RED ALDERRed alderRed Alder
Red alderRed Alder
Red Alder
RED ALDER(Alnus Oregona)Many species of alder are found in various parts of the world, and on both sides of the equator, but chiefly in the northern hemisphere. Some of these are trees, others are shrubs. Six species belonging in the tree class grow in the United States, besides others which remain shrubs. Some trees are burdened with names, changing them with locality, but not so with alder. An adjective may accompany the name, as red, white, seaside, or mountain, to describe it, but it is always alder, no matter where it grows. The different species cover much of the United States, and few large areas are found which have not one or more species. It grows from sea level up to 7,000 feet or more, but some species thrive at one elevation, and others above or below.The alders are old inhabitants of the earth. They had a place in the Eocene and Miocene forests of the old world and new. It is not apparent that they have either gained or lost in extent of range during the hundreds of thousands of years which measure their tenancy on the earth. They have not been aggressive in pushing their way, nor have they shown a disposition to retire before the aggression of other trees. Some alders bear seeds equipped with wings for wind distribution, others produce wingless seeds which depend on water to bear them to suitable situations and plant them. Of course, the water-borne seeds are planted on muddy shores or on the banks of running streams, and the trees of those species are confined to such situations. The alders belong to the birch family.Red alder is the largest of the alder group in this country. Mature trees are from forty to ninety feet high, and from one to three feet in diameter. The northern limit of its range crosses southern Alaska; its southern border is in southern California. It is a Pacific coast tree, with a north and south range of 2,000 miles. Trunks are straight, and branches are generally slender. The largest specimens grow in the vicinity of Puget Sound. The bark is thin, leaves are from three to ten inches long, cones from one-half to one inch in length, seeds have very narrow, thin wings, and are about the size of radish seeds. The cones remain green in color until the seeds are fully ripe, but they finally turn brown, and seeds are liberated during the fall and winter.Red alder is given that name because the newly cut wood is liable to change quickly to a reddish-brown. This applies to the whitish sapwood only; but since the trunk is largely sapwood, it is an important matter. It is not apparent whether the change in color is due to attackby fungi, or to some chemical change in the sap. It is not believed that the change in color weakens the wood, at least it does not appear to do so immediately. The heart is reddish, and when dressed and polished, it presents a fine appearance.Red alder when thoroughly air dry weighs about thirty pounds per cubic foot, which is slightly above the weight of basswood. It is strong for its weight, rating only eight per cent below white oak, while in stiffness or elasticity it is about twelve per cent above white oak. It is not difficult to season, is soft, stands well when made up, and is one of the most important hardwoods of the northwest Pacific coast. More than 2,000,000 feet a year go to wood-using factories in Washington and Oregon.The Indians of the Northwest, when they had only stone hatchets or the crudest kinds of metal tools, found red alder a wood which worked so easily that they specialized with it. They made canoes of the largest trunks, and all manner of troughs, trays, trenches, platters, and dugouts, some of no more than a pint in capacity, others holding three or four bushels. The Field Museum in Chicago has a collection of these Indian utensils made of alder. The workmanship shows considerable skill mixed with barbaric art. There are carvings of eagles and bears which are not entirely grotesque. The utensils were designed primarily to contain food at ceremonial feasts, or it was stored for times of scarcity. Among them are cooking vessels of alder in which meat was boiled by filling the troughs with water and dropping in hot stones.Furniture manufacturers are the largest users of red alder. Carefully selected heartwood, finished in the proper color, looks much like cherry, though it lacks something of the characteristic cherry luster. The sapwood in its natural color resembles the sapwood of yellow birch. The annual rings are defined by narrow bands of dense summerwood. The pores are small and diffused through the entire ring, as with birch. Medullary rays are very thin and do not show much figure; neither do the rings of growth, in tangential sawing, display much contrast. It is, therefore, a figureless wood, entering into practically all grades of furniture, in the region where alder is plentiful, but it shows to particularly good advantage in panels.Reports on wood-utilization on the Pacific coast list this wood for archery bows but particulars as to amount used, and why it is used at all, are not given. The physical properties of the wood do not seem to fit it for that use. It is wanting in both strength and elasticity which are the prime, almost the only, factors considered in selecting bow wood. No account has been found of any employment of alder for bows by Indians of the region where it grows.Broom handle turners in Washington use 350,000 feet of alder a year. The smooth finish which may be imparted to the wood constitutes its chief value for broom handles. It is well liked for porch columns. When the center is bored out, the wood seldom checks. In that respect it resembles yellow poplar. It takes paint well and holds it a long time. Comparatively large amounts are converted into interior finish. It is made into spindles, newel posts, railing, panels, molding, ornaments, and pedestals. Occasionally it is finished in the wood’s natural color.Many minor places are found for red alder. Frames of pack saddles are made of it; it forms parts of pulleys; is available for small turnery; and it is sometimes worked into bodies and compartments for business wagons, such as butchers and bakers use. The bark is rich in tannin and is said to be employed in local tanneries, but no statistics are available showing the annual supply.White Alder(Alnus rhombifolia) is known simply as alder in the region where it grows. Where this tree and red alder occupy the same range they are commonly supposed to be the same. The range of white alder extends from northern Idaho to southern California. It is the common alder of central California where it attains its best development, and the only alder at low altitudes in southern California. Trees vary in height from thirty to eighty feet, and in diameter from one to three. A common size is fifty feet high and fifteen inches in diameter. Like most alders, it sticks close to water courses, and is usually found in the bottoms of gulches where water flows most of the year. The flowers begin to appear in midsummer as dark, olive-brown catkins less than an inch in length. By midwinter they are fully developed, and the tree is loaded with catkins from four to six inches long and thick as lead pencils. In the gulches among the elevated foothills it is not unusual for trees to be bending beneath snow and flowers at the same time. That is about the period when the seeds of the preceding year complete their dispersal. The cones hang closed nearly a whole twelve months, and when they give up their seeds, they often do it slowly. The seeds are the size of pin heads, and seem to have had wings once, but lost them. The remnants remain, but are of no use. If running water does not carry seeds to new grounds they lie beneath the parent tree. The wood of white alder is five pounds lighter per cubic foot than red alder. Its structure is less satisfactory. Medullary rays are irregular, some being thin as those of sweet birch, while others are as broad as rays of chestnut oak. Those of large size seem to be scattered at haphazard, and are so irregular and uncertain that no dependence can be placed in them for figure. Trees are largely sapwood, which is nearly white when freshly cut, but it quickly turns brown; heartwood is pale, yellowish-brown.This is said to be one of most quickly-decaying woods of the western forests when logs are left lying in damp woods. The white alder ought to be suitable for nearly every purpose for which red alder is used.Mountain Alder(Alnus tenuifolia) is too small to contribute much to the lumber supply of the country, though it may yield fuel in some localities where there is little else. Its range extends from Yukon territory to Lower California, a distance of 4,000 miles, and it nearly touches both the torrid and frigid zones. It is found from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in the United States. Few trunks exceed twenty-five feet in height or six inches in diameter; but the form is generally brush, in tangled thickets along the courses of mountain streams, and on boggy slopes, up to 7,000 feet in altitude. The wood is light brown, and there are no reports showing its use for any purpose except firewood.Sitka Alder(Alnus sitchensis) is one of the smallest of the arborescent species, and in most instances it is a shrub a few feet high. At its best it is thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. It grows from Alaska to Oregon, and eastward to Alberta and Montana. It is found in mountain regions 4,000 feet above the sea. The wood is valuable for fuel only. This species was discovered about eighty years ago, but was practically lost sight of until recently. Many persons saw it but supposed it to be one of the other alders.Lanceleaf Alder(Alnus acuminata) is a southwestern species, ranging through southern New Mexico and southern Arizona and south 4,000 miles to Peru. In the United States it ascends to altitudes of 4,000 or 6,000 feet where it fringes the banks of streams, and flourishes in the bottoms of canyons. The largest trees are thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. Flowers open in February before the appearance of the leaves. The seeds have small wings which are of little or no use.Seaside Alder(Alnus maritima) grows in Maryland, Delaware, and Oklahoma, and the largest trunks are thirty feet high and five inches in diameter. It is found on the banks of ponds and streams. The flowers appear in July, and the seeds of last year’s crop ripen at the same time. The wood is light, soft, and brown, heart and sap being scarcely distinguishable. The wood is not used.The European Alder (Alnus glutinosa) has been naturalized in a few places in the United States, and several varieties are distinguished in cultivation. A native shrubby species (Alnus rugosa) is common in many parts of the eastern states. It is not usually listed as a tree, being too small, but it is sometimes twenty-five feet high and three or four inches in diameter. In Europe the charcoal made from alder is considered excellent material for the manufacture of gun powder, and considerable areas of alder in England are held in reserve against an emergency. It is probable that the American alders would answer as well as the European species.Red alder branch
Many species of alder are found in various parts of the world, and on both sides of the equator, but chiefly in the northern hemisphere. Some of these are trees, others are shrubs. Six species belonging in the tree class grow in the United States, besides others which remain shrubs. Some trees are burdened with names, changing them with locality, but not so with alder. An adjective may accompany the name, as red, white, seaside, or mountain, to describe it, but it is always alder, no matter where it grows. The different species cover much of the United States, and few large areas are found which have not one or more species. It grows from sea level up to 7,000 feet or more, but some species thrive at one elevation, and others above or below.
The alders are old inhabitants of the earth. They had a place in the Eocene and Miocene forests of the old world and new. It is not apparent that they have either gained or lost in extent of range during the hundreds of thousands of years which measure their tenancy on the earth. They have not been aggressive in pushing their way, nor have they shown a disposition to retire before the aggression of other trees. Some alders bear seeds equipped with wings for wind distribution, others produce wingless seeds which depend on water to bear them to suitable situations and plant them. Of course, the water-borne seeds are planted on muddy shores or on the banks of running streams, and the trees of those species are confined to such situations. The alders belong to the birch family.
Red alder is the largest of the alder group in this country. Mature trees are from forty to ninety feet high, and from one to three feet in diameter. The northern limit of its range crosses southern Alaska; its southern border is in southern California. It is a Pacific coast tree, with a north and south range of 2,000 miles. Trunks are straight, and branches are generally slender. The largest specimens grow in the vicinity of Puget Sound. The bark is thin, leaves are from three to ten inches long, cones from one-half to one inch in length, seeds have very narrow, thin wings, and are about the size of radish seeds. The cones remain green in color until the seeds are fully ripe, but they finally turn brown, and seeds are liberated during the fall and winter.
Red alder is given that name because the newly cut wood is liable to change quickly to a reddish-brown. This applies to the whitish sapwood only; but since the trunk is largely sapwood, it is an important matter. It is not apparent whether the change in color is due to attackby fungi, or to some chemical change in the sap. It is not believed that the change in color weakens the wood, at least it does not appear to do so immediately. The heart is reddish, and when dressed and polished, it presents a fine appearance.
