COW OAK

COW OAKCow oakCow Oak

Cow oakCow Oak

Cow Oak

COW OAK(Quercus Michauxii)This oak’s acorns are remarkably free from the bitterness due to tannin and are therefore pleasant to the taste. Herbivorous animals eat them when they are to be had, and the eagerness with which cattle gather them in the fall is doubtless the reason for calling the tree cow oak. Hogs and sheep are as eager hunters for the acorns as cattle are, and the half-wild swine in the southern forests become marketable during the two months of the acorn season. Children know the excellency of the cow oak acorns, and gather them in large quantities during the early weeks of autumn in the South. The tree is widely known as basket oak, and the name refers to a prevailing use for the wood in early times, and a rather common use yet. Long before anyone had made a study of the structure of this wood, it was learned that it splits nicely into long, slender bands, and these were employed by basket weavers for all sorts of wares in that line. Tens of thousands of baskets were in use before the war in the southern cottonfields, and they have not gone out of use there yet. It is safe to say that millions of dollars worth of cotton has been picked and “toted” in baskets made of this oak. It was natural, therefore, that the name basket oak should be given it. Large, coarse baskets are still made of splits of this wood, and china and other merchandise are packed in them; while baskets of finer pattern and workmanship are doing service about the farms and homes of thousands of people.When the structure of wood became a subject of study among dendrologists, the secret of the cow oak’s adaptability to basket making was discovered. The annual rings of growth are broad, and the bands of springwood and summerwood are distinct. The springwood is so perforated with large pores that it contains comparatively little real wood substance. The early basket maker did not notice that but he found by experimenting that the wood split along the rings of growth into fine ribbons. The splitting occurs along the springwood. Ribbons may be pulled off as thin as the rings of annual growth, that is, from an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch thick. These are the “splits” of which baskets are made. When subjected to rough usage, such as being dragged and hauled about cornfields and cotton plantations, such a basket will outlast two or three of willow.The tree is sometimes called swamp white oak, and swamp chestnut oak. It bears some resemblance to the swamp white oak (Quercus platanoides) and some people believe that both are of one species, but ofslightly different forms. It is not surprising that there should be a conflict of names and confusion in identification. The leaf resembles that of the chestnut oak, and to that fact is due the belief which some hold that the chief difference between the trees is that the chestnut oak (Quercus prinus) grows on dry land and cow oak in damp situations. Botanists make a clear distinction between cow oak and all other species, though it closely resembles some of them in several particulars.From the northern limits of its growth in Delaware, where it is not of any considerable size, it extends south through the Atlantic states and into Florida, west in the Gulf states to the Trinity river in Texas, and up the Mississippi valley, including in its range Arkansas, eastern Missouri, southern Indiana and Illinois and western Kentucky and Tennessee. It is distinctly of the South and may be considered the best southern representative of the white oak group. It does best in swampy localities where it is found in company with water hickory, sweet magnolia, planer tree, water oak, willow oak, red maple, and red and black gum.In general appearance the tree gives the impression of massiveness and strength, offset by the delicate, silvery effect of the bark and the lining of the foliage. The usual height is sixty or eighty feet, but it often exceeds a hundred feet, the bole attaining a diameter of as high as seven feet and showing three log lengths clear. The characteristic light gray, scaly, white oak bark covers trunk and heavy limbs, which rise at narrow angles, forming a rounded head and dividing into stout branches and twigs. The winter buds are not characteristic of white oak, being long and pointed rather than rounded. They are about a half inch in length, scaly, with red hairs and usually in threes on the ends of the twigs. The general texture of the leaves is thick and heavy, their upper surfaces being dark, lustrous green and the lower white and covered with hairs. They are from five to seven inches long with petioles an inch in length and of the general outline of the chestnut leaf. Their rich crimson color is conspicuous in the fall after turning.The wood of cow oak is hard, heavy, very tough, strong, and durable. The heartwood is light brown, the sapwood darker colored. It weighs 50.10 pounds per cubic foot, and is not quite up to white oak in strength and elasticity. In quarter-sawing it does not equal white oak, because the medullary rays, though broad, are not regularly distributed, and the surface of the quarter-sawed board has a splotchy appearance, and it is not as easy to match figures as with white oak.Cow oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the South. Its uses are much the same as those for white oak farther north. The custom of calling it white oak when it goes to market renders the collectionof statistics of uses difficult. Sawmills seldom or never list cow oak in making reports of cut. Factories which further manufacture lumber, after it leaves the mill, sometimes distinguish between cow oak and other oaks. It has been found suitable material in the South for canthook handles where it takes the place of hickory which is more expensive. It is reported for that use in considerable quantity in Louisiana. The handles are subjected to great strain and violent shocks. The billets are split to the proper size, because if they are sawed they are liable to contain cross grain which is a fatal defect. The wood is cut in dimensions for chair stock and furniture, the better grades usually going to furniture factories. Defective logs, short lengths, and odds and ends may be worked into chair stock which contains a large proportion of small pieces. The making of large plantation baskets of this wood is still a fairly large business in Louisiana and Mississippi. Braided bottoms of cheap chairs are of the same workmanship as baskets.Vehicle makers in the South are large users of this wood. It is employed in heavy wagons chiefly, and is worked into many parts, including axles, bolsters, felloes, hubs, hounds, tongues, reaches, spokes, and bedbottoms.This tree is classed as white oak by coopers who accept it as stave material. The amount used is much less than of the true white oak, but the exact quantity taken yearly by barrel makers is not known because statistics do not list the different white oaks separately. Cow oak rives well when a trunk is found clear of knots. The trees are usually smaller and less perfect than true white oak in the North.Railroads accept crossties of this species and they give as long service as white oak, are as hard, and hold spikes as well. The wood is accepted by car shops for use in repairs and in new work. Trunks are split or sawed into fence posts and are used in probably larger numbers than any other southern oak.This tree’s future seems fairly well assured. It will further decline in available supply, because it is cut faster than it is growing. That is the status of all the timber oaks of this country. This one has advantage over some of the others in that it occupies wet land which will not soon be in demand for agricultural purposes, and young growth will be left to develop.Engelmann Oak(Quercus engelmanni) occupies a restricted range in southwestern California where it is generally spoken of as a desert tree; but its rate of growth appears to be much more rapid than is usual with trees in arid situations. It occupies a narrow belt in San Diego county and its range extends into Lower California. It forms about one-third of the stand in Palomar mountains, and is much scarcer in the Cuyamaca mountains. The tree seldom attains a height greater thanforty or fifty feet, or a diameter more than twenty or thirty inches. The largest trees are of small value for lumber and in rare instances only, if at all, do they go to sawmills. The trunks fork and each branch forks, until a fairly large bole near the ground is divided among numerous limbs. The tree’s chief value is as fuel. It rates high as such. The leaves are bluish-green and are thick with sharp points on their margins. The leaves vary greatly in size, and are largest on young shoots. They remain a year on the tree, and are classed as evergreen. The acorns ripen in one year. This interesting species was named for Dr. George Engelmann, whose name is borne also by Engelmann spruce. The wood is among the heaviest of the oaks, exceeding white oak by more than twelve pounds per cubic foot. It is brittle and weak, and very dark brown. The green wood checks and warps badly in seasoning. The medullary rays are numerous and large, but are so irregularly dispersed that quarter-sawing promises no satisfactory results, even if logs of suitable size could be found. The annual rings are indistinct, owing to no clear line of separation between springwood and summerwood. Pores are numerous, diffuse, and some of them large. The species is entitled to recognition only because it is found in a region where forests are scarce and scrubby, and every trunk has value as fuel, if for nothing else. It affords a cover for hills which otherwise would be barren, and it frequently occurs in fairly dense thickets.Cow oak branch

This oak’s acorns are remarkably free from the bitterness due to tannin and are therefore pleasant to the taste. Herbivorous animals eat them when they are to be had, and the eagerness with which cattle gather them in the fall is doubtless the reason for calling the tree cow oak. Hogs and sheep are as eager hunters for the acorns as cattle are, and the half-wild swine in the southern forests become marketable during the two months of the acorn season. Children know the excellency of the cow oak acorns, and gather them in large quantities during the early weeks of autumn in the South. The tree is widely known as basket oak, and the name refers to a prevailing use for the wood in early times, and a rather common use yet. Long before anyone had made a study of the structure of this wood, it was learned that it splits nicely into long, slender bands, and these were employed by basket weavers for all sorts of wares in that line. Tens of thousands of baskets were in use before the war in the southern cottonfields, and they have not gone out of use there yet. It is safe to say that millions of dollars worth of cotton has been picked and “toted” in baskets made of this oak. It was natural, therefore, that the name basket oak should be given it. Large, coarse baskets are still made of splits of this wood, and china and other merchandise are packed in them; while baskets of finer pattern and workmanship are doing service about the farms and homes of thousands of people.

When the structure of wood became a subject of study among dendrologists, the secret of the cow oak’s adaptability to basket making was discovered. The annual rings of growth are broad, and the bands of springwood and summerwood are distinct. The springwood is so perforated with large pores that it contains comparatively little real wood substance. The early basket maker did not notice that but he found by experimenting that the wood split along the rings of growth into fine ribbons. The splitting occurs along the springwood. Ribbons may be pulled off as thin as the rings of annual growth, that is, from an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch thick. These are the “splits” of which baskets are made. When subjected to rough usage, such as being dragged and hauled about cornfields and cotton plantations, such a basket will outlast two or three of willow.

The tree is sometimes called swamp white oak, and swamp chestnut oak. It bears some resemblance to the swamp white oak (Quercus platanoides) and some people believe that both are of one species, but ofslightly different forms. It is not surprising that there should be a conflict of names and confusion in identification. The leaf resembles that of the chestnut oak, and to that fact is due the belief which some hold that the chief difference between the trees is that the chestnut oak (Quercus prinus) grows on dry land and cow oak in damp situations. Botanists make a clear distinction between cow oak and all other species, though it closely resembles some of them in several particulars.

From the northern limits of its growth in Delaware, where it is not of any considerable size, it extends south through the Atlantic states and into Florida, west in the Gulf states to the Trinity river in Texas, and up the Mississippi valley, including in its range Arkansas, eastern Missouri, southern Indiana and Illinois and western Kentucky and Tennessee. It is distinctly of the South and may be considered the best southern representative of the white oak group. It does best in swampy localities where it is found in company with water hickory, sweet magnolia, planer tree, water oak, willow oak, red maple, and red and black gum.

