LOBLOLLY PINE

LOBLOLLY PINELoblolly pineLoblolly Pine

Loblolly pineLoblolly Pine

Loblolly Pine

LOBLOLLY PINE(Pinus Tæda)Few trees have more names than this. The names, however, may be separated into groups, one group referring to the foliage, another to the situations in which the tree grows, and a third to certain characters or uses of the wood. Names descriptive of the leaves are longschat pine, longshucks pine, shortleaf pine, foxtail pine, and longstraw pine. The names which refer to locality or situation are loblolly pine, old-field pine, slash pine, black slash pine, Virginia pine, meadow pine and swamp pine. Names which refer to the character of the wood or of the standing tree are torch pine, rosemary pine, frankincense pine, cornstalk pine, spruce pine, and yellow pine. Not one of these names is applied to the tree in its entire range, and it has several names other than those listed. Sap pine is widely applied to the lumber, because the tree’s sapwood is very thick, sometimes amounting to eighty per cent of a trunk. It has borne the name old-field pine for a hundred and fifty years in Virginia, and the name suggests a good deal of history. Some of the improvident early Virginia tobacco growers neglected to fertilize their fields, and the land wore out under constant cropping, and was abandoned. The pine quickly took possession, for the fields which were too far exhausted to produce tobacco or corn were amply able to grow dense stands of loblolly pine, and the farmers noticing this, called it old-field pine. It has been taking possession of abandoned fields in Virginia and North Carolina ever since, and the name still applies. The tree grows from New Jersey to Florida, west to Texas, north to Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia, but it does not cover the whole territory thus outlined. It is very scarce near its northern limit. There is evidence that the range of loblolly has extended in historic times, not into new or distant regions, but outside the borders which once marked its range. Since white men in Texas stopped the Indians’ grass fires, the pine has encroached upon the prairie. Early writers in Virginia and North Carolina spoke of pine as scarce or totally wanting, except on the immediate coast. It is now found from one hundred to two hundred miles inland, and many sawmills now cut logs which have grown in fields abandoned since the Revolutionary war. This has occurred on the Atlantic coast rather than west of the Appalachian ranges of mountains. Virginia has more sawmills than any other state, and many of them are working on loblolly pine which has grown in the last hundred years.The tree bears seeds abundantly and scatters them widely. It is vigorous, grows with great rapidity, and is able to fight its way if it findsconditions in any way favorable. Turpentine operators have not found the working of loblolly pine profitable, and this has relieved it of a drain which has done much to deplete the southern forests of longleaf pine.Loblolly’s leaves are from six to nine inches long, and fall the third year. This species, in common with other southern yellow pines, is disposed to grow tall, clear trunks, with a meager supply of limbs and foliage at the top. The lumber sawed from trunks of that kind is clear of knots. No other important forest tree of the United States comes as nearly being a cultivated tree as the loblolly pine. This is particularly true in the northeastern part of its range, in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Though nature has done the actual planting, men provided the seed beds by giving up old fields to that use; and many of the stands are as thick and even as if they had been planted and cared for by regular forestry methods. Trees are from eighty to one hundred feet tall, and from two to four in diameter, some very old ones being a little larger.The annual rings of loblolly pine are broad, with good contrast between the spring and summer growth. The wood is light, not strong, brittle, not durable, very resinous, the resin passages are few and not conspicuous; medullary rays are numerous and obscure; color, light brown, the thick sapwood orange or nearly white. When this tree is of slow growth it is lighter, less resinous, and has thinner sapwood. It is sometimes known as rosemary pine.The use of loblolly pine lumber was greatly stimulated when the custom of drying it in kilns became general. It is largely sapwood and dries slowly in air. Its market is found in all eastern and central parts of the United States, and it is exported to Europe and Central and South America. It is a substantial material for many common purposes and its use is very large on the Atlantic coast. In quantity it exceeds any other species in the wood-using industries of Maryland, and all others combined in North Carolina. It is not as often employed in heavy structural timbers as longleaf pine, but in the market of which Baltimore is the center, much use is made of it for that purpose. It is ten pounds a cubic foot lighter than longleaf, has about three-fourths of the strength, and nearly four-fifths of longleaf’s elasticity. It is thus seen to be considerably inferior to it as a structural timber where heavy loads must be sustained; but builders use it for many purposes in preference to or on an equality with longleaf. It is fine for interior finish and doors. Railroads employ large quantities in building freight cars, much for crossties, and bridge builders find many places for it. It is not a long lasting wood when exposed to weather, unless it has been treated with creosote to preserve it from decay. It is one of the most easily treated woods.In North Carolina and Virginia loblolly tobacco hogsheads are common; and box factories within easy reach of it use much. A list of its uses, compiled from reports of factory operations in Maryland, will give an idea of the range it covers: Basket bottoms, beer bottle boxes, boats, cart bodies, crates, flooring, frames for doors and windows, fruit boxes, interior finish, nail kegs, oyster boxes, seats for boats, siding for houses, staves for slack cooperage, store fixtures, wagon beds, balusters, brackets, chiffoniers, mantels, molding, picture frames, stair railing, sash, scrollwork, sideboards, tables.The amount of loblolly pine timber in this country is not known. No other important species comes so near growing as much as is cut from year to year. It covers 200,000 square miles with stands ranging from little or nothing in some parts to 20,000 feet per acre in others, or more in exceptional cases. The area of fully stocked loblolly pine is believed to be as large now as it ever was. Before the Civil war it was predicted that its period of greatest production was over; but large tracts are now being logged on which the pine seeds had not been sown in 1860.Pond Pine(Pinus serotina). Sargent’s table of weights of woods shows this to be the heaviest pine of the United States; but, as his calculations were made from a single sample which grew in Duval county, Florida, further data should be secured before his figures, 49.5 pounds per cubic foot, are accepted as an average weight for the species. It is rated in strength about equal to longleaf and Cuban pine. Its structure shows a large percentage of dense summerwood in the yearly ring. The leaves are in clusters of three, rarely four, and are six or eight inches long, and fall in their third and fourth years. The name suggests that the cones are tightly closed, and that they adhere tenaciously to the twigs on which they grow. This is found true. The principal impression made on a person who sees the pond pine for the first time is that it is overloaded with cones, and that it must be a prolific seeder. Better acquaintance modifies the latter part of that impression. It is overloaded with cones, but most of them are many years old, and have long been seedless, although most of the trees have the seed crops of two years on the branches at one time. Enough seed is shed to perpetuate the species, but too little to insure an aggressive spread into surrounding vacant ground. The pond pine may reach a diameter of three feet and a height of eighty, but that is twice the average size. The wood is very resinous, and is brittle.Scrub Pine(Pinus virginiana). This tree is often called Jersey pine because it is a prominent feature of the landscapes in the southern part of that state where it has spread extensively since the settlement of the country. Its short needles havebeen responsible for several of its names, among them being shortshuck pine in Maryland and Virginia, shortshat pine in Delaware, shortleaved pine in North Carolina, and spruce pine and cedar pine in some parts of the South. In Tennessee it is known as nigger pine, and in some parts of North Carolina as river pine. The range is fairly well outlined by the above discussion of its names. It grows from New York to South Carolina, and west of the mountains it is found in northern Alabama and middle Tennessee, in Kentucky and West Virginia. It reaches its largest size in southern Indiana where it is sometimes 100 feet high and three in diameter. It is there a valuable tree for many purposes, but is not abundant. Its average size is small in the eastern states, usually not over fifty feet high, and often little more than half of that. Few trunks east of the Allegheny mountains are more than eighteen inches in diameter. The name scrub pine is an index to the opinions held by most people regarding this tree. It is often considered an encumbrance rather than an asset; yet statistics of wood-using industries hardly justify that view. Millions of feet of it are employed annually in each of the states of New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, for boxes, slack cooperage, and common lumber. The wood is moderately strong, but is not stiff. It is medium light, soft, brittle, with summerwood narrow and very resinous. Its color is light orange or yellow, the thick sapwood ivory white. The needles are from one and a half to three inches long, and fall in the third and fourth years. Cones are two or three inches long, and scatter their seeds in autumn. The wings are too small to carry the seeds far, yet the tree succeeds in quickly spreading into surrounding vacant spaces. Cones adhere to the branches three or four years. Tar makers and charcoal burners utilized scrub pine in New Jersey, northeastern Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvania a century and a half ago. The tree seems to be as abundant now as it ever was. Unless it occupies very poor land—which it generally does—the growth is liable to be suppressed and crowded to death by broadleaf trees before the stands become very old. As a species, it is weak in self-defense, and it owes its survival to its habit of retreating to poor soils where enemies cannot follow. It may be said of it as the Roman historian Tacitus said of certain men: “The cowards fly the farthest, and are the longest survivors.”Loblolly pine branch

Few trees have more names than this. The names, however, may be separated into groups, one group referring to the foliage, another to the situations in which the tree grows, and a third to certain characters or uses of the wood. Names descriptive of the leaves are longschat pine, longshucks pine, shortleaf pine, foxtail pine, and longstraw pine. The names which refer to locality or situation are loblolly pine, old-field pine, slash pine, black slash pine, Virginia pine, meadow pine and swamp pine. Names which refer to the character of the wood or of the standing tree are torch pine, rosemary pine, frankincense pine, cornstalk pine, spruce pine, and yellow pine. Not one of these names is applied to the tree in its entire range, and it has several names other than those listed. Sap pine is widely applied to the lumber, because the tree’s sapwood is very thick, sometimes amounting to eighty per cent of a trunk. It has borne the name old-field pine for a hundred and fifty years in Virginia, and the name suggests a good deal of history. Some of the improvident early Virginia tobacco growers neglected to fertilize their fields, and the land wore out under constant cropping, and was abandoned. The pine quickly took possession, for the fields which were too far exhausted to produce tobacco or corn were amply able to grow dense stands of loblolly pine, and the farmers noticing this, called it old-field pine. It has been taking possession of abandoned fields in Virginia and North Carolina ever since, and the name still applies. The tree grows from New Jersey to Florida, west to Texas, north to Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia, but it does not cover the whole territory thus outlined. It is very scarce near its northern limit. There is evidence that the range of loblolly has extended in historic times, not into new or distant regions, but outside the borders which once marked its range. Since white men in Texas stopped the Indians’ grass fires, the pine has encroached upon the prairie. Early writers in Virginia and North Carolina spoke of pine as scarce or totally wanting, except on the immediate coast. It is now found from one hundred to two hundred miles inland, and many sawmills now cut logs which have grown in fields abandoned since the Revolutionary war. This has occurred on the Atlantic coast rather than west of the Appalachian ranges of mountains. Virginia has more sawmills than any other state, and many of them are working on loblolly pine which has grown in the last hundred years.

