Part 25 (1/2)
The range of this oak reaches southern Oregon on the north, and runs southward three or four hundred miles along the Sierra Nevada mountains, to Mariposa county, and six hundred miles through the Coast range to Santa Barbara county. The tree is affected by climatic conditions, and where surroundings do not suit, it is small and shrubby, often less than ten feet high. It does best in the redwood belt where fogs from the Pacific ocean keep the air moist and the ground damp. It sometimes a.s.sociates with Douglas fir, and at other times with California live oak. If it grows in dense side shade it loses its lower branches and develops a long, clean trunk; but in open ground it keeps its limbs until late in life.
This is the most important source of tanbark on the Pacific coast, and up to the present it has been procurable in large quant.i.ties. The annual output is nearly 40,000 tons, and it commands a higher price than the bark of any other oak or of hemlock. The absence of other adequate tanning materials on the Pacific coast gives this tree much importance.
Its range covers several thousand square miles, and the stand is fairly good on much of it. But on the other hand, the destruction of timber to secure the bark has been excessive. What occurred with chestnut oak and hemlock in the East, is occurring with tanbark oak in the West. Trees are cut and peeled, and are left by thousands to rot in the woods, or to feed fires and make them more destructive. The bark peelers do their princ.i.p.al work in the California redwood region, because there the oak is at its best. Economic conditions make the salvage of the trunks impossible. The bark can be hauled to market, but the wood is unsalable at living prices, after the long haul. It has, therefore, been usually abandoned, and becomes a total loss. It cannot even be sold for fuel, because the country within reach of it is thinly settled, and wood is plentiful on every side.
Large oaks are felled, because the bark can not be stripped from the trunks in any other way, and small trees are not spared. The peelers often do not take the trouble to cut them down, but strip off the bark as high as a man can reach, and leave them standing. A future tree is thus destroyed for the sake of a strip of bark a few feet long. Such trees live a year or two, sometimes several years, before yielding to the inevitable. Usually, as a last expiring effort, they bear an abnormally large crop of acorns. That performance, in the language of the bark peelers, is ”the last kick.” A tanbark slas.h.i.+ng, when the peelers are ready to abandon it, is a sorry spectacle. The barkless and sun-cracked trunks strew the ground, the tops and limbs are piled in windrows, the small peeled trees stand dying, and the last ricks of bark have been sledded down the tote roads, marking the close of operations in that district. A few months later, when fire runs through, the end of the tanbark oak on that tract is accomplished.
Within recent years commendable efforts have been made to use the wood as well as the bark. One of the first steps in that direction was to overcome the prejudice against the wood. It was long considered to be valueless. That belief was founded on the single fact that this oak is difficult to season. Few woods in this country check as badly as this, when it is left exposed to sun and wind after the bark has been removed.
It checks both radially and along the annual rings. The medullary rays are broad and extend much of the distance from the center to the outside. These are natural lines of cleavage when the log begins to season and the internal stresses develop. It must be admitted that the prospect of making anything out of timber of that character is discouraging; but it has been accomplished, and tanbark oak is now a material of considerable value.
The wood has about the strength and stiffness of white oak, while it is four pounds lighter per cubic foot. The structure is similar to that of California live oak, but the pores of tanbark oak are smaller. They run in rows from center to circ.u.mference. The medullary rays are broad enough to show well in quarter-sawing, but the wood's appearance when so worked is not wholly satisfactory. The exposed flat surfaces of the rays show a faint purplish or violet tinge which is considered objectionable. But when the wood is worked plain it is dependable and substantial. It makes good flooring, fairly good furniture, finish, vehicles, and agricultural implements. It is perishable when placed in damp situations, and this detracts somewhat from its value as railway ties; but the wood's porous nature indicates that it will readily yield to preservative treatment.
Since the value of the wood is coming to be understood it is to be expected that less of it will be destroyed than formerly, and that second growth will be given opportunity to hold the ground when old stands are cut. The tree is a prolific seeder, but not every year, and seedlings come up abundantly in sheltered places. Sprouts rise from stumps and grow to vigorous trees. It would seem, therefore, that the tanbark oak will hold at least part of the ground where nature planted it.
TOUMEY OAK (_Quercus toumeyi_). No oak in this country has smaller leaves than this. They are usually less than three-fourths of an inch long and half an inch wide, and they hang on petioles one-sixteenth inch long. The leaves have no lobes or notches. They remain all winter and fall in the spring in time to make room for the new crop. The acorns are nearly as long as the leaves and ripen in June of the first year. Few persons ever see this oak, for its known range is restricted to Mule mountain, in Cochise county, southeastern Arizona. It attains a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of six or eight inches.
