SHINGLE OAK

SHINGLE OAKShingle oakShingle Oak

Shingle oakShingle Oak

Shingle Oak

SHINGLE OAK(Quercus Imbricaria)The origin of this tree’s name has been the subject of considerable controversy. According to one account the name was first used by the French colonists at Kaskaskia, Illinois, nearly 150 years ago. They found that the wood rived well and it was abundant in the vicinity of their settlement. They split it for shingles and covered their cabins. It was the best wood obtainable for the purpose in that region, and they designated the tree shingle oak, a name translated into Latin by the botanist Michaux and still retained as the tree’s botanical name. The story of the name appears to be well authenticated, but the fact cannot be denied that as much reason exists for another theory. A person who sees a shingle oak tree in full leaf, particularly if it stands in open ground where its foliage has had opportunity to develop along natural lines, will at once notice the peculiar and characteristic overlapping of the leaves. They suggest the courses of shingles nailed on a roof. No other oak has that arrangement. The similitude is so striking that it would be surprising if the name shingle oak were not applied.It is not a one-name tree, but following the fashion, it carries several names. It is called laurel oak in some regions. The form and appearance of the leaf give the name. The oak looks like a mammoth laurel tree more than like its own species. The shingle oak is known as jack oak in some parts of Illinois. That is a name liable to be applied to any tree when its real name is not known. In North Carolina they call the tree water oak, which name, like jack oak, is often used to conceal ignorance of the true name. Another southern species (Quercus nigra) is properly named water oak.Shingle oak requires good soil for growth but is not partial either to uplands or bottoms. It is found at its best in the lower Ohio river basin and in Missouri, but is comparatively rare in the East. From middle Pennsylvania its range extends southward along the Alleghanies to northern Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and west Arkansas. It is found in Michigan, Wisconsin, and westward to Kansas.It manifests a strong tendency to hybridize with other oaks, and it readily crosses with black jack oak, pin oak, and yellow oak. It is believed that a cross between yellow oak and shingle oak produced the species known as lea oak.A mature tree may be one hundred feet high and three or four feet in diameter. It has a round or pyramidal attractive crown composed of many slender branches and twigs. The foliage is distinctivelygrouped at the ends of the twigs in star-like clusters. The leaves are four or six inches long, with wedge-shaped or rounded bases, and are deep green and shiny on the upper side, but lighter below. The acorns are short, stubby, and rounded, covered one-third of the way with thin shallow cups.Shingle oak grows rapidly, and it is often sold by nurseries which deal in ornamental forest trees. It is hardy as far north as Massachusetts. Although it bears great abundance of leaves, they are so arranged that the crown seems open. One may see through the branches of a large shingle oak, and it suggests an airiness not common with oaks.Differences of opinion exist concerning the value of shingle oak for commercial purposes. It belongs in the black oak group, and its wood goes to market as red oak, and apparently is never listed as anything else. It is never named in market reports; shops and factories never report it, and it has been pronounced inferior to red oak in strength and seasoning properties. Tests have been made of some of its physical properties, and the results do not indicate that the wood belongs with inferior timbers. Its breaking strength is given at 39 per cent greater than white oak, and its stiffness at 28 per cent greater. However, these values, which are calculated from Sargent’s tables, are based on tests of only a few specimens of the wood, and fuller investigation might make revision necessary.The wood is heavy, hard, and is said to check badly in drying. The pores are large and are arranged in rows; medullary rays are broad and conspicuous. The wood is light brown, tinged with red, the sapwood much lighter. The broad medullary rays, running radially, give the wood its good splitting qualities.The tree is fairly abundant in different parts of its range, and is cut and manufactured with other oaks and hardwoods. Slack coopers use it for barrels; box makers employ it for crates; chair mills saw dimension stock and ship it to factories to be finished; some goes to furniture factories; some is turned for spindles for grills, and for balusters for stairs; other fills various places as interior finish and molding. But it all goes to market and passes through factories under names other than its own.Water Oak(Quercus nigra) has several names, some of them bestowed with little apparent reason. It is called possum oak and duck oak, but these names are neither descriptive nor definitive. Punk oak is another name. It may refer to a decayed condition of the wood, but this tree is no more affected by decay than others of the same region. In Texas it is sometimes known as spotted oak. It thrives in wet situations though not actually in swamps. It prefers margins of ponds,banks of rivers, and low swales where the ground water is just below the surface, but it is not confined to such situations. It does well, within its range, wherever willow oak flourishes, but willow oak has a wider range. The leaves take on various forms, and they change shape as they increase in size. Some have smooth margins, others are lobed. Some are wedge-shaped, others coffin-shaped. Their typical form, if it may be said of them that they have a typical form, is narrow at the stem end and wide at the other. To this is usually added rudimentary lobes, which are sometimes nearly as well developed as in any other oak. Their typical form is like the leaf of the black jack oak; but they are not half as large, and are thin and delicate, while the black jack’s leaf is thick and leathery.The range of water oak begins in Delaware and follows the Atlantic coastal plain south to central Florida, and through the Gulf States to Texas. It grows as far north as Kentucky and Missouri. It keeps clear of the Appalachian mountain region, and other hilly districts. It is plentiful in some parts of its range, and trunks three feet in diameter and long enough for two or three logs are not unusual, yet large numbers of water oaks may be seen in the South which are not fit for sawlogs because they stand in open ground and are limby down to ten feet of the ground. Many have been planted for shade trees in streets and in parks, and are justly admired. They grow rapidly and are extremely graceful. Their leaves are deciduous, but adhere to the branches most of the year. South of the belt of severe frost, the old leaves frequently hang until the buds for the new crop are opening. The acorns are bitter, and even the southern pine hog passes them by until the pinch of famine edges up his appetite.Water oak possesses value as a source of lumber, but it belongs with the large class of oaks which lose their names and their identity when they pass the threshold of the sawmill. They come out red oak. Only in rare instances is water oak called by its own name in the factory and lumber yard. Wagon makers employ it for bolsters, axles, spokes, tongues, sandboards, hounds, felloes and reaches. Entire dump carts, except the iron, are constructed of this wood. Furniture manufacturers use it as frame material, but seldom as the outside visible parts, though no reason for not doing so is offered. Objection is made to its seasoning qualities, but the same objection applies to most red oaks. A considerable amount of water oak is cut in the South into thick planks for bridge floors. It is strong and hard, and satisfactorily resists decay in that place; though, in common with the black oaks generally, it is liable to decay when exposed to dampness. The wood weighs a little less than white oak, and is notquite as strong or as stiff. It is porous, but the pores are small, except one or two rows in the springwood. The medullary rays are thin and not numerous, but they are conspicuous, and the wood may be successfully quarter-sawed. The lumber has the appearance of red oak, though the reddish color is not so pronounced.Bartram Oak(Quercus heterophylla). This interesting but commercially unimportant oak was named by Michaux from a single tree found in a field belonging to John Bartram near Philadelphia more than a century ago. A few trees have since been found in widely scattered districts as far south as North Carolina and as far west as Texas. Botanists believe it is a hybrid, one parent being the willow oak (Quercus phellos) and the other yellow oak (Quercus velutina). It is probable that here may be witnessed the origin of a tree species. The leaves seem to be a compromise between the deeply cut foliage of yellow oak and the entire leaf of willow oak. The new species is so scarce that few people have ever seen it.Shingle oak branch

The origin of this tree’s name has been the subject of considerable controversy. According to one account the name was first used by the French colonists at Kaskaskia, Illinois, nearly 150 years ago. They found that the wood rived well and it was abundant in the vicinity of their settlement. They split it for shingles and covered their cabins. It was the best wood obtainable for the purpose in that region, and they designated the tree shingle oak, a name translated into Latin by the botanist Michaux and still retained as the tree’s botanical name. The story of the name appears to be well authenticated, but the fact cannot be denied that as much reason exists for another theory. A person who sees a shingle oak tree in full leaf, particularly if it stands in open ground where its foliage has had opportunity to develop along natural lines, will at once notice the peculiar and characteristic overlapping of the leaves. They suggest the courses of shingles nailed on a roof. No other oak has that arrangement. The similitude is so striking that it would be surprising if the name shingle oak were not applied.