The tree bears seeds abundantly and scatters them widely. It is vigorous, grows with great rapidity, and is able to fight its way if it findsconditions in any way favorable. Turpentine operators have not found the working of loblolly pine profitable, and this has relieved it of a drain which has done much to deplete the southern forests of longleaf pine.

Loblolly’s leaves are from six to nine inches long, and fall the third year. This species, in common with other southern yellow pines, is disposed to grow tall, clear trunks, with a meager supply of limbs and foliage at the top. The lumber sawed from trunks of that kind is clear of knots. No other important forest tree of the United States comes as nearly being a cultivated tree as the loblolly pine. This is particularly true in the northeastern part of its range, in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Though nature has done the actual planting, men provided the seed beds by giving up old fields to that use; and many of the stands are as thick and even as if they had been planted and cared for by regular forestry methods. Trees are from eighty to one hundred feet tall, and from two to four in diameter, some very old ones being a little larger.

The annual rings of loblolly pine are broad, with good contrast between the spring and summer growth. The wood is light, not strong, brittle, not durable, very resinous, the resin passages are few and not conspicuous; medullary rays are numerous and obscure; color, light brown, the thick sapwood orange or nearly white. When this tree is of slow growth it is lighter, less resinous, and has thinner sapwood. It is sometimes known as rosemary pine.

The use of loblolly pine lumber was greatly stimulated when the custom of drying it in kilns became general. It is largely sapwood and dries slowly in air. Its market is found in all eastern and central parts of the United States, and it is exported to Europe and Central and South America. It is a substantial material for many common purposes and its use is very large on the Atlantic coast. In quantity it exceeds any other species in the wood-using industries of Maryland, and all others combined in North Carolina. It is not as often employed in heavy structural timbers as longleaf pine, but in the market of which Baltimore is the center, much use is made of it for that purpose. It is ten pounds a cubic foot lighter than longleaf, has about three-fourths of the strength, and nearly four-fifths of longleaf’s elasticity. It is thus seen to be considerably inferior to it as a structural timber where heavy loads must be sustained; but builders use it for many purposes in preference to or on an equality with longleaf. It is fine for interior finish and doors. Railroads employ large quantities in building freight cars, much for crossties, and bridge builders find many places for it. It is not a long lasting wood when exposed to weather, unless it has been treated with creosote to preserve it from decay. It is one of the most easily treated woods.

In North Carolina and Virginia loblolly tobacco hogsheads are common; and box factories within easy reach of it use much. A list of its uses, compiled from reports of factory operations in Maryland, will give an idea of the range it covers: Basket bottoms, beer bottle boxes, boats, cart bodies, crates, flooring, frames for doors and windows, fruit boxes, interior finish, nail kegs, oyster boxes, seats for boats, siding for houses, staves for slack cooperage, store fixtures, wagon beds, balusters, brackets, chiffoniers, mantels, molding, picture frames, stair railing, sash, scrollwork, sideboards, tables.

The amount of loblolly pine timber in this country is not known. No other important species comes so near growing as much as is cut from year to year. It covers 200,000 square miles with stands ranging from little or nothing in some parts to 20,000 feet per acre in others, or more in exceptional cases. The area of fully stocked loblolly pine is believed to be as large now as it ever was. Before the Civil war it was predicted that its period of greatest production was over; but large tracts are now being logged on which the pine seeds had not been sown in 1860.

Pond Pine(Pinus serotina). Sargent’s table of weights of woods shows this to be the heaviest pine of the United States; but, as his calculations were made from a single sample which grew in Duval county, Florida, further data should be secured before his figures, 49.5 pounds per cubic foot, are accepted as an average weight for the species. It is rated in strength about equal to longleaf and Cuban pine. Its structure shows a large percentage of dense summerwood in the yearly ring. The leaves are in clusters of three, rarely four, and are six or eight inches long, and fall in their third and fourth years. The name suggests that the cones are tightly closed, and that they adhere tenaciously to the twigs on which they grow. This is found true. The principal impression made on a person who sees the pond pine for the first time is that it is overloaded with cones, and that it must be a prolific seeder. Better acquaintance modifies the latter part of that impression. It is overloaded with cones, but most of them are many years old, and have long been seedless, although most of the trees have the seed crops of two years on the branches at one time. Enough seed is shed to perpetuate the species, but too little to insure an aggressive spread into surrounding vacant ground. The pond pine may reach a diameter of three feet and a height of eighty, but that is twice the average size. The wood is very resinous, and is brittle.

Scrub Pine(Pinus virginiana). This tree is often called Jersey pine because it is a prominent feature of the landscapes in the southern part of that state where it has spread extensively since the settlement of the country. Its short needles havebeen responsible for several of its names, among them being shortshuck pine in Maryland and Virginia, shortshat pine in Delaware, shortleaved pine in North Carolina, and spruce pine and cedar pine in some parts of the South. In Tennessee it is known as nigger pine, and in some parts of North Carolina as river pine. The range is fairly well outlined by the above discussion of its names. It grows from New York to South Carolina, and west of the mountains it is found in northern Alabama and middle Tennessee, in Kentucky and West Virginia. It reaches its largest size in southern Indiana where it is sometimes 100 feet high and three in diameter. It is there a valuable tree for many purposes, but is not abundant. Its average size is small in the eastern states, usually not over fifty feet high, and often little more than half of that. Few trunks east of the Allegheny mountains are more than eighteen inches in diameter. The name scrub pine is an index to the opinions held by most people regarding this tree. It is often considered an encumbrance rather than an asset; yet statistics of wood-using industries hardly justify that view. Millions of feet of it are employed annually in each of the states of New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, for boxes, slack cooperage, and common lumber. The wood is moderately strong, but is not stiff. It is medium light, soft, brittle, with summerwood narrow and very resinous. Its color is light orange or yellow, the thick sapwood ivory white. The needles are from one and a half to three inches long, and fall in the third and fourth years. Cones are two or three inches long, and scatter their seeds in autumn. The wings are too small to carry the seeds far, yet the tree succeeds in quickly spreading into surrounding vacant spaces. Cones adhere to the branches three or four years. Tar makers and charcoal burners utilized scrub pine in New Jersey, northeastern Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvania a century and a half ago. The tree seems to be as abundant now as it ever was. Unless it occupies very poor land—which it generally does—the growth is liable to be suppressed and crowded to death by broadleaf trees before the stands become very old. As a species, it is weak in self-defense, and it owes its survival to its habit of retreating to poor soils where enemies cannot follow. It may be said of it as the Roman historian Tacitus said of certain men: “The cowards fly the farthest, and are the longest survivors.”