In general appearance the tree gives the impression of massiveness and strength, offset by the delicate, silvery effect of the bark and the lining of the foliage. The usual height is sixty or eighty feet, but it often exceeds a hundred feet, the bole attaining a diameter of as high as seven feet and showing three log lengths clear. The characteristic light gray, scaly, white oak bark covers trunk and heavy limbs, which rise at narrow angles, forming a rounded head and dividing into stout branches and twigs. The winter buds are not characteristic of white oak, being long and pointed rather than rounded. They are about a half inch in length, scaly, with red hairs and usually in threes on the ends of the twigs. The general texture of the leaves is thick and heavy, their upper surfaces being dark, lustrous green and the lower white and covered with hairs. They are from five to seven inches long with petioles an inch in length and of the general outline of the chestnut leaf. Their rich crimson color is conspicuous in the fall after turning.

The wood of cow oak is hard, heavy, very tough, strong, and durable. The heartwood is light brown, the sapwood darker colored. It weighs 50.10 pounds per cubic foot, and is not quite up to white oak in strength and elasticity. In quarter-sawing it does not equal white oak, because the medullary rays, though broad, are not regularly distributed, and the surface of the quarter-sawed board has a splotchy appearance, and it is not as easy to match figures as with white oak.

Cow oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the South. Its uses are much the same as those for white oak farther north. The custom of calling it white oak when it goes to market renders the collectionof statistics of uses difficult. Sawmills seldom or never list cow oak in making reports of cut. Factories which further manufacture lumber, after it leaves the mill, sometimes distinguish between cow oak and other oaks. It has been found suitable material in the South for canthook handles where it takes the place of hickory which is more expensive. It is reported for that use in considerable quantity in Louisiana. The handles are subjected to great strain and violent shocks. The billets are split to the proper size, because if they are sawed they are liable to contain cross grain which is a fatal defect. The wood is cut in dimensions for chair stock and furniture, the better grades usually going to furniture factories. Defective logs, short lengths, and odds and ends may be worked into chair stock which contains a large proportion of small pieces. The making of large plantation baskets of this wood is still a fairly large business in Louisiana and Mississippi. Braided bottoms of cheap chairs are of the same workmanship as baskets.

Vehicle makers in the South are large users of this wood. It is employed in heavy wagons chiefly, and is worked into many parts, including axles, bolsters, felloes, hubs, hounds, tongues, reaches, spokes, and bedbottoms.

This tree is classed as white oak by coopers who accept it as stave material. The amount used is much less than of the true white oak, but the exact quantity taken yearly by barrel makers is not known because statistics do not list the different white oaks separately. Cow oak rives well when a trunk is found clear of knots. The trees are usually smaller and less perfect than true white oak in the North.

Railroads accept crossties of this species and they give as long service as white oak, are as hard, and hold spikes as well. The wood is accepted by car shops for use in repairs and in new work. Trunks are split or sawed into fence posts and are used in probably larger numbers than any other southern oak.

This tree’s future seems fairly well assured. It will further decline in available supply, because it is cut faster than it is growing. That is the status of all the timber oaks of this country. This one has advantage over some of the others in that it occupies wet land which will not soon be in demand for agricultural purposes, and young growth will be left to develop.

Engelmann Oak(Quercus engelmanni) occupies a restricted range in southwestern California where it is generally spoken of as a desert tree; but its rate of growth appears to be much more rapid than is usual with trees in arid situations. It occupies a narrow belt in San Diego county and its range extends into Lower California. It forms about one-third of the stand in Palomar mountains, and is much scarcer in the Cuyamaca mountains. The tree seldom attains a height greater thanforty or fifty feet, or a diameter more than twenty or thirty inches. The largest trees are of small value for lumber and in rare instances only, if at all, do they go to sawmills. The trunks fork and each branch forks, until a fairly large bole near the ground is divided among numerous limbs. The tree’s chief value is as fuel. It rates high as such. The leaves are bluish-green and are thick with sharp points on their margins. The leaves vary greatly in size, and are largest on young shoots. They remain a year on the tree, and are classed as evergreen. The acorns ripen in one year. This interesting species was named for Dr. George Engelmann, whose name is borne also by Engelmann spruce. The wood is among the heaviest of the oaks, exceeding white oak by more than twelve pounds per cubic foot. It is brittle and weak, and very dark brown. The green wood checks and warps badly in seasoning. The medullary rays are numerous and large, but are so irregularly dispersed that quarter-sawing promises no satisfactory results, even if logs of suitable size could be found. The annual rings are indistinct, owing to no clear line of separation between springwood and summerwood. Pores are numerous, diffuse, and some of them large. The species is entitled to recognition only because it is found in a region where forests are scarce and scrubby, and every trunk has value as fuel, if for nothing else. It affords a cover for hills which otherwise would be barren, and it frequently occurs in fairly dense thickets.

Cow oak branch

PACIFIC POST OAK[234]Pacific post oakPacific Post Oak

[234]

Pacific post oakPacific Post Oak

Pacific Post Oak

PACIFIC POST OAK(Quercus Garryana)David Douglas named this tree the Garry oak, in honor of Nicholas Garry of the Hudson Bay Company, who furnished valuable assistance to botanists and other explorers of early times in the northwestern parts of America. This tree is best developed in the neighborhood of Puget Sound, the present state of Washington, and at the period of explorations in that region by Douglas, who was a Scotchman, the country was a sort of “no man’s land.” It was claimed by both England and the United States, and Russia had cast covetous eyes on it as a southern extension of her Alaska holdings. England at that time put a good deal of dependence in the Hudson Bay Company to get possession of and to hold as much country as possible, and Garry’s help given to explorers was part of a well-laid plan to possess as much of the northwestern country as possible. Douglas doubtless had that in mind when he named the oak in honor of Garry. It was a witness and perpetual reminder that the Hudson Bay Company’s strong arms had been stretched in that direction.The people in California and Oregon often speak of the tree simply as white oak, but it is sometimes called Oregon white oak, and more often Oregon oak without a qualifying word. When it is spoken of as western white oak, which frequently is the case, it is compared with the well-known eastern white oak. It bears more resemblance to the eastern post oak (Quercus minor) and for that reason it has been named Pacific post oak. The leaves and twigs, particularly when they are young, resemble post oak.The northern limit of the tree’s range crosses southern British Columbia. It is found in the lower valley of Frazer river and on Vancouver island. It is the only oak tree of British Columbia. Its range extends southward to the Santa Cruz mountains in California, but near the southern limit of its range it is found chiefly in valleys near the coast. It is best developed in western Washington and Oregon. It occurs of good size on dry gravelly slopes of low hills; and it ascends the Cascade mountains to considerable elevations, but becomes stunted and shrubby. It is abundant in northwestern California.The tree has a height from sixty to a hundred feet; sometimes it attains a diameter of three and one-half feet. It carries a broad and compact crown, especially when the tree is surrounded by young coniferous growth as is the case in its best habitat where natural pruning gets rid of the lower limbs and causes an outward and later a pendulousgrowth of the upper part. The limbs are strong and heavy as are the branches and twigs. The bark is a grayish-brown with shallow fissures, the broad ridges being sometimes broken across forming square plates which are covered with the grayish flakes or scales. The buds are long and acute, and are coated with a red fuzz. The leaves are from four to six inches long and are bilaterally developed, having seven or nine coarse round lobes; the sinuses being rounded or rather shallow. The color is a dark lustrous green and the texture leathery.The acorn is rather large being about an inch and a quarter in length and usually about half as broad as long; has a shallow cup covered with pointed sometimes elongated scales.This oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the far Northwest. It is often compared with the eastern white oak, but its physical properties fall below that species in some important particulars. The two woods weigh about the same, but the eastern species is stronger and more elastic, and is of better color and figure. All oaks season somewhat slowly, but the Pacific post oak is hardly up to the average. It is a common saying that it must remain two years on the sticks to fit it for the shop, but that time may be shortened in many instances. Checking must be carefully guarded against.Some of this oak is exceedingly tough, and when carefully sorted and prepared it is excellent material for heavy wagons; but the best comes from young and comparatively small trees. When they attain large size they are apt to become brash. The tree usually grows rapidly, and is not old in proportion to the size of its trunk. An examination of the wood shows broad bands of summerwood and narrow, very porous springwood. The medullary rays are broad and numerous, and ought to show well in quarter-sawed stock; but it does not appear that much quarter-sawing has been done.Practically all of this species cut in the United States is credited to Oregon in the census of sawmill output in 1910. The cut was 2,887,000 feet, and was produced by fourteen sawmills, while in Washington only one mill reported any oak, and the quantity was only 4,000 feet. On the northwest Pacific coast it comes in competition with eastern oak and also with Siberian or Japanese oak.Basket makers put this wood to considerable use. Young trees are selected on account of their toughness. The wood is either split in long, thin ribbons for basket weaving, or it is first made into veneer and then cut in ribbons of required width. The largest users are furniture makers, but boat yards find it convenient material and it takes the place of imported oak for frames, keels, ribs, sills, and interior finish. It is durable, and it may be depended upon for long service in any part of boatconstruction. Its toughness fits it for ax, hammer, and other handles. It is far inferior to hickory, but on the Pacific coast it can be had much cheaper. Its strength and durability make it one of the best western woods for insulator pins for telephone and telegraph lines. It is worked into saddle trees and stirrups.The scarcity of woods on the Pacific coast suitable for tight cooperage gives this oak a rather important place, because barrels and casks made of it hold alcoholic liquors. Available statistics do not show the quantity of staves produced from this wood, but it is known to be used for staves in Oregon.Much Pacific post oak is employed as rough lumber for various purposes. Railroads buy crossties, hewed or sawed from small trunks, and country bridges are occasionally floored with thick planks which wear well and offer great resistance to decay.The quantity of this oak growing in the Northwest is not known. It falls far below some of the softwoods of the same region, and the area on which it is found in commercial amounts is not large. It is holding its ground fairly well. Trees bear full crops of acorns frequently, and if they fall on damp humus they germinate and grow. The seedlings imitate the eastern white oak, and send tap roots deep into the ground, and are then prepared for fortune or adversity. It happens, however, that trees which bear the most bountiful crops of acorns do not stand in forests where the ground is damp and humus abundant, but on more open ground on grass covered slopes. Acorns which fall on sod seldom germinate, and consequently few seedlings are to be seen in such situations. Open-grown trees are poorly suited for lumber, on account of many limbs low on the trunks, but they grow large amounts of cordwood.California Scrub Oak(Quercus dumosa) has been a puzzle to botanists, and a hopeless enigma to laymen. Some would split the species into no fewer than three species and three varieties, basing distinctions on forms of leaves and acorns and other botanical differences; but Sudworth, after a prolonged study of this matter, recognized only one species and one variety, but admitted that “California scrub oak unquestionably varies more than all other oaks in the form and size of its leaves and acorns.” He thought it might possibly be equalled in that respect byQuercus undulataof the Rocky Mountains. Some of the leaves of California scrub oak are three-fourths of an inch long and half an inch wide, while others may be four inches long. The edges of some leaves are as briery as the leaves of holly, others are comparatively smooth. The shapes and sizes of acorns vary as much as the leaves. Some are long and slender, others short and stocky. This peculiar oak is found only in California, but it shows a disposition to advance as far as possible into the sea, for it has gained a foothold on islands lying off the California coast, and it there finds its most acceptable habitat. It reaches its largest size in sheltered canyons on the islands, and attains a height of twenty or twenty-five feet, and a diameter of a foot or less. It is not large enough to win favor with lumbermen but in its scrubby form it is abundant in many localities. It is scattered over several thousand square miles, from nearly sea level up to 7,000feet in the mountains of southern California. It is found scattered through the coast range and the Sierra Nevadas from Mendocino county to Lower California, 700 miles or more. It grows from sprouts and from acorns. The leaves adhere to the twigs thirteen months, and fall after the new crop has appeared. The wood is light brown, hard, and brittle. No use is made of it, except to a small extent for fuel. On the mountains it grows in thickets scarcely five feet high, but they cover the ground in dense jungles, and the roots go deep in the ground. The species is valuable chiefly for protection to steep slopes which would otherwise be without much growth of any kind. Being low on the ground, forest fires are particularly destructive to this oak; but its ability to send up sprouts repairs the damage to some extent.Emory Oak(Quercus emoryi) grows among the mountains of western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, attains a height from thirty to seventy feet, and a diameter from one to four. The largest size is found only in sheltered canyons, while on high mountains and in exposed situations the tree degenerates to a shrub. It always has a crop of leaves. The old do not fall until the new appear. In shape, the leaves somewhat resemble those of box elder. The acorns ripen from June to September, the exact time depending upon the tree’s situation. Trunks large enough for use are not scarce, but the wood is not of high class. Stair railing and balusters have been made of it in Texas, but the appearance is rather poor. The grain is coarse, the figure common, the color unsatisfactory. The heart is very dark, but the tones are not uniform, and flat surfaces, such as boards and panels, show streaks which are not sufficiently attractive to be taken for figure. Trunks are apt to be full of black knots which mar the appearance of the lumber. The medullary rays are numerous and broad, and in quarter-sawing, the size and arrangement of the “mirrors” are all that could be desired, but they have a decidedly pink color which does not contrast very well with the rest of the wood. The weight of this oak exceeds per cubic foot white oak, by more than ten pounds; but it has scarcely half the strength or half the elasticity of white oak. The springwood is filled with large pores, the summerwood with smaller ones. It rates high as fuel, and that is its chief value. Large quantities are cut for cordwood. Railroad ties are made of it, and more or less goes into mines as props and lagging. Stock ranches make fences, sheds, and corrals of this oak, and live stock eats the acorns. The human inhabitants likewise find the Emory oak acorn crop a source of food. Mexicans gather them in large quantities and sell what they can spare. The market for the acorns is found in towns in northwestern Mexico.Pacific post oak branch