It is not a one-name tree, but following the fashion, it carries several names. It is called laurel oak in some regions. The form and appearance of the leaf give the name. The oak looks like a mammoth laurel tree more than like its own species. The shingle oak is known as jack oak in some parts of Illinois. That is a name liable to be applied to any tree when its real name is not known. In North Carolina they call the tree water oak, which name, like jack oak, is often used to conceal ignorance of the true name. Another southern species (Quercus nigra) is properly named water oak.

Shingle oak requires good soil for growth but is not partial either to uplands or bottoms. It is found at its best in the lower Ohio river basin and in Missouri, but is comparatively rare in the East. From middle Pennsylvania its range extends southward along the Alleghanies to northern Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and west Arkansas. It is found in Michigan, Wisconsin, and westward to Kansas.

It manifests a strong tendency to hybridize with other oaks, and it readily crosses with black jack oak, pin oak, and yellow oak. It is believed that a cross between yellow oak and shingle oak produced the species known as lea oak.

A mature tree may be one hundred feet high and three or four feet in diameter. It has a round or pyramidal attractive crown composed of many slender branches and twigs. The foliage is distinctivelygrouped at the ends of the twigs in star-like clusters. The leaves are four or six inches long, with wedge-shaped or rounded bases, and are deep green and shiny on the upper side, but lighter below. The acorns are short, stubby, and rounded, covered one-third of the way with thin shallow cups.

Shingle oak grows rapidly, and it is often sold by nurseries which deal in ornamental forest trees. It is hardy as far north as Massachusetts. Although it bears great abundance of leaves, they are so arranged that the crown seems open. One may see through the branches of a large shingle oak, and it suggests an airiness not common with oaks.

Differences of opinion exist concerning the value of shingle oak for commercial purposes. It belongs in the black oak group, and its wood goes to market as red oak, and apparently is never listed as anything else. It is never named in market reports; shops and factories never report it, and it has been pronounced inferior to red oak in strength and seasoning properties. Tests have been made of some of its physical properties, and the results do not indicate that the wood belongs with inferior timbers. Its breaking strength is given at 39 per cent greater than white oak, and its stiffness at 28 per cent greater. However, these values, which are calculated from Sargent’s tables, are based on tests of only a few specimens of the wood, and fuller investigation might make revision necessary.

The wood is heavy, hard, and is said to check badly in drying. The pores are large and are arranged in rows; medullary rays are broad and conspicuous. The wood is light brown, tinged with red, the sapwood much lighter. The broad medullary rays, running radially, give the wood its good splitting qualities.

The tree is fairly abundant in different parts of its range, and is cut and manufactured with other oaks and hardwoods. Slack coopers use it for barrels; box makers employ it for crates; chair mills saw dimension stock and ship it to factories to be finished; some goes to furniture factories; some is turned for spindles for grills, and for balusters for stairs; other fills various places as interior finish and molding. But it all goes to market and passes through factories under names other than its own.

Water Oak(Quercus nigra) has several names, some of them bestowed with little apparent reason. It is called possum oak and duck oak, but these names are neither descriptive nor definitive. Punk oak is another name. It may refer to a decayed condition of the wood, but this tree is no more affected by decay than others of the same region. In Texas it is sometimes known as spotted oak. It thrives in wet situations though not actually in swamps. It prefers margins of ponds,banks of rivers, and low swales where the ground water is just below the surface, but it is not confined to such situations. It does well, within its range, wherever willow oak flourishes, but willow oak has a wider range. The leaves take on various forms, and they change shape as they increase in size. Some have smooth margins, others are lobed. Some are wedge-shaped, others coffin-shaped. Their typical form, if it may be said of them that they have a typical form, is narrow at the stem end and wide at the other. To this is usually added rudimentary lobes, which are sometimes nearly as well developed as in any other oak. Their typical form is like the leaf of the black jack oak; but they are not half as large, and are thin and delicate, while the black jack’s leaf is thick and leathery.

The range of water oak begins in Delaware and follows the Atlantic coastal plain south to central Florida, and through the Gulf States to Texas. It grows as far north as Kentucky and Missouri. It keeps clear of the Appalachian mountain region, and other hilly districts. It is plentiful in some parts of its range, and trunks three feet in diameter and long enough for two or three logs are not unusual, yet large numbers of water oaks may be seen in the South which are not fit for sawlogs because they stand in open ground and are limby down to ten feet of the ground. Many have been planted for shade trees in streets and in parks, and are justly admired. They grow rapidly and are extremely graceful. Their leaves are deciduous, but adhere to the branches most of the year. South of the belt of severe frost, the old leaves frequently hang until the buds for the new crop are opening. The acorns are bitter, and even the southern pine hog passes them by until the pinch of famine edges up his appetite.

Water oak possesses value as a source of lumber, but it belongs with the large class of oaks which lose their names and their identity when they pass the threshold of the sawmill. They come out red oak. Only in rare instances is water oak called by its own name in the factory and lumber yard. Wagon makers employ it for bolsters, axles, spokes, tongues, sandboards, hounds, felloes and reaches. Entire dump carts, except the iron, are constructed of this wood. Furniture manufacturers use it as frame material, but seldom as the outside visible parts, though no reason for not doing so is offered. Objection is made to its seasoning qualities, but the same objection applies to most red oaks. A considerable amount of water oak is cut in the South into thick planks for bridge floors. It is strong and hard, and satisfactorily resists decay in that place; though, in common with the black oaks generally, it is liable to decay when exposed to dampness. The wood weighs a little less than white oak, and is notquite as strong or as stiff. It is porous, but the pores are small, except one or two rows in the springwood. The medullary rays are thin and not numerous, but they are conspicuous, and the wood may be successfully quarter-sawed. The lumber has the appearance of red oak, though the reddish color is not so pronounced.

Bartram Oak(Quercus heterophylla). This interesting but commercially unimportant oak was named by Michaux from a single tree found in a field belonging to John Bartram near Philadelphia more than a century ago. A few trees have since been found in widely scattered districts as far south as North Carolina and as far west as Texas. Botanists believe it is a hybrid, one parent being the willow oak (Quercus phellos) and the other yellow oak (Quercus velutina). It is probable that here may be witnessed the origin of a tree species. The leaves seem to be a compromise between the deeply cut foliage of yellow oak and the entire leaf of willow oak. The new species is so scarce that few people have ever seen it.