Loblolly pine branch

NORWAY PINENorway pineNorway Pine

Norway pineNorway Pine

Norway Pine

NORWAY PINE(Pinus Resinosa)Early explorers who were not botanists mistook this tree for Norway spruce, and gave it the name which has since remained in nearly all parts of its range. It is called red pine also, and this name is strictly descriptive. The brown or red color of the bark is instantly noticed by one who sees the tree for the first time. In the Lake States it has been called hard pine for the purpose of distinguishing it from the softer white pine with which it is associated. In England they call it Canadian red pine, because the principal supply in England is imported from the Canadian provinces.Its chief range lies in the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence river, which includes the Great Lakes and the rivers which flow into them. Newfoundland forms the eastern and Manitoba the western outposts of this species. It is found as far south as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, central Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It conforms pretty generally to the range of white pine but does not accompany that species southward along the Appalachian mountain ranges across West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Where it was left to compete in nature’s way with white pine, the contest was friendly, but white pine got the best of it. The two species grew in intermixture, but in most instances white pine had from five to twenty trees to Norway’s one. As a survivor under adversity, however, the Norway pine appears to surpass its great friendly rival, at least in the Lake States where the great pineries once flourished and have largely passed away. Solitary or small clumps of Norway pines are occasionally found where not a white pine, large or small, is in sight.The forest appearance of Norway pine resembles the southern yellow pines. The stand is open, the trunks are clean and tall, the branches are at the top. The Norway’s leaves are in clusters of two, and are five or six inches long. They fall during the fourth or fifth year. Cones are two inches long, and when mature, closely resemble the color of the tree’s bark, that is, light chestnut brown. Exceptionally tall Norway pines may reach a height of 150 feet, but the average is seventy or eighty, with diameters of from two to four. Young trees are limby, but early in life the lower branches die and fall, leaving few protruding stubs or knots. It appears to be a characteristic that trunks are seldom quite straight. They do not have the plumb appearance of forest grown white pine and spruce.The wood of Norway pine is medium light, its strength and stiffnessabout twenty-five per cent greater than white pine, and it is moderately soft. The annual rings are rather wide, indicating rapid growth. The bands of summerwood are narrow compared with the springwood, which gives a generally light color to the wood, though not as light as the wood of white pine. The resin passages are small and fairly numerous. The sapwood is thick, and the wood is not durable in contact with the soil.Norway pine has always had a place of its own in the lumber trade, but large quantities have been marketed as white pine. If such had not been the case, Norway pine would have been much oftener heard of during the years when the Lake State pineries were sending their billions of feet of lumber to the markets of the world.Because of the deposit of resinous materials in the wood, Norway pine stumps resist decay much better than white pine. In some of the early cuttings in Michigan, where only stumps remain to show how large the trees were and how thick they stood, the Norway stumps are much better preserved than the white pine. Using that fact as a basis of estimate, it may be shown that in many places the Norway pine constituted one-fifth or one-fourth of the original stand. The lumbermen cut clean, and statistics of that period do not show that the two pines were generally marketed separately. In recent years many of the Norway stumps have been pulled, and have been sold to wood-distillation plants where the rosin and turpentine are extracted.At an early date Norway pine from Canada and northern New York was popular ship timber in this country and England. Slender, straight trunks were selected as masts, or were sawed for decking planks thirty or forty feet long. Shipbuilders insisted that planks be all heartwood, because when sapwood was exposed to rain and sun, it changed to a green color, due to the presence of fungus. The wood wears well as ship decking. The British navy was still using some Norway pine masts as late as 1875.The scarcity of this timber has retired it from some of the places which it once filled, and the southern yellow pines have been substituted. It is still employed for many important purposes, the chief of which is car building, if statistics for the state of Illinois are a criterion for the whole country. In 1909 in that state 24,794,000 feet of it were used for all purposes, and 14,783,000 feet in car construction.For many years Chicago has been the center of the Norway pine trade. It is landed there by lake steamers and by rail, and is distributed to ultimate consumers. The uses for the wood, as reported by Illinois manufacturers, follow: Baskets, boxes, boats, brackets, casing and frames for doors and windows, crating, derricks for well-boring machines, doors,elevators, fixtures for stores and offices, foot or running boards for tank cars, foundry flasks, freight cars, hand rails, insulation for refrigerator cars, ladders, picture moldings, roofing, sash, siding for cattle cars, sign boards and advertising signs, tanks, and windmill towers.As with white pine, Norway pine has passed the period of greatest production, though much still goes to market every year and will long continue to do so. The land which lumbermen denuded in the Lake States, particularly Michigan and Wisconsin, years ago, did not reclothe itself with Norway seedlings. That would have taken place in most instances but for fires which ran periodically through the slashings until all seedlings were destroyed. In many places there are now few seedlings and few large trees to bear seeds, and consequently the pine forest in such places is a thing of the past. The outlook is better in other localities.The Norway pine is much planted for ornament, and is rated one of the handsomest of northern park trees.Pitch Pine(Pinus rigida). The name pitch pine is locally applied to almost every species of hard, resinous pine in this country. ThePinus rigidahas other names than pitch pine. In Delaware it is called longleaved pine, since its needles are longer than the scrub pine’s with which it is associated. For the same reason it is known in some localities as longschat pine. In Massachusetts it is called hard pine, in Pennsylvania yellow pine, in North Carolina and eastern Tennessee black pine, and black Norway pine in New York. The botanical name is translated “rigid pine,” but the rigid refers to the leaves, not the wood. Its range covers New England, New York, Pennsylvania, southern Canada, eastern Ohio, and southward along the mountains to northern Georgia. It has three leaves in a cluster, from three to five inches long, and they fall the second year. Cones range in length from one to three inches, and they hang on the branches ten or twelve years. The wood is medium light, moderately strong, but low in stiffness. It is soft and brittle. The annual rings are wide, the summerwood broad, distinct, and very resinous. Medullary rays are few but prominent; color, light brown or red, the thick sapwood yellow or often nearly white. The difference in the hardness between springwood and summerwood renders it difficult to work, and causes uneven wear when used as flooring. It is fairly durable in contact with the soil.The tree attains a height of from forty to eighty feet and a diameter of three. This pine is not found in extensive forests, but in scattered patches, nearly always on poor soil where other trees will not crowd it. Light and air are necessary to its existence. If it receives these, it will fight successfully against adversities which would be fatal to many other species. In resistance to forest fires, it is a salamander among trees. That is primarily due to its thick bark, but it is favored also by the situations in which it is generally found—open woods, and on soil so poor that ground litter is thin. It is a useful wood for many purposes, and wherever it is found in sufficient quantity, it goes to market, but under its own name only in restricted localities. Its resinous knots were once used in place of candles in frontier homes. Tar made locally from its rich wood was the pioneer wagoner’s axle grease, and the ever-present tar bucket and tar paddle swung from the rear axle. Torches made by tying splinters in bundles answered for lanterns in night travel. It was the best pinefor floors in some localities. It is probably used more for boxes than for anything else at present. In 1909 Massachusetts box makers bought 600,000 feet, and a little more went to Maryland box factories. Its poor holding power on spikes limits its employment as railroad ties and in shipbuilding. Carpenters and furniture makers object to the numerous knots. Country blacksmiths who repair and make wagons as a side line, find it suitable for wagon beds. It is much used as fuel where it is convenient.Torrey Pine(Pinus torreyana), called del mar pine and Soledad pine, is an interesting tree from the fact that its range is so restricted that the actual number of trees could be easily known to one who would take the trouble to count them. A rather large quantity formerly occupied a small area in San Diego county, California, but woodchoppers who did not appreciate the fact that they were exterminating a species of pine from the face of the earth, cut nearly all of the trees for fuel. Its range covered only a few square miles, and fortunately part of that was included in the city limits of San Diego. An ordinance was passed prohibiting the cutting of a Torrey pine under heavy penalty, and the tree was thus saved. A hundred and fifty miles off the San Diego coast a few Torrey pines grow on the islands of Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, and owing to their isolated situation they bid fair to escape the cordwood cutter for years to come. Those who have seen this tree on its native hills have admired the gameness of its battle for existence against the elements. Standing in the full sweep of the ocean winds, its strong, short branches scarcely move, and all the agitation is in the thick tufts of needles which cling to the ends of the branches. Trees exposed to the seawinds are stunted, and are generally less than a foot in diameter and thirty feet high; but those which are so fortunate as to occupy sheltered valleys are three or four times that size. The needles are five in a cluster. The cones persist on the branches three or four years. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, very brittle; the rings of yearly growth are broad, and the yellow bands of summerwood occupy nearly half. The sapwood is very thick and is nearly white.Norway pine branch

Early explorers who were not botanists mistook this tree for Norway spruce, and gave it the name which has since remained in nearly all parts of its range. It is called red pine also, and this name is strictly descriptive. The brown or red color of the bark is instantly noticed by one who sees the tree for the first time. In the Lake States it has been called hard pine for the purpose of distinguishing it from the softer white pine with which it is associated. In England they call it Canadian red pine, because the principal supply in England is imported from the Canadian provinces.

Its chief range lies in the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence river, which includes the Great Lakes and the rivers which flow into them. Newfoundland forms the eastern and Manitoba the western outposts of this species. It is found as far south as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, central Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It conforms pretty generally to the range of white pine but does not accompany that species southward along the Appalachian mountain ranges across West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Where it was left to compete in nature’s way with white pine, the contest was friendly, but white pine got the best of it. The two species grew in intermixture, but in most instances white pine had from five to twenty trees to Norway’s one. As a survivor under adversity, however, the Norway pine appears to surpass its great friendly rival, at least in the Lake States where the great pineries once flourished and have largely passed away. Solitary or small clumps of Norway pines are occasionally found where not a white pine, large or small, is in sight.

The forest appearance of Norway pine resembles the southern yellow pines. The stand is open, the trunks are clean and tall, the branches are at the top. The Norway’s leaves are in clusters of two, and are five or six inches long. They fall during the fourth or fifth year. Cones are two inches long, and when mature, closely resemble the color of the tree’s bark, that is, light chestnut brown. Exceptionally tall Norway pines may reach a height of 150 feet, but the average is seventy or eighty, with diameters of from two to four. Young trees are limby, but early in life the lower branches die and fall, leaving few protruding stubs or knots. It appears to be a characteristic that trunks are seldom quite straight. They do not have the plumb appearance of forest grown white pine and spruce.

The wood of Norway pine is medium light, its strength and stiffnessabout twenty-five per cent greater than white pine, and it is moderately soft. The annual rings are rather wide, indicating rapid growth. The bands of summerwood are narrow compared with the springwood, which gives a generally light color to the wood, though not as light as the wood of white pine. The resin passages are small and fairly numerous. The sapwood is thick, and the wood is not durable in contact with the soil.

Norway pine has always had a place of its own in the lumber trade, but large quantities have been marketed as white pine. If such had not been the case, Norway pine would have been much oftener heard of during the years when the Lake State pineries were sending their billions of feet of lumber to the markets of the world.

Because of the deposit of resinous materials in the wood, Norway pine stumps resist decay much better than white pine. In some of the early cuttings in Michigan, where only stumps remain to show how large the trees were and how thick they stood, the Norway stumps are much better preserved than the white pine. Using that fact as a basis of estimate, it may be shown that in many places the Norway pine constituted one-fifth or one-fourth of the original stand. The lumbermen cut clean, and statistics of that period do not show that the two pines were generally marketed separately. In recent years many of the Norway stumps have been pulled, and have been sold to wood-distillation plants where the rosin and turpentine are extracted.

At an early date Norway pine from Canada and northern New York was popular ship timber in this country and England. Slender, straight trunks were selected as masts, or were sawed for decking planks thirty or forty feet long. Shipbuilders insisted that planks be all heartwood, because when sapwood was exposed to rain and sun, it changed to a green color, due to the presence of fungus. The wood wears well as ship decking. The British navy was still using some Norway pine masts as late as 1875.

The scarcity of this timber has retired it from some of the places which it once filled, and the southern yellow pines have been substituted. It is still employed for many important purposes, the chief of which is car building, if statistics for the state of Illinois are a criterion for the whole country. In 1909 in that state 24,794,000 feet of it were used for all purposes, and 14,783,000 feet in car construction.

