years old, and the largest sizes are from 200 to 350 years. It is evident, therefore, that efforts to grow western yew for commercial purposes will be few. Wild trees will be occasionally cut as long as they last, and they will probably last as long as any of their a.s.sociates, for they are scattered sparingly over several hundred thousand square miles of country, and some of it rough and almost inaccessible. The best development of the species is in western Oregon, Was.h.i.+ngton, and British Columbia.
The leaves of western yew are one-half or five-eighths inch long. The fruit consists of red pulp enclosing a hard seed. Birds devour it eagerly. The fruit is not poisonous, as the yew berries of the Old World are. It ripens in September and falls in October. The wood is fine grained, clear rose red, becoming gradually duller on exposure. It weighs 39.83 pounds per cubic foot. Its fuel value is high.
FLORIDA YEW (_Taxus floridana_) is extremely local in its range, and small in size. Few trees are more than twenty-five feet high and one foot in diameter. They are bushy and of poor form for manufacturing. The only reported use is as fence posts. The wood's durability fits it for that place. The species is found in Gadsden county, Florida. The leaves are one inch or less in length; flowers appear in March, and the fruit ripens in October. The wood is moderately heavy, hard, and narrow-ringed, for the trees grow slowly. Its color is dark, tinged with red, the thin sapwood being whiter. There is little prospect that the wood of this yew will ever be more important than it is now. It is often spoken of locally as savin, which name is likewise given to the red cedar (_Juniperus virginiana_), which is abundant in this yew's range.
CALIFORNIA NUTMEG (_Tumion californic.u.m_) is an interesting tree which ranges over a considerable portion of California, but is at its best in Mendocino county and the coast region north of San Francisco. It occurs also on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, in central California, at alt.i.tudes up to 5,000 feet. It receives its name from the resemblance of its seeds to nutmegs. Their surface is shriveled, but they do not have the nutmeg odor. The wood and the leaves, when bruised, give off an odor not altogether pleasing. On account of this, the tree has been called stinking cedar. In some localities it is called yew, and in others California false nutmeg, and coast nutmeg. Trees are generally small, with trunks of irregular form. The crown is open and usually extends to the ground; but in crowded situations, a rather shapely bole is developed, and the crown is small. The usual size of the tree does not exceed a height of fifty feet and a diameter of twenty inches. More trees are below than above that size; but in extreme cases the tree may reach a height of eighty-five feet and a diameter of four. The leaves in form and size resemble the foliage of yew, but their points are stiff and sharp, and if approached carelessly they will wound like cactus thorns. The fruit is an inch or more in length, a pulpy substance surrounding the seed. The wood possesses properties which ought to make it valuable, though reported uses are strictly local, such as small cabinet work and skiff making. It is bright lemon, yellow, rather hard, takes good polish, is of slow growth, with bands of summerwood thin but distinct, and medullary rays small, numerous, and obscure. Its weight is 29.66 pounds per cubic foot; it is not stiff or strong. It cannot attain high place as a manufacturing material, because it is too scarce, but it possesses a beauty which must bring it recognition as a fine furniture, finish, and novelty wood. A few sawlogs go to mills in the region north of San Francisco, but the lumber is probably mixed with other kinds and it goes to market without a name. It ought to be put to a better use.