Shingle oak branch

RED GUMRed gumRed Gum

Red gumRed Gum

Red Gum

RED GUM(Liquidambar Styraciflua)This tree does not belong to the same group as black gum and tupelo, which are in the dogwood family, while red gum is of the witch hazel family. If a tree is to be judged and named by its character, red gum is more entitled to the name “gum” than any other tree of this country, because it exudes a yellow resin from wounds in the bark. The botanical name recognizes that fact. Storax is procured from a closely related tree is Asia, and has been known in commerce for many centuries. The other popular names of red gum are sweet gum, liquid-amber gum, gum tree, alligator wood, bilsted, starleaved gum, and satin walnut.The last name originated in England where it was desirable to avoid the name gum when applied to the wood of this tree. Though botanically it is about as distantly related to walnut as any tree can be, the figure of the wood often suggests walnut. The name sweet gum refers to the pleasant odor of the resin which is sometimes used in France, and probably elsewhere, to perfume gloves. Alligator wood is descriptive of warty excrescences on the bark of some trees, but they are not common to all. Starleaved gum relates to the leaf. It is a lopsided star—a six point star with one point missing.This tree’s range in the United States extends from Connecticut to Texas and as far northwest of the Alleghanies as Missouri and Illinois. It reaches its greatest size in the lower Mississippi valley in rich bottom land which is subject to repeated inundation. It is not, however, as purely a swamp tree as tupelo and cypress. It grows well on land which is never inundated, but it needs plenty of moisture. The largest specimens exceed a height of 120 feet and a diameter of four; but logs from eighteen inches to three feet are the usual sizes. The tree’s range extends southward through Mexico into Central America.The rise of red gum lumber into prominence forms an interesting chapter in the industry. It was formerly considered so difficult to season that few mills cared to deal with it, but that difficulty has been largely overcome. In the past, gum, having no market value, was left standing after logging; or, where the land was cleared for farming, was girdled and allowed to rot, and then felled and burned. Not only were the trees a total loss to the farmer, but, from their great size and the labor required to handle them, they were so serious an obstruction as often to preclude the clearing of valuable land. Now that there is a market for the timber, it is profitable to cut gum with other hardwoods,and land can be cleared more cheaply. This increase in the value of gum timber will be of great benefit to the South in many ways.Throughout its entire life red gum is intolerant of shade. As a rule seedlings appear only in clearings or in open spots in the forest. It is seldom that an overtopped tree is found, for the gum dies quickly if suppressed, and is consequently nearly always a dominant or intermediate tree. In a hardwood bottom forest, the timber trees are all of nearly the same age over considerable areas, and there is little young growth to be found in the older stands. The reason for this is the intolerance of most of the swamp species.Red gum reproduces both by seed and by sprouts, fairly abundantly every year, but about once in three years there is a heavy production. In the Mississippi valley the abandoned fields on which young stands of red gum have sprung up are, for the most part, being rapidly cleared again. The second growth here is considered of little worth in comparison with the value of the land for agricultural purposes.A large amount of red gum growing in the South can be economically transported from the forests to the mills only by means of the streams, owing to the expense of putting in railroads solely for handling the timber. Green red gum, however, is so heavy that it scarcely floats and, to overcome this difficulty, various methods of driving out the sap before the logs are thrown into the river have been tried. One method is to girdle the trees and leave them standing a year. That partly seasons them, but does not give time for the sapwood to decay. The logs from such trees float readily, and the swamps and streams are utilized to carry the logs to the mills.Some years ago that method of seasoning red gum was extensively advertised in England by contractors who sold paving blocks of this wood. It was claimed that the common defects of red gum were thus overcome. Large sales of paving material were made, particularly in London, and red gum was popular for a time, but it finally lost its hold as a paving wood in competition with certain Australian woods. The theory that by girdling a tree and allowing it to die, the amount of heartwood will be increased has been abandoned. In selecting trees for cutting, those with doty tops, rotten stumps, and heavy bark, indications of an old tree which contains a very small proportion of sapwood, are now chosen. These are found mainly in the drier localities. In low, wet places the trees have more sapwood and are smaller. The heartwood forms while the tree is living, not after it dies.The rapidity with which red gum has come into use in this country and elsewhere is the best evidence of the wood’s real value. Its rangeof uses extends from the most common articles, such as boxes and crates, to those of highest class, like furniture and interior finish. It is only moderately strong and stiff, and is not a competitor of hickory, ash, maple, and oak in vehicle manufacturing and other lines where strength or elasticity is demanded; but in nearly all other classes of wood uses, red gum has made itself a place. It has pushed to the front in spite of prejudice. As soon as the difficulties of seasoning were mastered, its victory was won. Its annual use in Michigan, the home and center of hardwood supply, exceeds 20,000,000 feet in manufactured articles, exclusive of what is employed in rough form. In Illinois, the most extensive wood-manufacturing state in the Union, red gum stands second in amount among the hardwoods, the only one above it being white oak. In Kentucky, only white oak and hickory are more important among the factory woods, while in Arkansas, where the annual amount of this wood in factories exceeds 100,000,000 feet, it heads the list of hardwoods.As a veneer material, it is demanded in four times the quantity of any other species. The veneer is nearly all rotary cut, and it goes into cheap and expensive commodities, from berry crates to pianos.The wood weighs 36.83 pounds per cubic foot. It is straight-grained, the medullary rays are numerous but not prominent, the pores diffuse but small, and the summerwood forms only a narrow band, like a line. The annual rings do not produce much figure, but wood has another kind of figure, the kind that characterizes English and Circassian walnuts, smoky, cloudy, shaded series of rings, independent of the growth rings. They have no definite width or constant color, but the color is usually deeper than the body of the wood. This figure is one of the most prized properties of red gum. It is that which makes the wood the closest known imitator of Circassian walnut.All red gum is not figured, and that which is figured may be worked in a way to conceal or make little use of the figure. It shows best in rotary cut veneer and tangentially sawed lumber. Various woods are imitated with red gum. It is stained or painted to look like oak, cherry, mahogany, and even maple.Some trees have thin sapwood, and others are all sapwood. This peculiarity sometimes leads to misunderstandings in lumber transactions. A buyer specifies red gum, expecting to get red heartwood, but the seller delivers lumber cut from the red gum tree, though light colored sapwood may predominate. Properly speaking, the name is applied to the tree as a whole and does not refer to any particular color of wood in the tree. The term “red” is said to have referred originally to the color of autumn leaves, and not to the wood.The fruit of red gum is a bur, midway in appearance and size between the sycamore ball and the chestnut bur. It hangs on the tree until late in winter. The resin which exudes from wounds in the bark is of much commercial importance and is shipped from New Orleans and Mexican ports. Near the northern limit of the species’ range the trees yield little resin, but it is abundant farther south. In the southern states it is used locally as chewing gum. It is known commercially as copalm balm.Witch Hazel(Hamamelis virginiana) is a cousin to red gum, but there is small resemblance. It is known as winter bloom, snapping hazel, and spotted alder. Its range extends from Nova Scotia to Nebraska, Texas, and Florida. It reaches its largest size among the southern Appalachian mountains where the extreme height is sometimes forty feet, with a diameter of eighteen inches; but few people have ever seen a witch hazel that large. It is usually fifteen or twenty feet high and three or four inches in diameter. The wood is much like that of red gum, being diffuse-porous with obscure medullary rays, and a thin line of summerwood. It is of little commercial use; in fact, no report has been found that a single foot of it has ever been used for any purpose. Yet it is a most interesting little tree. It blooms in the fall, sometimes as late as the middle of November. Its rusty summer foliage turns yellow in autumn, and as the leaves begin to fall, the tree bursts into delicately-scented golden flowers, the most visible part of each consisting of four petals which float out like streamers. At the same time that flowers are scenting the air, the seeds are discharging. A full year is required to ripen them; and when dry, cold weather comes, the contraction of their envelopes shoots them with sufficient force to send them fifteen or twenty feet. They depend on neither wings, birds, nor squirrels to scatter them. The origin of the name witch hazel is disputed; but the person who examines the open-topped button which holds the black seeds, and notes the fantastic resemblance to a weasen face, will feel satisfied that he can guess the origin of the name. The tree’s bark is used for medicine, in extracts and gargles.Red gum branch

This tree does not belong to the same group as black gum and tupelo, which are in the dogwood family, while red gum is of the witch hazel family. If a tree is to be judged and named by its character, red gum is more entitled to the name “gum” than any other tree of this country, because it exudes a yellow resin from wounds in the bark. The botanical name recognizes that fact. Storax is procured from a closely related tree is Asia, and has been known in commerce for many centuries. The other popular names of red gum are sweet gum, liquid-amber gum, gum tree, alligator wood, bilsted, starleaved gum, and satin walnut.

The last name originated in England where it was desirable to avoid the name gum when applied to the wood of this tree. Though botanically it is about as distantly related to walnut as any tree can be, the figure of the wood often suggests walnut. The name sweet gum refers to the pleasant odor of the resin which is sometimes used in France, and probably elsewhere, to perfume gloves. Alligator wood is descriptive of warty excrescences on the bark of some trees, but they are not common to all. Starleaved gum relates to the leaf. It is a lopsided star—a six point star with one point missing.

This tree’s range in the United States extends from Connecticut to Texas and as far northwest of the Alleghanies as Missouri and Illinois. It reaches its greatest size in the lower Mississippi valley in rich bottom land which is subject to repeated inundation. It is not, however, as purely a swamp tree as tupelo and cypress. It grows well on land which is never inundated, but it needs plenty of moisture. The largest specimens exceed a height of 120 feet and a diameter of four; but logs from eighteen inches to three feet are the usual sizes. The tree’s range extends southward through Mexico into Central America.

The rise of red gum lumber into prominence forms an interesting chapter in the industry. It was formerly considered so difficult to season that few mills cared to deal with it, but that difficulty has been largely overcome. In the past, gum, having no market value, was left standing after logging; or, where the land was cleared for farming, was girdled and allowed to rot, and then felled and burned. Not only were the trees a total loss to the farmer, but, from their great size and the labor required to handle them, they were so serious an obstruction as often to preclude the clearing of valuable land. Now that there is a market for the timber, it is profitable to cut gum with other hardwoods,and land can be cleared more cheaply. This increase in the value of gum timber will be of great benefit to the South in many ways.