For many years Chicago has been the center of the Norway pine trade. It is landed there by lake steamers and by rail, and is distributed to ultimate consumers. The uses for the wood, as reported by Illinois manufacturers, follow: Baskets, boxes, boats, brackets, casing and frames for doors and windows, crating, derricks for well-boring machines, doors,elevators, fixtures for stores and offices, foot or running boards for tank cars, foundry flasks, freight cars, hand rails, insulation for refrigerator cars, ladders, picture moldings, roofing, sash, siding for cattle cars, sign boards and advertising signs, tanks, and windmill towers.

As with white pine, Norway pine has passed the period of greatest production, though much still goes to market every year and will long continue to do so. The land which lumbermen denuded in the Lake States, particularly Michigan and Wisconsin, years ago, did not reclothe itself with Norway seedlings. That would have taken place in most instances but for fires which ran periodically through the slashings until all seedlings were destroyed. In many places there are now few seedlings and few large trees to bear seeds, and consequently the pine forest in such places is a thing of the past. The outlook is better in other localities.

The Norway pine is much planted for ornament, and is rated one of the handsomest of northern park trees.

Pitch Pine(Pinus rigida). The name pitch pine is locally applied to almost every species of hard, resinous pine in this country. ThePinus rigidahas other names than pitch pine. In Delaware it is called longleaved pine, since its needles are longer than the scrub pine’s with which it is associated. For the same reason it is known in some localities as longschat pine. In Massachusetts it is called hard pine, in Pennsylvania yellow pine, in North Carolina and eastern Tennessee black pine, and black Norway pine in New York. The botanical name is translated “rigid pine,” but the rigid refers to the leaves, not the wood. Its range covers New England, New York, Pennsylvania, southern Canada, eastern Ohio, and southward along the mountains to northern Georgia. It has three leaves in a cluster, from three to five inches long, and they fall the second year. Cones range in length from one to three inches, and they hang on the branches ten or twelve years. The wood is medium light, moderately strong, but low in stiffness. It is soft and brittle. The annual rings are wide, the summerwood broad, distinct, and very resinous. Medullary rays are few but prominent; color, light brown or red, the thick sapwood yellow or often nearly white. The difference in the hardness between springwood and summerwood renders it difficult to work, and causes uneven wear when used as flooring. It is fairly durable in contact with the soil.The tree attains a height of from forty to eighty feet and a diameter of three. This pine is not found in extensive forests, but in scattered patches, nearly always on poor soil where other trees will not crowd it. Light and air are necessary to its existence. If it receives these, it will fight successfully against adversities which would be fatal to many other species. In resistance to forest fires, it is a salamander among trees. That is primarily due to its thick bark, but it is favored also by the situations in which it is generally found—open woods, and on soil so poor that ground litter is thin. It is a useful wood for many purposes, and wherever it is found in sufficient quantity, it goes to market, but under its own name only in restricted localities. Its resinous knots were once used in place of candles in frontier homes. Tar made locally from its rich wood was the pioneer wagoner’s axle grease, and the ever-present tar bucket and tar paddle swung from the rear axle. Torches made by tying splinters in bundles answered for lanterns in night travel. It was the best pinefor floors in some localities. It is probably used more for boxes than for anything else at present. In 1909 Massachusetts box makers bought 600,000 feet, and a little more went to Maryland box factories. Its poor holding power on spikes limits its employment as railroad ties and in shipbuilding. Carpenters and furniture makers object to the numerous knots. Country blacksmiths who repair and make wagons as a side line, find it suitable for wagon beds. It is much used as fuel where it is convenient.Torrey Pine(Pinus torreyana), called del mar pine and Soledad pine, is an interesting tree from the fact that its range is so restricted that the actual number of trees could be easily known to one who would take the trouble to count them. A rather large quantity formerly occupied a small area in San Diego county, California, but woodchoppers who did not appreciate the fact that they were exterminating a species of pine from the face of the earth, cut nearly all of the trees for fuel. Its range covered only a few square miles, and fortunately part of that was included in the city limits of San Diego. An ordinance was passed prohibiting the cutting of a Torrey pine under heavy penalty, and the tree was thus saved. A hundred and fifty miles off the San Diego coast a few Torrey pines grow on the islands of Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, and owing to their isolated situation they bid fair to escape the cordwood cutter for years to come. Those who have seen this tree on its native hills have admired the gameness of its battle for existence against the elements. Standing in the full sweep of the ocean winds, its strong, short branches scarcely move, and all the agitation is in the thick tufts of needles which cling to the ends of the branches. Trees exposed to the seawinds are stunted, and are generally less than a foot in diameter and thirty feet high; but those which are so fortunate as to occupy sheltered valleys are three or four times that size. The needles are five in a cluster. The cones persist on the branches three or four years. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, very brittle; the rings of yearly growth are broad, and the yellow bands of summerwood occupy nearly half. The sapwood is very thick and is nearly white.

The tree attains a height of from forty to eighty feet and a diameter of three. This pine is not found in extensive forests, but in scattered patches, nearly always on poor soil where other trees will not crowd it. Light and air are necessary to its existence. If it receives these, it will fight successfully against adversities which would be fatal to many other species. In resistance to forest fires, it is a salamander among trees. That is primarily due to its thick bark, but it is favored also by the situations in which it is generally found—open woods, and on soil so poor that ground litter is thin. It is a useful wood for many purposes, and wherever it is found in sufficient quantity, it goes to market, but under its own name only in restricted localities. Its resinous knots were once used in place of candles in frontier homes. Tar made locally from its rich wood was the pioneer wagoner’s axle grease, and the ever-present tar bucket and tar paddle swung from the rear axle. Torches made by tying splinters in bundles answered for lanterns in night travel. It was the best pinefor floors in some localities. It is probably used more for boxes than for anything else at present. In 1909 Massachusetts box makers bought 600,000 feet, and a little more went to Maryland box factories. Its poor holding power on spikes limits its employment as railroad ties and in shipbuilding. Carpenters and furniture makers object to the numerous knots. Country blacksmiths who repair and make wagons as a side line, find it suitable for wagon beds. It is much used as fuel where it is convenient.

Torrey Pine(Pinus torreyana), called del mar pine and Soledad pine, is an interesting tree from the fact that its range is so restricted that the actual number of trees could be easily known to one who would take the trouble to count them. A rather large quantity formerly occupied a small area in San Diego county, California, but woodchoppers who did not appreciate the fact that they were exterminating a species of pine from the face of the earth, cut nearly all of the trees for fuel. Its range covered only a few square miles, and fortunately part of that was included in the city limits of San Diego. An ordinance was passed prohibiting the cutting of a Torrey pine under heavy penalty, and the tree was thus saved. A hundred and fifty miles off the San Diego coast a few Torrey pines grow on the islands of Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, and owing to their isolated situation they bid fair to escape the cordwood cutter for years to come. Those who have seen this tree on its native hills have admired the gameness of its battle for existence against the elements. Standing in the full sweep of the ocean winds, its strong, short branches scarcely move, and all the agitation is in the thick tufts of needles which cling to the ends of the branches. Trees exposed to the seawinds are stunted, and are generally less than a foot in diameter and thirty feet high; but those which are so fortunate as to occupy sheltered valleys are three or four times that size. The needles are five in a cluster. The cones persist on the branches three or four years. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, very brittle; the rings of yearly growth are broad, and the yellow bands of summerwood occupy nearly half. The sapwood is very thick and is nearly white.