David Douglas named this tree the Garry oak, in honor of Nicholas Garry of the Hudson Bay Company, who furnished valuable assistance to botanists and other explorers of early times in the northwestern parts of America. This tree is best developed in the neighborhood of Puget Sound, the present state of Washington, and at the period of explorations in that region by Douglas, who was a Scotchman, the country was a sort of “no man’s land.” It was claimed by both England and the United States, and Russia had cast covetous eyes on it as a southern extension of her Alaska holdings. England at that time put a good deal of dependence in the Hudson Bay Company to get possession of and to hold as much country as possible, and Garry’s help given to explorers was part of a well-laid plan to possess as much of the northwestern country as possible. Douglas doubtless had that in mind when he named the oak in honor of Garry. It was a witness and perpetual reminder that the Hudson Bay Company’s strong arms had been stretched in that direction.

The people in California and Oregon often speak of the tree simply as white oak, but it is sometimes called Oregon white oak, and more often Oregon oak without a qualifying word. When it is spoken of as western white oak, which frequently is the case, it is compared with the well-known eastern white oak. It bears more resemblance to the eastern post oak (Quercus minor) and for that reason it has been named Pacific post oak. The leaves and twigs, particularly when they are young, resemble post oak.

The northern limit of the tree’s range crosses southern British Columbia. It is found in the lower valley of Frazer river and on Vancouver island. It is the only oak tree of British Columbia. Its range extends southward to the Santa Cruz mountains in California, but near the southern limit of its range it is found chiefly in valleys near the coast. It is best developed in western Washington and Oregon. It occurs of good size on dry gravelly slopes of low hills; and it ascends the Cascade mountains to considerable elevations, but becomes stunted and shrubby. It is abundant in northwestern California.

The tree has a height from sixty to a hundred feet; sometimes it attains a diameter of three and one-half feet. It carries a broad and compact crown, especially when the tree is surrounded by young coniferous growth as is the case in its best habitat where natural pruning gets rid of the lower limbs and causes an outward and later a pendulousgrowth of the upper part. The limbs are strong and heavy as are the branches and twigs. The bark is a grayish-brown with shallow fissures, the broad ridges being sometimes broken across forming square plates which are covered with the grayish flakes or scales. The buds are long and acute, and are coated with a red fuzz. The leaves are from four to six inches long and are bilaterally developed, having seven or nine coarse round lobes; the sinuses being rounded or rather shallow. The color is a dark lustrous green and the texture leathery.

The acorn is rather large being about an inch and a quarter in length and usually about half as broad as long; has a shallow cup covered with pointed sometimes elongated scales.

This oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the far Northwest. It is often compared with the eastern white oak, but its physical properties fall below that species in some important particulars. The two woods weigh about the same, but the eastern species is stronger and more elastic, and is of better color and figure. All oaks season somewhat slowly, but the Pacific post oak is hardly up to the average. It is a common saying that it must remain two years on the sticks to fit it for the shop, but that time may be shortened in many instances. Checking must be carefully guarded against.

Some of this oak is exceedingly tough, and when carefully sorted and prepared it is excellent material for heavy wagons; but the best comes from young and comparatively small trees. When they attain large size they are apt to become brash. The tree usually grows rapidly, and is not old in proportion to the size of its trunk. An examination of the wood shows broad bands of summerwood and narrow, very porous springwood. The medullary rays are broad and numerous, and ought to show well in quarter-sawed stock; but it does not appear that much quarter-sawing has been done.

Practically all of this species cut in the United States is credited to Oregon in the census of sawmill output in 1910. The cut was 2,887,000 feet, and was produced by fourteen sawmills, while in Washington only one mill reported any oak, and the quantity was only 4,000 feet. On the northwest Pacific coast it comes in competition with eastern oak and also with Siberian or Japanese oak.

Basket makers put this wood to considerable use. Young trees are selected on account of their toughness. The wood is either split in long, thin ribbons for basket weaving, or it is first made into veneer and then cut in ribbons of required width. The largest users are furniture makers, but boat yards find it convenient material and it takes the place of imported oak for frames, keels, ribs, sills, and interior finish. It is durable, and it may be depended upon for long service in any part of boatconstruction. Its toughness fits it for ax, hammer, and other handles. It is far inferior to hickory, but on the Pacific coast it can be had much cheaper. Its strength and durability make it one of the best western woods for insulator pins for telephone and telegraph lines. It is worked into saddle trees and stirrups.

The scarcity of woods on the Pacific coast suitable for tight cooperage gives this oak a rather important place, because barrels and casks made of it hold alcoholic liquors. Available statistics do not show the quantity of staves produced from this wood, but it is known to be used for staves in Oregon.

Much Pacific post oak is employed as rough lumber for various purposes. Railroads buy crossties, hewed or sawed from small trunks, and country bridges are occasionally floored with thick planks which wear well and offer great resistance to decay.

The quantity of this oak growing in the Northwest is not known. It falls far below some of the softwoods of the same region, and the area on which it is found in commercial amounts is not large. It is holding its ground fairly well. Trees bear full crops of acorns frequently, and if they fall on damp humus they germinate and grow. The seedlings imitate the eastern white oak, and send tap roots deep into the ground, and are then prepared for fortune or adversity. It happens, however, that trees which bear the most bountiful crops of acorns do not stand in forests where the ground is damp and humus abundant, but on more open ground on grass covered slopes. Acorns which fall on sod seldom germinate, and consequently few seedlings are to be seen in such situations. Open-grown trees are poorly suited for lumber, on account of many limbs low on the trunks, but they grow large amounts of cordwood.

California Scrub Oak(Quercus dumosa) has been a puzzle to botanists, and a hopeless enigma to laymen. Some would split the species into no fewer than three species and three varieties, basing distinctions on forms of leaves and acorns and other botanical differences; but Sudworth, after a prolonged study of this matter, recognized only one species and one variety, but admitted that “California scrub oak unquestionably varies more than all other oaks in the form and size of its leaves and acorns.” He thought it might possibly be equalled in that respect byQuercus undulataof the Rocky Mountains. Some of the leaves of California scrub oak are three-fourths of an inch long and half an inch wide, while others may be four inches long. The edges of some leaves are as briery as the leaves of holly, others are comparatively smooth. The shapes and sizes of acorns vary as much as the leaves. Some are long and slender, others short and stocky. This peculiar oak is found only in California, but it shows a disposition to advance as far as possible into the sea, for it has gained a foothold on islands lying off the California coast, and it there finds its most acceptable habitat. It reaches its largest size in sheltered canyons on the islands, and attains a height of twenty or twenty-five feet, and a diameter of a foot or less. It is not large enough to win favor with lumbermen but in its scrubby form it is abundant in many localities. It is scattered over several thousand square miles, from nearly sea level up to 7,000feet in the mountains of southern California. It is found scattered through the coast range and the Sierra Nevadas from Mendocino county to Lower California, 700 miles or more. It grows from sprouts and from acorns. The leaves adhere to the twigs thirteen months, and fall after the new crop has appeared. The wood is light brown, hard, and brittle. No use is made of it, except to a small extent for fuel. On the mountains it grows in thickets scarcely five feet high, but they cover the ground in dense jungles, and the roots go deep in the ground. The species is valuable chiefly for protection to steep slopes which would otherwise be without much growth of any kind. Being low on the ground, forest fires are particularly destructive to this oak; but its ability to send up sprouts repairs the damage to some extent.Emory Oak(Quercus emoryi) grows among the mountains of western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, attains a height from thirty to seventy feet, and a diameter from one to four. The largest size is found only in sheltered canyons, while on high mountains and in exposed situations the tree degenerates to a shrub. It always has a crop of leaves. The old do not fall until the new appear. In shape, the leaves somewhat resemble those of box elder. The acorns ripen from June to September, the exact time depending upon the tree’s situation. Trunks large enough for use are not scarce, but the wood is not of high class. Stair railing and balusters have been made of it in Texas, but the appearance is rather poor. The grain is coarse, the figure common, the color unsatisfactory. The heart is very dark, but the tones are not uniform, and flat surfaces, such as boards and panels, show streaks which are not sufficiently attractive to be taken for figure. Trunks are apt to be full of black knots which mar the appearance of the lumber. The medullary rays are numerous and broad, and in quarter-sawing, the size and arrangement of the “mirrors” are all that could be desired, but they have a decidedly pink color which does not contrast very well with the rest of the wood. The weight of this oak exceeds per cubic foot white oak, by more than ten pounds; but it has scarcely half the strength or half the elasticity of white oak. The springwood is filled with large pores, the summerwood with smaller ones. It rates high as fuel, and that is its chief value. Large quantities are cut for cordwood. Railroad ties are made of it, and more or less goes into mines as props and lagging. Stock ranches make fences, sheds, and corrals of this oak, and live stock eats the acorns. The human inhabitants likewise find the Emory oak acorn crop a source of food. Mexicans gather them in large quantities and sell what they can spare. The market for the acorns is found in towns in northwestern Mexico.