Throughout its entire life red gum is intolerant of shade. As a rule seedlings appear only in clearings or in open spots in the forest. It is seldom that an overtopped tree is found, for the gum dies quickly if suppressed, and is consequently nearly always a dominant or intermediate tree. In a hardwood bottom forest, the timber trees are all of nearly the same age over considerable areas, and there is little young growth to be found in the older stands. The reason for this is the intolerance of most of the swamp species.

Red gum reproduces both by seed and by sprouts, fairly abundantly every year, but about once in three years there is a heavy production. In the Mississippi valley the abandoned fields on which young stands of red gum have sprung up are, for the most part, being rapidly cleared again. The second growth here is considered of little worth in comparison with the value of the land for agricultural purposes.

A large amount of red gum growing in the South can be economically transported from the forests to the mills only by means of the streams, owing to the expense of putting in railroads solely for handling the timber. Green red gum, however, is so heavy that it scarcely floats and, to overcome this difficulty, various methods of driving out the sap before the logs are thrown into the river have been tried. One method is to girdle the trees and leave them standing a year. That partly seasons them, but does not give time for the sapwood to decay. The logs from such trees float readily, and the swamps and streams are utilized to carry the logs to the mills.

Some years ago that method of seasoning red gum was extensively advertised in England by contractors who sold paving blocks of this wood. It was claimed that the common defects of red gum were thus overcome. Large sales of paving material were made, particularly in London, and red gum was popular for a time, but it finally lost its hold as a paving wood in competition with certain Australian woods. The theory that by girdling a tree and allowing it to die, the amount of heartwood will be increased has been abandoned. In selecting trees for cutting, those with doty tops, rotten stumps, and heavy bark, indications of an old tree which contains a very small proportion of sapwood, are now chosen. These are found mainly in the drier localities. In low, wet places the trees have more sapwood and are smaller. The heartwood forms while the tree is living, not after it dies.

The rapidity with which red gum has come into use in this country and elsewhere is the best evidence of the wood’s real value. Its rangeof uses extends from the most common articles, such as boxes and crates, to those of highest class, like furniture and interior finish. It is only moderately strong and stiff, and is not a competitor of hickory, ash, maple, and oak in vehicle manufacturing and other lines where strength or elasticity is demanded; but in nearly all other classes of wood uses, red gum has made itself a place. It has pushed to the front in spite of prejudice. As soon as the difficulties of seasoning were mastered, its victory was won. Its annual use in Michigan, the home and center of hardwood supply, exceeds 20,000,000 feet in manufactured articles, exclusive of what is employed in rough form. In Illinois, the most extensive wood-manufacturing state in the Union, red gum stands second in amount among the hardwoods, the only one above it being white oak. In Kentucky, only white oak and hickory are more important among the factory woods, while in Arkansas, where the annual amount of this wood in factories exceeds 100,000,000 feet, it heads the list of hardwoods.

As a veneer material, it is demanded in four times the quantity of any other species. The veneer is nearly all rotary cut, and it goes into cheap and expensive commodities, from berry crates to pianos.

The wood weighs 36.83 pounds per cubic foot. It is straight-grained, the medullary rays are numerous but not prominent, the pores diffuse but small, and the summerwood forms only a narrow band, like a line. The annual rings do not produce much figure, but wood has another kind of figure, the kind that characterizes English and Circassian walnuts, smoky, cloudy, shaded series of rings, independent of the growth rings. They have no definite width or constant color, but the color is usually deeper than the body of the wood. This figure is one of the most prized properties of red gum. It is that which makes the wood the closest known imitator of Circassian walnut.

All red gum is not figured, and that which is figured may be worked in a way to conceal or make little use of the figure. It shows best in rotary cut veneer and tangentially sawed lumber. Various woods are imitated with red gum. It is stained or painted to look like oak, cherry, mahogany, and even maple.

Some trees have thin sapwood, and others are all sapwood. This peculiarity sometimes leads to misunderstandings in lumber transactions. A buyer specifies red gum, expecting to get red heartwood, but the seller delivers lumber cut from the red gum tree, though light colored sapwood may predominate. Properly speaking, the name is applied to the tree as a whole and does not refer to any particular color of wood in the tree. The term “red” is said to have referred originally to the color of autumn leaves, and not to the wood.

The fruit of red gum is a bur, midway in appearance and size between the sycamore ball and the chestnut bur. It hangs on the tree until late in winter. The resin which exudes from wounds in the bark is of much commercial importance and is shipped from New Orleans and Mexican ports. Near the northern limit of the species’ range the trees yield little resin, but it is abundant farther south. In the southern states it is used locally as chewing gum. It is known commercially as copalm balm.

Witch Hazel(Hamamelis virginiana) is a cousin to red gum, but there is small resemblance. It is known as winter bloom, snapping hazel, and spotted alder. Its range extends from Nova Scotia to Nebraska, Texas, and Florida. It reaches its largest size among the southern Appalachian mountains where the extreme height is sometimes forty feet, with a diameter of eighteen inches; but few people have ever seen a witch hazel that large. It is usually fifteen or twenty feet high and three or four inches in diameter. The wood is much like that of red gum, being diffuse-porous with obscure medullary rays, and a thin line of summerwood. It is of little commercial use; in fact, no report has been found that a single foot of it has ever been used for any purpose. Yet it is a most interesting little tree. It blooms in the fall, sometimes as late as the middle of November. Its rusty summer foliage turns yellow in autumn, and as the leaves begin to fall, the tree bursts into delicately-scented golden flowers, the most visible part of each consisting of four petals which float out like streamers. At the same time that flowers are scenting the air, the seeds are discharging. A full year is required to ripen them; and when dry, cold weather comes, the contraction of their envelopes shoots them with sufficient force to send them fifteen or twenty feet. They depend on neither wings, birds, nor squirrels to scatter them. The origin of the name witch hazel is disputed; but the person who examines the open-topped button which holds the black seeds, and notes the fantastic resemblance to a weasen face, will feel satisfied that he can guess the origin of the name. The tree’s bark is used for medicine, in extracts and gargles.