Norway pine branch

WESTERN YELLOW PINEWestern yellow pineWestern Yellow Pine

Western yellow pineWestern Yellow Pine

Western Yellow Pine

WESTERN YELLOW PINE(Pinus Ponderosa)The range of western yellow pine covers a million square miles. Its eastern boundary is a line drawn from South Dakota to western Texas. The species covers much of the country between that line and the Pacific ocean. It is natural that it should have more names than one in a region so extensive. It is best known as western yellow pine, but lumbermen often call it California white pine. The standing timber is frequently designated bull pine, but that name is not often given to the lumber. Where there is no likelihood of confusing it with southern pines, it is called simply yellow pine. The name heavy-wooded pine, sometimes applied to the lumber in England, is misleading. When well seasoned it weighs about thirty pounds per cubic foot, and ordinarily it would not be classed heavy. In California it is called heavy pine, but that is to distinguish it from sugar pine which is considerably lighter. The color of its bark has given it the name Sierra brownbark pine. The same tree in Montana is called black pine.The tree has developed two forms. Some botanists have held there are two species, but that is not the general opinion. In the warm, damp climate of the Pacific slope the tree is larger, and somewhat different in appearance from the form in the Rocky Mountain region. The same observation holds true of Douglas fir.The wood of western yellow pine is medium light, not strong, is low in elasticity, medullary rays prominent but not numerous; resinous, color light to reddish, the thick sapwood almost white. The annual rings are variable in width, and the proportionate amounts of springwood and summerwood also vary. It is not durable in contact with the ground.The wood is easy to work and some of the best of it resembles white pine, but as a whole it is inferior to that wood, though it is extensively employed as a substitute for it in the manufacture of doors, sash, and frames. It is darker than white pine, harder, heavier, stronger, almost exactly equal in stiffness, but the annual rings of the two woods do not bear close resemblance.The tree reaches a height of from 100 to 200 feet, a diameter from three to seven. It is occasionally much larger. Its size depends much on its habitat. The best development occurs on the Sierra Nevada mountains in California and the best wood comes from that region, though certain other localities produce high-grade lumber.Western yellow pine holds and will long hold an important placein the country’s timber resources. The total stand has been estimated at 275,000,000,000 feet, and is second only to that of Douglas fir, though the combined stand of the four southern yellow pines is about 100,000,000,000 feet larger. It is a vigorous species, able to hold its ground under ordinary circumstances. Next to incense cedar and the giant sequoias which are associated with it in the Sierra Nevada mountains, it is the most prolific seed bearer of the western conifers, and its seeds are sufficiently light to insure wide distribution. It is gaining ground within its range by taking possession of vacant areas which have been bared by lumbering or fire. In some cases it crowds to death the more stately sugar pine by cutting off its light and moisture. It resists fire better than most of the forest trees with which it is associated. On the other hand, it suffers from enemies more than its associates do. A beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosæ), destroys large stands. In the Black Hills in 1903 its ravages killed 600,000,000 feet.This splendid pine has run the gamut of uses from the corral pole of the first settler to the paneled door turned out by the modern factory. It has almost an unlimited capacity for usefulness. It grows in dry regions of the Rocky Mountains where it is practically the only source of wood supply; and it is equally secure in its position where forests are abundant and fine. It has supplied props, stulls, and lagging for mines in nearly every state touched by its range. Without its ties and other timbers some of the early railroads through the western mountains could scarcely have been built. It has been one of the leading flume timbers in western lumber and irrigation development. It fenced many ranches in early times and is still doing so. It is used in general construction, and in finish; from the shingle to the foundation sill of houses. It finds its way to eastern lumber markets. Almost 20,000,000 feet a year are used in Illinois alone. Competition with eastern white pine is met in the Lake States because, grade for grade, the western wood is cheaper, until lower grades are reached. The western yellow pine, in the eastern market, is confused with the western white pine of Idaho and Montana (Pinus monticola) and separate statistics of use are impossible.The makers of fruit boxes in California often employ the yellow pine in lieu of sugar pine which once supplied the whole trade. It is also used by coopers for various containers, but not for alcoholic liquors.The leaves are in clusters of twos and threes, and are from five to eleven inches long. Most of them fall during the third year. The cones are from three to six inches long, and generally fall soon after they reach maturity.Coulter Pine(Pinus coulteri) is also known as nut pine, big cone pine, and long cone pine. It is a California species, scarce, but of much interest because of itscones. They are larger than those of any other American pine and are armed with formidable curved spines from half an inch to an inch and a half in length. The cones are from ten to fourteen inches long. The tree is found on the Coast Range mountains from the latitude of San Francisco to the boundary between California and Mexico. It thrives at altitudes of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet. It never occurs in pure stands and the total amount is small. It looks like the western yellow pine, but is much inferior in size. Trunks seldom attain a length of fifteen feet or a diameter of two. There is no evidence that Coulter pine is increasing its stand on the ground which it already occupies, or spreading to new ground. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, and very tough. The annual rings are narrow and consist largely of summerwood. The heartwood is light red, the thick sapwood nearly white. It is a poor tree for lumber, and it has been little used in that way, but has been burned for charcoal for blacksmith shops, and much is sold as cordwood. The leaves of Coulter pine are in clusters of three, and they fall during the third and fourth years.California Swamp Pine(Pinus muricata) clearly belongs among minor species listed as timber trees. It meets a small demand for skids, corduroy log roads, bridge floors, and scaffolds in the redwood logging operations in California. It is scattered along the Pacific coast 500 miles, beginning in Lower California and ending a hundred miles north of San Francisco. It is known as dwarf marine pine, pricklecone pine, bishop pine, and obispo pine. The last name is the Spanish translation of the English word bishop. The largest trees seldom exceed two feet in diameter, and a height of ninety feet. The average size is little more than half as much. The wood is very strong, hard, and compact, and the annual growth ring is largely dense summerwood. Resin passages are few, but the wood is resinous, light brown in color, and the thick sapwood is nearly white. The needles are in clusters of two, and are from four to six inches long. They begin to fall the second year. Some of the trees retain their cones until death, but the seeds are scattered from year to year. Under the stimulus of artificial conditions in the redwood districts this pine seems to be spreading. Its seeds blow into vacant ground from which redwood has been removed, and growth is prompt. The seedlings are not at all choice as to soil, but take root in cold clay, in peat bogs, on barren sand and gravel, and on wind-swept ridges exposed to ocean fogs. Its ability to grow where few other trees can maintain themselves holds out some hope that its usefulness will increase.Monterey Pine(Pinus radiata). This scarce and local species is restricted to the California coast south of San Francisco, and to adjacent islands. Under favorable circumstances it grows rapidly and promises to be of more importance as a lumber source in the future than it has been in the past. It is, however, somewhat particular as to soil. It must have ground not too wet or too dry. If these requirements are observed, it is a good tree for planting. Its average height is seventy or ninety feet, diameter from eighteen to thirty inches. Trunks six feet in diameter are occasionally heard of. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, tough, annual rings very wide and largely of springwood; color, light brown, the very thick sapwood nearly white. The leaves are from four to six inches long, in clusters of two and three, and fall the third year. Cones are from three to five inches long. The lumber is too scarce at present to have much importance, but its quality is good. In appearance it resembles wide-ringed loblolly pine, and appears to be suitable for doors and sash, and frames for windows and doors. Its present uses are confined chiefly to ranch timbers and fuel. If it ever amounts to much as a lumber resource, it will be as a planted pine, and not in its natural state.Jack Pine(Pinus divaricata) is a far northern species which extends its rangesouthward in the United States, from Maine to Minnesota, and reaches northern Indiana and Illinois. It grows almost far enough north in the valley of Mackenzie river to catch the rays of the midnight sun. It must necessarily adapt itself to circumstances. When these are favorable, it develops a trunk up to two feet in diameter and seventy feet tall; but in adversity, it degenerates into a many-branched shrub a few feet high. The average tree in the United States is thirty or forty feet tall, and a foot or more in diameter. Its name is intended as a term of contempt, which it does not deserve. Others call it scrub pine which is little better. Its other names are more respectful, Prince’s pine in Ontario, black pine in Wisconsin and Minnesota, cypress in Quebec and the Hudson Bay country, Sir Joseph Banks’ pine in England, and juniper in some parts of Canada. “Chek pine” is frequently given in its list of names, but the name is said to have originated in an attempt of a German botanist to pronounce “Jack pine” in dictating to a stenographer. The tree straggles over landscapes which otherwise would be treeless. It is often a ragged and uncouth specimen of the vegetable kingdom, but that is when it is at its worst. At its best, as it may be seen where cared for in some of the Michigan cemeteries, it is as handsome a tree as anyone could desire. The characteristic thinness and delicacy of its foliage distinguish it at once from its associates. The peculiar green of its soft, short needles wins admiration. The wood is light, soft, not strong; annual rings are moderately wide, and are largely composed of springwood. The thin bands of summerwood are resinous, and the small resin ducts are few. The thick sapwood is nearly white, the heartwood brown or orange. It is not durable.Jack pine can never be an important timber tree, because too small; but a considerable amount is used for bed slats, nail kegs, plastering lath, barrel headings, boxes, mine props, pulpwood, and fuel. Aside from its use as lumber and small manufactured products, it has a value for other purposes. It can maintain its existence in waste sands; and its usefulness is apparent in fixing drifting dunes along some of the exposed shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. It lives on dry sand and sends its roots several feet to water; or, under circumstances entirely different, it thrives in swamps where the watertable is little below the surface of the ground. It fights a brave battle against adversities while it lasts, but it does not live long. Sixty years is old age for this tree. It grows fast while young, but later it devotes all its energies to the mere process of living, and its increase in size is slow, until at a period when most trees are still in early youth, it dies of old age, and the northern winds quickly whip away its limbs, leaving the barkless trunk to stand a few years longer.Western yellow pine branch

The range of western yellow pine covers a million square miles. Its eastern boundary is a line drawn from South Dakota to western Texas. The species covers much of the country between that line and the Pacific ocean. It is natural that it should have more names than one in a region so extensive. It is best known as western yellow pine, but lumbermen often call it California white pine. The standing timber is frequently designated bull pine, but that name is not often given to the lumber. Where there is no likelihood of confusing it with southern pines, it is called simply yellow pine. The name heavy-wooded pine, sometimes applied to the lumber in England, is misleading. When well seasoned it weighs about thirty pounds per cubic foot, and ordinarily it would not be classed heavy. In California it is called heavy pine, but that is to distinguish it from sugar pine which is considerably lighter. The color of its bark has given it the name Sierra brownbark pine. The same tree in Montana is called black pine.

The tree has developed two forms. Some botanists have held there are two species, but that is not the general opinion. In the warm, damp climate of the Pacific slope the tree is larger, and somewhat different in appearance from the form in the Rocky Mountain region. The same observation holds true of Douglas fir.

The wood of western yellow pine is medium light, not strong, is low in elasticity, medullary rays prominent but not numerous; resinous, color light to reddish, the thick sapwood almost white. The annual rings are variable in width, and the proportionate amounts of springwood and summerwood also vary. It is not durable in contact with the ground.

The wood is easy to work and some of the best of it resembles white pine, but as a whole it is inferior to that wood, though it is extensively employed as a substitute for it in the manufacture of doors, sash, and frames. It is darker than white pine, harder, heavier, stronger, almost exactly equal in stiffness, but the annual rings of the two woods do not bear close resemblance.

The tree reaches a height of from 100 to 200 feet, a diameter from three to seven. It is occasionally much larger. Its size depends much on its habitat. The best development occurs on the Sierra Nevada mountains in California and the best wood comes from that region, though certain other localities produce high-grade lumber.

Western yellow pine holds and will long hold an important placein the country’s timber resources. The total stand has been estimated at 275,000,000,000 feet, and is second only to that of Douglas fir, though the combined stand of the four southern yellow pines is about 100,000,000,000 feet larger. It is a vigorous species, able to hold its ground under ordinary circumstances. Next to incense cedar and the giant sequoias which are associated with it in the Sierra Nevada mountains, it is the most prolific seed bearer of the western conifers, and its seeds are sufficiently light to insure wide distribution. It is gaining ground within its range by taking possession of vacant areas which have been bared by lumbering or fire. In some cases it crowds to death the more stately sugar pine by cutting off its light and moisture. It resists fire better than most of the forest trees with which it is associated. On the other hand, it suffers from enemies more than its associates do. A beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosæ), destroys large stands. In the Black Hills in 1903 its ravages killed 600,000,000 feet.