Red alder when thoroughly air dry weighs about thirty pounds per cubic foot, which is slightly above the weight of basswood. It is strong for its weight, rating only eight per cent below white oak, while in stiffness or elasticity it is about twelve per cent above white oak. It is not difficult to season, is soft, stands well when made up, and is one of the most important hardwoods of the northwest Pacific coast. More than 2,000,000 feet a year go to wood-using factories in Washington and Oregon.
The Indians of the Northwest, when they had only stone hatchets or the crudest kinds of metal tools, found red alder a wood which worked so easily that they specialized with it. They made canoes of the largest trunks, and all manner of troughs, trays, trenches, platters, and dugouts, some of no more than a pint in capacity, others holding three or four bushels. The Field Museum in Chicago has a collection of these Indian utensils made of alder. The workmanship shows considerable skill mixed with barbaric art. There are carvings of eagles and bears which are not entirely grotesque. The utensils were designed primarily to contain food at ceremonial feasts, or it was stored for times of scarcity. Among them are cooking vessels of alder in which meat was boiled by filling the troughs with water and dropping in hot stones.
Furniture manufacturers are the largest users of red alder. Carefully selected heartwood, finished in the proper color, looks much like cherry, though it lacks something of the characteristic cherry luster. The sapwood in its natural color resembles the sapwood of yellow birch. The annual rings are defined by narrow bands of dense summerwood. The pores are small and diffused through the entire ring, as with birch. Medullary rays are very thin and do not show much figure; neither do the rings of growth, in tangential sawing, display much contrast. It is, therefore, a figureless wood, entering into practically all grades of furniture, in the region where alder is plentiful, but it shows to particularly good advantage in panels.
Reports on wood-utilization on the Pacific coast list this wood for archery bows but particulars as to amount used, and why it is used at all, are not given. The physical properties of the wood do not seem to fit it for that use. It is wanting in both strength and elasticity which are the prime, almost the only, factors considered in selecting bow wood. No account has been found of any employment of alder for bows by Indians of the region where it grows.
Broom handle turners in Washington use 350,000 feet of alder a year. The smooth finish which may be imparted to the wood constitutes its chief value for broom handles. It is well liked for porch columns. When the center is bored out, the wood seldom checks. In that respect it resembles yellow poplar. It takes paint well and holds it a long time. Comparatively large amounts are converted into interior finish. It is made into spindles, newel posts, railing, panels, molding, ornaments, and pedestals. Occasionally it is finished in the wood’s natural color.
Many minor places are found for red alder. Frames of pack saddles are made of it; it forms parts of pulleys; is available for small turnery; and it is sometimes worked into bodies and compartments for business wagons, such as butchers and bakers use. The bark is rich in tannin and is said to be employed in local tanneries, but no statistics are available showing the annual supply.
White Alder(Alnus rhombifolia) is known simply as alder in the region where it grows. Where this tree and red alder occupy the same range they are commonly supposed to be the same. The range of white alder extends from northern Idaho to southern California. It is the common alder of central California where it attains its best development, and the only alder at low altitudes in southern California. Trees vary in height from thirty to eighty feet, and in diameter from one to three. A common size is fifty feet high and fifteen inches in diameter. Like most alders, it sticks close to water courses, and is usually found in the bottoms of gulches where water flows most of the year. The flowers begin to appear in midsummer as dark, olive-brown catkins less than an inch in length. By midwinter they are fully developed, and the tree is loaded with catkins from four to six inches long and thick as lead pencils. In the gulches among the elevated foothills it is not unusual for trees to be bending beneath snow and flowers at the same time. That is about the period when the seeds of the preceding year complete their dispersal. The cones hang closed nearly a whole twelve months, and when they give up their seeds, they often do it slowly. The seeds are the size of pin heads, and seem to have had wings once, but lost them. The remnants remain, but are of no use. If running water does not carry seeds to new grounds they lie beneath the parent tree. The wood of white alder is five pounds lighter per cubic foot than red alder. Its structure is less satisfactory. Medullary rays are irregular, some being thin as those of sweet birch, while others are as broad as rays of chestnut oak. Those of large size seem to be scattered at haphazard, and are so irregular and uncertain that no dependence can be placed in them for figure. Trees are largely sapwood, which is nearly white when freshly cut, but it quickly turns brown; heartwood is pale, yellowish-brown.This is said to be one of most quickly-decaying woods of the western forests when logs are left lying in damp woods. The white alder ought to be suitable for nearly every purpose for which red alder is used.
Mountain Alder(Alnus tenuifolia) is too small to contribute much to the lumber supply of the country, though it may yield fuel in some localities where there is little else. Its range extends from Yukon territory to Lower California, a distance of 4,000 miles, and it nearly touches both the torrid and frigid zones. It is found from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in the United States. Few trunks exceed twenty-five feet in height or six inches in diameter; but the form is generally brush, in tangled thickets along the courses of mountain streams, and on boggy slopes, up to 7,000 feet in altitude. The wood is light brown, and there are no reports showing its use for any purpose except firewood.Sitka Alder(Alnus sitchensis) is one of the smallest of the arborescent species, and in most instances it is a shrub a few feet high. At its best it is thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. It grows from Alaska to Oregon, and eastward to Alberta and Montana. It is found in mountain regions 4,000 feet above the sea. The wood is valuable for fuel only. This species was discovered about eighty years ago, but was practically lost sight of until recently. Many persons saw it but supposed it to be one of the other alders.Lanceleaf Alder(Alnus acuminata) is a southwestern species, ranging through southern New Mexico and southern Arizona and south 4,000 miles to Peru. In the United States it ascends to altitudes of 4,000 or 6,000 feet where it fringes the banks of streams, and flourishes in the bottoms of canyons. The largest trees are thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. Flowers open in February before the appearance of the leaves. The seeds have small wings which are of little or no use.Seaside Alder(Alnus maritima) grows in Maryland, Delaware, and Oklahoma, and the largest trunks are thirty feet high and five inches in diameter. It is found on the banks of ponds and streams. The flowers appear in July, and the seeds of last year’s crop ripen at the same time. The wood is light, soft, and brown, heart and sap being scarcely distinguishable. The wood is not used.The European Alder (Alnus glutinosa) has been naturalized in a few places in the United States, and several varieties are distinguished in cultivation. A native shrubby species (Alnus rugosa) is common in many parts of the eastern states. It is not usually listed as a tree, being too small, but it is sometimes twenty-five feet high and three or four inches in diameter. In Europe the charcoal made from alder is considered excellent material for the manufacture of gun powder, and considerable areas of alder in England are held in reserve against an emergency. It is probable that the American alders would answer as well as the European species.
Mountain Alder(Alnus tenuifolia) is too small to contribute much to the lumber supply of the country, though it may yield fuel in some localities where there is little else. Its range extends from Yukon territory to Lower California, a distance of 4,000 miles, and it nearly touches both the torrid and frigid zones. It is found from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in the United States. Few trunks exceed twenty-five feet in height or six inches in diameter; but the form is generally brush, in tangled thickets along the courses of mountain streams, and on boggy slopes, up to 7,000 feet in altitude. The wood is light brown, and there are no reports showing its use for any purpose except firewood.
Sitka Alder(Alnus sitchensis) is one of the smallest of the arborescent species, and in most instances it is a shrub a few feet high. At its best it is thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. It grows from Alaska to Oregon, and eastward to Alberta and Montana. It is found in mountain regions 4,000 feet above the sea. The wood is valuable for fuel only. This species was discovered about eighty years ago, but was practically lost sight of until recently. Many persons saw it but supposed it to be one of the other alders.
Lanceleaf Alder(Alnus acuminata) is a southwestern species, ranging through southern New Mexico and southern Arizona and south 4,000 miles to Peru. In the United States it ascends to altitudes of 4,000 or 6,000 feet where it fringes the banks of streams, and flourishes in the bottoms of canyons. The largest trees are thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. Flowers open in February before the appearance of the leaves. The seeds have small wings which are of little or no use.
Seaside Alder(Alnus maritima) grows in Maryland, Delaware, and Oklahoma, and the largest trunks are thirty feet high and five inches in diameter. It is found on the banks of ponds and streams. The flowers appear in July, and the seeds of last year’s crop ripen at the same time. The wood is light, soft, and brown, heart and sap being scarcely distinguishable. The wood is not used.
The European Alder (Alnus glutinosa) has been naturalized in a few places in the United States, and several varieties are distinguished in cultivation. A native shrubby species (Alnus rugosa) is common in many parts of the eastern states. It is not usually listed as a tree, being too small, but it is sometimes twenty-five feet high and three or four inches in diameter. In Europe the charcoal made from alder is considered excellent material for the manufacture of gun powder, and considerable areas of alder in England are held in reserve against an emergency. It is probable that the American alders would answer as well as the European species.