Emory Oak(Quercus emoryi) grows among the mountains of western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, attains a height from thirty to seventy feet, and a diameter from one to four. The largest size is found only in sheltered canyons, while on high mountains and in exposed situations the tree degenerates to a shrub. It always has a crop of leaves. The old do not fall until the new appear. In shape, the leaves somewhat resemble those of box elder. The acorns ripen from June to September, the exact time depending upon the tree’s situation. Trunks large enough for use are not scarce, but the wood is not of high class. Stair railing and balusters have been made of it in Texas, but the appearance is rather poor. The grain is coarse, the figure common, the color unsatisfactory. The heart is very dark, but the tones are not uniform, and flat surfaces, such as boards and panels, show streaks which are not sufficiently attractive to be taken for figure. Trunks are apt to be full of black knots which mar the appearance of the lumber. The medullary rays are numerous and broad, and in quarter-sawing, the size and arrangement of the “mirrors” are all that could be desired, but they have a decidedly pink color which does not contrast very well with the rest of the wood. The weight of this oak exceeds per cubic foot white oak, by more than ten pounds; but it has scarcely half the strength or half the elasticity of white oak. The springwood is filled with large pores, the summerwood with smaller ones. It rates high as fuel, and that is its chief value. Large quantities are cut for cordwood. Railroad ties are made of it, and more or less goes into mines as props and lagging. Stock ranches make fences, sheds, and corrals of this oak, and live stock eats the acorns. The human inhabitants likewise find the Emory oak acorn crop a source of food. Mexicans gather them in large quantities and sell what they can spare. The market for the acorns is found in towns in northwestern Mexico.

Pacific post oak branch

CHESTNUT OAKChestnut oakChestnut Oak

Chestnut oakChestnut Oak

Chestnut Oak

CHESTNUT OAK(Quercus Prinus)This tree is known as rock oak in New York; as rock chestnut oak in Massachusetts and Rhode Island; as rock oak and rock chestnut oak in Pennsylvania and Delaware; as tanbark oak and swampy chestnut oak in North Carolina and as rock chestnut oak and mountain oak in Alabama.There is a pretty general disposition to call this tree rock oak. The name refers to the hardness of the wood, and is not confined to this species. Other oaks are also given that name, and the adjective “rock” is applied to two or three species of elm which possess wood remarkable for its hardness. Cedar and pine are likewise in the class. In all of these classes “rock” is employed to denote hardness of wood. Iron as an adjective or ironwood as a noun is used in the same way for a number of trees. The name swampy chestnut oak as applied in some parts of the South to this tree, is hardly descriptive, for it is less a swamp tree than most of the oaks, though it does often grow along the banks of streams.Its distribution ranges from the coast of southern Maine and the Blue Hills of eastern Massachusetts southward to Delaware and the District of Columbia; along the Appalachian mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama; westward to the shores of Lake Champlain and the valley of the Genesee river, New York; along the northern shores of Lake Erie and to central Kentucky and Tennessee. It is rare and local in New England and Ontario, but plentiful on the banks of the lower Hudson river and on the Appalachian mountains from southern New York to Alabama. It reaches its best development in the region from West Virginia to North Carolina, pretty high on the ridges flanking the mountain ranges.Leaves are alternate, from five to nine inches long, with coarse teeth rounded at the top. At maturity, they are thick and firm, yellow-green and rather lustrous on the upper surface, paler and usually hairy beneath. In the autumn before falling, they turn a dull orange color or rusty-brown.The flowers appear in May and are solitary or paired on short spurs. The fruit or acorn is solitary or in pairs, one or two and one-half inches long, very lustrous and of a bright chestnut-brown color. The acorn cup is thin, downy-lined and covered with small scales. The kernel is sweet and edible. The bark of the chestnut oak is thin, smooth, purplish-brown and often lustrous on young stems and small branches, becominga thick, dark, reddish-brown, or nearly black on old trunks, and divided into broad rounded ridges, separating on the surface into small, closely appressed scales. The bark of the tree is so dark in color and so deeply furrowed that it has often been mistaken for one of the black oak group, although its wavy leaf margins and annual fruit clearly differentiate it from those species. The bark of the chestnut oak is thicker and rougher on old trunks than on any other oak.The bark of chestnut oak has long been valuable for tanning. There is tannin in the bark of all oaks, and several of them contain it in paying quantities, but chestnut oak is more important to the leather industry than any other oak. In richness of tannin the tanbark oak of California occupies as high a place, but it is not supplying as much material as the eastern tree. Statistics showing the annual consumption of tanbark and tanning extracts in the United States, do not list the oaks separately, but it is well known that chestnut oak far surpasses all others in output. Hemlock bark is peeled in large quantities, but tanneries occasionally mix chestnut oak bark with it to lighten the deep red color imparted to leather when hemlock bark is the sole material employed.Large quantities of chestnut oak timber have been destroyed to procure the bark. Fortunately, it is a practice not much indulged in at present, because the wood now has value, but it formerly had little. It was then abandoned in the forest after the bark was peeled and hauled away. The same practice obtained with hemlock years ago. Much chestnut oak is still cut primarily for the bark, but the logs are worth hauling to sawmills, unless in remote districts.The chestnut oak is a vigorous tree and grows rapidly in dry soil, where it often forms a great part of the forest. It is not as large as the white oak or red oak, but is a splendid tree, its bole being very symmetrical and holding its size well. It grows usually to a height of from sixty to seventy feet and sometimes 100 feet, with a diameter of from two to five feet and occasionally as large as seven feet.The form of the tree shows great variation, depending upon the situation in which it grows. Trees in open ground often divide into forks or large limbs, and the trunks are short and of poor form. Open-grown trees show a decided tendency to develop crooked boles, and unduly large branches. No such objection can be urged against it when it grows under forest conditions. Trunks are straight and are otherwise of good form.The wood of chestnut oak differs little from that of white oak in weight, strength, and stiffness. It is hard, rather tough, durable in contact with the soil, and is darker in color than white oak. It has fewlarge, open pores, and requires less filler in finishing than most oaks. There are many pores, however, and those in the springwood are arranged in bands. The summerwood is broad and distinct, usually constituting three-fourths of the annual ring. The medullary rays are as broad and numerous as in the best furniture oaks. They are regularly arranged, and spaces between them do not vary much in width. The wood quarter-saws well.The wood has the fault of checking badly in seasoning, unless carefully attended to. In recent years, these difficulties have been largely overcome, both in air seasoning and in the drykiln.Chestnut oak has a wide range of uses. It is classed as white oak in many markets, but few users buy it believing it to be true white oak. It is coming year by year to stand more on its own merits. Some sawmills which formerly piled it and sold it with other oaks, now keep it separate, and some factories which once took it only because it came mixed with other oaks, now buy it for special uses, and make high-class commodities of it. One of these is mission furniture, which has become fashionable in recent years. Chestnut oak possesses good fuming properties, and this constitutes much of its value as furniture material.The wood is found in factories where general furniture is made. It is largely frame material for furniture though some of it is for outside finish. It is employed as frames in Maryland in the construction of canal boats, and the annual demand for that purpose is about a quarter of a million feet in that state.One of the most important places for chestnut oak is in the shop which makes vehicles. It goes into sills for both heavy and light bodies, bolsters, and wagon bottoms. It has become a favorite wagon wood in England and in continental Europe, and there passes as white oak, though dealers well know that it is not the true white oak. There is no indication that demand for it will lessen, for it possesses many characters which fit it for vehicle making.In Michigan more chestnut oak is reported by car builders than by any other class of manufacturers, though wagon makers buy it. Car shops use about 220,000 feet a year, and work it into hand cars, push cars, track-laying cars, and cattle guards.The large remaining area of timber growth in which chestnut oak appears is the Appalachian range through eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, and the fact that it is comparatively plentiful in the forests of the Appalachian range will tend to bring it more and more into prominence as a factor in the making of wagons, cars, boats, staves, and furniture as the other oaks become scarcer.The probable future of chestnut oak is an interesting problem forstudy. Few steps have yet been taken looking toward providing for generations to come. Chestnut oak has been left to take care of itself. The trees, produced in nature’s way, have been ample to supply all needs in the past, and they will be for the near future. Chestnut oak possesses some advantages over most of the other oaks. Large trees will grow on very poor soil, where most other oaks are little more than shrubs. Trees so grown are little more susceptible to disease than if produced in good soil, though they develop more slowly and are smaller. There are many poor flats and sterile ridges in the chestnut oak’s range, and they will produce timber of fairly good kind, if the chestnut oaks are permitted to have them. Nature gave this tree facilities for taking possession. Its acorns will grow without being buried. They do not depend on blue jays to carry them to sunny openings or squirrels to plant them; but they will sprout where they fall, whether on hard gravelly soil or dry leaves; and they at once set about getting the tap roots of the future trees into the ground. In many instances the chestnut oak’s acorns do not wait to fall from the tree before they sprout. Like the seed of the Florida mangrove, they are often ready to take root the day they touch the ground. The large acorn is stored with plantfood which sustains the growing germ for some time, and the ground must be very hard and exceedingly dry if a young chestnut oak is not soon firmly established, and good for two or three hundred years, if let alone.The forester who may undertake to grow chestnut oaks must exercise great care in transplanting the seedlings, or the tap roots will be broken and the young trees will die. The best plan is to drop acorns on the ground where trees are expected to grow, and nature will do the rest, provided birds and beasts leave the acorns alone.Chestnut oak branch

This tree is known as rock oak in New York; as rock chestnut oak in Massachusetts and Rhode Island; as rock oak and rock chestnut oak in Pennsylvania and Delaware; as tanbark oak and swampy chestnut oak in North Carolina and as rock chestnut oak and mountain oak in Alabama.