FLORIDA TORREYA (_Tumion taxifolium_) is often called Chattahoochee pine in the region where it grows. That name is generally given to the tree when planted for ornament in yards, parks, and along streets of towns in northwestern Florida. It is known also as stinking cedar, stinking savin, and fetid yew. These names are generally applied to the forest-grown tree, particularly by those who cut it for fence posts, which is its princ.i.p.al use. Its range is local, being confined largely, if not wholly, to Gadsden county, Florida, where it grows on limestone soil. It can never have much importance as a commercial timber, because it is too scarce. In fact, it is in danger of extermination. Post cutters never spare it, and its range being so limited, there is not much hope for it. The interesting and beautiful tree is making a game fight for life. Many seedlings appear in the vicinity of old trees, while stumps, and even prostrate trunks, send up sprouts which, if let alone, grow to tree size. Sprouts on logs and stumps send roots to the ground as the seedling yellow birch does in damp northern woods. The yew-like leaves of Florida torreya are one and a half inch or less in length. The tree blooms in March and April, and the drupe-like fruit, an inch or more in length, is ripe by midsummer. The tree is from forty to sixty feet in height, and one to two feet in diameter. It is clothed in whorls of limbs, beginning near the ground, and tapering to the top. The wood is clear, bright yellow, the thin sapwood of lighter color; soft, easily worked, and susceptible of fine polish. It is very durable in contact with the soil. The green wood, and the bruised leaves and branches give off an odor suggesting the tomato vine. The texture and color of the wood indicate that it is well suited for fine cabinet work, but it is not a figured wood.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
WHITE OAK
[Ill.u.s.tration: WHITE OAK]
WHITE OAK
(_Quercus Alba_)
Oaks belong to the beech family, that is, the ”foodtrees,”[3] though most acorns are too bitter and contain too much tannin to be edible; some may be eaten, and for that reason the ancients cla.s.sed them among the food trees. ”Quercus,” which is the name of the genus, means oak in the language of northwestern Europe. The name white oak nearly always suffices, but in Arkansas it is often called stave oak because it is the best stave timber in that region. It could with equal reason be called stave oak nearly anywhere, for it is excellent material for tight cooperage. Formerly it was sometimes called Baltimore oak, because many of the staves of export were s.h.i.+pped from that city. That name, however, belonged more to post oak (_Quercus minor_) than to white oak, because the fine staves which went out of Chesapeake bay in the export trade, were largely post oak. It matters little now, for the name Baltimore oak is not much used, and white oak may be said to have only one trade name.
After the wood is dressed, it has different names referring to the style of finish and not to the wood itself.
[3] The oaks of this country, which number more than fifty species, have been cla.s.sified in different ways, depending upon the purpose in view. In the present treatment they will be divided in two general groups, white oaks and black oaks. No effort will be made to draw hard and fast lines, because it is not necessary. Oaks which ripen their acorns in one year are listed as white oaks; those with two year acorns, as black oaks. This is a botanical rather than a lumberman's cla.s.sification; yet lumbermen recognize it in a general way. White oak (_Quercus alba_) is clearly ent.i.tled to head the list of white oaks, and red oak (_Quercus rubra_) should occupy a similar position with regard to the black oak group. In numbers, the white oaks and black oaks are nearly equally divided, one authority giving twenty-seven species of white oak and twenty-five of black oak in the United States; but botanists differ as to exact numbers of each.
The following species are usually cla.s.sed as white oaks: White oak (_Quercus alba_), valley oak (_Quercus lobata_), Brewer oak (_Quercus breweri_), Sadler oak (_Quercus sadleri_), Pacific post oak (_Quercus garryana_), Gambel oak (_Quercus gambelii_), post oak (_Quercus minor_), Chapman oak (_Quercus chapmani_), bur oak (_Quercus macrocarpa_), overcup oak (_Quercus lyrata_), swamp white oak (_Quercus platanoides_), cow oak (_Quercus michauxii_), chestnut oak (_Quercus prinus_), chinquapin oak (_Quercus ac.u.minata_), dwarf chinquapin oak (_Quercus prinoides_), Durand oak (_Quercus breviloba_), Rocky Mountain oak (_Quercus undulata_), California blue oak (_Quercus douglasii_), Engelmann oak (_Quercus engelmanni_), Rocky Mountain blue oak (_Quercus oblongifolia_), Arizona white oak (_Quercus arizonica_), Toumey oak (_Quercus toumeyi_), netleaf oak (_Quercus reticulata_), California scrub oak (_Quercus dumosa_), live oak (_Quercus virginiana_), Emory oak (_Quercus emoryi_).