Red gum branch

BLACK GUMBlack gumBlack Gum

Black gumBlack Gum

Black Gum

BLACK GUM(Nyssa Sylvatica)Black gum grows from the Kennebec river in Maine to Tampa bay, Florida; westward to southern Ontario and southern Michigan; Southward through Missouri, as far as the Brazos river in Texas. The names by which it is known in different regions are black gum, sour gum, tupelo, pepperidge, wild pear tree, gum, and yellow gum.The leaves of black gum are simple and alternate; not serrate. They are attached by very short petioles, which are fuzzy when young; they are a rich, brilliant green above and lighter below; rather thick, with prominent midrib. As early as the latter part of August the leaves commence to turn a gorgeous red. The flowers are greenish and inconspicuous, growing in thick clusters, the staminate ones small and plentiful, the pistillate ones larger. They bloom in April, May or June. The fruit of black gum is a drupe about one and a half inches long; inside of it is a rough, oval pit; the pulp is acrid until mellowed by frost.The bad name given to black gum by early settlers of this country has stayed with it, though the faults found with it then, should hold no longer. The pioneers were nearly all clearers of farms. They went into the woods with ax, maul, mattock, wedges and gluts, and made fields and fenced them. The fencing was as important as the clearing, for the woods were alive with hogs, cattle, and horses, and the crop was safe nowhere except behind an eight-rail staked and ridered fence. The farmer mauled the rails from timber which he cut in the clearing, and there it was that he and black gum got acquainted. The oak, chestnut, walnut, cherry, yellow poplar, and red cedar were split into rails and built into fences; but black gum never made a fence rail. No combination of maul, wedge, glut, determination, and elbow grease ever split a black gum log within the borders of the American continent. An iron wedge, driven to its head in the end of a rail cut, will not open a crack large enough to insert the point of a pocket knife. In fact, it is as easy to split the log crosswise as endwise. Consequently, the early farmers heaped their anathemas and maranathas on black gum and passed it by.Nevertheless, the tree had its virtues even in the eyes of the rail-splitters; for, though it was unwedgeable, it helped along the fence rail industry in a very substantial way by furnishing the material of which mauls were made. It drove the wedges and gluts which opened other timbers. About the only maul that would beat out more rails than one of black gum was that made of a chestnut oak knot. The oak beetle’sonly advantage over gum was that it was harder and wore longer. So involved and interlaced are the fibers of black gum, that they cross one another not only at right angles, but at every conceivable angle. This can be seen in examining very thin pieces with a magnifying glass.The wood is not hard, but is moderately strong, and stiff. It has been compared with hickory, but it is so inferior in almost every essential that no comparison is justified.Black gum weighs 39.61 pounds per cubic foot. It is very porous, but the pores are too small to be seen by the naked eye, and are diffused through the wood and form no distinct lines or groups. The summerwood is a thin dark line, not prominent enough to clearly delimit the yearly rings of growth. The medullary rays are numerous, but very thin. In quarter-sawed wood they produce a luster, but the individual rays are practically invisible. The wood is not durable in contact with the soil.The standing tree is apt to fall a victim to the agencies of decay. Hollow trunks, mere shells, are not uncommon. The entire heartwood is liable to fall away. The pioneers cut these hollow trees, and sawing them in lengths of about two feet, made beehives of them. They called them gums because they were cut from gum trees. Larger sizes, used in place of barrels, were also called gums, but these were usually made from sycamores. The black gum is not usually large. Individuals have been measured that were five feet in diameter and more than a hundred in height, but an average of sixty feet high and two in diameter is probably too much, except in the southern Appalachian mountains where the species attains its largest size.It is a tree which will always be easily recognized after it has been seen and identified once. Its general outline, particularly when leaves are off, is different from other trees associated with it. It might possibly be mistaken for persimmon unless looked at closely; but there are easily-recognized points of difference. Its branches are very small, slender, and short. Its bark is rougher than that of any other gum, and is much darker in color. It is the bark’s color that gives the tree its name. The leaves have smooth edges. In the fall they change to gorgeous red, and one of their peculiarities is that half a leaf may be red while the other half remains green. Toward the end of the season, the green disappears. The dark blue drupes ripen in October. They do not seem to be food for any living creature.Sawmills include black gum with tupelo in reporting lumber cut, and generally call both of them gum without distinction. The woods are quite different, and neither the standing tree nor the lumber of one need be mistaken for the other. The range of black gum is much moreextensive than that of tupelo. Gum lumber cut north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers may be safely classed as black gum, though a little of both red and tupelo gum is found north of those streams. In the South, the species cannot be separated by regions, for all the gums grow from Texas to Virginia. The total annual output of black gum is not known, but some operators estimate it at about 20,000,000 feet a year, or nearly one-fourth as much as tupelo.The bulk of black gum lumber is used in the rough, for floors, sheathing, frames, and scaffolds; but a considerable portion is further manufactured. The amounts thus used annually have been ascertained for a few states, and furnish a basis for estimates for the whole country: Mississippi, 7,000 feet; Maryland, 85,000; Illinois, 120,000; Louisiana, 120,000; Missouri, 190,000; Texas, 360,000; Massachusetts, 475,000; Alabama, 486,000.The uses are general, except that the wood is not employed where attractive figure is required, for black gum is as plain as cottonwood. It is not displeasing in its plainness, for the surface finishes nicely with a soft gloss which, except that it lacks figure, suggests the sap of red gum. It is specially useful in situations where noncleavability is required. Black gum mallets for stone masons and woodworkers are in the market. Mine rollers require a much larger amount. The entire 85,000 feet reported in Maryland was made into such rollers. They furnish the bearing for the rope that hauls the car up the incline out of the coal pit. Its toughness qualifies it for wagon hubs, but it is sometimes objected to because its softness causes the mortises to wear larger where the spokes are inserted, and the wheel does not stand as well as when the hubs are of good oak. Early farmers and lumbermen preferred black gum for ox yokes, and some are still seen where oxen are used; but many other woods are as strong and equally as serviceable for yokes. Rollers of this wood for glass factories are common. It is made into hatters’ blocks where a wood is wanted which, when thoroughly seasoned, will hold its shape. It is less popular for this purpose than yellow poplar. One of the best places for black gum is in the manufacture of bored water pipe. The wood’s interlaced fiber prevents splitting under the internal stress due to hydrostatic pressure. The shell of such pipes can be thinner than with most woods. A drawback is found in the non-durable qualities of black gum. However, the internal pressure of water keeps the wood thoroughly saturated, and prolongs its life when used as pipes.The makers of firearms employ black gum as gunstocks and pistol grips. The wood is stained to make it darker. It is cut by the rotary process into cheap veneer and is made into baskets and berry crates. Less trouble with the veneer, on account of breaking, is experiencedthan might be expected of a wood so cross-grained. It is sawed into thin lumber for boxes for shipping coffee and other groceries. It is a substitute for cottonwood and yellow poplar in the manufacture of certain lines of woodenware, notably, ironing boards, rolling pins, potato mashers, and chopping bowls. It is made into interior finish for houses; and furniture manufacturers find many places where it is a serviceable material. Musical instrument makers employ it, particularly as trusses for pianos, and in frames of pipe organs. In Louisiana it is converted into excelsior, and in Mississippi into broom handles, and parts of agricultural implements, particularly hoppers and seedboxes.All gums are hard to season, and this one is no exception. It checks badly, but the checks are usually very small.Black gum branch

Black gum grows from the Kennebec river in Maine to Tampa bay, Florida; westward to southern Ontario and southern Michigan; Southward through Missouri, as far as the Brazos river in Texas. The names by which it is known in different regions are black gum, sour gum, tupelo, pepperidge, wild pear tree, gum, and yellow gum.

The leaves of black gum are simple and alternate; not serrate. They are attached by very short petioles, which are fuzzy when young; they are a rich, brilliant green above and lighter below; rather thick, with prominent midrib. As early as the latter part of August the leaves commence to turn a gorgeous red. The flowers are greenish and inconspicuous, growing in thick clusters, the staminate ones small and plentiful, the pistillate ones larger. They bloom in April, May or June. The fruit of black gum is a drupe about one and a half inches long; inside of it is a rough, oval pit; the pulp is acrid until mellowed by frost.

The bad name given to black gum by early settlers of this country has stayed with it, though the faults found with it then, should hold no longer. The pioneers were nearly all clearers of farms. They went into the woods with ax, maul, mattock, wedges and gluts, and made fields and fenced them. The fencing was as important as the clearing, for the woods were alive with hogs, cattle, and horses, and the crop was safe nowhere except behind an eight-rail staked and ridered fence. The farmer mauled the rails from timber which he cut in the clearing, and there it was that he and black gum got acquainted. The oak, chestnut, walnut, cherry, yellow poplar, and red cedar were split into rails and built into fences; but black gum never made a fence rail. No combination of maul, wedge, glut, determination, and elbow grease ever split a black gum log within the borders of the American continent. An iron wedge, driven to its head in the end of a rail cut, will not open a crack large enough to insert the point of a pocket knife. In fact, it is as easy to split the log crosswise as endwise. Consequently, the early farmers heaped their anathemas and maranathas on black gum and passed it by.

Nevertheless, the tree had its virtues even in the eyes of the rail-splitters; for, though it was unwedgeable, it helped along the fence rail industry in a very substantial way by furnishing the material of which mauls were made. It drove the wedges and gluts which opened other timbers. About the only maul that would beat out more rails than one of black gum was that made of a chestnut oak knot. The oak beetle’sonly advantage over gum was that it was harder and wore longer. So involved and interlaced are the fibers of black gum, that they cross one another not only at right angles, but at every conceivable angle. This can be seen in examining very thin pieces with a magnifying glass.

The wood is not hard, but is moderately strong, and stiff. It has been compared with hickory, but it is so inferior in almost every essential that no comparison is justified.

Black gum weighs 39.61 pounds per cubic foot. It is very porous, but the pores are too small to be seen by the naked eye, and are diffused through the wood and form no distinct lines or groups. The summerwood is a thin dark line, not prominent enough to clearly delimit the yearly rings of growth. The medullary rays are numerous, but very thin. In quarter-sawed wood they produce a luster, but the individual rays are practically invisible. The wood is not durable in contact with the soil.