The trunk is not only small, but is of form so poor that it can never be of value for anything but fuel. It divides near the ground into crooked branches. The heart of the tree is light brown, the thick sapwood is lighter.
WOOLLY OAK (_Quercus tomentella_) has apparently been crowded off the American continent and has taken refuge on islands off the southern California coast. As far as known, not a single tree stands on the mainland, but several groves, with a few isolated specimens, are found on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Catalina islands, where they are huddled together in the bottoms of sheltered canyons. The leaves are thick, leathery, and are toothed like holly. The trees are evergreen. The acorns do not mature until the second season.
They are generally more than an inch long. The scarcity of this oak relegates it to an unimportant place among commercial woods. This seems unfortunate, for the appearance of the wood indicates that it possesses excellent properties. No other oak looks like this wood.
It is decidedly yellow, and is dense and firm. The medullary rays are different from those of any other oak. When seen in cross section they are arranged in short, wavy lines, broadest in the middle and tapering toward both ends. The pores are arranged between the rays, and follow wavy lines also. Trees grow with fair rapidity, and the largest on the islands are seventy-five feet high and two in diameter.
BARREN OAK (_Quercus pumila_) is called dwarf black oak, or simply scrub oak. Its habit of growing on barren land is responsible for its common name which some people shorten to ”bear” oak. It is one of the poorest oaks of the East, and it seldom grows more than twenty-five feet high and a few inches in diameter. Its range follows the Atlantic coast southward from Mount Desert Island, Maine, to North Carolina. It is probably more abundant on the pine barrens of New Jersey than elsewhere. The trunks are too small to be of use for anything but fuel.
PRICE OAK (_Quercus pricei_) is a California tree, supposed to be very local in its range, since it has not been found outside the drainage basin of a small stream in Monterey county. That locality on the coast of California appears to be the starting place or princ.i.p.al abiding place of several tree species, among which are Monterey cypress and Monterey pine. The Price oak attains a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of twelve inches or less; consequently it is too small to be of value to lumbermen, even if it were abundant. The leaves resemble those of California live oak, and are believed to remain two summers on the tree. The acorns mature the second season.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
s.h.i.+NGLE OAK
[Ill.u.s.tration: s.h.i.+NGLE OAK]
s.h.i.+NGLE OAK
(_Quercus Imbricaria_)
The origin of this tree's name has been the subject of considerable controversy. According to one account the name was first used by the French colonists at Kaskaskia, Illinois, nearly 150 years ago. They found that the wood rived well and it was abundant in the vicinity of their settlement. They split it for s.h.i.+ngles and covered their cabins.
It was the best wood obtainable for the purpose in that region, and they designated the tree s.h.i.+ngle oak, a name translated into Latin by the botanist Michaux and still retained as the tree's botanical name. The story of the name appears to be well authenticated, but the fact cannot be denied that as much reason exists for another theory. A person who sees a s.h.i.+ngle oak tree in full leaf, particularly if it stands in open ground where its foliage has had opportunity to develop along natural lines, will at once notice the peculiar and characteristic overlapping of the leaves. They suggest the courses of s.h.i.+ngles nailed on a roof. No other oak has that arrangement. The similitude is so striking that it would be surprising if the name s.h.i.+ngle oak were not applied.
It is not a one-name tree, but following the fas.h.i.+on, it carries several names. It is called laurel oak in some regions. The form and appearance of the leaf give the name. The oak looks like a mammoth laurel tree more than like its own species. The s.h.i.+ngle oak is known as jack oak in some parts of Illinois. That is a name liable to be applied to any tree when its real name is not known. In North Carolina they call the tree water oak, which name, like jack oak, is often used to conceal ignorance of the true name. Another southern species (_Quercus nigra_) is properly named water oak.
s.h.i.+ngle oak requires good soil for growth but is not partial either to uplands or bottoms. It is found at its best in the lower Ohio river basin and in Missouri, but is comparatively rare in the East. From middle Pennsylvania its range extends southward along the Alleghanies to northern Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and west Arkansas. It is found in Michigan, Wisconsin, and westward to Kansas.
It manifests a strong tendency to hybridize with other oaks, and it readily crosses with black jack oak, pin oak, and yellow oak. It is believed that a cross between yellow oak and s.h.i.+ngle oak produced the species known as lea oak.