There is a pretty general disposition to call this tree rock oak. The name refers to the hardness of the wood, and is not confined to this species. Other oaks are also given that name, and the adjective “rock” is applied to two or three species of elm which possess wood remarkable for its hardness. Cedar and pine are likewise in the class. In all of these classes “rock” is employed to denote hardness of wood. Iron as an adjective or ironwood as a noun is used in the same way for a number of trees. The name swampy chestnut oak as applied in some parts of the South to this tree, is hardly descriptive, for it is less a swamp tree than most of the oaks, though it does often grow along the banks of streams.

Its distribution ranges from the coast of southern Maine and the Blue Hills of eastern Massachusetts southward to Delaware and the District of Columbia; along the Appalachian mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama; westward to the shores of Lake Champlain and the valley of the Genesee river, New York; along the northern shores of Lake Erie and to central Kentucky and Tennessee. It is rare and local in New England and Ontario, but plentiful on the banks of the lower Hudson river and on the Appalachian mountains from southern New York to Alabama. It reaches its best development in the region from West Virginia to North Carolina, pretty high on the ridges flanking the mountain ranges.

Leaves are alternate, from five to nine inches long, with coarse teeth rounded at the top. At maturity, they are thick and firm, yellow-green and rather lustrous on the upper surface, paler and usually hairy beneath. In the autumn before falling, they turn a dull orange color or rusty-brown.

The flowers appear in May and are solitary or paired on short spurs. The fruit or acorn is solitary or in pairs, one or two and one-half inches long, very lustrous and of a bright chestnut-brown color. The acorn cup is thin, downy-lined and covered with small scales. The kernel is sweet and edible. The bark of the chestnut oak is thin, smooth, purplish-brown and often lustrous on young stems and small branches, becominga thick, dark, reddish-brown, or nearly black on old trunks, and divided into broad rounded ridges, separating on the surface into small, closely appressed scales. The bark of the tree is so dark in color and so deeply furrowed that it has often been mistaken for one of the black oak group, although its wavy leaf margins and annual fruit clearly differentiate it from those species. The bark of the chestnut oak is thicker and rougher on old trunks than on any other oak.

The bark of chestnut oak has long been valuable for tanning. There is tannin in the bark of all oaks, and several of them contain it in paying quantities, but chestnut oak is more important to the leather industry than any other oak. In richness of tannin the tanbark oak of California occupies as high a place, but it is not supplying as much material as the eastern tree. Statistics showing the annual consumption of tanbark and tanning extracts in the United States, do not list the oaks separately, but it is well known that chestnut oak far surpasses all others in output. Hemlock bark is peeled in large quantities, but tanneries occasionally mix chestnut oak bark with it to lighten the deep red color imparted to leather when hemlock bark is the sole material employed.

Large quantities of chestnut oak timber have been destroyed to procure the bark. Fortunately, it is a practice not much indulged in at present, because the wood now has value, but it formerly had little. It was then abandoned in the forest after the bark was peeled and hauled away. The same practice obtained with hemlock years ago. Much chestnut oak is still cut primarily for the bark, but the logs are worth hauling to sawmills, unless in remote districts.

The chestnut oak is a vigorous tree and grows rapidly in dry soil, where it often forms a great part of the forest. It is not as large as the white oak or red oak, but is a splendid tree, its bole being very symmetrical and holding its size well. It grows usually to a height of from sixty to seventy feet and sometimes 100 feet, with a diameter of from two to five feet and occasionally as large as seven feet.

The form of the tree shows great variation, depending upon the situation in which it grows. Trees in open ground often divide into forks or large limbs, and the trunks are short and of poor form. Open-grown trees show a decided tendency to develop crooked boles, and unduly large branches. No such objection can be urged against it when it grows under forest conditions. Trunks are straight and are otherwise of good form.

The wood of chestnut oak differs little from that of white oak in weight, strength, and stiffness. It is hard, rather tough, durable in contact with the soil, and is darker in color than white oak. It has fewlarge, open pores, and requires less filler in finishing than most oaks. There are many pores, however, and those in the springwood are arranged in bands. The summerwood is broad and distinct, usually constituting three-fourths of the annual ring. The medullary rays are as broad and numerous as in the best furniture oaks. They are regularly arranged, and spaces between them do not vary much in width. The wood quarter-saws well.

The wood has the fault of checking badly in seasoning, unless carefully attended to. In recent years, these difficulties have been largely overcome, both in air seasoning and in the drykiln.

Chestnut oak has a wide range of uses. It is classed as white oak in many markets, but few users buy it believing it to be true white oak. It is coming year by year to stand more on its own merits. Some sawmills which formerly piled it and sold it with other oaks, now keep it separate, and some factories which once took it only because it came mixed with other oaks, now buy it for special uses, and make high-class commodities of it. One of these is mission furniture, which has become fashionable in recent years. Chestnut oak possesses good fuming properties, and this constitutes much of its value as furniture material.

The wood is found in factories where general furniture is made. It is largely frame material for furniture though some of it is for outside finish. It is employed as frames in Maryland in the construction of canal boats, and the annual demand for that purpose is about a quarter of a million feet in that state.

One of the most important places for chestnut oak is in the shop which makes vehicles. It goes into sills for both heavy and light bodies, bolsters, and wagon bottoms. It has become a favorite wagon wood in England and in continental Europe, and there passes as white oak, though dealers well know that it is not the true white oak. There is no indication that demand for it will lessen, for it possesses many characters which fit it for vehicle making.

In Michigan more chestnut oak is reported by car builders than by any other class of manufacturers, though wagon makers buy it. Car shops use about 220,000 feet a year, and work it into hand cars, push cars, track-laying cars, and cattle guards.

The large remaining area of timber growth in which chestnut oak appears is the Appalachian range through eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, and the fact that it is comparatively plentiful in the forests of the Appalachian range will tend to bring it more and more into prominence as a factor in the making of wagons, cars, boats, staves, and furniture as the other oaks become scarcer.

The probable future of chestnut oak is an interesting problem forstudy. Few steps have yet been taken looking toward providing for generations to come. Chestnut oak has been left to take care of itself. The trees, produced in nature’s way, have been ample to supply all needs in the past, and they will be for the near future. Chestnut oak possesses some advantages over most of the other oaks. Large trees will grow on very poor soil, where most other oaks are little more than shrubs. Trees so grown are little more susceptible to disease than if produced in good soil, though they develop more slowly and are smaller. There are many poor flats and sterile ridges in the chestnut oak’s range, and they will produce timber of fairly good kind, if the chestnut oaks are permitted to have them. Nature gave this tree facilities for taking possession. Its acorns will grow without being buried. They do not depend on blue jays to carry them to sunny openings or squirrels to plant them; but they will sprout where they fall, whether on hard gravelly soil or dry leaves; and they at once set about getting the tap roots of the future trees into the ground. In many instances the chestnut oak’s acorns do not wait to fall from the tree before they sprout. Like the seed of the Florida mangrove, they are often ready to take root the day they touch the ground. The large acorn is stored with plantfood which sustains the growing germ for some time, and the ground must be very hard and exceedingly dry if a young chestnut oak is not soon firmly established, and good for two or three hundred years, if let alone.

The forester who may undertake to grow chestnut oaks must exercise great care in transplanting the seedlings, or the tap roots will be broken and the young trees will die. The best plan is to drop acorns on the ground where trees are expected to grow, and nature will do the rest, provided birds and beasts leave the acorns alone.