The standing tree is apt to fall a victim to the agencies of decay. Hollow trunks, mere shells, are not uncommon. The entire heartwood is liable to fall away. The pioneers cut these hollow trees, and sawing them in lengths of about two feet, made beehives of them. They called them gums because they were cut from gum trees. Larger sizes, used in place of barrels, were also called gums, but these were usually made from sycamores. The black gum is not usually large. Individuals have been measured that were five feet in diameter and more than a hundred in height, but an average of sixty feet high and two in diameter is probably too much, except in the southern Appalachian mountains where the species attains its largest size.

It is a tree which will always be easily recognized after it has been seen and identified once. Its general outline, particularly when leaves are off, is different from other trees associated with it. It might possibly be mistaken for persimmon unless looked at closely; but there are easily-recognized points of difference. Its branches are very small, slender, and short. Its bark is rougher than that of any other gum, and is much darker in color. It is the bark’s color that gives the tree its name. The leaves have smooth edges. In the fall they change to gorgeous red, and one of their peculiarities is that half a leaf may be red while the other half remains green. Toward the end of the season, the green disappears. The dark blue drupes ripen in October. They do not seem to be food for any living creature.

Sawmills include black gum with tupelo in reporting lumber cut, and generally call both of them gum without distinction. The woods are quite different, and neither the standing tree nor the lumber of one need be mistaken for the other. The range of black gum is much moreextensive than that of tupelo. Gum lumber cut north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers may be safely classed as black gum, though a little of both red and tupelo gum is found north of those streams. In the South, the species cannot be separated by regions, for all the gums grow from Texas to Virginia. The total annual output of black gum is not known, but some operators estimate it at about 20,000,000 feet a year, or nearly one-fourth as much as tupelo.

The bulk of black gum lumber is used in the rough, for floors, sheathing, frames, and scaffolds; but a considerable portion is further manufactured. The amounts thus used annually have been ascertained for a few states, and furnish a basis for estimates for the whole country: Mississippi, 7,000 feet; Maryland, 85,000; Illinois, 120,000; Louisiana, 120,000; Missouri, 190,000; Texas, 360,000; Massachusetts, 475,000; Alabama, 486,000.

The uses are general, except that the wood is not employed where attractive figure is required, for black gum is as plain as cottonwood. It is not displeasing in its plainness, for the surface finishes nicely with a soft gloss which, except that it lacks figure, suggests the sap of red gum. It is specially useful in situations where noncleavability is required. Black gum mallets for stone masons and woodworkers are in the market. Mine rollers require a much larger amount. The entire 85,000 feet reported in Maryland was made into such rollers. They furnish the bearing for the rope that hauls the car up the incline out of the coal pit. Its toughness qualifies it for wagon hubs, but it is sometimes objected to because its softness causes the mortises to wear larger where the spokes are inserted, and the wheel does not stand as well as when the hubs are of good oak. Early farmers and lumbermen preferred black gum for ox yokes, and some are still seen where oxen are used; but many other woods are as strong and equally as serviceable for yokes. Rollers of this wood for glass factories are common. It is made into hatters’ blocks where a wood is wanted which, when thoroughly seasoned, will hold its shape. It is less popular for this purpose than yellow poplar. One of the best places for black gum is in the manufacture of bored water pipe. The wood’s interlaced fiber prevents splitting under the internal stress due to hydrostatic pressure. The shell of such pipes can be thinner than with most woods. A drawback is found in the non-durable qualities of black gum. However, the internal pressure of water keeps the wood thoroughly saturated, and prolongs its life when used as pipes.

The makers of firearms employ black gum as gunstocks and pistol grips. The wood is stained to make it darker. It is cut by the rotary process into cheap veneer and is made into baskets and berry crates. Less trouble with the veneer, on account of breaking, is experiencedthan might be expected of a wood so cross-grained. It is sawed into thin lumber for boxes for shipping coffee and other groceries. It is a substitute for cottonwood and yellow poplar in the manufacture of certain lines of woodenware, notably, ironing boards, rolling pins, potato mashers, and chopping bowls. It is made into interior finish for houses; and furniture manufacturers find many places where it is a serviceable material. Musical instrument makers employ it, particularly as trusses for pianos, and in frames of pipe organs. In Louisiana it is converted into excelsior, and in Mississippi into broom handles, and parts of agricultural implements, particularly hoppers and seedboxes.

All gums are hard to season, and this one is no exception. It checks badly, but the checks are usually very small.

Black gum branch

TUPELOTupelo treeTupelo

Tupelo treeTupelo

Tupelo

TUPELO(Nyssa Aquatica)Tupelo is said to be an Indian name. White men have applied it to three species of gum, all of the same genus, namely, black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), sour tupelo (Nyssa ogeche), and tupelo (Nyssa aquatica). Probably, the name tupelo applies as well to one as to the other, for it is said to refer to the drupe-like fruit; but custom confines the name to the species now under consideration. It is largest of the three species, most abundant, and most important. Sour gum is heard in Arkansas and Missouri, swamp tupelo in South Carolina and Louisiana, cotton gum in the two Carolinas and Florida, wild olive tree in Louisiana, and olive tree in Mississippi.The range of tupelo extends from Virginia along the coast to Florida, northward in the Mississippi valley to southern Illinois, and westward to Arkansas and Texas. It prefers swamps and attains largest size in low ground which is subject to frequent overflow. The tree will stand in several feet of water the greater part of the year without injury. It is closely associated with cypress, the planer tree, and other species which grow in deep swamps.Tupelo has not figured much in tree literature outside the books of botanists. Travelers and local writers have paid it little attention. It has not been remarkable for anything in the past, and has escaped observation to a large extent because it grows in swamps and along bayous, remote from the usual routes of travel. Its flowers attracted no attention, its fruit was worthless, and the early settlers did not put themselves to trouble to procure the wood for any purpose. That was the situation from the early settlement of the country where this species is found up to a very recent period when economic conditions began to bring tupelo into notice.It first attracted attention in the markets as a substitute for yellow poplar. That was brought about by an attempt to pass it as poplar. The growing scarcity of that wood in the region about Chesapeake bay led to the trial of tupelo. It was sold as bay poplar, and the purchaser was left to infer that it was poplar cut in the region tributary to Chesapeake bay. Probably few buyers were deceived, but they found the wood a fair substitute for the yellow poplar which they had been purchasing in the Baltimore and Norfolk markets. It is known as bay poplar yet in many localities. It goes to England as such. One of its most important uses in that country is as casing for electric wire fittings. It has, however, many other important uses in England and on thecontinent. It is claimed that it may be stained to imitate Circassian walnut in the manufacture of furniture. This is possible, but most probably tupelo has been confused with red gum which is a well-known substitute for Circassian walnut.Tupelo trees attain a height from seventy to a hundred feet, and a diameter of two to four feet above the swelled base. The general appearance of the bark suggests both yellow poplar and red gum. Trees have a habit of forking near the tops. The leaves are five or seven inches long, sometimes with smooth margins, and often with a few sharp points. Flowers appear in March and April, and fruit ripens early in Autumn. It is a dark purple, tough-skinned drupe, about an inch long.The wood weighs 32.37 pounds per cubic foot. It is soft, and has about three-fourths the strength and little more than half the stiffness of white oak. It is not well suited to places where strength and rigidity are required. The fibers are interwoven, making the wood difficult to split. The heart is brown, often nearly white; the sapwood is very thick; and the annual rings are not clearly defined, because of the similarity between the springwood and summerwood. The pores are small but numerous, and are scattered evenly through the whole annual ring. The wood of roots differs from that of the trunk more than is usual with hardwoods. It is very light, and has been long employed in the South as a substitute for cork as floats for fish nets.Tupelo is often logged with cypress. The two trees grow in close association in deep swamps. The butt cuts of tupelo are so heavy that they float deep, or even go to the bottom. It was formerly customary, and still is to some extent, to girdle trees whose trunks were to be floated to the mills. In the course of one season the standing trees dry sufficiently for the logs to float. At other times, trees are cut green, the logs are skidded and allowed to dry some months before they are rafted or floated to the mills. The sapwood is liable to decay, even in the brief period while the logs are on the skids. The wood may be protected against decay to some extent by smearing the ends of the logs with tar or some other substance which prevents the spores of decay-producing fungus from entering.The seasoning of tupelo was formerly a problem exceedingly vexatious to the lumberman. The wood is full of water, and warping was one of the troubles which was constantly encountered. Finally experience gained the mastery, and seasoning troubles are fewer now. Shrinkage of four or five per cent is not unusual in passing lumber from the green to dry state.Tupelo is like hickory in one respect—factories use more woodthan the sawmills cut. The shops and manufacturing plants of ten states use as much tupelo as is cut by all the sawmills in the United States. These states are Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas. The reason for factory use exceeding the sawmill cut is that much reaches factories, in the form of veneer, which does not pass through a sawmill. The lumber output of most of the timber trees of this country is from one-third to one-half greater than the factory use. The difference represents the rough lumber used, and which never goes to a factory.Tupelo lately entered the general market, but the yearly demand now exceeds 100,000,000 feet. Its uses range from boxes and cheap handles to interior finish and material for musical instruments. It is particularly liked for containers for berries and small fruits, on their way to market. Its whiteness and clean appearance fit it for that use.Higher grades of shipping boxes are also made. Wholesale grocers order largely of this wood for spice, coffee, and tea boxes. These commodities are exacting in their requirements because their odor, which is often regarded as the criterion of their value, must not be impaired. A wood with an odor of its own is immediately ruled out. Cigar box makers use tupelo, sometimes as thin lumber for the whole box, but usually as backing over which to lay a thin veneer of Spanish cedar. Plug tobacco boxes are also made of tupelo.In Illinois and Michigan tupelo is listed among woods manufactured into pianos, organs, mandolins, and guitars. In Maryland they make scows and barges of it. In Arkansas and Louisiana it is worked into excelsior and slack cooperage stock. It is a favorite wood in Mississippi for pumplogs and broom handles. Its leading reported use in Texas is for porch columns. In Missouri it is manufactured into laundry appliances, such as washboards, clothes racks, and ironing boards. In nearly all manufacturing centers of the country it is made into furniture and interior finish. It is frequently substituted for yellow poplar in panels, not only in furniture and cabinet work, but in carriage bodies.The supply of tupelo in southern forests is fairly large, and will meet demand for some years, but it is a tree of slow growth, and when present stands are cut, a new supply will probably never come.Sour Tupelo(Nyssa ogeche) appears to be the only member of the gum group whose fruit is of any value to man, and it is not very important. The large, dull red drupes ripen in July and August, and sometimes hang on the trees until late fall, allowing ample time for gathering them. They are very sour, for which reason the tree is called sour gum. The fruit is put through a pickling process which renders it palatable and it is not an infrequent article on southern pantry shelves. The range of the tree is confined to the region near the coast from the southern border of South Carolina, through the Ogeechee river valley in Georgia, to northern and westernFlorida. The botanical name refers to the river along whose course the trees are most abundant. Local names are gopher plum, Ogeechee lime, and wild lime. The tree is sixty or seventy feet high, one or two in diameter, and is often divided in several stems. Its wood is lightest of the gums, weighing only 28.75 pounds per cubic foot. It is diffuse-porous, and the springwood is scarcely distinguishable from the summerwood. The annual rings of growth are indistinct, and the medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous. The wood is weak, soft, tough, and white, and little difference is apparent between heart and sapwood. The flowers are rich in honey and are valuable to bee keepers. It appears that no reports exist of the use of this wood for any purpose. It is not abundant anywhere.Water Gum(Nyssa biflora) is a member of the gum group, and is of small importance. Trees above thirty feet high are unusual, and the trunk is of poor form, owing to its greatly enlarged base. This gum is found on the margins of small ponds in the pine barrens from North Carolina to the Gulf coast. The leaves turn purple and red in the fall, and are then conspicuous objects. The fruit is a blue drupe about a third of an inch long. The wood is light, tough, and difficult to split.Tupelo branch