This splendid pine has run the gamut of uses from the corral pole of the first settler to the paneled door turned out by the modern factory. It has almost an unlimited capacity for usefulness. It grows in dry regions of the Rocky Mountains where it is practically the only source of wood supply; and it is equally secure in its position where forests are abundant and fine. It has supplied props, stulls, and lagging for mines in nearly every state touched by its range. Without its ties and other timbers some of the early railroads through the western mountains could scarcely have been built. It has been one of the leading flume timbers in western lumber and irrigation development. It fenced many ranches in early times and is still doing so. It is used in general construction, and in finish; from the shingle to the foundation sill of houses. It finds its way to eastern lumber markets. Almost 20,000,000 feet a year are used in Illinois alone. Competition with eastern white pine is met in the Lake States because, grade for grade, the western wood is cheaper, until lower grades are reached. The western yellow pine, in the eastern market, is confused with the western white pine of Idaho and Montana (Pinus monticola) and separate statistics of use are impossible.

The makers of fruit boxes in California often employ the yellow pine in lieu of sugar pine which once supplied the whole trade. It is also used by coopers for various containers, but not for alcoholic liquors.

The leaves are in clusters of twos and threes, and are from five to eleven inches long. Most of them fall during the third year. The cones are from three to six inches long, and generally fall soon after they reach maturity.

Coulter Pine(Pinus coulteri) is also known as nut pine, big cone pine, and long cone pine. It is a California species, scarce, but of much interest because of itscones. They are larger than those of any other American pine and are armed with formidable curved spines from half an inch to an inch and a half in length. The cones are from ten to fourteen inches long. The tree is found on the Coast Range mountains from the latitude of San Francisco to the boundary between California and Mexico. It thrives at altitudes of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet. It never occurs in pure stands and the total amount is small. It looks like the western yellow pine, but is much inferior in size. Trunks seldom attain a length of fifteen feet or a diameter of two. There is no evidence that Coulter pine is increasing its stand on the ground which it already occupies, or spreading to new ground. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, and very tough. The annual rings are narrow and consist largely of summerwood. The heartwood is light red, the thick sapwood nearly white. It is a poor tree for lumber, and it has been little used in that way, but has been burned for charcoal for blacksmith shops, and much is sold as cordwood. The leaves of Coulter pine are in clusters of three, and they fall during the third and fourth years.California Swamp Pine(Pinus muricata) clearly belongs among minor species listed as timber trees. It meets a small demand for skids, corduroy log roads, bridge floors, and scaffolds in the redwood logging operations in California. It is scattered along the Pacific coast 500 miles, beginning in Lower California and ending a hundred miles north of San Francisco. It is known as dwarf marine pine, pricklecone pine, bishop pine, and obispo pine. The last name is the Spanish translation of the English word bishop. The largest trees seldom exceed two feet in diameter, and a height of ninety feet. The average size is little more than half as much. The wood is very strong, hard, and compact, and the annual growth ring is largely dense summerwood. Resin passages are few, but the wood is resinous, light brown in color, and the thick sapwood is nearly white. The needles are in clusters of two, and are from four to six inches long. They begin to fall the second year. Some of the trees retain their cones until death, but the seeds are scattered from year to year. Under the stimulus of artificial conditions in the redwood districts this pine seems to be spreading. Its seeds blow into vacant ground from which redwood has been removed, and growth is prompt. The seedlings are not at all choice as to soil, but take root in cold clay, in peat bogs, on barren sand and gravel, and on wind-swept ridges exposed to ocean fogs. Its ability to grow where few other trees can maintain themselves holds out some hope that its usefulness will increase.Monterey Pine(Pinus radiata). This scarce and local species is restricted to the California coast south of San Francisco, and to adjacent islands. Under favorable circumstances it grows rapidly and promises to be of more importance as a lumber source in the future than it has been in the past. It is, however, somewhat particular as to soil. It must have ground not too wet or too dry. If these requirements are observed, it is a good tree for planting. Its average height is seventy or ninety feet, diameter from eighteen to thirty inches. Trunks six feet in diameter are occasionally heard of. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, tough, annual rings very wide and largely of springwood; color, light brown, the very thick sapwood nearly white. The leaves are from four to six inches long, in clusters of two and three, and fall the third year. Cones are from three to five inches long. The lumber is too scarce at present to have much importance, but its quality is good. In appearance it resembles wide-ringed loblolly pine, and appears to be suitable for doors and sash, and frames for windows and doors. Its present uses are confined chiefly to ranch timbers and fuel. If it ever amounts to much as a lumber resource, it will be as a planted pine, and not in its natural state.Jack Pine(Pinus divaricata) is a far northern species which extends its rangesouthward in the United States, from Maine to Minnesota, and reaches northern Indiana and Illinois. It grows almost far enough north in the valley of Mackenzie river to catch the rays of the midnight sun. It must necessarily adapt itself to circumstances. When these are favorable, it develops a trunk up to two feet in diameter and seventy feet tall; but in adversity, it degenerates into a many-branched shrub a few feet high. The average tree in the United States is thirty or forty feet tall, and a foot or more in diameter. Its name is intended as a term of contempt, which it does not deserve. Others call it scrub pine which is little better. Its other names are more respectful, Prince’s pine in Ontario, black pine in Wisconsin and Minnesota, cypress in Quebec and the Hudson Bay country, Sir Joseph Banks’ pine in England, and juniper in some parts of Canada. “Chek pine” is frequently given in its list of names, but the name is said to have originated in an attempt of a German botanist to pronounce “Jack pine” in dictating to a stenographer. The tree straggles over landscapes which otherwise would be treeless. It is often a ragged and uncouth specimen of the vegetable kingdom, but that is when it is at its worst. At its best, as it may be seen where cared for in some of the Michigan cemeteries, it is as handsome a tree as anyone could desire. The characteristic thinness and delicacy of its foliage distinguish it at once from its associates. The peculiar green of its soft, short needles wins admiration. The wood is light, soft, not strong; annual rings are moderately wide, and are largely composed of springwood. The thin bands of summerwood are resinous, and the small resin ducts are few. The thick sapwood is nearly white, the heartwood brown or orange. It is not durable.Jack pine can never be an important timber tree, because too small; but a considerable amount is used for bed slats, nail kegs, plastering lath, barrel headings, boxes, mine props, pulpwood, and fuel. Aside from its use as lumber and small manufactured products, it has a value for other purposes. It can maintain its existence in waste sands; and its usefulness is apparent in fixing drifting dunes along some of the exposed shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. It lives on dry sand and sends its roots several feet to water; or, under circumstances entirely different, it thrives in swamps where the watertable is little below the surface of the ground. It fights a brave battle against adversities while it lasts, but it does not live long. Sixty years is old age for this tree. It grows fast while young, but later it devotes all its energies to the mere process of living, and its increase in size is slow, until at a period when most trees are still in early youth, it dies of old age, and the northern winds quickly whip away its limbs, leaving the barkless trunk to stand a few years longer.

California Swamp Pine(Pinus muricata) clearly belongs among minor species listed as timber trees. It meets a small demand for skids, corduroy log roads, bridge floors, and scaffolds in the redwood logging operations in California. It is scattered along the Pacific coast 500 miles, beginning in Lower California and ending a hundred miles north of San Francisco. It is known as dwarf marine pine, pricklecone pine, bishop pine, and obispo pine. The last name is the Spanish translation of the English word bishop. The largest trees seldom exceed two feet in diameter, and a height of ninety feet. The average size is little more than half as much. The wood is very strong, hard, and compact, and the annual growth ring is largely dense summerwood. Resin passages are few, but the wood is resinous, light brown in color, and the thick sapwood is nearly white. The needles are in clusters of two, and are from four to six inches long. They begin to fall the second year. Some of the trees retain their cones until death, but the seeds are scattered from year to year. Under the stimulus of artificial conditions in the redwood districts this pine seems to be spreading. Its seeds blow into vacant ground from which redwood has been removed, and growth is prompt. The seedlings are not at all choice as to soil, but take root in cold clay, in peat bogs, on barren sand and gravel, and on wind-swept ridges exposed to ocean fogs. Its ability to grow where few other trees can maintain themselves holds out some hope that its usefulness will increase.

Monterey Pine(Pinus radiata). This scarce and local species is restricted to the California coast south of San Francisco, and to adjacent islands. Under favorable circumstances it grows rapidly and promises to be of more importance as a lumber source in the future than it has been in the past. It is, however, somewhat particular as to soil. It must have ground not too wet or too dry. If these requirements are observed, it is a good tree for planting. Its average height is seventy or ninety feet, diameter from eighteen to thirty inches. Trunks six feet in diameter are occasionally heard of. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, tough, annual rings very wide and largely of springwood; color, light brown, the very thick sapwood nearly white. The leaves are from four to six inches long, in clusters of two and three, and fall the third year. Cones are from three to five inches long. The lumber is too scarce at present to have much importance, but its quality is good. In appearance it resembles wide-ringed loblolly pine, and appears to be suitable for doors and sash, and frames for windows and doors. Its present uses are confined chiefly to ranch timbers and fuel. If it ever amounts to much as a lumber resource, it will be as a planted pine, and not in its natural state.