Red alder branch
HORNBEAMHornbeamHornbeam
HornbeamHornbeam
Hornbeam
HORNBEAM(Ostrya Virginiana)This tree belongs to the birch family and is closely related to the alders and to blue beech. Four species of hornbeam are known in the world, and two of them are in the United States. One is well known to most persons who are familiar with eastern hardwood forests, but the other is seldom seen because of the limited extent of its range.The well-known hornbeam is found in the valley of the St. Lawrence river, throughout Nova Scotia and Ottawa, along the northern shore of Lake Huron to northern Minnesota, south through the northern states and along the Alleghany mountains to the Chattahoochee region of western Florida; through eastern Iowa, southeastern Missouri and Arkansas, eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and the Trinity river region of Texas. It is known as ironwood, hop-hornbeam, leverwood, and hardhack.The Indians were small users of wood except for fuel, but they had places where they put wood to special uses. They chose hornbeam, when they could get it, for one of these places. It was a favorite material for the handles of their stone warclubs. The stone heads were chipped to various forms, but were usually egg-shaped with a groove round the middle for fixing the handle. This was made fast with thongs of rawhide, and was generally nearly or quite two feet long, and slender as a golf stick. Great strength and a high degree of elasticity were required to stand the strain when a warrior swung his club in battle. Hornbeam meets these requirements exactly, and doubtless the Indian found this out by experience. It is about thirty per cent stronger than white oak, and forty-six per cent more elastic. The demand for warclub handles made no great inroads on the hornbeam supply, but it affords proof that the Indians sometimes used good judgment.The different names of this tree describe some characteristic of the wood or foliage. The fruit resembles hops, hence one of the names. Hardness gives it the other names by which it is known. It is the custom nearly everywhere to call any wood ironwood if it is extra hard. No fewer than eleven species of the United States are known as ironwood in some parts of their ranges.The leaves of hornbeam are simple and alternate; they taper to a sharp point at the end, while the base is rounded. They are doubly and sharply serrate. In color they are dark green above, and lighter below, tufted in places, resembling birch leaves in some respects, although they are quite different in texture, the leaves of birch beingglossy, while those of ironwood are rough. They are joined to the twig with a short petiole, hardly a fourth of an inch in length.The flowers grow in long catkins, staminate ones sometimes more than two inches long, covered with fringed scales. The pistillate catkins are usually shorter. Hornbeam blooms in April and May and its fruit ripens in August and September. The seed is a small nut equipped with balloon-like wings, intended for wind distribution. The seeds are often carried, rolled, and tumbled considerable distances. They keep on going until their wings are torn off or wear out, or until they become inextricably entangled among twigs or other obstacles. Comparatively few of the seeds ever find lodgment in situations suitable for germination. Consequently, hornbeam is scarce.It is not easy to state the average size of the hornbeam, though it is usually small and never very large. Sometimes it reaches a height of fifty or sixty feet and a diameter of two or more, but such sizes are unusual. Trees a foot in diameter and forty feet high are more common. The foliage is thin, and the tree is satisfied to grow in shade, provided the shadows are not too dense. The leaves must have a little sunshine, and the flecks that fall through the open spaces in the forest canopy high above, suffice. The hornbeam makes no effort to overtop its fellow trees; but when it grows in the open, as on a rocky bank or ridge, where it catches the full light, the crown puts on more leaves, and multiplies its branches, and it is no longer the lean tree which some of the Indians called it. Forest grown specimens produce clear trunks, but those in the open are limby almost to the ground.Hornbeam has neither smell nor taste. It burns well, the embers glowing brightly in still air. The weight of a cubic foot of seasoned wood is fifty-one pounds. It is strong, hard, heavy, tough, and exceedingly durable when exposed to variable weather, or when in contact with the soil. It takes a beautiful polish. Trees more than a foot in diameter are often found to be hollow.The wood is strong, hard, tough, durable in contact with the soil; heartwood light brown, tinged with red, or often nearly white; thick, pale sapwood which generally does not change to heart for forty or fifty years. The annual rings are not uniform in appearance. Some are easily distinguishable, while others are vague. This variation is due to the irregular development of the dark summerwood in the outer portion of the rings. It is at times distinct and again is hardly discernible.The wood is diffuse-porous, and the pores are too small to be easily seen by the naked eye. The medullary rays are small and obscure. In quarter-sawed wood they show as a silvery gloss, but the appearance is too monotonous to be attractive. Neither is there striking figurewhen the wood is sawed tangentially, because of the small contrast in the different parts of the yearly ring. Hornbeam may, therefore, be listed among woods which have little or no figure. No one ever thinks of using it for the sake of its beauty. Because of the small size and limited quantity hornbeam will never come into commercial prominence. Its uses are almost entirely local and domestic. The lumberman or the farmer selects a hornbeam sapling as being the best material obtainable for making a wagon or sleigh tongue, a skid, or a lever. The farmer often laboriously works a section of the flint-like wood into minor agricultural implements.The statistics of sawmill cut in the United States do not mention hornbeam even among such minor species as holly, Osage orange, alder, and apple. However, it is known that an occasional log goes to sawmills in the Lake States, and doubtless in other regions, and in some instances the wood is kept separate from others and is sold to fill special orders. Manufacturers of farm tools consider it the best wood for rake teeth. That use has come down from the time when farmers made their own rakes and pitchforks. They learned the wood’s value by experience, and manufacturers cater to the trade.It is sometimes called lever wood, and that name dates from long ago when the man who needed a lever went into the woods and cut one to suit his needs. The modern lever is usually somewhat different and partakes more of the nature of a handle. They are seen in sawmills where they manipulate the carriage machinery; on certain agricultural implements where their function is to throw clutches in and out of gear; sometimes they are used as the handle by which the rudder of a small boat is controlled; and occasionally the lever has a place as an adjunct of a wagon or log-car brake. In all of these uses strength and stiffness are required, and durability is duly considered.Wagon makers and repairers find several uses for hornbeam. It would be more frequently employed if it were more plentiful. Nearly any blacksmith who runs a repair shop for vehicles will testify to that. It fulfills every requisite for axles; is made into felloes for heavy wagons; and is considered the best obtainable wood for the tongues of heavy logging wheels and stone wagons.Among various occasional uses of this wood it is listed by the manufacturers of reels for garden hose; rungs for long ladders; stakes for sleds, and also for cross pieces and parts of runners of sleds; wedges for the makers of machinery; and hammer and hatchet handles. It is a pretty active competitor of dogwood for some of these uses, and it has been suggested for shuttles, but no report of its use in that capacity seems to have been made.One of its most common uses is as fence posts. Few lines of fence are built exclusively of hornbeam posts, because not enough can be had in one place; but posts are cut singly or a few together from Maine to Arkansas, and the aggregate number is large. The wood is said to outlast the heartwood of white oak when in contact with the ground, and it is so strong that posts of small size stand the pull of wires or the weight of planks or pickets.Hornbeam is of slow growth and there is little reason to believe that it will ever be seriously considered by timber growers; but it will doubtless win its way to favor as an ornamental tree. It has been planted in city parks in New England and elsewhere, and its form, foliage, and habits are much liked. The pale green pods or cones—they are not exactly the one or the other—remain a long time on the branches and are delicately ornamental until after the autumn frosts change their green into brown. Then comes the flying time of the balloon seeds, and that is an interesting period in parks and yards where the tree’s habits may be closely studied.Knowlton Hornbeam(Ostrya knowltoni) is interesting chiefly on account of its extremely limited range, and its far removal from all its kin. It is an exile in a distant country. It has thus far been found only on the southern slope of the canyon of the Colorado river in Arizona, about seventy miles north of Flagstaff. It occurs at an elevation of 6,000 or 7,000 feet above the sea. Trees are twenty or thirty feet high and twelve or eighteen inches in diameter, and trunks usually divide a foot or two above the ground into three or more branches, which are often crooked and contorted. Such sizes and forms could not be of much value for anything but fuel, even if abundant. The heart is light reddish-brown, sapwood thin. The leaves are round instead of pointed at the apex, as with the other hornbeam; but the flowers and fruit are much the same. Botanists speculate in vain as to how this species happens to be so far removed from other members of its family.Hornbeam branch
This tree belongs to the birch family and is closely related to the alders and to blue beech. Four species of hornbeam are known in the world, and two of them are in the United States. One is well known to most persons who are familiar with eastern hardwood forests, but the other is seldom seen because of the limited extent of its range.
The well-known hornbeam is found in the valley of the St. Lawrence river, throughout Nova Scotia and Ottawa, along the northern shore of Lake Huron to northern Minnesota, south through the northern states and along the Alleghany mountains to the Chattahoochee region of western Florida; through eastern Iowa, southeastern Missouri and Arkansas, eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and the Trinity river region of Texas. It is known as ironwood, hop-hornbeam, leverwood, and hardhack.
The Indians were small users of wood except for fuel, but they had places where they put wood to special uses. They chose hornbeam, when they could get it, for one of these places. It was a favorite material for the handles of their stone warclubs. The stone heads were chipped to various forms, but were usually egg-shaped with a groove round the middle for fixing the handle. This was made fast with thongs of rawhide, and was generally nearly or quite two feet long, and slender as a golf stick. Great strength and a high degree of elasticity were required to stand the strain when a warrior swung his club in battle. Hornbeam meets these requirements exactly, and doubtless the Indian found this out by experience. It is about thirty per cent stronger than white oak, and forty-six per cent more elastic. The demand for warclub handles made no great inroads on the hornbeam supply, but it affords proof that the Indians sometimes used good judgment.
The different names of this tree describe some characteristic of the wood or foliage. The fruit resembles hops, hence one of the names. Hardness gives it the other names by which it is known. It is the custom nearly everywhere to call any wood ironwood if it is extra hard. No fewer than eleven species of the United States are known as ironwood in some parts of their ranges.
The leaves of hornbeam are simple and alternate; they taper to a sharp point at the end, while the base is rounded. They are doubly and sharply serrate. In color they are dark green above, and lighter below, tufted in places, resembling birch leaves in some respects, although they are quite different in texture, the leaves of birch beingglossy, while those of ironwood are rough. They are joined to the twig with a short petiole, hardly a fourth of an inch in length.
The flowers grow in long catkins, staminate ones sometimes more than two inches long, covered with fringed scales. The pistillate catkins are usually shorter. Hornbeam blooms in April and May and its fruit ripens in August and September. The seed is a small nut equipped with balloon-like wings, intended for wind distribution. The seeds are often carried, rolled, and tumbled considerable distances. They keep on going until their wings are torn off or wear out, or until they become inextricably entangled among twigs or other obstacles. Comparatively few of the seeds ever find lodgment in situations suitable for germination. Consequently, hornbeam is scarce.
It is not easy to state the average size of the hornbeam, though it is usually small and never very large. Sometimes it reaches a height of fifty or sixty feet and a diameter of two or more, but such sizes are unusual. Trees a foot in diameter and forty feet high are more common. The foliage is thin, and the tree is satisfied to grow in shade, provided the shadows are not too dense. The leaves must have a little sunshine, and the flecks that fall through the open spaces in the forest canopy high above, suffice. The hornbeam makes no effort to overtop its fellow trees; but when it grows in the open, as on a rocky bank or ridge, where it catches the full light, the crown puts on more leaves, and multiplies its branches, and it is no longer the lean tree which some of the Indians called it. Forest grown specimens produce clear trunks, but those in the open are limby almost to the ground.
Hornbeam has neither smell nor taste. It burns well, the embers glowing brightly in still air. The weight of a cubic foot of seasoned wood is fifty-one pounds. It is strong, hard, heavy, tough, and exceedingly durable when exposed to variable weather, or when in contact with the soil. It takes a beautiful polish. Trees more than a foot in diameter are often found to be hollow.
The wood is strong, hard, tough, durable in contact with the soil; heartwood light brown, tinged with red, or often nearly white; thick, pale sapwood which generally does not change to heart for forty or fifty years. The annual rings are not uniform in appearance. Some are easily distinguishable, while others are vague. This variation is due to the irregular development of the dark summerwood in the outer portion of the rings. It is at times distinct and again is hardly discernible.
The wood is diffuse-porous, and the pores are too small to be easily seen by the naked eye. The medullary rays are small and obscure. In quarter-sawed wood they show as a silvery gloss, but the appearance is too monotonous to be attractive. Neither is there striking figurewhen the wood is sawed tangentially, because of the small contrast in the different parts of the yearly ring. Hornbeam may, therefore, be listed among woods which have little or no figure. No one ever thinks of using it for the sake of its beauty. Because of the small size and limited quantity hornbeam will never come into commercial prominence. Its uses are almost entirely local and domestic. The lumberman or the farmer selects a hornbeam sapling as being the best material obtainable for making a wagon or sleigh tongue, a skid, or a lever. The farmer often laboriously works a section of the flint-like wood into minor agricultural implements.
The statistics of sawmill cut in the United States do not mention hornbeam even among such minor species as holly, Osage orange, alder, and apple. However, it is known that an occasional log goes to sawmills in the Lake States, and doubtless in other regions, and in some instances the wood is kept separate from others and is sold to fill special orders. Manufacturers of farm tools consider it the best wood for rake teeth. That use has come down from the time when farmers made their own rakes and pitchforks. They learned the wood’s value by experience, and manufacturers cater to the trade.