Chestnut oak branch

CHINQUAPIN OAKChinquapin oakChinquapin Oak

Chinquapin oakChinquapin Oak

Chinquapin Oak

CHINQUAPIN OAK(Quercus Acuminata)This tree is known as yellow chestnut oak, chinquapin oak, chestnut oak, pin oak, yellow oak, scrub oak, dwarf chestnut oak, shrub oak, and rock oak. It should not be confused withQuercus prinus, the true chestnut oak, although it is commonly known in so many sections of the country by the latter name; the names yellow oak, pin oak, and scrub oak are likewise applied to many species, so that the only way to accurately designate members of this great family is to employ their botanical names. However, this species should always be known as the chinquapin oak, which is a distinctive term, and not applied to any other.The bark of this tree is light gray and is broken into thin flakes, silvery-white, sometimes slightly tinted with brown, rarely half an inch thick. The branchlets are marked with pale lenticels.The leaves of the chinquapin oak are from five to seven inches long, simple and alternate; they have a taper-pointed apex and blunt, wedge-shaped or pointed base; are sharply toothed. When unfolding they show bright bronze-green above, tinged with purple, and are covered underneath with light silvery down; at maturity they become thick and firm, showing greenish-yellow on the upper surface and silvery-white below. The midrib is conspicuous and the veins extending outward to the points of the teeth are well-defined. In autumn the leaves turn orange and scarlet and are very showy. The leaves are narrow, hardly two inches wide, and more nearly resemble those of the chestnut than do any other oak leaves. In their broadest forms they are also similar to those of the true chestnut oak, although the difference in the quality and color of the bark, and of the leaves, would prevent either tree from being mistaken for the other. They are crowded at the ends of the branches and hang in such a manner as to show their under surfaces with every touch of breeze. This characteristic gives the chinquapin oak a peculiar effect of constantly shifting color which is one of its most attractive features and which puts the observer in mind of the trembling aspen, although the shading and coloring of the oak is much more striking.This tree’s range extends from northern New York, along Lake Champlain and the Hudson river westward through southern Ontario, and southward into parts of Nebraska and Kansas; on its eastern boundary it extends as far south as the District of Columbia and along the upper Potomac; the growth west of the Alleghany mountains reachesinto central Alabama and Mississippi, through Arkansas and the northern portion of Louisiana to the eastern part of Oklahoma and parts of Texas even to the canyons of the Guadalupe mountains, in the extreme western part of that state. It is a timber tree of much importance in Texas, and in 1910 manufacturers reported the use of 1,152,000 feet in that state, largely for making furniture and vegetable crates.The chinquapin oak is named from the form of its leaf. Its acorn bears no resemblance to the nut of chinquapin. Trees average smaller in size than white oak, but when all circumstances are favorable they compare well with any of the other oaks. In the lower Wabash valley, trees of this species were found in the original forests 160 feet high and four or five in diameter. When it grows in crowded stands it develops a tall, symmetrical trunk, clear of limbs; but it is shorter in open growth. The base is often much buttressed.The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, stiff, and durable. In color the heartwood is dark, the sapwood lighter. The springwood is narrow and filled with large pores, the summerwood broad and dense. Medullary rays are less numerous and scarcely as broad as in chestnut oak, which this wood resembles. It checks badly in drying, both by kiln and in the open air; but when properly seasoned it is an excellent wood for most purposes for which white oak is used. It shows fewer figures when quarter-sawed than white oak shows, but it is satisfactory for many kinds of furniture, particularly when finished in mission style.Railroads throughout the region where this species is found have laid chinquapin oak ties in their tracks for many years and they give long service, because they resist decay and are hard enough to stand the wear of the rails. In early times in the Ohio valley it helped to fence many a farm when the material for such fences was the old style fence rail, eleven feet long, mauled from the straightest, clearest timber afforded by the primeval forest. It had for companions many other oaks which were abundant there, and it was on a par with the best of them. In the first years of steamboating on the Ohio river, when the engines used wood for fuel, they provided a market for many an old rail fence. The rails were the best obtainable fuel, and the chinquapin oak rails in the heaps were carefully looked for by the purchasers, because they were rated high in fuel value. It is now known that chinquapin oak in combustion develops considerably more heat than an equal quantity of white oak.When southern Indiana and Illinois were furnishing coopers with their best staves, chinquapin oak was ricked with white oak, and no barrel maker ever complained. The pores in the wood seem large, but in old timber which is largely heartwood, the pores become clogged bythe processes of nature, and the wood is made proof against leakage. That is what gives white oak its superiority as stave timber. It has as many pores as red oak, but upon close examination under a magnifying glass, they are found to be plugged, while red oak’s pores are wide open. The result is that red oak barrels leak through the wood; those made of white oak do not. Chinquapin oak possesses the same properties, which account for its reputation as stave material.The future for chinquapin oak is not quite as promising as that of chestnut oak. The former’s choice growing place is on rich soil and in damp situations. These happen to be what the farmer wants, and he will not leave the chinquapin oak alone to grow in nature’s method, nor will he plant its acorns in places where the trees will interfere with his cornfields and meadows. Consequently, the tree is apt to receive scant consideration after the original forests have disappeared; while its poor cousin, the chestnut oak, will be left to make its way on sterile ridges, and may even receive some help from the forester and woodlot owner.Valley Oak(Quercus lobata) is often considered to be the largest hardwood of the Pacific coast. Trunk diameters of ten feet have been recorded, and heights more than 100; but such measurements belong only to rare and extraordinary individuals. The average size of the tree is less than half of that. The most famous tree of this species is the Sir Joseph Hooker oak, near Chico, California, though it is not the largest. It is seven feet in diameter and 100 high. It was named by the botanist Asa Gray in 1877. This species is commonly called California white oak, which name would be unobjectionable if it were the only white oak in California. A more distinctive name is weeping oak, which refers to the appearance of the outer branches. It is called swamp oak, but without good reason, though the ground on which it grows is often swampy during the rainy season. The name valley oak is specially appropriate, since its favorite habitat is in the broad valleys of central California. Its range does not go outside that state, neither does the tree grow very high on the mountains. Its range begins in the upper Sacramento valley and extends to Tejon, south of Lake Tulare, a distance north and south of about five hundred miles, while east and west the tree is found from the Sierra foothills to the sea, 150 or 200 miles. Its characteristic growth is in scattered stands. It does not form forests in the ordinary sense. Two or three large trees to the acre are an average, and often many acres are wholly missed. The form of trees, and the wide spaces between them, resemble an old apple orchard, though few apple trees live to attain the dimensions of the valley oak of ordinary size. The best stands were originally in the Santa Clara valley and in the central part of the San Joaquin valley in the salt grass region north of Lake Tulare in Kings and Fresno counties. Most of the largest trees were cut long ago.The leaves are lobed like white oak (Quercus alba) but are smaller, seldom more than four inches long and two wide. The acorns are uncommonly long, some of them being two and a half inches, sharp pointed, with shallow cups. The wood of this oak is brash and breaks easily. It is far below good eastern oak in strength and elasticity. It weighs 46.17 pounds per cubic foot. The tree grows rapidly, and its wide, clearly defined annual rings are largely dense summerwood. The springwood is perforated with large pores. The color of the wood is light brown, the sapwoodlighter. Except as fuel, the uses found for valley oak hardly come up to what might be expected of a tree so large. It is not difficult, or at least was not difficult once, to cut logs sixteen feet long and from three to five in diameter. Such logs ought to make good lumber. The medullary rays indicate that the wood can be quarter-sawed to advantage; yet there is no account that any serious attempt was ever made to convert the valley oak into lumber. The wood has some objectionable properties, but it has escaped the sawmill chiefly because hardwood mills have never been numerous in California, and they have been especially few in the regions where the best valley oaks grow. The tree has been a great source of fuel. It usually divides twenty or thirty feet from the ground into large, wide-spreading branches, tempting to the woodchopper. In central California, twenty or thirty years ago, it was not unusual to haul this cordwood twenty-five miles to market. Stockmen employed posts and rails split from valley oak to enclose corrals and pens on the open plains for holding cattle, sheep, and horses. The acorns are edible, and were formerly an article of food for Indians who gathered them in considerable quantities in the fall and stored them for winter in large baskets which were secured high in the forks of trees to be out of reach of all ordinary marauders. The baskets were made rain proof by roofing and wrapping them with grass. When the time came for eating the acorns, they were prepared for use by hulling them and then pounding them into meal in stone mortars. The hulling was done with the teeth, and was the work of squaws. The custom of eating the acorns has largely ceased with the passing of the wild Indians from their former camping places; but the stone mortars by hundreds remain in the vicinity of former stands of valley oak.This splendid tree is highly ornamental, but it has not been planted, and perhaps it will not become popular. Nature seems to have confined it to a certain climate, and it is not known that it will thrive outside of it. It will certainly disappear from many of the valleys where the largest trees once grew. The land is being taken for fields and vineyards, and the oaks are removed. Some will remain in canyons and rough places where the land is not wanted, and one of the finest species of the United States will cease to pass entirely from earth. The largest of these oaks have a spread of branches covering more than one-third of an acre.Chinquapin oak branch

This tree is known as yellow chestnut oak, chinquapin oak, chestnut oak, pin oak, yellow oak, scrub oak, dwarf chestnut oak, shrub oak, and rock oak. It should not be confused withQuercus prinus, the true chestnut oak, although it is commonly known in so many sections of the country by the latter name; the names yellow oak, pin oak, and scrub oak are likewise applied to many species, so that the only way to accurately designate members of this great family is to employ their botanical names. However, this species should always be known as the chinquapin oak, which is a distinctive term, and not applied to any other.

The bark of this tree is light gray and is broken into thin flakes, silvery-white, sometimes slightly tinted with brown, rarely half an inch thick. The branchlets are marked with pale lenticels.

The leaves of the chinquapin oak are from five to seven inches long, simple and alternate; they have a taper-pointed apex and blunt, wedge-shaped or pointed base; are sharply toothed. When unfolding they show bright bronze-green above, tinged with purple, and are covered underneath with light silvery down; at maturity they become thick and firm, showing greenish-yellow on the upper surface and silvery-white below. The midrib is conspicuous and the veins extending outward to the points of the teeth are well-defined. In autumn the leaves turn orange and scarlet and are very showy. The leaves are narrow, hardly two inches wide, and more nearly resemble those of the chestnut than do any other oak leaves. In their broadest forms they are also similar to those of the true chestnut oak, although the difference in the quality and color of the bark, and of the leaves, would prevent either tree from being mistaken for the other. They are crowded at the ends of the branches and hang in such a manner as to show their under surfaces with every touch of breeze. This characteristic gives the chinquapin oak a peculiar effect of constantly shifting color which is one of its most attractive features and which puts the observer in mind of the trembling aspen, although the shading and coloring of the oak is much more striking.

This tree’s range extends from northern New York, along Lake Champlain and the Hudson river westward through southern Ontario, and southward into parts of Nebraska and Kansas; on its eastern boundary it extends as far south as the District of Columbia and along the upper Potomac; the growth west of the Alleghany mountains reachesinto central Alabama and Mississippi, through Arkansas and the northern portion of Louisiana to the eastern part of Oklahoma and parts of Texas even to the canyons of the Guadalupe mountains, in the extreme western part of that state. It is a timber tree of much importance in Texas, and in 1910 manufacturers reported the use of 1,152,000 feet in that state, largely for making furniture and vegetable crates.

The chinquapin oak is named from the form of its leaf. Its acorn bears no resemblance to the nut of chinquapin. Trees average smaller in size than white oak, but when all circumstances are favorable they compare well with any of the other oaks. In the lower Wabash valley, trees of this species were found in the original forests 160 feet high and four or five in diameter. When it grows in crowded stands it develops a tall, symmetrical trunk, clear of limbs; but it is shorter in open growth. The base is often much buttressed.

The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, stiff, and durable. In color the heartwood is dark, the sapwood lighter. The springwood is narrow and filled with large pores, the summerwood broad and dense. Medullary rays are less numerous and scarcely as broad as in chestnut oak, which this wood resembles. It checks badly in drying, both by kiln and in the open air; but when properly seasoned it is an excellent wood for most purposes for which white oak is used. It shows fewer figures when quarter-sawed than white oak shows, but it is satisfactory for many kinds of furniture, particularly when finished in mission style.

Railroads throughout the region where this species is found have laid chinquapin oak ties in their tracks for many years and they give long service, because they resist decay and are hard enough to stand the wear of the rails. In early times in the Ohio valley it helped to fence many a farm when the material for such fences was the old style fence rail, eleven feet long, mauled from the straightest, clearest timber afforded by the primeval forest. It had for companions many other oaks which were abundant there, and it was on a par with the best of them. In the first years of steamboating on the Ohio river, when the engines used wood for fuel, they provided a market for many an old rail fence. The rails were the best obtainable fuel, and the chinquapin oak rails in the heaps were carefully looked for by the purchasers, because they were rated high in fuel value. It is now known that chinquapin oak in combustion develops considerably more heat than an equal quantity of white oak.

When southern Indiana and Illinois were furnishing coopers with their best staves, chinquapin oak was ricked with white oak, and no barrel maker ever complained. The pores in the wood seem large, but in old timber which is largely heartwood, the pores become clogged bythe processes of nature, and the wood is made proof against leakage. That is what gives white oak its superiority as stave timber. It has as many pores as red oak, but upon close examination under a magnifying glass, they are found to be plugged, while red oak’s pores are wide open. The result is that red oak barrels leak through the wood; those made of white oak do not. Chinquapin oak possesses the same properties, which account for its reputation as stave material.