Jack Pine(Pinus divaricata) is a far northern species which extends its rangesouthward in the United States, from Maine to Minnesota, and reaches northern Indiana and Illinois. It grows almost far enough north in the valley of Mackenzie river to catch the rays of the midnight sun. It must necessarily adapt itself to circumstances. When these are favorable, it develops a trunk up to two feet in diameter and seventy feet tall; but in adversity, it degenerates into a many-branched shrub a few feet high. The average tree in the United States is thirty or forty feet tall, and a foot or more in diameter. Its name is intended as a term of contempt, which it does not deserve. Others call it scrub pine which is little better. Its other names are more respectful, Prince’s pine in Ontario, black pine in Wisconsin and Minnesota, cypress in Quebec and the Hudson Bay country, Sir Joseph Banks’ pine in England, and juniper in some parts of Canada. “Chek pine” is frequently given in its list of names, but the name is said to have originated in an attempt of a German botanist to pronounce “Jack pine” in dictating to a stenographer. The tree straggles over landscapes which otherwise would be treeless. It is often a ragged and uncouth specimen of the vegetable kingdom, but that is when it is at its worst. At its best, as it may be seen where cared for in some of the Michigan cemeteries, it is as handsome a tree as anyone could desire. The characteristic thinness and delicacy of its foliage distinguish it at once from its associates. The peculiar green of its soft, short needles wins admiration. The wood is light, soft, not strong; annual rings are moderately wide, and are largely composed of springwood. The thin bands of summerwood are resinous, and the small resin ducts are few. The thick sapwood is nearly white, the heartwood brown or orange. It is not durable.

Jack pine can never be an important timber tree, because too small; but a considerable amount is used for bed slats, nail kegs, plastering lath, barrel headings, boxes, mine props, pulpwood, and fuel. Aside from its use as lumber and small manufactured products, it has a value for other purposes. It can maintain its existence in waste sands; and its usefulness is apparent in fixing drifting dunes along some of the exposed shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. It lives on dry sand and sends its roots several feet to water; or, under circumstances entirely different, it thrives in swamps where the watertable is little below the surface of the ground. It fights a brave battle against adversities while it lasts, but it does not live long. Sixty years is old age for this tree. It grows fast while young, but later it devotes all its energies to the mere process of living, and its increase in size is slow, until at a period when most trees are still in early youth, it dies of old age, and the northern winds quickly whip away its limbs, leaving the barkless trunk to stand a few years longer.

Western yellow pine branch

LODGEPOLE PINELodgepole pineLodgepole Pine

Lodgepole pineLodgepole Pine

Lodgepole Pine

LODGEPOLE PINE(Pinus Contorta)The common name of this tree was given it because its tall, slender, very light poles were used by Indians of the region in the construction of their lodges. They selected poles fifteen feet long and two inches in diameter, set them in a circle, bent the tops together, tied them, and covered the frame with skins or bark. The poles were peeled in early summer, when the Indians set out upon their summer hunt, and were left to season until fall, when they were carried to the winter’s camping place, probably fifty miles distant. Tamarack is a common name for this pine in much of its range; it is likewise known as black pine, spruce pine, and prickly pine. Its leaves are from one to two inches long, in clusters of two. The small cones adhere to the branches many years—sometimes as long as twenty—without releasing the seeds, which are sealed within the cone by accumulated resin. The vitality of the seeds is remarkable. They don’t lose their power of germination during their long imprisonment.The lodgepole pine has been called a fire tree, and the name is not inappropriate. It profits by severe burning, as some other trees of the United States do, such as paper birch and bird cherry. The sealed cones are opened by fire, which softens the resin, and the seeds are liberated after the fire has passed, and wing their flight wherever the wind carries them. The passing fire may be severe enough to kill the parent tree without destroying or bringing down the cones. The seeds soon fall on the bared mineral soil, where they germinate by thousands. More than one hundred thousand small seedling trees may occupy a single acre. Most of them are ultimately crowded to death, but a thick stand results. Most lodgepole pine forests occupy old burns. The tree is one of the slowest of growers. It never reaches large size—possibly three feet is the limit. It is very tall and slender. A hundred years will scarcely produce a sawlog of the smallest size.The range of this tree covers a million square miles from Alaska to New Mexico, and to the Pacific coast. Its characters vary in different parts of its range. A scrub form was once thought to be a different species, and was called shore pine.The wood is of about the same weight as eastern white pine. It is light in color, rather weak, and brittle, annual rings very narrow, summerwood small in amount, resin passages few and small; medullary rays numerous, broad, and prominent. The wood is characterized by numerous small knots. It is not durable in contact with the ground,but it readily receives preservative treatment. In height it ranges from fifty to one hundred feet.The government’s estimate of the stand of lodgepole pine in the United States in 1909 placed it at 90,000,000,000 feet. That makes it seventh in quantity among the timber trees of this country, those above it being Douglas fir, the southern yellow pines (considered as one), western yellow pine, redwood, western hemlock, and the red cedar of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.Lodgepole pine has been long and widely used as a ranch timber in the Far West, serving for poles and rails in fences, for sheds, barns, corrals, pens, and small bridges. Where it could be had at all, it was generally plentiful. Stock ranges high among the mountains frequently depend almost solely upon lodgepole pine for necessary timber.Mine operators find it a valuable resource. As props it is cheap, substantial, and convenient in many parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana. A large proportion of this timber which is cut for mining purposes has been standing dead from fire injury many years, and is thoroughly seasoned and very light. It is in excellent condition for receiving preservative treatment.Sawmills do not list lodgepole pine separately in reports of lumber cut, and it is impossible to determine what the annual supply from the species is. It is well known that the quantity made into lumber in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho is large. Its chief market is among the newly established agricultural communities in those states. They use it for fruit and vegetable shipping boxes, fencing plank, pickets, and plastering lath.Railroads buy half a million lodgepole pine crossties yearly. When creosoted, they resist decay many years. Lodgepole pine has been a tie material since the first railroads entered the region, and while by no means the best, it promises to fill a much more important place in the future than in the past. It is an ideal fence post material as far as size and form are concerned, and with preservative treatment it is bound to attain a high place. It is claimed that treated posts will last twenty years, and that puts them on a par with the cedars.In Colorado and Wyoming much lodgepole was formerly burned for charcoal to supply the furnaces which smelted ore and the blacksmith shops of the region. This is done now less than formerly, since railroad building has made coal and coke accessible.In one respect, lodgepole pine is to the western mountains what loblolly pine is to the flat country of the south Atlantic and other southern states. It is aggressive, and takes possession of vacant ground. Although the wood is not as valuable as loblolly, it is useful, and hasan important place to fill in the western country’s development. Its greatest drawback is its exceedingly slow growth. A hundred years is a long time to wait for trees of pole size. Two crops of loblolly sawlogs can be harvested in that time. However, the land on which the lodgepole grows is fit only for timber, and the acreage is so vast that there is enough to grow supplies, even with the wait of a century or two for harvest. The stand has increased enormously within historic time, the same as loblolly, and for a similar reason. Men cleared land in the East, and loblolly took possession; fires destroyed western forests of other species and lodgepole seized and held the burned tracts.If fires cease among the western mountains, as will probably be the case under more efficient methods of patrol, and with stricter enforcement of laws against starting fires, the spread of lodgepole pine will come to a standstill, and existing forests will grow old without much extension of their borders.Jeffrey Pine(Pinus jeffreyi) is often classed as western yellow pine, both in the forest and at the mill. Its range extends from southern Oregon to Lower California, a distance of 1,000 miles, and its width east and west varies from twenty to one hundred and fifty miles. It is a mountain tree and generally occupies elevations above the western yellow pine. In the North its range reaches 3,600 feet above sea level; in the extreme South it is 10,000 feet. The darker and more deeply-furrowed bark of the Jeffrey pine is the usual character by which lumbermen distinguish it from the western yellow pine. It is known under several names, most of them relating to the tree’s appearance, such as black pine, redbark pine, blackbark pine, sapwood pine, and bull pine. It reaches the same size as the western yellow pine, though the average is a little smaller. The leaves are from four to nine inches long, and fall in eight or nine years. The cones are large, and armed with slender, curved spines. The seeds are too heavy to fly far, their wing area being small. It is a vigorous tree, and in some regions it forms good forests. Some botanists have considered the Jeffrey pine a variety of the western yellow pine.Gray Pine(Pinus sabiniana), called also Digger pine because the Digger Indians formerly collected the seeds, which are as large as peanuts, to help eke out a living, is confined to California, and grows in a belt on the foothills surrounding the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. Its cones are large and armed with hooked spines. When green, the largest cones weigh three or four pounds. Leaves are from eight to twelve inches long, in clusters of two and three, and fall the third and fourth years. The wood is remarkable for the quickness of its decay in damp situations. It lasts one or two years as fence posts. A mature gray pine is from fifty to seventy feet high, and eighteen to thirty inches in diameter. Some trees are much larger. It is of considerable importance, but is not in the same class as western yellow and sugarpine. The wood is light, soft, rather strong, brittle. The annual rings are generally wide, indicating rapid growth. Very old gray pines are not known. An age of 185 years seems to be the highest on record. The wood is resinous, and it has helped in a small way to supply the Pacific coast markets with high-grade turpentine, distilled from roots. It yields resin when boxed like the southern longleaf pine. There are two flowing seasons. One is very early, and closes when the weather becomes hot; the other is in full current by the middle of August. It maintains life among the California foothills during the long rainless seasons, on ground so dry that semi-desert chaparral sometimes succumbs; but it is able to make the most of favorable conditions, and it grows rapidly under the slightest encouragement. The seedlings are more numerous now than formerly, which is attributed to decrease of forest fires. The tree has enemies which generally attack it in youth. Two fungi,Peridermium harknessi, andDædalia vorax, destroy the young tree’s leader or topmost shoot, causing the development of a short trunk. The latter fungus is the same or is closely related to that which tunnels the trunk of incense cedar and produces pecky cypress.Gray pine has been cut to some extent for lumber, but its principal uses have been as fuel and mine timbers. Many quartz mines have been located in the region where the tree grows; and the engines which pumped the shafts and raised and crushed the ore were often heated with this pine. Thousands of acres of hillsides in the vicinity of mines were stripped of it, and it went to the engine house ricks in wagons, on sleds, and on the backs of burros. In two respects it is an economical fuel for remote mines: it is light in weight, and gives more heat than an equal quantity of the oak that is associated with it.Chihuahua Pine(Pinus chihuahuana) is not abundant, but it exists in small commercial quantities in southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. Trees are from fifty to eighty feet high, and from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. The wood is medium light, soft, rather strong, brittle, narrow ringed and compact. The resin passages are few, large, and conspicuous; color, clear light orange, the thick sapwood lighter. The tree reaches best development at altitudes of from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. When the wood is used, it serves the same purposes as western yellow pine; but the small size of the tree makes lumber of large size impossible. The leaves are in clusters of three, and fall the fourth year. The cones have long stalks and are from one and a half to two inches long.Lodgepole pine branch

The common name of this tree was given it because its tall, slender, very light poles were used by Indians of the region in the construction of their lodges. They selected poles fifteen feet long and two inches in diameter, set them in a circle, bent the tops together, tied them, and covered the frame with skins or bark. The poles were peeled in early summer, when the Indians set out upon their summer hunt, and were left to season until fall, when they were carried to the winter’s camping place, probably fifty miles distant. Tamarack is a common name for this pine in much of its range; it is likewise known as black pine, spruce pine, and prickly pine. Its leaves are from one to two inches long, in clusters of two. The small cones adhere to the branches many years—sometimes as long as twenty—without releasing the seeds, which are sealed within the cone by accumulated resin. The vitality of the seeds is remarkable. They don’t lose their power of germination during their long imprisonment.