It is sometimes called lever wood, and that name dates from long ago when the man who needed a lever went into the woods and cut one to suit his needs. The modern lever is usually somewhat different and partakes more of the nature of a handle. They are seen in sawmills where they manipulate the carriage machinery; on certain agricultural implements where their function is to throw clutches in and out of gear; sometimes they are used as the handle by which the rudder of a small boat is controlled; and occasionally the lever has a place as an adjunct of a wagon or log-car brake. In all of these uses strength and stiffness are required, and durability is duly considered.
Wagon makers and repairers find several uses for hornbeam. It would be more frequently employed if it were more plentiful. Nearly any blacksmith who runs a repair shop for vehicles will testify to that. It fulfills every requisite for axles; is made into felloes for heavy wagons; and is considered the best obtainable wood for the tongues of heavy logging wheels and stone wagons.
Among various occasional uses of this wood it is listed by the manufacturers of reels for garden hose; rungs for long ladders; stakes for sleds, and also for cross pieces and parts of runners of sleds; wedges for the makers of machinery; and hammer and hatchet handles. It is a pretty active competitor of dogwood for some of these uses, and it has been suggested for shuttles, but no report of its use in that capacity seems to have been made.
One of its most common uses is as fence posts. Few lines of fence are built exclusively of hornbeam posts, because not enough can be had in one place; but posts are cut singly or a few together from Maine to Arkansas, and the aggregate number is large. The wood is said to outlast the heartwood of white oak when in contact with the ground, and it is so strong that posts of small size stand the pull of wires or the weight of planks or pickets.
Hornbeam is of slow growth and there is little reason to believe that it will ever be seriously considered by timber growers; but it will doubtless win its way to favor as an ornamental tree. It has been planted in city parks in New England and elsewhere, and its form, foliage, and habits are much liked. The pale green pods or cones—they are not exactly the one or the other—remain a long time on the branches and are delicately ornamental until after the autumn frosts change their green into brown. Then comes the flying time of the balloon seeds, and that is an interesting period in parks and yards where the tree’s habits may be closely studied.
Knowlton Hornbeam(Ostrya knowltoni) is interesting chiefly on account of its extremely limited range, and its far removal from all its kin. It is an exile in a distant country. It has thus far been found only on the southern slope of the canyon of the Colorado river in Arizona, about seventy miles north of Flagstaff. It occurs at an elevation of 6,000 or 7,000 feet above the sea. Trees are twenty or thirty feet high and twelve or eighteen inches in diameter, and trunks usually divide a foot or two above the ground into three or more branches, which are often crooked and contorted. Such sizes and forms could not be of much value for anything but fuel, even if abundant. The heart is light reddish-brown, sapwood thin. The leaves are round instead of pointed at the apex, as with the other hornbeam; but the flowers and fruit are much the same. Botanists speculate in vain as to how this species happens to be so far removed from other members of its family.
Knowlton Hornbeam(Ostrya knowltoni) is interesting chiefly on account of its extremely limited range, and its far removal from all its kin. It is an exile in a distant country. It has thus far been found only on the southern slope of the canyon of the Colorado river in Arizona, about seventy miles north of Flagstaff. It occurs at an elevation of 6,000 or 7,000 feet above the sea. Trees are twenty or thirty feet high and twelve or eighteen inches in diameter, and trunks usually divide a foot or two above the ground into three or more branches, which are often crooked and contorted. Such sizes and forms could not be of much value for anything but fuel, even if abundant. The heart is light reddish-brown, sapwood thin. The leaves are round instead of pointed at the apex, as with the other hornbeam; but the flowers and fruit are much the same. Botanists speculate in vain as to how this species happens to be so far removed from other members of its family.
Hornbeam branch
SILVERBELLSilverbellSilverbell
SilverbellSilverbell
Silverbell
SILVERBELL TREE(Mohrodendron Carolinum)This tree belongs to the storax family, which is not a very numerous family as forest families are generally counted, but it is old and highly respectable. Its members are found in the old world and the new in both North and South America, in Europe, Asia, and the Malay Archipelago. Trees of the storax family produce, or they are supposed to produce, resins and gums, balsams, and aromatic exudations, but some give little or none. The priests and soothsayers of idolatrous nations of ancient times laid great stress on storax. They insisted on having the resin as an adjunct to their superstitious rites. It was the incense offered in their worship, and they compassed sea and land to obtain it for that purpose. It is not improbable that the southern peninsulas of Asia and the far-off Molucca islands were visited in ancient times to procure the incense which ultimately found its way to the Mediterranean regions.It is, therefore, interesting to find that two members of the old storax family are quietly living in the coast region and among the mountains of the southeastern part of the United States. No one has ever suspected that they might be capable of yielding resinous incense suitable for the altars of heathen gods. They are the silverbell tree, and its little cousin, the snowdrop tree (Mohrodendron dipterum). They have had common names a long time, but their botanical names are the result of a recent christening. They are named from Charles Mohr who wrote an interesting book on the flora of Alabama. The silverbell tree is the larger of the two and deserves first consideration.It has a somewhat extensive range, but in some parts it is so scarce that few persons ever see it. It is found from the mountains of West Virginia to southern Illinois, south to middle Florida, northern Alabama, and Mississippi, and through Arkansas and western Louisiana to eastern Texas. Under cultivation, this tree is known as the snowdrop tree in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. In Rhode Island, under cultivation, it is also sometimes known as the silverbell tree, and bears the same name in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. In parts of Tennessee it is known as the wild olive tree, and in other parts of the state as the bell tree. In various localities in Alabama it is referred to as the four-winged halesia; and in others as opossumwood. It is indiscriminately known in various sections of Texas as the rattlebox and calicowood, and some of the furniture manufacturers in North Carolina list it as box elder, though itis only distantly related to the true box elder. In the Great Smoky mountains in Tennessee, where the species reaches its greatest development, it bears a variety of names, among them being tisswood, peawood, bellwood, and chittamwood.The tree varies in size from a shrubby form so small that it is scarcely entitled to the name of tree, up to a height of eighty, ninety, and even more than 100 feet with diameters up to nearly four feet. The largest sizes occur only among the ranges of the Great Smoky mountains in Blount, Sevier, and Monroe counties, Tennessee. No reason is known why this tree in that region should so greatly exceed its largest dimensions in other areas; but most species have a locality where the greatest development is reached, and this has found the favorable conditions in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Some of the trees measure sixty feet or more to the first limbs.Lumbermen of the country are not generally acquainted with silverbell, as is natural since its commercial range is so limited. It is not listed in statistics of sawmill cut or of veneer mills. The wood-using industries of the country do not report it, except in the one state, North Carolina, and there in very small amounts. Doubtless, it is occasionally used elsewhere, but it escapes mention in most instances. It has been made into mantels at Knoxville, Tennessee, and passes as birch.The wood is light, soft, usually narrow-ringed, color light brown, the thick sapwood lighter. It weighs thirty-five pounds per cubic foot, and when burned it yields a low percentage of ash. The wood’s chief value is due to its color and figure. Best results are not obtained by sawing the logs into lumber, because the handsomest part of the figure is apt to be lost. It is preëminently suited to the cutting of rotary veneer. By that method of conversion the birdseye and the pitted and mottled effects are brought out in the best possible manner. Veneers so cut from logs selected for the figure, possess a rare beauty which no other American wood equals. There is a pleasing blend of tones, which are due to the direction in which the distorted grain is cut. This distinguishes the wood from all others and gives it an individuality. Much of the figure appears to be due to the presence of adventitious buds, similar to those supposed to be responsible for the birdseye effect in maple.The leaves of silverbell are bright green at maturity and are from four to six inches long and two or three wide. They turn yellow before falling in autumn. The flowers give the tree its name, for they resemble delicate bells, about one inch in length. They appear in early spring when the leaves are one-third grown, on slender, drooping stems from one to two inches long. The trees are loaded throughout the wholecrown, and present an appearance that is seldom surpassed for beauty in the forests of this country.The fruit is peculiar and is not particularly graceful. It has too much the appearance of the load carried by a well-fruited vine of hops. It ripens late in autumn and persists during most of the winter. There is nothing in its color, shape, or taste to tempt birds or other creatures to make food of it, though, under stress of circumstances, they may sometimes do so. The fruit is two inches or less in length and an inch wide, and has four wings, which seem to be practically useless for flight. The seed is about half an inch long.The bark of the trunk is bright red-brown and about half an inch thick, with broad ridges which separate on the surface into thin papery scales. The young branches wear an early coat of thick, pale wool or hairs, light, reddish-brown during the first summer, but later changing to an orange color.The botanical range of the species is extensive, though the tree-form is confined to a few counties among the southern Appalachian mountains. The northern limit of its range is in West Virginia where it is so scarce that many a woodsman never recognizes it. Unless it is caught while in the full glory of its bloom, it attracts no attention. It is not there a tree, but a shrub, hidden away among other growth, along mountain streams or on slopes where the soil is fertile. The blooming shrub might, at a distance, be mistaken for a dogwood in full blossom, but a closer inspection corrects the mistake.It is true of this species as of many others that the range has been greatly extended by planting. The bell-like white flowers early drew attention of nurserymen who were on the lookout for trees for ornamental planting. It was carried to Europe long ago, and graces many a yard and park in the central and northern countries of that continent. It now grows and thrives in the United States six hundred miles northeast of its natural range, where it endures the winters of eastern Massachusetts, blooms as bounteously as in its native haunts among the shaded streams of the Alleghany mountains.Snowdrop Tree(Mohrodendron dipterum) is a near relative of the silverbell tree, and looks much like it, except that it is smaller, has larger leaves, and the flowers are creamy-white. The two occupy the same territory in part of their ranges, but they differ in one respect. The silverbell tree grows with great luxuriance among the mountains while the snowdrop tree keeps to the low country and is seldom or never found growing naturally at any considerable elevation. It prefers swamps or damp situations near the coast. While the silverbell tree’s range includes West Virginia, that of the snowdrop extends no farther north thanSouth Carolina. It follows the coast to Texas, and runs north through Louisiana to central Arkansas. Its range has been greatly enlarged by planting, and the northern winters do not kill it on the southern shores of Lake Erie. The largest trees are about thirty feet high and six inches in diameter, but the growth in most places is shrubby. Leaves are four or five inches long and three or four wide. Flowers are one inch long and are borne in profusion. They constitute the tree’s chief value as an ornament, though the foliage is attractive. The bloom lasts a month or six weeks, from the middle of March till the last of April. The fruit has two wings instead of four, as with silverbell, but occasionally two rudimentary wings are present. The wood is light, soft, strong, color light brown, with thicker, lighter sapwood. The smallness of the trunks makes their use for lumber impossible. The species is valuable for ornamental purposes only, and has been planted both in this country and Europe. It has a number of names by which it is known in different localities, among them being cowlicks in Louisiana, and silverbell tree in the North where it has been planted outside of its natural range.Silverbell branch
This tree belongs to the storax family, which is not a very numerous family as forest families are generally counted, but it is old and highly respectable. Its members are found in the old world and the new in both North and South America, in Europe, Asia, and the Malay Archipelago. Trees of the storax family produce, or they are supposed to produce, resins and gums, balsams, and aromatic exudations, but some give little or none. The priests and soothsayers of idolatrous nations of ancient times laid great stress on storax. They insisted on having the resin as an adjunct to their superstitious rites. It was the incense offered in their worship, and they compassed sea and land to obtain it for that purpose. It is not improbable that the southern peninsulas of Asia and the far-off Molucca islands were visited in ancient times to procure the incense which ultimately found its way to the Mediterranean regions.