Tupelo is said to be an Indian name. White men have applied it to three species of gum, all of the same genus, namely, black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), sour tupelo (Nyssa ogeche), and tupelo (Nyssa aquatica). Probably, the name tupelo applies as well to one as to the other, for it is said to refer to the drupe-like fruit; but custom confines the name to the species now under consideration. It is largest of the three species, most abundant, and most important. Sour gum is heard in Arkansas and Missouri, swamp tupelo in South Carolina and Louisiana, cotton gum in the two Carolinas and Florida, wild olive tree in Louisiana, and olive tree in Mississippi.

The range of tupelo extends from Virginia along the coast to Florida, northward in the Mississippi valley to southern Illinois, and westward to Arkansas and Texas. It prefers swamps and attains largest size in low ground which is subject to frequent overflow. The tree will stand in several feet of water the greater part of the year without injury. It is closely associated with cypress, the planer tree, and other species which grow in deep swamps.

Tupelo has not figured much in tree literature outside the books of botanists. Travelers and local writers have paid it little attention. It has not been remarkable for anything in the past, and has escaped observation to a large extent because it grows in swamps and along bayous, remote from the usual routes of travel. Its flowers attracted no attention, its fruit was worthless, and the early settlers did not put themselves to trouble to procure the wood for any purpose. That was the situation from the early settlement of the country where this species is found up to a very recent period when economic conditions began to bring tupelo into notice.

It first attracted attention in the markets as a substitute for yellow poplar. That was brought about by an attempt to pass it as poplar. The growing scarcity of that wood in the region about Chesapeake bay led to the trial of tupelo. It was sold as bay poplar, and the purchaser was left to infer that it was poplar cut in the region tributary to Chesapeake bay. Probably few buyers were deceived, but they found the wood a fair substitute for the yellow poplar which they had been purchasing in the Baltimore and Norfolk markets. It is known as bay poplar yet in many localities. It goes to England as such. One of its most important uses in that country is as casing for electric wire fittings. It has, however, many other important uses in England and on thecontinent. It is claimed that it may be stained to imitate Circassian walnut in the manufacture of furniture. This is possible, but most probably tupelo has been confused with red gum which is a well-known substitute for Circassian walnut.

Tupelo trees attain a height from seventy to a hundred feet, and a diameter of two to four feet above the swelled base. The general appearance of the bark suggests both yellow poplar and red gum. Trees have a habit of forking near the tops. The leaves are five or seven inches long, sometimes with smooth margins, and often with a few sharp points. Flowers appear in March and April, and fruit ripens early in Autumn. It is a dark purple, tough-skinned drupe, about an inch long.

The wood weighs 32.37 pounds per cubic foot. It is soft, and has about three-fourths the strength and little more than half the stiffness of white oak. It is not well suited to places where strength and rigidity are required. The fibers are interwoven, making the wood difficult to split. The heart is brown, often nearly white; the sapwood is very thick; and the annual rings are not clearly defined, because of the similarity between the springwood and summerwood. The pores are small but numerous, and are scattered evenly through the whole annual ring. The wood of roots differs from that of the trunk more than is usual with hardwoods. It is very light, and has been long employed in the South as a substitute for cork as floats for fish nets.

Tupelo is often logged with cypress. The two trees grow in close association in deep swamps. The butt cuts of tupelo are so heavy that they float deep, or even go to the bottom. It was formerly customary, and still is to some extent, to girdle trees whose trunks were to be floated to the mills. In the course of one season the standing trees dry sufficiently for the logs to float. At other times, trees are cut green, the logs are skidded and allowed to dry some months before they are rafted or floated to the mills. The sapwood is liable to decay, even in the brief period while the logs are on the skids. The wood may be protected against decay to some extent by smearing the ends of the logs with tar or some other substance which prevents the spores of decay-producing fungus from entering.

The seasoning of tupelo was formerly a problem exceedingly vexatious to the lumberman. The wood is full of water, and warping was one of the troubles which was constantly encountered. Finally experience gained the mastery, and seasoning troubles are fewer now. Shrinkage of four or five per cent is not unusual in passing lumber from the green to dry state.

Tupelo is like hickory in one respect—factories use more woodthan the sawmills cut. The shops and manufacturing plants of ten states use as much tupelo as is cut by all the sawmills in the United States. These states are Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas. The reason for factory use exceeding the sawmill cut is that much reaches factories, in the form of veneer, which does not pass through a sawmill. The lumber output of most of the timber trees of this country is from one-third to one-half greater than the factory use. The difference represents the rough lumber used, and which never goes to a factory.

Tupelo lately entered the general market, but the yearly demand now exceeds 100,000,000 feet. Its uses range from boxes and cheap handles to interior finish and material for musical instruments. It is particularly liked for containers for berries and small fruits, on their way to market. Its whiteness and clean appearance fit it for that use.