The future for chinquapin oak is not quite as promising as that of chestnut oak. The former’s choice growing place is on rich soil and in damp situations. These happen to be what the farmer wants, and he will not leave the chinquapin oak alone to grow in nature’s method, nor will he plant its acorns in places where the trees will interfere with his cornfields and meadows. Consequently, the tree is apt to receive scant consideration after the original forests have disappeared; while its poor cousin, the chestnut oak, will be left to make its way on sterile ridges, and may even receive some help from the forester and woodlot owner.

Valley Oak(Quercus lobata) is often considered to be the largest hardwood of the Pacific coast. Trunk diameters of ten feet have been recorded, and heights more than 100; but such measurements belong only to rare and extraordinary individuals. The average size of the tree is less than half of that. The most famous tree of this species is the Sir Joseph Hooker oak, near Chico, California, though it is not the largest. It is seven feet in diameter and 100 high. It was named by the botanist Asa Gray in 1877. This species is commonly called California white oak, which name would be unobjectionable if it were the only white oak in California. A more distinctive name is weeping oak, which refers to the appearance of the outer branches. It is called swamp oak, but without good reason, though the ground on which it grows is often swampy during the rainy season. The name valley oak is specially appropriate, since its favorite habitat is in the broad valleys of central California. Its range does not go outside that state, neither does the tree grow very high on the mountains. Its range begins in the upper Sacramento valley and extends to Tejon, south of Lake Tulare, a distance north and south of about five hundred miles, while east and west the tree is found from the Sierra foothills to the sea, 150 or 200 miles. Its characteristic growth is in scattered stands. It does not form forests in the ordinary sense. Two or three large trees to the acre are an average, and often many acres are wholly missed. The form of trees, and the wide spaces between them, resemble an old apple orchard, though few apple trees live to attain the dimensions of the valley oak of ordinary size. The best stands were originally in the Santa Clara valley and in the central part of the San Joaquin valley in the salt grass region north of Lake Tulare in Kings and Fresno counties. Most of the largest trees were cut long ago.The leaves are lobed like white oak (Quercus alba) but are smaller, seldom more than four inches long and two wide. The acorns are uncommonly long, some of them being two and a half inches, sharp pointed, with shallow cups. The wood of this oak is brash and breaks easily. It is far below good eastern oak in strength and elasticity. It weighs 46.17 pounds per cubic foot. The tree grows rapidly, and its wide, clearly defined annual rings are largely dense summerwood. The springwood is perforated with large pores. The color of the wood is light brown, the sapwoodlighter. Except as fuel, the uses found for valley oak hardly come up to what might be expected of a tree so large. It is not difficult, or at least was not difficult once, to cut logs sixteen feet long and from three to five in diameter. Such logs ought to make good lumber. The medullary rays indicate that the wood can be quarter-sawed to advantage; yet there is no account that any serious attempt was ever made to convert the valley oak into lumber. The wood has some objectionable properties, but it has escaped the sawmill chiefly because hardwood mills have never been numerous in California, and they have been especially few in the regions where the best valley oaks grow. The tree has been a great source of fuel. It usually divides twenty or thirty feet from the ground into large, wide-spreading branches, tempting to the woodchopper. In central California, twenty or thirty years ago, it was not unusual to haul this cordwood twenty-five miles to market. Stockmen employed posts and rails split from valley oak to enclose corrals and pens on the open plains for holding cattle, sheep, and horses. The acorns are edible, and were formerly an article of food for Indians who gathered them in considerable quantities in the fall and stored them for winter in large baskets which were secured high in the forks of trees to be out of reach of all ordinary marauders. The baskets were made rain proof by roofing and wrapping them with grass. When the time came for eating the acorns, they were prepared for use by hulling them and then pounding them into meal in stone mortars. The hulling was done with the teeth, and was the work of squaws. The custom of eating the acorns has largely ceased with the passing of the wild Indians from their former camping places; but the stone mortars by hundreds remain in the vicinity of former stands of valley oak.This splendid tree is highly ornamental, but it has not been planted, and perhaps it will not become popular. Nature seems to have confined it to a certain climate, and it is not known that it will thrive outside of it. It will certainly disappear from many of the valleys where the largest trees once grew. The land is being taken for fields and vineyards, and the oaks are removed. Some will remain in canyons and rough places where the land is not wanted, and one of the finest species of the United States will cease to pass entirely from earth. The largest of these oaks have a spread of branches covering more than one-third of an acre.

The leaves are lobed like white oak (Quercus alba) but are smaller, seldom more than four inches long and two wide. The acorns are uncommonly long, some of them being two and a half inches, sharp pointed, with shallow cups. The wood of this oak is brash and breaks easily. It is far below good eastern oak in strength and elasticity. It weighs 46.17 pounds per cubic foot. The tree grows rapidly, and its wide, clearly defined annual rings are largely dense summerwood. The springwood is perforated with large pores. The color of the wood is light brown, the sapwoodlighter. Except as fuel, the uses found for valley oak hardly come up to what might be expected of a tree so large. It is not difficult, or at least was not difficult once, to cut logs sixteen feet long and from three to five in diameter. Such logs ought to make good lumber. The medullary rays indicate that the wood can be quarter-sawed to advantage; yet there is no account that any serious attempt was ever made to convert the valley oak into lumber. The wood has some objectionable properties, but it has escaped the sawmill chiefly because hardwood mills have never been numerous in California, and they have been especially few in the regions where the best valley oaks grow. The tree has been a great source of fuel. It usually divides twenty or thirty feet from the ground into large, wide-spreading branches, tempting to the woodchopper. In central California, twenty or thirty years ago, it was not unusual to haul this cordwood twenty-five miles to market. Stockmen employed posts and rails split from valley oak to enclose corrals and pens on the open plains for holding cattle, sheep, and horses. The acorns are edible, and were formerly an article of food for Indians who gathered them in considerable quantities in the fall and stored them for winter in large baskets which were secured high in the forks of trees to be out of reach of all ordinary marauders. The baskets were made rain proof by roofing and wrapping them with grass. When the time came for eating the acorns, they were prepared for use by hulling them and then pounding them into meal in stone mortars. The hulling was done with the teeth, and was the work of squaws. The custom of eating the acorns has largely ceased with the passing of the wild Indians from their former camping places; but the stone mortars by hundreds remain in the vicinity of former stands of valley oak.

This splendid tree is highly ornamental, but it has not been planted, and perhaps it will not become popular. Nature seems to have confined it to a certain climate, and it is not known that it will thrive outside of it. It will certainly disappear from many of the valleys where the largest trees once grew. The land is being taken for fields and vineyards, and the oaks are removed. Some will remain in canyons and rough places where the land is not wanted, and one of the finest species of the United States will cease to pass entirely from earth. The largest of these oaks have a spread of branches covering more than one-third of an acre.

Chinquapin oak branch

LIVE OAK[252]Live oakLive Oak

[252]

Live oakLive Oak

Live Oak

LIVE OAK(Quercus Virginiana)The history of this live oak is a reversal of the history of almost every other important forest tree of the United States. It seems to be the lone exception to the rule that the use of a certain wood never decreases until forced by scarcity. There was a time when hardly any wood in this country was in greater demand than this, and now there is hardly one in less demand. The decline has not been the result of scarcity, for there has never been a time when plenty was not in sight. A few years ago, several fine live oaks were cut in making street changes in New Orleans, and a number of sound logs, over three feet in diameter, were rolled aside, and it was publicly announced that anyone who would take them away could have them. No one took them. It is doubtful if that could happen with timber of any other kind.The situation was different 120 years ago. At that time live oak was in such demand that the government, soon after the adoption of the constitution, became anxious lest enough could not be had to meet the requirements of the navy department. The keels of the first war vessels built by this government were about to be laid, and the most necessary material for their construction was live oak. The vessels were to be of wood, of course; and their strength and reliability depended upon the size and quality of the heavy braces used in the lower framework. These braces were called knees and were crooked at right angles. They were hewed in solid pieces, and the largest weighed nearly 1,000 pounds. No other wood was as suitable as live oak, which is very strong, and it grows knees in the form desired. The crooks produced by the junction of large roots with the base of the trunk were selected, and shipbuilders with saws, broadaxes, and adzes cut them in the desired sizes and shapes.When the building of the first ships of the navy was undertaken, the alarm was sounded that live oak was scarce, and that speculators were buying it to sell to European governments. Congress appropriated large sums of money and bought islands and other lands along the south Atlantic and Gulf coast, where the best live oak grew. In Louisiana alone the government bought 37,000 live oak trees, as well as large numbers in Florida and Georgia. In some instances the land on which the trees stood was bought.Ship carpenters were sent from New England to hew knees for the first vessels of the navy. The story of the troubles and triumphs of the contractors and knee cutters is an interesting one, but too long for even a summary here; suffice it that in due time the vessels were finished. Thehistory of those vessels is almost a history of the early United States navy. Among their first duties when they put to sea was to fight French warships, when this country was about to get into trouble with Napoleon. They then fought the pirates of North Africa, and there one of the ships was burned by its own men to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. “Old Ironsides,” another of the live oak vessels, fought fourteen ships, one at a time, during the war of 1812, and whipped them all. Another of the vessels was less fortunate. It was lost in battle, in which its commander, Lawrence, was killed, whose last words have become historic: “Don’t give up the ship.” Another came down to the Civil war and was sunk in Chesapeake bay.The invention of iron vessels ended the demand for live oak knees. The government held its land where this timber grew for a long time, but finally disposed of most of it. Part of that owned in Florida was recently incorporated in one of the National Forests of that state.Live oak is a tree of striking appearance. It prefers the open, and when of large size its spread of branches often is twice the height of the tree. Its trunk is short, but massy, and of enormous strength; otherwise it could not sustain the great weight of its heavy branches. Some of the largest limbs are nearly two feet in diameter where they leave the trunk, and are fifty feet long, and some are seventy-five feet in length. Probably the only tree in this country with a wider spread of branches is the valley oak of California. The live oak’s trunk is too short for more than one sawlog, and that of moderate length. The largest specimens may be seventy feet high and six or seven feet in diameter, and yet not good for a sixteen-foot log. The enormous roots are of no use now. When land is cleared of this oak, the stumps are left to rot.The range of live oak extends 4,000 miles or more northeast and southwest. It begins on the coast of Virginia and ends in Central America. It is found in Lower California and in Cuba. In southern United States it sticks pretty closely to the coastal plains, though large trees grow 200 or 300 feet above tide level. In Texas it is inclined to rise higher on the mountains, but live oak in Texas seldom measures up to that which grows further east. In southern Texas, where the land is poor and dry, live oak degenerates into a shrub. Trees only a foot high sometimes bear acorns. In all its range in this country, it is known by but one English name, given it because it is evergreen. The leaves remain on the tree about thirteen months, following the habit of a number of other oaks. When new leaves appear, the old ones get out of the way.The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, and tough. In strength and stiffness it rates higher than white oak, and it is twelve pounds a cubicfoot heavier. The sapwood is light in color, the heartwood brown, sometimes quite dark. The pores in the sapwood are open, but many of them are closed in heartwood. The annual rings are moderately well defined. The large pores are in the springwood, and those of the summerwood are smaller, but numerous. The medullary rays are numerous and dark. Measured radially, they are shorter than those of many other oaks. They show well in quarter-sawed lumber, but are arranged peculiarly, and do not form large groups of figures; but the wood presents a rather flecked or wavy appearance. The general tone is dark brown and very rich. It takes a smooth polish. When the wood is worked into spindles and small articles, and brightly polished, its appearance suggests dark polished granite, but the similitude is not sustained under close examination. Grills composed of small spindles and scrollwork are strikingly beautiful if displayed in light which does the wood justice. Composite panels are manufactured by joining narrow strips edge to edge. Selected pieces of dressed live oak suggest Circassian walnut, but would not pass as an imitation on close inspection. It may be stated generally that live oak is far from being a dead, flat wood, but is capable of being worked for various effects. Its value as a cabinet material has not been appreciated in the past, nor have its possibilities been suspected. It dropped out of notice when shipbuilders dispensed with it, and people seem to have taken for granted that it had no value for anything else. The form of the trunks makes possible the cutting of short stock only; but there is abundance of it. It fringes a thousand miles of coast. Many a trunk, short though it is, will cut easily a thousand feet of lumber. Working the large roots in veneer has not been undertaken, but good judges of veneers, who know what the stumps and roots contain, have expressed the opinion that a field is there awaiting development.Published reports of the uses of woods of various states seldom mention live oak. In Texas some of it is employed in the manufacture of parquet flooring. It is dark and contrasts with the blocks or strips of maple or some other light wood. It is turned in the lathe for newel posts for stairs, and contributes to other parts of stair work. In Louisiana it is occasionally found in shops where vehicles are made. It meets requirements as axles for heavy wagons. Stone masons’ mauls are made of live oak knots. They stand nearly as much pounding as lignum-vitæ. More live oak is cut for fuel than for all other purposes. It develops much heat, but a large quantity of ashes remains.The live oak is the most highly valued ornamental tree of the South, though it has seldom been planted. Nature placed these oaks where they are growing. Many an old southern homestead sits well back ingroves of live oak. Parks and plazas in towns have them, and would not part with them on any terms. Tallahassee, Florida, is almost buried under live oaks which in earlier years sheltered the wigwams of an Indian town. Villages near the coasts of both the Gulf and the Atlantic in several southern states have their venerable trees large enough for half the people to find shade beneath the branches at one time. Many fine stands have been cut in recent years to make room for corn, cane, and rice.Many persons associate the live oak with Spanish moss which festoons its branches in the Gulf region. The moss is no part of the tree, and apparently draws no substance from it, though it may smother the leaves by accumulation, or break the branches by its weight. Strictly speaking, the beard-like growth is not moss at all, but a sort of pine apple (Dendropogon usenoides) which simply hangs on the limbs and draws its sustenance from water and air. It is found on other trees, besides live oak, and dealers in Louisiana alone sell half a million dollars worth of it a year to upholsterers in all the principal countries of the world.Live oak branch