It is, therefore, interesting to find that two members of the old storax family are quietly living in the coast region and among the mountains of the southeastern part of the United States. No one has ever suspected that they might be capable of yielding resinous incense suitable for the altars of heathen gods. They are the silverbell tree, and its little cousin, the snowdrop tree (Mohrodendron dipterum). They have had common names a long time, but their botanical names are the result of a recent christening. They are named from Charles Mohr who wrote an interesting book on the flora of Alabama. The silverbell tree is the larger of the two and deserves first consideration.
It has a somewhat extensive range, but in some parts it is so scarce that few persons ever see it. It is found from the mountains of West Virginia to southern Illinois, south to middle Florida, northern Alabama, and Mississippi, and through Arkansas and western Louisiana to eastern Texas. Under cultivation, this tree is known as the snowdrop tree in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. In Rhode Island, under cultivation, it is also sometimes known as the silverbell tree, and bears the same name in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. In parts of Tennessee it is known as the wild olive tree, and in other parts of the state as the bell tree. In various localities in Alabama it is referred to as the four-winged halesia; and in others as opossumwood. It is indiscriminately known in various sections of Texas as the rattlebox and calicowood, and some of the furniture manufacturers in North Carolina list it as box elder, though itis only distantly related to the true box elder. In the Great Smoky mountains in Tennessee, where the species reaches its greatest development, it bears a variety of names, among them being tisswood, peawood, bellwood, and chittamwood.
The tree varies in size from a shrubby form so small that it is scarcely entitled to the name of tree, up to a height of eighty, ninety, and even more than 100 feet with diameters up to nearly four feet. The largest sizes occur only among the ranges of the Great Smoky mountains in Blount, Sevier, and Monroe counties, Tennessee. No reason is known why this tree in that region should so greatly exceed its largest dimensions in other areas; but most species have a locality where the greatest development is reached, and this has found the favorable conditions in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Some of the trees measure sixty feet or more to the first limbs.
Lumbermen of the country are not generally acquainted with silverbell, as is natural since its commercial range is so limited. It is not listed in statistics of sawmill cut or of veneer mills. The wood-using industries of the country do not report it, except in the one state, North Carolina, and there in very small amounts. Doubtless, it is occasionally used elsewhere, but it escapes mention in most instances. It has been made into mantels at Knoxville, Tennessee, and passes as birch.
The wood is light, soft, usually narrow-ringed, color light brown, the thick sapwood lighter. It weighs thirty-five pounds per cubic foot, and when burned it yields a low percentage of ash. The wood’s chief value is due to its color and figure. Best results are not obtained by sawing the logs into lumber, because the handsomest part of the figure is apt to be lost. It is preëminently suited to the cutting of rotary veneer. By that method of conversion the birdseye and the pitted and mottled effects are brought out in the best possible manner. Veneers so cut from logs selected for the figure, possess a rare beauty which no other American wood equals. There is a pleasing blend of tones, which are due to the direction in which the distorted grain is cut. This distinguishes the wood from all others and gives it an individuality. Much of the figure appears to be due to the presence of adventitious buds, similar to those supposed to be responsible for the birdseye effect in maple.
The leaves of silverbell are bright green at maturity and are from four to six inches long and two or three wide. They turn yellow before falling in autumn. The flowers give the tree its name, for they resemble delicate bells, about one inch in length. They appear in early spring when the leaves are one-third grown, on slender, drooping stems from one to two inches long. The trees are loaded throughout the wholecrown, and present an appearance that is seldom surpassed for beauty in the forests of this country.
The fruit is peculiar and is not particularly graceful. It has too much the appearance of the load carried by a well-fruited vine of hops. It ripens late in autumn and persists during most of the winter. There is nothing in its color, shape, or taste to tempt birds or other creatures to make food of it, though, under stress of circumstances, they may sometimes do so. The fruit is two inches or less in length and an inch wide, and has four wings, which seem to be practically useless for flight. The seed is about half an inch long.
The bark of the trunk is bright red-brown and about half an inch thick, with broad ridges which separate on the surface into thin papery scales. The young branches wear an early coat of thick, pale wool or hairs, light, reddish-brown during the first summer, but later changing to an orange color.
The botanical range of the species is extensive, though the tree-form is confined to a few counties among the southern Appalachian mountains. The northern limit of its range is in West Virginia where it is so scarce that many a woodsman never recognizes it. Unless it is caught while in the full glory of its bloom, it attracts no attention. It is not there a tree, but a shrub, hidden away among other growth, along mountain streams or on slopes where the soil is fertile. The blooming shrub might, at a distance, be mistaken for a dogwood in full blossom, but a closer inspection corrects the mistake.
It is true of this species as of many others that the range has been greatly extended by planting. The bell-like white flowers early drew attention of nurserymen who were on the lookout for trees for ornamental planting. It was carried to Europe long ago, and graces many a yard and park in the central and northern countries of that continent. It now grows and thrives in the United States six hundred miles northeast of its natural range, where it endures the winters of eastern Massachusetts, blooms as bounteously as in its native haunts among the shaded streams of the Alleghany mountains.
Snowdrop Tree(Mohrodendron dipterum) is a near relative of the silverbell tree, and looks much like it, except that it is smaller, has larger leaves, and the flowers are creamy-white. The two occupy the same territory in part of their ranges, but they differ in one respect. The silverbell tree grows with great luxuriance among the mountains while the snowdrop tree keeps to the low country and is seldom or never found growing naturally at any considerable elevation. It prefers swamps or damp situations near the coast. While the silverbell tree’s range includes West Virginia, that of the snowdrop extends no farther north thanSouth Carolina. It follows the coast to Texas, and runs north through Louisiana to central Arkansas. Its range has been greatly enlarged by planting, and the northern winters do not kill it on the southern shores of Lake Erie. The largest trees are about thirty feet high and six inches in diameter, but the growth in most places is shrubby. Leaves are four or five inches long and three or four wide. Flowers are one inch long and are borne in profusion. They constitute the tree’s chief value as an ornament, though the foliage is attractive. The bloom lasts a month or six weeks, from the middle of March till the last of April. The fruit has two wings instead of four, as with silverbell, but occasionally two rudimentary wings are present. The wood is light, soft, strong, color light brown, with thicker, lighter sapwood. The smallness of the trunks makes their use for lumber impossible. The species is valuable for ornamental purposes only, and has been planted both in this country and Europe. It has a number of names by which it is known in different localities, among them being cowlicks in Louisiana, and silverbell tree in the North where it has been planted outside of its natural range.
Silverbell branch
SYCAMORESycamoreSycamore
SycamoreSycamore
Sycamore
SYCAMORE(Platanus Occidentalis)Probably no person with a practical knowledge of trees ever mistakes sycamore for anything else. The tree stands clear-cut and distinct. Until the trunk becomes old, it sheds its outer layer of bark yearly, or at least frequently, and the exfoliation exposes the white, new bark below. The upper part of the trunk and the large branches are white and conspicuous in the spring, and are recognizable at a long distance. No other tree in the American forest is as white. The nearest approach to it is the paper birch of the North, or the white birch of New England.Notwithstanding the tree’s individuality, it has a good many names. It is generally known as sycamore throughout the states of the Union, but it is frequently called buttonwood in Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario; buttonball tree in several of the eastern states and occasionally in Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and Nebraska; the plane tree in Rhode Island, Delaware, South Carolina, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa; the water beech in Delaware; the platane, cottonier, and bois puant in Louisiana. Probably the finest growth of the sycamore ever encountered was in Ohio and Indiana, and these states still contain isolated patches of magnificent specimens of the wood. The Black Swamp of Ohio was originally a famous sycamore country, of which Defiance was the center of lumber manufacture. Many parts of Indiana produced a good sycamore growth, and a considerable amount of timber of excellent quality still exists, but is now largely owned by farmers who are generally holding it out of the market.The range of sycamore extends from Maine to Nebraska, and south to Texas and Florida. It is one of the largest of American hardwoods, and in diameter of trunk it is exceeded by none. Trees are on record that were from ten to fourteen feet in diameter, and it was not unusual in the primeval forests for them to tower nearly or quite 125. In height a number of hardwoods exceed it, the yellow poplar in particular; but none of them has a larger trunk than the largest sycamores. However, the mammoths are generally hollow. The heart decays as rings of new growth are added to the outside of the shell. So large were the cavities in some of the sycamores in the original forests that more than one case is on record of their being used by early settlers as places of abode.The tree thrives best in the immediate vicinity of rivers and creeks. It needs abundance of water for its roots, but is not insistent in its demand for deep, fertile soil, for it grows on gravel bars along water courses, provided some soil and sand are mixed with the gravel. Great age is doubtless attained, but records are necessarily lacking in cases where the annual rings of growth must be depended upon; because the hollow trunks have lost most of their rings by decay.Sycamore bears abundance of light seed which is scattered short distances by wind and much farther by running water. Its ideal place for germinating is on muddy shores and wet flats. Here the seeds are deposited by wind and water, and in a short time multitudes of seedlings spring up. Though most of them are doomed to perish before they attain a height of a few feet, survivors are sufficient to assure thick stands on small areas. The trunks grow tall rapidly, and until they reach considerable size, they remain solid and make good sawlogs; but at an age of seventy-five or 100 years, deterioration is apt to set in; some die, others become hollow, and the result is a good stand of large sycamores is unusual. The veterans are generally scattered through forests of other species.The statement has often been made in recent years that sycamore is becoming very scarce and that the annual output is rapidly declining. Statistics do not show a declining output. The cut of sycamore in 1909 was approximately twice as great as in 1899. It is true that the supply is not very large, and it never was large compared with some other hardwoods; but it appears to be holding its own as well as most forest trees. The cut in the United States in 1910 was 45,000,000, and it was credited to twenty-six states. Indiana was the largest contributor, and it had held that position a long time. States next below it in the order named were Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois. Doubtless some of the sycamore lumber now going to market has grown since old settlers cut the primeval stands when they