The lodgepole pine has been called a fire tree, and the name is not inappropriate. It profits by severe burning, as some other trees of the United States do, such as paper birch and bird cherry. The sealed cones are opened by fire, which softens the resin, and the seeds are liberated after the fire has passed, and wing their flight wherever the wind carries them. The passing fire may be severe enough to kill the parent tree without destroying or bringing down the cones. The seeds soon fall on the bared mineral soil, where they germinate by thousands. More than one hundred thousand small seedling trees may occupy a single acre. Most of them are ultimately crowded to death, but a thick stand results. Most lodgepole pine forests occupy old burns. The tree is one of the slowest of growers. It never reaches large size—possibly three feet is the limit. It is very tall and slender. A hundred years will scarcely produce a sawlog of the smallest size.

The range of this tree covers a million square miles from Alaska to New Mexico, and to the Pacific coast. Its characters vary in different parts of its range. A scrub form was once thought to be a different species, and was called shore pine.

The wood is of about the same weight as eastern white pine. It is light in color, rather weak, and brittle, annual rings very narrow, summerwood small in amount, resin passages few and small; medullary rays numerous, broad, and prominent. The wood is characterized by numerous small knots. It is not durable in contact with the ground,but it readily receives preservative treatment. In height it ranges from fifty to one hundred feet.

The government’s estimate of the stand of lodgepole pine in the United States in 1909 placed it at 90,000,000,000 feet. That makes it seventh in quantity among the timber trees of this country, those above it being Douglas fir, the southern yellow pines (considered as one), western yellow pine, redwood, western hemlock, and the red cedar of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

Lodgepole pine has been long and widely used as a ranch timber in the Far West, serving for poles and rails in fences, for sheds, barns, corrals, pens, and small bridges. Where it could be had at all, it was generally plentiful. Stock ranges high among the mountains frequently depend almost solely upon lodgepole pine for necessary timber.

Mine operators find it a valuable resource. As props it is cheap, substantial, and convenient in many parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana. A large proportion of this timber which is cut for mining purposes has been standing dead from fire injury many years, and is thoroughly seasoned and very light. It is in excellent condition for receiving preservative treatment.

Sawmills do not list lodgepole pine separately in reports of lumber cut, and it is impossible to determine what the annual supply from the species is. It is well known that the quantity made into lumber in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho is large. Its chief market is among the newly established agricultural communities in those states. They use it for fruit and vegetable shipping boxes, fencing plank, pickets, and plastering lath.

Railroads buy half a million lodgepole pine crossties yearly. When creosoted, they resist decay many years. Lodgepole pine has been a tie material since the first railroads entered the region, and while by no means the best, it promises to fill a much more important place in the future than in the past. It is an ideal fence post material as far as size and form are concerned, and with preservative treatment it is bound to attain a high place. It is claimed that treated posts will last twenty years, and that puts them on a par with the cedars.

In Colorado and Wyoming much lodgepole was formerly burned for charcoal to supply the furnaces which smelted ore and the blacksmith shops of the region. This is done now less than formerly, since railroad building has made coal and coke accessible.

In one respect, lodgepole pine is to the western mountains what loblolly pine is to the flat country of the south Atlantic and other southern states. It is aggressive, and takes possession of vacant ground. Although the wood is not as valuable as loblolly, it is useful, and hasan important place to fill in the western country’s development. Its greatest drawback is its exceedingly slow growth. A hundred years is a long time to wait for trees of pole size. Two crops of loblolly sawlogs can be harvested in that time. However, the land on which the lodgepole grows is fit only for timber, and the acreage is so vast that there is enough to grow supplies, even with the wait of a century or two for harvest. The stand has increased enormously within historic time, the same as loblolly, and for a similar reason. Men cleared land in the East, and loblolly took possession; fires destroyed western forests of other species and lodgepole seized and held the burned tracts.

If fires cease among the western mountains, as will probably be the case under more efficient methods of patrol, and with stricter enforcement of laws against starting fires, the spread of lodgepole pine will come to a standstill, and existing forests will grow old without much extension of their borders.

Jeffrey Pine(Pinus jeffreyi) is often classed as western yellow pine, both in the forest and at the mill. Its range extends from southern Oregon to Lower California, a distance of 1,000 miles, and its width east and west varies from twenty to one hundred and fifty miles. It is a mountain tree and generally occupies elevations above the western yellow pine. In the North its range reaches 3,600 feet above sea level; in the extreme South it is 10,000 feet. The darker and more deeply-furrowed bark of the Jeffrey pine is the usual character by which lumbermen distinguish it from the western yellow pine. It is known under several names, most of them relating to the tree’s appearance, such as black pine, redbark pine, blackbark pine, sapwood pine, and bull pine. It reaches the same size as the western yellow pine, though the average is a little smaller. The leaves are from four to nine inches long, and fall in eight or nine years. The cones are large, and armed with slender, curved spines. The seeds are too heavy to fly far, their wing area being small. It is a vigorous tree, and in some regions it forms good forests. Some botanists have considered the Jeffrey pine a variety of the western yellow pine.

Gray Pine(Pinus sabiniana), called also Digger pine because the Digger Indians formerly collected the seeds, which are as large as peanuts, to help eke out a living, is confined to California, and grows in a belt on the foothills surrounding the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. Its cones are large and armed with hooked spines. When green, the largest cones weigh three or four pounds. Leaves are from eight to twelve inches long, in clusters of two and three, and fall the third and fourth years. The wood is remarkable for the quickness of its decay in damp situations. It lasts one or two years as fence posts. A mature gray pine is from fifty to seventy feet high, and eighteen to thirty inches in diameter. Some trees are much larger. It is of considerable importance, but is not in the same class as western yellow and sugarpine. The wood is light, soft, rather strong, brittle. The annual rings are generally wide, indicating rapid growth. Very old gray pines are not known. An age of 185 years seems to be the highest on record. The wood is resinous, and it has helped in a small way to supply the Pacific coast markets with high-grade turpentine, distilled from roots. It yields resin when boxed like the southern longleaf pine. There are two flowing seasons. One is very early, and closes when the weather becomes hot; the other is in full current by the middle of August. It maintains life among the California foothills during the long rainless seasons, on ground so dry that semi-desert chaparral sometimes succumbs; but it is able to make the most of favorable conditions, and it grows rapidly under the slightest encouragement. The seedlings are more numerous now than formerly, which is attributed to decrease of forest fires. The tree has enemies which generally attack it in youth. Two fungi,Peridermium harknessi, andDædalia vorax, destroy the young tree’s leader or topmost shoot, causing the development of a short trunk. The latter fungus is the same or is closely related to that which tunnels the trunk of incense cedar and produces pecky cypress.Gray pine has been cut to some extent for lumber, but its principal uses have been as fuel and mine timbers. Many quartz mines have been located in the region where the tree grows; and the engines which pumped the shafts and raised and crushed the ore were often heated with this pine. Thousands of acres of hillsides in the vicinity of mines were stripped of it, and it went to the engine house ricks in wagons, on sleds, and on the backs of burros. In two respects it is an economical fuel for remote mines: it is light in weight, and gives more heat than an equal quantity of the oak that is associated with it.Chihuahua Pine(Pinus chihuahuana) is not abundant, but it exists in small commercial quantities in southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. Trees are from fifty to eighty feet high, and from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. The wood is medium light, soft, rather strong, brittle, narrow ringed and compact. The resin passages are few, large, and conspicuous; color, clear light orange, the thick sapwood lighter. The tree reaches best development at altitudes of from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. When the wood is used, it serves the same purposes as western yellow pine; but the small size of the tree makes lumber of large size impossible. The leaves are in clusters of three, and fall the fourth year. The cones have long stalks and are from one and a half to two inches long.

Gray pine has been cut to some extent for lumber, but its principal uses have been as fuel and mine timbers. Many quartz mines have been located in the region where the tree grows; and the engines which pumped the shafts and raised and crushed the ore were often heated with this pine. Thousands of acres of hillsides in the vicinity of mines were stripped of it, and it went to the engine house ricks in wagons, on sleds, and on the backs of burros. In two respects it is an economical fuel for remote mines: it is light in weight, and gives more heat than an equal quantity of the oak that is associated with it.

Chihuahua Pine(Pinus chihuahuana) is not abundant, but it exists in small commercial quantities in southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. Trees are from fifty to eighty feet high, and from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. The wood is medium light, soft, rather strong, brittle, narrow ringed and compact. The resin passages are few, large, and conspicuous; color, clear light orange, the thick sapwood lighter. The tree reaches best development at altitudes of from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. When the wood is used, it serves the same purposes as western yellow pine; but the small size of the tree makes lumber of large size impossible. The leaves are in clusters of three, and fall the fourth year. The cones have long stalks and are from one and a half to two inches long.

Lodgepole pine branch

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