The history of this live oak is a reversal of the history of almost every other important forest tree of the United States. It seems to be the lone exception to the rule that the use of a certain wood never decreases until forced by scarcity. There was a time when hardly any wood in this country was in greater demand than this, and now there is hardly one in less demand. The decline has not been the result of scarcity, for there has never been a time when plenty was not in sight. A few years ago, several fine live oaks were cut in making street changes in New Orleans, and a number of sound logs, over three feet in diameter, were rolled aside, and it was publicly announced that anyone who would take them away could have them. No one took them. It is doubtful if that could happen with timber of any other kind.

The situation was different 120 years ago. At that time live oak was in such demand that the government, soon after the adoption of the constitution, became anxious lest enough could not be had to meet the requirements of the navy department. The keels of the first war vessels built by this government were about to be laid, and the most necessary material for their construction was live oak. The vessels were to be of wood, of course; and their strength and reliability depended upon the size and quality of the heavy braces used in the lower framework. These braces were called knees and were crooked at right angles. They were hewed in solid pieces, and the largest weighed nearly 1,000 pounds. No other wood was as suitable as live oak, which is very strong, and it grows knees in the form desired. The crooks produced by the junction of large roots with the base of the trunk were selected, and shipbuilders with saws, broadaxes, and adzes cut them in the desired sizes and shapes.

When the building of the first ships of the navy was undertaken, the alarm was sounded that live oak was scarce, and that speculators were buying it to sell to European governments. Congress appropriated large sums of money and bought islands and other lands along the south Atlantic and Gulf coast, where the best live oak grew. In Louisiana alone the government bought 37,000 live oak trees, as well as large numbers in Florida and Georgia. In some instances the land on which the trees stood was bought.

Ship carpenters were sent from New England to hew knees for the first vessels of the navy. The story of the troubles and triumphs of the contractors and knee cutters is an interesting one, but too long for even a summary here; suffice it that in due time the vessels were finished. Thehistory of those vessels is almost a history of the early United States navy. Among their first duties when they put to sea was to fight French warships, when this country was about to get into trouble with Napoleon. They then fought the pirates of North Africa, and there one of the ships was burned by its own men to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. “Old Ironsides,” another of the live oak vessels, fought fourteen ships, one at a time, during the war of 1812, and whipped them all. Another of the vessels was less fortunate. It was lost in battle, in which its commander, Lawrence, was killed, whose last words have become historic: “Don’t give up the ship.” Another came down to the Civil war and was sunk in Chesapeake bay.

The invention of iron vessels ended the demand for live oak knees. The government held its land where this timber grew for a long time, but finally disposed of most of it. Part of that owned in Florida was recently incorporated in one of the National Forests of that state.

Live oak is a tree of striking appearance. It prefers the open, and when of large size its spread of branches often is twice the height of the tree. Its trunk is short, but massy, and of enormous strength; otherwise it could not sustain the great weight of its heavy branches. Some of the largest limbs are nearly two feet in diameter where they leave the trunk, and are fifty feet long, and some are seventy-five feet in length. Probably the only tree in this country with a wider spread of branches is the valley oak of California. The live oak’s trunk is too short for more than one sawlog, and that of moderate length. The largest specimens may be seventy feet high and six or seven feet in diameter, and yet not good for a sixteen-foot log. The enormous roots are of no use now. When land is cleared of this oak, the stumps are left to rot.

The range of live oak extends 4,000 miles or more northeast and southwest. It begins on the coast of Virginia and ends in Central America. It is found in Lower California and in Cuba. In southern United States it sticks pretty closely to the coastal plains, though large trees grow 200 or 300 feet above tide level. In Texas it is inclined to rise higher on the mountains, but live oak in Texas seldom measures up to that which grows further east. In southern Texas, where the land is poor and dry, live oak degenerates into a shrub. Trees only a foot high sometimes bear acorns. In all its range in this country, it is known by but one English name, given it because it is evergreen. The leaves remain on the tree about thirteen months, following the habit of a number of other oaks. When new leaves appear, the old ones get out of the way.

The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, and tough. In strength and stiffness it rates higher than white oak, and it is twelve pounds a cubicfoot heavier. The sapwood is light in color, the heartwood brown, sometimes quite dark. The pores in the sapwood are open, but many of them are closed in heartwood. The annual rings are moderately well defined. The large pores are in the springwood, and those of the summerwood are smaller, but numerous. The medullary rays are numerous and dark. Measured radially, they are shorter than those of many other oaks. They show well in quarter-sawed lumber, but are arranged peculiarly, and do not form large groups of figures; but the wood presents a rather flecked or wavy appearance. The general tone is dark brown and very rich. It takes a smooth polish. When the wood is worked into spindles and small articles, and brightly polished, its appearance suggests dark polished granite, but the similitude is not sustained under close examination. Grills composed of small spindles and scrollwork are strikingly beautiful if displayed in light which does the wood justice. Composite panels are manufactured by joining narrow strips edge to edge. Selected pieces of dressed live oak suggest Circassian walnut, but would not pass as an imitation on close inspection. It may be stated generally that live oak is far from being a dead, flat wood, but is capable of being worked for various effects. Its value as a cabinet material has not been appreciated in the past, nor have its possibilities been suspected. It dropped out of notice when shipbuilders dispensed with it, and people seem to have taken for granted that it had no value for anything else. The form of the trunks makes possible the cutting of short stock only; but there is abundance of it. It fringes a thousand miles of coast. Many a trunk, short though it is, will cut easily a thousand feet of lumber. Working the large roots in veneer has not been undertaken, but good judges of veneers, who know what the stumps and roots contain, have expressed the opinion that a field is there awaiting development.

Published reports of the uses of woods of various states seldom mention live oak. In Texas some of it is employed in the manufacture of parquet flooring. It is dark and contrasts with the blocks or strips of maple or some other light wood. It is turned in the lathe for newel posts for stairs, and contributes to other parts of stair work. In Louisiana it is occasionally found in shops where vehicles are made. It meets requirements as axles for heavy wagons. Stone masons’ mauls are made of live oak knots. They stand nearly as much pounding as lignum-vitæ. More live oak is cut for fuel than for all other purposes. It develops much heat, but a large quantity of ashes remains.

The live oak is the most highly valued ornamental tree of the South, though it has seldom been planted. Nature placed these oaks where they are growing. Many an old southern homestead sits well back ingroves of live oak. Parks and plazas in towns have them, and would not part with them on any terms. Tallahassee, Florida, is almost buried under live oaks which in earlier years sheltered the wigwams of an Indian town. Villages near the coasts of both the Gulf and the Atlantic in several southern states have their venerable trees large enough for half the people to find shade beneath the branches at one time. Many fine stands have been cut in recent years to make room for corn, cane, and rice.

Many persons associate the live oak with Spanish moss which festoons its branches in the Gulf region. The moss is no part of the tree, and apparently draws no substance from it, though it may smother the leaves by accumulation, or break the branches by its weight. Strictly speaking, the beard-like growth is not moss at all, but a sort of pine apple (Dendropogon usenoides) which simply hangs on the limbs and draws its sustenance from water and air. It is found on other trees, besides live oak, and dealers in Louisiana alone sell half a million dollars worth of it a year to upholsterers in all the principal countries of the world.

Live oak branch

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