cleared their fields. It will continue to grow, and since it usually occupies waste places, it may be depended upon to contribute pretty regularly year by year during time to come. It is one of the forest trees which have never suffered much from fires, because it grows in damp situations.The wood of sycamore weighs 35.39 pounds per cubic foot, is hard, but not strong, difficult to split and work; the annual rings are limited by narrow bands of dark summerwood. The rings are very porous. The medullary rays are rather small, but can be easily seen without a glass. They run in regular, radial lines, close together, and the pores are in rows between. The rays of sycamore vary from the rule with most woods, in that they are darker than the body of the wood.One of the earliest uses of sycamore was by farmers who cut hollow trunks, sawed them in lengths of three or four feet, nailed bottoms in them, and used them for barrels for grain. They were called gums. Solid logs two or three feet in diameter were cut in lengths of a foot or less, bored through the center, and used as wheels for ox carts. The ox yoke was often made of sycamore. Butchers used sycamore sections about three feet high for meat blocks. The wood is tough, and continual hacking fails to split it. The use for meat blocks continues at the present time. In Illinois 1,600,000 feet were so employed in 1910.One of the earliest employments of the wood for commercial purposes was in the manufacture of boxes for plug tobacco; but it has now been largely replaced by cheaper woods. Its freedom from stain and odor is its chief recommendation for tobacco boxes. Some of it is in demand for cigar boxes.The modern uses of sycamore are many. It is made into ordinary crates and shipping boxes in most regions where it grows. Rotary cut veneer is worked into berry crates and baskets, and into barrels. Ice boxes and refrigerators are among the products. Slack coopers are among the largest users, but some of the manufactured stave articles belong more properly to woodenware, such as tubs, washing machines, candy buckets, and lard pails.Furniture makers demand the best grades, and most of the quarter-sawed stock goes to them, though the manufacturers of musical instruments buy some of the finest. Use is pretty general from pipe organs and pianos down to mandolins, guitars and phonographs. It enters extensively into the making of miscellaneous commodities. As small a toy as the stereoscope consumes much sycamore. Makers of trunks find it suitable for slats, and it serves as small squares and borders in parquetry. It is a choice wood for barber poles and saddle trees, and its fine appearance when worked in broad panels leads to its employment as interior finish for houses, boats, and passenger cars.California Sycamore(Platanus racemosa) is one of the three species of sycamore now found growing naturally in the United States. They are survivors of a very old family and appear to have been crowded down from the far North by the cold, or to have made their way south for some other reason. Sycamores flourished in Greenland in the Cretaceous age, some millions of years ago, as is shown by fossil remains dug up in that land of ice and eternal winter. They grew in central Europe, about the same time, but long ago disappeared from there. Sycamores were growing in the United States an immense period of time ago, and were doubtless lifting their giant white branches high above the banks of ancient rivers while the gorgeous bloom of yellow poplars brightened the forests on the rich bottom lands farther back. Several species of sycamores which grew in the United States during the Tertiary age are now extinct. All seem to have been much like those which have come down to the present day.The California sycamore is found in the southern half of that state, and in Lower California. It grows from sea level up to 5,000 feet, and has the same habits as the larger sycamore of the East, and prefers the banks of streams and the wet land in the bottoms of canyons. It attains a height of from forty to eighty feet, and a diameter of from two to five. Some trees are larger, one in particular near Los Angeles having a trunk diameter of nine feet. The tree is usually extremely distorted and misshaped, leaning, twisted, and forking and reforking until a practical lumberman would pronounce it a hopeless proposition. This applies, however, to trunks which grow in the open, and that is where most of them grow. When they are found crowded in thick stands in the bottoms of canyons, their trunks are shapely enough for short sawlogs. The wood is very similar to that of eastern sycamore, and it is used for similar purposes, when used at all. The balls are strung five on one tough stem, which is from six to ten inches long. The eastern sycamore usually has a stem for each ball. The seeding habits of both trees are the same.Arizona Sycamore(Platanus wrightii) has its range in southern New Mexico, southern Arizona, and neighboring regions in Mexico, where it grows in the bottoms of canyons up to 6,000 feet above sea. The tree attains a height of from thirty to eighty feet, and a diameter of two to five. The trunk is seldom shapely, but often divides in large branches, some of which are fifty or sixty feet long. There are usually three balls on a stem, and the leaf is shaped much like the leaf of red gum, but there is considerable variation in form. The wood resembles eastern sycamore in color and most other features, but when quarter-sawed the flecks produced by the medullary rays are generally smaller, and give a mottled effect. The wood has not been much used, but apparently it is not inferior to eastern sycamore.Sycamore branch
Probably no person with a practical knowledge of trees ever mistakes sycamore for anything else. The tree stands clear-cut and distinct. Until the trunk becomes old, it sheds its outer layer of bark yearly, or at least frequently, and the exfoliation exposes the white, new bark below. The upper part of the trunk and the large branches are white and conspicuous in the spring, and are recognizable at a long distance. No other tree in the American forest is as white. The nearest approach to it is the paper birch of the North, or the white birch of New England.
Notwithstanding the tree’s individuality, it has a good many names. It is generally known as sycamore throughout the states of the Union, but it is frequently called buttonwood in Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario; buttonball tree in several of the eastern states and occasionally in Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and Nebraska; the plane tree in Rhode Island, Delaware, South Carolina, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa; the water beech in Delaware; the platane, cottonier, and bois puant in Louisiana. Probably the finest growth of the sycamore ever encountered was in Ohio and Indiana, and these states still contain isolated patches of magnificent specimens of the wood. The Black Swamp of Ohio was originally a famous sycamore country, of which Defiance was the center of lumber manufacture. Many parts of Indiana produced a good sycamore growth, and a considerable amount of timber of excellent quality still exists, but is now largely owned by farmers who are generally holding it out of the market.
The range of sycamore extends from Maine to Nebraska, and south to Texas and Florida. It is one of the largest of American hardwoods, and in diameter of trunk it is exceeded by none. Trees are on record that were from ten to fourteen feet in diameter, and it was not unusual in the primeval forests for them to tower nearly or quite 125. In height a number of hardwoods exceed it, the yellow poplar in particular; but none of them has a larger trunk than the largest sycamores. However, the mammoths are generally hollow. The heart decays as rings of new growth are added to the outside of the shell. So large were the cavities in some of the sycamores in the original forests that more than one case is on record of their being used by early settlers as places of abode.
The tree thrives best in the immediate vicinity of rivers and creeks. It needs abundance of water for its roots, but is not insistent in its demand for deep, fertile soil, for it grows on gravel bars along water courses, provided some soil and sand are mixed with the gravel. Great age is doubtless attained, but records are necessarily lacking in cases where the annual rings of growth must be depended upon; because the hollow trunks have lost most of their rings by decay.
Sycamore bears abundance of light seed which is scattered short distances by wind and much farther by running water. Its ideal place for germinating is on muddy shores and wet flats. Here the seeds are deposited by wind and water, and in a short time multitudes of seedlings spring up. Though most of them are doomed to perish before they attain a height of a few feet, survivors are sufficient to assure thick stands on small areas. The trunks grow tall rapidly, and until they reach considerable size, they remain solid and make good sawlogs; but at an age of seventy-five or 100 years, deterioration is apt to set in; some die, others become hollow, and the result is a good stand of large sycamores is unusual. The veterans are generally scattered through forests of other species.
The statement has often been made in recent years that sycamore is becoming very scarce and that the annual output is rapidly declining. Statistics do not show a declining output. The cut of sycamore in 1909 was approximately twice as great as in 1899. It is true that the supply is not very large, and it never was large compared with some other hardwoods; but it appears to be holding its own as well as most forest trees. The cut in the United States in 1910 was 45,000,000, and it was credited to twenty-six states. Indiana was the largest contributor, and it had held that position a long time. States next below it in the order named were Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois. Doubtless some of the sycamore lumber now going to market has grown since old settlers cut the primeval stands when they cleared their fields. It will continue to grow, and since it usually occupies waste places, it may be depended upon to contribute pretty regularly year by year during time to come. It is one of the forest trees which have never suffered much from fires, because it grows in damp situations.
The wood of sycamore weighs 35.39 pounds per cubic foot, is hard, but not strong, difficult to split and work; the annual rings are limited by narrow bands of dark summerwood. The rings are very porous. The medullary rays are rather small, but can be easily seen without a glass. They run in regular, radial lines, close together, and the pores are in rows between. The rays of sycamore vary from the rule with most woods, in that they are darker than the body of the wood.
One of the earliest uses of sycamore was by farmers who cut hollow trunks, sawed them in lengths of three or four feet, nailed bottoms in them, and used them for barrels for grain. They were called gums. Solid logs two or three feet in diameter were cut in lengths of a foot or less, bored through the center, and used as wheels for ox carts. The ox yoke was often made of sycamore. Butchers used sycamore sections about three feet high for meat blocks. The wood is tough, and continual hacking fails to split it. The use for meat blocks continues at the present time. In Illinois 1,600,000 feet were so employed in 1910.
One of the earliest employments of the wood for commercial purposes was in the manufacture of boxes for plug tobacco; but it has now been largely replaced by cheaper woods. Its freedom from stain and odor is its chief recommendation for tobacco boxes. Some of it is in demand for cigar boxes.
The modern uses of sycamore are many. It is made into ordinary crates and shipping boxes in most regions where it grows. Rotary cut veneer is worked into berry crates and baskets, and into barrels. Ice boxes and refrigerators are among the products. Slack coopers are among the largest users, but some of the manufactured stave articles belong more properly to woodenware, such as tubs, washing machines, candy buckets, and lard pails.
Furniture makers demand the best grades, and most of the quarter-sawed stock goes to them, though the manufacturers of musical instruments buy some of the finest. Use is pretty general from pipe organs and pianos down to mandolins, guitars and phonographs. It enters extensively into the making of miscellaneous commodities. As small a toy as the stereoscope consumes much sycamore. Makers of trunks find it suitable for slats, and it serves as small squares and borders in parquetry. It is a choice wood for barber poles and saddle trees, and its fine appearance when worked in broad panels leads to its employment as interior finish for houses, boats, and passenger cars.