White oak grows in all the states east of the Mississippi river, and it crosses that stream two or three hundred miles in some places. It reaches eastern Nebraska and eastern Kansas, and runs southward through Oklahoma to the Brazos river, Texas. It is scarce in the northern parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Its total range covers an area of more than 1,000,000 square miles. Like all other important timber trees, it has regions where the species is best developed. The finest original stands of white oak were found in the upper Ohio valley, beginning in Indiana. The timber in many other districts was, and in some still is, very good, such as southern Michigan, eastern Arkansas, some of the Appalachian valleys and slopes, and in certain places along the upper tributaries of streams flowing into the Atlantic ocean.
This tree is in the very front rank in economic importance, and it has held that place since the earliest settlements in this country. No forest tree was more evenly distributed than white oak over the eastern half of the United States. It did not form pure forests of large extent, as some of the pines did, but white oaks were within reach of almost every part of the country. Conditions have greatly changed. The establishment of farms where woods originally occupied the whole country, lessened the abundance of oak long before lumbermen made it a commodity; and since then, the cutting of billions of feet of it has depleted or exhausted the supply in many regions. Still, white oak is as widely dispersed as ever. It has not been completely exterminated in any extensive region. White oak of as high grade goes to market now as ever in the past, but in smaller amounts, and the lower grades go in proportionately larger quant.i.ties. In other words, prime white oak has pa.s.sed its best day. A hundred years of use and abuse in states west of the Alleghany mountains, and two hundred years in some of the regions east, have reduced original forests to remnants. But with all that, white oak remains undisputed king of American hardwoods.
At its best, white oak attains a height of 125 feet and a diameter of six, but that size is unusual. A diameter of three feet and a height of 100 is above the average. The leaves are peculiar in that they hang on the branches until late winter, sometimes dropping only in time to give place to the new crop. They turn brown after the first hard frost. In some sections of the Appalachian region white oak coppice (sprout growth) is known as ”red brush,” because of the adherence of the brown leaves during winter. The leaves of some other species have the same habit.
The wood of white oak is very strong, stiff, heavy, and durable when exposed in all kinds of weather. Scarcely any other wood which can be had in merchantable quant.i.ties equals white oak in these qualities. It rates high in fuel value, and 6,000 pounds of dry wood when burned, leaves about 245 pounds of ashes. The color of the heartwood is light brown; the sapwood is thin; medullary rays are numerous and large; pores large; summerwood broad and dense.
The medullary rays of no wood in this or any other country are more utilized to commercial advantage than those of white oak. Quarter-sawing is for the purpose of bringing them out. They are the bright streaks, clearly visible to the naked eye in the end of an oak log, radiating from the center outward like the spokes of a wheel. Many are too thin to be visible without a magnifying gla.s.s. By quarter-sawing, the rays are cut edgewise and appear as bright streaks or patches, often called ”mirrors,” on the surface of boards. The woodworker knows how to finish the boards and treat them with fillers to bring out the figures.
White oak is a porous wood. Some of the pores are large enough to be visible without a gla.s.s, and twenty times as many more can be seen only when magnified. The direction of the pores is up and down the trunk of the tree, and they are seen to best advantage in the end of a stick, although they are always more or less visible on the side of a board when the cutting is a little across the grain. The pores thus cut diagonally across are taken advantage of by the finisher who works stains and fillers into them, and changes their natural color, thereby accentuating the wood's figure.
The possibilities of white oak are almost infinite. It is good for nearly anything for which any wood is used. It is not the best for everything, but does well for most. Hickory is more resilient, ironwood is stronger, locust more durable, white pine warps and checks less; but white oak has so many good qualities in a fair degree that it can afford to fall below the highest in some, and still rank above compet.i.tors on general averages. It ranks high in s.h.i.+pbuilding, general construction, furniture manufacturing, finish and fixtures, the making of agricultural implements, car building, vehicle stock, cooperage, and many more.
It is one of the most important of American veneer woods. It is sawed very thin, and is glued upon cores of other wood, thus becoming the covering or outside part. The purpose of using oak veneer instead of the solid wood is twofold. First, it goes farther, and second, a well-built article with veneer outside and a core of other woods which stand well, is superior to a solid oak article, except in cases where great strength is the object sought, or where deep carving is desired.