California Sycamore(Platanus racemosa) is one of the three species of sycamore now found growing naturally in the United States. They are survivors of a very old family and appear to have been crowded down from the far North by the cold, or to have made their way south for some other reason. Sycamores flourished in Greenland in the Cretaceous age, some millions of years ago, as is shown by fossil remains dug up in that land of ice and eternal winter. They grew in central Europe, about the same time, but long ago disappeared from there. Sycamores were growing in the United States an immense period of time ago, and were doubtless lifting their giant white branches high above the banks of ancient rivers while the gorgeous bloom of yellow poplars brightened the forests on the rich bottom lands farther back. Several species of sycamores which grew in the United States during the Tertiary age are now extinct. All seem to have been much like those which have come down to the present day.The California sycamore is found in the southern half of that state, and in Lower California. It grows from sea level up to 5,000 feet, and has the same habits as the larger sycamore of the East, and prefers the banks of streams and the wet land in the bottoms of canyons. It attains a height of from forty to eighty feet, and a diameter of from two to five. Some trees are larger, one in particular near Los Angeles having a trunk diameter of nine feet. The tree is usually extremely distorted and misshaped, leaning, twisted, and forking and reforking until a practical lumberman would pronounce it a hopeless proposition. This applies, however, to trunks which grow in the open, and that is where most of them grow. When they are found crowded in thick stands in the bottoms of canyons, their trunks are shapely enough for short sawlogs. The wood is very similar to that of eastern sycamore, and it is used for similar purposes, when used at all. The balls are strung five on one tough stem, which is from six to ten inches long. The eastern sycamore usually has a stem for each ball. The seeding habits of both trees are the same.Arizona Sycamore(Platanus wrightii) has its range in southern New Mexico, southern Arizona, and neighboring regions in Mexico, where it grows in the bottoms of canyons up to 6,000 feet above sea. The tree attains a height of from thirty to eighty feet, and a diameter of two to five. The trunk is seldom shapely, but often divides in large branches, some of which are fifty or sixty feet long. There are usually three balls on a stem, and the leaf is shaped much like the leaf of red gum, but there is considerable variation in form. The wood resembles eastern sycamore in color and most other features, but when quarter-sawed the flecks produced by the medullary rays are generally smaller, and give a mottled effect. The wood has not been much used, but apparently it is not inferior to eastern sycamore.
California Sycamore(Platanus racemosa) is one of the three species of sycamore now found growing naturally in the United States. They are survivors of a very old family and appear to have been crowded down from the far North by the cold, or to have made their way south for some other reason. Sycamores flourished in Greenland in the Cretaceous age, some millions of years ago, as is shown by fossil remains dug up in that land of ice and eternal winter. They grew in central Europe, about the same time, but long ago disappeared from there. Sycamores were growing in the United States an immense period of time ago, and were doubtless lifting their giant white branches high above the banks of ancient rivers while the gorgeous bloom of yellow poplars brightened the forests on the rich bottom lands farther back. Several species of sycamores which grew in the United States during the Tertiary age are now extinct. All seem to have been much like those which have come down to the present day.
The California sycamore is found in the southern half of that state, and in Lower California. It grows from sea level up to 5,000 feet, and has the same habits as the larger sycamore of the East, and prefers the banks of streams and the wet land in the bottoms of canyons. It attains a height of from forty to eighty feet, and a diameter of from two to five. Some trees are larger, one in particular near Los Angeles having a trunk diameter of nine feet. The tree is usually extremely distorted and misshaped, leaning, twisted, and forking and reforking until a practical lumberman would pronounce it a hopeless proposition. This applies, however, to trunks which grow in the open, and that is where most of them grow. When they are found crowded in thick stands in the bottoms of canyons, their trunks are shapely enough for short sawlogs. The wood is very similar to that of eastern sycamore, and it is used for similar purposes, when used at all. The balls are strung five on one tough stem, which is from six to ten inches long. The eastern sycamore usually has a stem for each ball. The seeding habits of both trees are the same.
Arizona Sycamore(Platanus wrightii) has its range in southern New Mexico, southern Arizona, and neighboring regions in Mexico, where it grows in the bottoms of canyons up to 6,000 feet above sea. The tree attains a height of from thirty to eighty feet, and a diameter of two to five. The trunk is seldom shapely, but often divides in large branches, some of which are fifty or sixty feet long. There are usually three balls on a stem, and the leaf is shaped much like the leaf of red gum, but there is considerable variation in form. The wood resembles eastern sycamore in color and most other features, but when quarter-sawed the flecks produced by the medullary rays are generally smaller, and give a mottled effect. The wood has not been much used, but apparently it is not inferior to eastern sycamore.
Sycamore branch
BLACK CHERRYBlack cherryBlack Cherry
Black cherryBlack Cherry
Black Cherry
BLACK CHERRY(Prunus Serotina)This widely distributed tree supplies the cherry wood of commerce. Its natural range extends from Nova Scotia westward through the Canadian provinces to the Kaministiquia river; south to Tampa bay in Florida and west to North Dakota, eastern Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and eastern Texas. The tree is known as wild black cherry, wild cherry, black cherry, rum cherry, whiskey cherry, and choke cherry.Cherry belongs to a remarkably large family and the ordinary observer would never suspect the relationship that exists between it and other growths to which it bears little resemblance. It is in the rose family (Rosaceæ). It has multitudes of small and large cousins, most of them small, however. Among them are the crabapple, the serviceberry, the haws, thorns, plums, and the peach, besides plants which do not rise to the dignity of trees.The crown of black cherry is narrow and the branches are horizontal. In height the tree ranges from fifty to one hundred or more feet. The bark is a dark reddish-brown, rough and broken into plates, becoming smoother toward the top. The branchlets are a rich reddish-brown, and are marked with tiny orange-colored dots. The leaves are small, alternate, oblong or oval lanceolate, taper-pointed at the apex and pointed or rounded at the base, finely serrate; at maturity glabrous, firm, glossy, the light colored midrib being very distinct. The flowers are white and grow on pedicels in long slender racemes, which terminate leafy shoots. The fruit is almost black, showing deep red coloring beneath and is a small round drupe; vinous, although not disagreeable to the taste. In most instances a liking for it must be acquired, but comparatively few people ever take the trouble to acquire it. The old settlers among the Alleghany mountains had a way of pressing the juice from the drupes and by some simple process converting it into “cherry bounce,” a beverage somewhat bitter but it never went begging when the old-time mountaineers were around. This was doubtless what persons had in mind who called it rum cherry. Few fruits, either wild or tame, contain more juice in proportion to bulk. Ripe fruit is employed as a flavor for alcoholic liquors. The bark contains hydrocyanic acid and is used in medicine. The peculiar odor of cherry bark is due to this acid.In early years the ripening of the cherry crop among the ranges of the Appalachian mountains was a signal for bears to congregate where cherry trees were thickest. The cubs were then large enough to follow their mothers—in August—and it was considered a dangerousseason in the cherry woods, because the old bears would grow fierce if molested while feeding. The mountaineers knew enough to stay away from the danger points at that time, unless they went there purposely to engage in a bear fight. It was a common saying among those people that “cherry bears” should be let alone.The cherry’s chief importance in this country has been due to its lumber. Unfortunately, that value lies chiefly in the past, for the supply is running low. It never was very great, for, though the species has a large range, it is sparingly dispersed through the forests. In many parts of its range a person might travel all day in the woods and see few cherry trees, and perhaps none. The best stands hardly ever cover more than a few acres. Generally the trees grow singly or in clumps. It appears to be nearly wholly a matter of soil and light, for the seeds, which are carried by birds, are scattered in immense numbers, and only those grow which chance to find conditions just right. The tree wants rich ground and plenty of room, which is a combination not often found in primeval forest regions; but, since the country has been largely cleared, cherry trees spring up along fence rows and in nooks and corners. If let alone they grow rapidly, but trunks so produced are of little value for lumber, because too short and limby. In the forest the tree lifts its light crown high on a slender trunk to reach the sunshine, and such trunks supply the cherry lumber of commerce. Near the northern limit of its range it seems to abandon its demand for good soil and is content if it is supplied with light only. It betakes itself to the face of cliffs, sometimes overhanging the sea, and so near it that the branches are drenched in spray thrown up by breakers. It is needless to say that no good lumber is produced under such circumstances.The first loss of cherry occurred when the farms were cleared. It stood on the best ground, and the land-hungry Anglo-Saxon wanted that for himself. He cut the tall shapely cherry trees, built fences and barns of some of the logs, and burned the balance in the clearing. Then came the pioneer lumberman who did not take much, because his old up-and-down saw, which was run by water, would cut only about a thousand feet a day, and there was plenty of other kinds of timber. But when the steam mill put in its appearance, cherry went fast. Its price was high enough to pay for a long haul. From that day till this, cherry has gone to market as rapidly as millmen could get to it.Next to walnut, it is the highest priced lumber produced in the United States. The average cut per mill, according to returns of those who sawed it in 1909, was only 11,200 feet, and the total output that year was only 24,594,000 feet, contributed by twenty-nine states. The five leading producers were, in the order named, West Virginia, Pennsylvania,New York, Ohio, and Indiana. The next year the total output fell to 18,237,000 feet, and cherry went down to a place among the “minor species,” such as dogwood, alder, locust, and buckeye. The day of its importance in the lumber industry is past. It has become too scarce to attract much attention, but there will always be some cherry in the market, though veteran trunks, three and four feet through and good for four sixteen-foot logs, will be seldom seen in the years to come.While good taste ordinarily dictates that cherry be finished in a tone approximating its natural color, it is quite frequent that it masquerades as mahogany. A well-known and perfect method of making cherry look like mahogany is to have the wood rubbed with diluted nitric acid, which prepares it for the materials to be subsequently applied; afterwards, to a filtered mixture of an ounce and a half of dragon’s blood dissolved in a pint of spirits of wine, is added one-third that quantity of carbonate of soda, the whole constituting a very thin liquid which is applied to the wood with a soft brush. This process is repeated at short intervals until the wood assumes the external appearance of mahogany. While cherry is employed as an imitation of mahogany, it is in its turn imitated also. Sweet birch is finished to look like cherry, and for that reason is sometimes known as cherry birch.Cherry weighs 36.28 pounds per cubic foot; it is very porous, but the pores are small and are diffused through all parts of the annual ring. The wood has no figure. Its value is due to color and luster. The medullary rays are numerous but small, and in quarter-sawing they do not show as mirrors, like oak, but as a soft luster covering the whole surface.The principal uses of cherry have always been in furniture and finish, but it has many minor uses, such as tool handles, boxes for garden seeds, spirit levels and other tools, and implements, patterns, penholders, actions for organs and piano players, baseblocks for electrotypes and other printing plates, and cores for high-class panels. Aside from its color, its chief value is due to its comparative freedom from checking and warping. This cherry is one of the few trees that cross the equator. It extends from Canada far down the west coast of South America.Choke Cherry(Prunus virginiana) is widely distributed in North America from Canada to Mexico. It is said to attain its largest size in the Southwest where trees are sometimes forty feet high and a foot in diameter. The name is due to the astringency of the half ripe fruit which can scarcely be eaten. When fully ripe it is a little more tolerable, and is then black, but is red before it is ripe. The color of immature cherries deceives the unsophisticated into believing they are ripe. In Canada the fruit is made into pies and jelly, and it is said the tree is occasionally planted for its fruit. The Indians of former times made food of it. The tree issmall, and bruised branches emit a disagreeable odor; leaves contain prussic acid, and when partly withered, they are poisonous to cattle. The trunks are nearly always too small for commercial purposes, and are apt to be affected with a fungous disease known as black knot.Western Choke Cherry(Prunus demissa) grows from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in the United States. It is often regarded as the western form of choke cherry, but it has more palatable fruit, and trees are a little larger, while trunks are so crooked that no user of wood cares to have anything to do with them. The wood is weak, but is hard and heavy.Bitter Cherry(Prunus emarginata) belongs to the far West, and is found from British Columbia to southern California. In size it ranges from a low shrub to a tree a foot in diameter and forty feet high. The largest sizes are found in western Washington and Oregon. The wood is soft and brittle, brown streaked with green. It is not known that any attempt has been made to put the wood of this tree to any useful purpose. The bark and the leaves are exceedingly bitter. Fruit ripens from June to August, depending on region and elevation, and it is from one-fourth to one-half inch in diameter, black, and intensely bitter.Hollyleaf Cherry(Prunus ilicifolia) is a California species growing in the bottoms of canyons from San Francisco bay to the Mexican line. It is rarely more than thirty feet high, but has a large trunk, sometimes two feet in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, and it ought to be valuable in the manufacture of small articles, but fuel is the only use reported for it. The fruit is insipid, and ripens late in autumn. The foliage is much admired and has led to the planting of the species for ornamental purposes.Black cherry branch
This widely distributed tree supplies the cherry wood of commerce. Its natural range extends from Nova Scotia westward through the Canadian provinces to the Kaministiquia river; south to Tampa bay in Florida and west to North Dakota, eastern Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and eastern Texas. The tree is known as wild black cherry, wild cherry, black cherry, rum cherry, whiskey cherry, and choke cherry.
Cherry belongs to a remarkably large family and the ordinary observer would never suspect the relationship that exists between it and other growths to which it bears little resemblance. It is in the rose family (Rosaceæ). It has multitudes of small and large cousins, most of them small, however. Among them are the crabapple, the serviceberry, the haws, thorns, plums, and the peach, besides plants which do not rise to the dignity of trees.
The crown of black cherry is narrow and the branches are horizontal. In height the tree ranges from fifty to one hundred or more feet. The bark is a dark reddish-brown, rough and broken into plates, becoming smoother toward the top. The branchlets are a rich reddish-brown, and are marked with tiny orange-colored dots. The leaves are small, alternate, oblong or oval lanceolate, taper-pointed at the apex and pointed or rounded at the base, finely serrate; at maturity glabrous, firm, glossy, the light colored midrib being very distinct. The flowers are white and grow on pedicels in long slender racemes, which terminate leafy shoots. The fruit is almost black, showing deep red coloring beneath and is a small round drupe; vinous, although not disagreeable to the taste. In most instances a liking for it must be acquired, but comparatively few people ever take the trouble to acquire it. The old settlers among the Alleghany mountains had a way of pressing the juice from the drupes and by some simple process converting it into “cherry bounce,” a beverage somewhat bitter but it never went begging when the old-time mountaineers were around. This was doubtless what persons had in mind who called it rum cherry. Few fruits, either wild or tame, contain more juice in proportion to bulk. Ripe fruit is employed as a flavor for alcoholic liquors. The bark contains hydrocyanic acid and is used in medicine. The peculiar odor of cherry bark is due to this acid.
In early years the ripening of the cherry crop among the ranges of the Appalachian mountains was a signal for bears to congregate where cherry trees were thickest. The cubs were then large enough to follow their mothers—in August—and it was considered a dangerousseason in the cherry woods, because the old bears would grow fierce if molested while feeding. The mountaineers knew enough to stay away from the danger points at that time, unless they went there purposely to engage in a bear fight. It was a common saying among those people that “cherry bears” should be let alone.
The cherry’s chief importance in this country has been due to its lumber. Unfortunately, that value lies chiefly in the past, for the supply is running low. It never was very great, for, though the species has a large range, it is sparingly dispersed through the forests. In many parts of its range a person might travel all day in the woods and see few cherry trees, and perhaps none. The best stands hardly ever cover more than a few acres. Generally the trees grow singly or in clumps. It appears to be nearly wholly a matter of soil and light, for the seeds, which are carried by birds, are scattered in immense numbers, and only those grow which chance to find conditions just right. The tree wants rich ground and plenty of room, which is a combination not often found in primeval forest regions; but, since the country has been largely cleared, cherry trees spring up along fence rows and in nooks and corners. If let alone they grow rapidly, but trunks so produced are of little value for lumber, because too short and limby. In the forest the tree lifts its light crown high on a slender trunk to reach the sunshine, and such trunks supply the cherry lumber of commerce. Near the northern limit of its range it seems to abandon its demand for good soil and is content if it is supplied with light only. It betakes itself to the face of cliffs, sometimes overhanging the sea, and so near it that the branches are drenched in spray thrown up by breakers. It is needless to say that no good lumber is produced under such circumstances.
The first loss of cherry occurred when the farms were cleared. It stood on the best ground, and the land-hungry Anglo-Saxon wanted that for himself. He cut the tall shapely cherry trees, built fences and barns of some of the logs, and burned the balance in the clearing. Then came the pioneer lumberman who did not take much, because his old up-and-down saw, which was run by water, would cut only about a thousand feet a day, and there was plenty of other kinds of timber. But when the steam mill put in its appearance, cherry went fast. Its price was high enough to pay for a long haul. From that day till this, cherry has gone to market as rapidly as millmen could get to it.
Next to walnut, it is the highest priced lumber produced in the United States. The average cut per mill, according to returns of those who sawed it in 1909, was only 11,200 feet, and the total output that year was only 24,594,000 feet, contributed by twenty-nine states. The five leading producers were, in the order named, West Virginia, Pennsylvania,New York, Ohio, and Indiana. The next year the total output fell to 18,237,000 feet, and cherry went down to a place among the “minor species,” such as dogwood, alder, locust, and buckeye. The day of its importance in the lumber industry is past. It has become too scarce to attract much attention, but there will always be some cherry in the market, though veteran trunks, three and four feet through and good for four sixteen-foot logs, will be seldom seen in the years to come.
While good taste ordinarily dictates that cherry be finished in a tone approximating its natural color, it is quite frequent that it masquerades as mahogany. A well-known and perfect method of making cherry look like mahogany is to have the wood rubbed with diluted nitric acid, which prepares it for the materials to be subsequently applied; afterwards, to a filtered mixture of an ounce and a half of dragon’s blood dissolved in a pint of spirits of wine, is added one-third that quantity of carbonate of soda, the whole constituting a very thin liquid which is applied to the wood with a soft brush. This process is repeated at short intervals until the wood assumes the external appearance of mahogany. While cherry is employed as an imitation of mahogany, it is in its turn imitated also. Sweet birch is finished to look like cherry, and for that reason is sometimes known as cherry birch.
Cherry weighs 36.28 pounds per cubic foot; it is very porous, but the pores are small and are diffused through all parts of the annual ring. The wood has no figure. Its value is due to color and luster. The medullary rays are numerous but small, and in quarter-sawing they do not show as mirrors, like oak, but as a soft luster covering the whole surface.
The principal uses of cherry have always been in furniture and finish, but it has many minor uses, such as tool handles, boxes for garden seeds, spirit levels and other tools, and implements, patterns, penholders, actions for organs and piano players, baseblocks for electrotypes and other printing plates, and cores for high-class panels. Aside from its color, its chief value is due to its comparative freedom from checking and warping. This cherry is one of the few trees that cross the equator. It extends from Canada far down the west coast of South America.
Choke Cherry(Prunus virginiana) is widely distributed in North America from Canada to Mexico. It is said to attain its largest size in the Southwest where trees are sometimes forty feet high and a foot in diameter. The name is due to the astringency of the half ripe fruit which can scarcely be eaten. When fully ripe it is a little more tolerable, and is then black, but is red before it is ripe. The color of immature cherries deceives the unsophisticated into believing they are ripe. In Canada the fruit is made into pies and jelly, and it is said the tree is occasionally planted for its fruit. The Indians of former times made food of it. The tree issmall, and bruised branches emit a disagreeable odor; leaves contain prussic acid, and when partly withered, they are poisonous to cattle. The trunks are nearly always too small for commercial purposes, and are apt to be affected with a fungous disease known as black knot.Western Choke Cherry(Prunus demissa) grows from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in the United States. It is often regarded as the western form of choke cherry, but it has more palatable fruit, and trees are a little larger, while trunks are so crooked that no user of wood cares to have anything to do with them. The wood is weak, but is hard and heavy.Bitter Cherry(Prunus emarginata) belongs to the far West, and is found from British Columbia to southern California. In size it ranges from a low shrub to a tree a foot in diameter and forty feet high. The largest sizes are found in western Washington and Oregon. The wood is soft and brittle, brown streaked with green. It is not known that any attempt has been made to put the wood of this tree to any useful purpose. The bark and the leaves are exceedingly bitter. Fruit ripens from June to August, depending on region and elevation, and it is from one-fourth to one-half inch in diameter, black, and intensely bitter.Hollyleaf Cherry(Prunus ilicifolia) is a California species growing in the bottoms of canyons from San Francisco bay to the Mexican line. It is rarely more than thirty feet high, but has a large trunk, sometimes two feet in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, and it ought to be valuable in the manufacture of small articles, but fuel is the only use reported for it. The fruit is insipid, and ripens late in autumn. The foliage is much admired and has led to the planting of the species for ornamental purposes.
Choke Cherry(Prunus virginiana) is widely distributed in North America from Canada to Mexico. It is said to attain its largest size in the Southwest where trees are sometimes forty feet high and a foot in diameter. The name is due to the astringency of the half ripe fruit which can scarcely be eaten. When fully ripe it is a little more tolerable, and is then black, but is red before it is ripe. The color of immature cherries deceives the unsophisticated into believing they are ripe. In Canada the fruit is made into pies and jelly, and it is said the tree is occasionally planted for its fruit. The Indians of former times made food of it. The tree issmall, and bruised branches emit a disagreeable odor; leaves contain prussic acid, and when partly withered, they are poisonous to cattle. The trunks are nearly always too small for commercial purposes, and are apt to be affected with a fungous disease known as black knot.
Western Choke Cherry(Prunus demissa) grows from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in the United States. It is often regarded as the western form of choke cherry, but it has more palatable fruit, and trees are a little larger, while trunks are so crooked that no user of wood cares to have anything to do with them. The wood is weak, but is hard and heavy.
Bitter Cherry(Prunus emarginata) belongs to the far West, and is found from British Columbia to southern California. In size it ranges from a low shrub to a tree a foot in diameter and forty feet high. The largest sizes are found in western Washington and Oregon. The wood is soft and brittle, brown streaked with green. It is not known that any attempt has been made to put the wood of this tree to any useful purpose. The bark and the leaves are exceedingly bitter. Fruit ripens from June to August, depending on region and elevation, and it is from one-fourth to one-half inch in diameter, black, and intensely bitter.
Hollyleaf Cherry(Prunus ilicifolia) is a California species growing in the bottoms of canyons from San Francisco bay to the Mexican line. It is rarely more than thirty feet high, but has a large trunk, sometimes two feet in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, and it ought to be valuable in the manufacture of small articles, but fuel is the only use reported for it. The fruit is insipid, and ripens late in autumn. The foliage is much admired and has led to the planting of the species for ornamental purposes.
Black cherry branch