Higher grades of shipping boxes are also made. Wholesale grocers order largely of this wood for spice, coffee, and tea boxes. These commodities are exacting in their requirements because their odor, which is often regarded as the criterion of their value, must not be impaired. A wood with an odor of its own is immediately ruled out. Cigar box makers use tupelo, sometimes as thin lumber for the whole box, but usually as backing over which to lay a thin veneer of Spanish cedar. Plug tobacco boxes are also made of tupelo.

In Illinois and Michigan tupelo is listed among woods manufactured into pianos, organs, mandolins, and guitars. In Maryland they make scows and barges of it. In Arkansas and Louisiana it is worked into excelsior and slack cooperage stock. It is a favorite wood in Mississippi for pumplogs and broom handles. Its leading reported use in Texas is for porch columns. In Missouri it is manufactured into laundry appliances, such as washboards, clothes racks, and ironing boards. In nearly all manufacturing centers of the country it is made into furniture and interior finish. It is frequently substituted for yellow poplar in panels, not only in furniture and cabinet work, but in carriage bodies.

The supply of tupelo in southern forests is fairly large, and will meet demand for some years, but it is a tree of slow growth, and when present stands are cut, a new supply will probably never come.

Sour Tupelo(Nyssa ogeche) appears to be the only member of the gum group whose fruit is of any value to man, and it is not very important. The large, dull red drupes ripen in July and August, and sometimes hang on the trees until late fall, allowing ample time for gathering them. They are very sour, for which reason the tree is called sour gum. The fruit is put through a pickling process which renders it palatable and it is not an infrequent article on southern pantry shelves. The range of the tree is confined to the region near the coast from the southern border of South Carolina, through the Ogeechee river valley in Georgia, to northern and westernFlorida. The botanical name refers to the river along whose course the trees are most abundant. Local names are gopher plum, Ogeechee lime, and wild lime. The tree is sixty or seventy feet high, one or two in diameter, and is often divided in several stems. Its wood is lightest of the gums, weighing only 28.75 pounds per cubic foot. It is diffuse-porous, and the springwood is scarcely distinguishable from the summerwood. The annual rings of growth are indistinct, and the medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous. The wood is weak, soft, tough, and white, and little difference is apparent between heart and sapwood. The flowers are rich in honey and are valuable to bee keepers. It appears that no reports exist of the use of this wood for any purpose. It is not abundant anywhere.Water Gum(Nyssa biflora) is a member of the gum group, and is of small importance. Trees above thirty feet high are unusual, and the trunk is of poor form, owing to its greatly enlarged base. This gum is found on the margins of small ponds in the pine barrens from North Carolina to the Gulf coast. The leaves turn purple and red in the fall, and are then conspicuous objects. The fruit is a blue drupe about a third of an inch long. The wood is light, tough, and difficult to split.

Water Gum(Nyssa biflora) is a member of the gum group, and is of small importance. Trees above thirty feet high are unusual, and the trunk is of poor form, owing to its greatly enlarged base. This gum is found on the margins of small ponds in the pine barrens from North Carolina to the Gulf coast. The leaves turn purple and red in the fall, and are then conspicuous objects. The fruit is a blue drupe about a third of an inch long. The wood is light, tough, and difficult to split.

Tupelo branch

BLACK WALNUTBlack walnutBlack Walnut

Black walnutBlack Walnut

Black Walnut

BLACK WALNUT(Juglans Nigra)This tree has few names. It is called walnut, black walnut, and walnut-tree. The color of the wood and bark is responsible for the word black in the name, though some people use the adjective to distinguish the tree from butternut which is often known as white walnut. The natural range of black walnut covers 600,000 or 700,000 square miles, and it has been extended by planting. Its northern limit stretches from New York to Minnesota, its southern from Florida to Texas. It is difficult to say where the species found its highest development in the primeval forests, for very large trees were reported in New York, among the southern Appalachian mountains, in the Ohio valley, and beyond the Mississippi in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas. The wood cut in Ohio and Indiana has been of greater commercial importance than that from any other portion of its range, but that has been due, in part, to the fact that it came into market before the best of the forest growth had been destroyed in those states, and instead of burning it or mauling it into rails, as eastern farmers did in early times, the farmers of the Ohio valley sold their walnut. Early in the history of black walnut lumbering, Indiana and Ohio came to the front as the most important sources of supply, and they still hold that position, notwithstanding the original forests of those states were supposed to be nearly exhausted long ago. The states cutting most black walnut in 1910, in the order named, were Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Iowa.During the period from 1860 to 1880 black walnut was in much demand for furniture, and the largest yearly cut was 125,000,000 feet. It was during that period of twenty years that operators pushed into all of the out-of-the-way places in search of the timber. Logs were hauled on wagons long distances to bring them out of remote valleys and slopes where no timber buyer had ever gone before. The walnut buyers made such a thorough canvas of the country that it was generally supposed no merchantable tree from Kansas to Virginia would escape. Many a dooryard giant whose wide branches had shaded the family roof for generations, fell before the ax of the contractor who was willing to pay fifty dollars for a single trunk, though it might be twenty miles from the nearest railroad or navigable stream. In spite of the thoroughness of the search, many a walnut tree was spared. Logs have been going to market ever since, and still they go. They will continue to go for years, generations, and centuries; for walnut trees grow with rapidity.The trunk’s value increases with age. The dark colored heartwood only is merchantable, and young trees have little heartwood. The thick, white sap constitutes most of the trunk until long after the tree has reached small sawlog size. Then the transformation to the dark, valuable heartwood goes on with fair rapidity, and the outer shell of sapwood becomes thinner as the heart increases, and in time a trunk is produced which is fit for good logs. Value comes only with age. The quarter or half a century which has passed since the country was so diligently ransacked for merchantable walnut, has been sufficient to develop many a tree which was then rejected by the purchasers. Many a tree now a foot in diameter had scarcely sprouted then. In a region of 700,000 square miles, walnut trees do not need to grow very close together to produce a yearly cut of 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 feet.Black walnut is valuable for its color, figure, and the fine polish it takes. It is stronger than white oak, weight for weight, but it is eight pounds lighter per cubic foot. The figure of the wood is due wholly to the annual rings, as its medullary rays are invisible to the naked eye. The wood is very porous, and the pores are diffused in all parts of the annual rings, except in the thin, pencil-like mark representing the outward boundary of the summerwood. When sapwood changes to heartwood, some of the pores disappear, but those which remain are abundantly sufficient to absorb any stains or fillers which the wood finisher may wish to apply.The annual sawmill cut of black walnut in the United States is from 35,000,000 to 40,000,000 feet, but much goes to foreign countries in the log, and a considerable quantity goes to veneer mills—about 2,500,000 feet a year—and a quantity finds its way to various factories where it is worked up without any statistical record being made of it.Black walnut is never used as rough lumber. It all goes to factories of some kind to be converted into finished commodities. It is not possible to say where it all goes, for statistics of manufacture are fragmentary in this country. It may be of interest to know that demand for walnut by factories in the following states was 11,641,137 feet in 1910: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas. The wood served so many purposes that a list of them would be monotonous. In Illinois the largest users are the sewing machine and the musical instrument industries; in Michigan the makers of automobiles and of musical instruments; in Kentucky the manufacturers of coffins, furniture, and musical instruments; in Massachusetts, the makers of furniture and of firearms. These uses probably afford a fairly accurate index for the whole country. During the Civil war the largest demand for walnut came from gunstockmakers. Doubtless the largest use from 1865 to 1885 was for furniture.Much of the best black walnut is exported. The logs are flattened on the four sides to make them fit better in ships and cars, and also to be rid of most of the sapwood which is valueless. The ends are painted with red lead or some other substance to lessen liability to check. Sometimes export walnut is sawed in thick planks.Large quantities of old-time walnut furniture have been resurrected in recent years from granary and garret where it was stored long ago to have it out of the way. Some of the old beds, lounges, cupboards, and chairs were of heavy, solid walnut, the kind not made now. Some of it has been furbished, re-upholstered, and set among the heirlooms; other pieces have been sold to furniture makers who saw the solid wood in veneers, and use it again.The search for old walnut did not stop with dragging antique furniture from cubbyholes and attics, but two-inch lumber has been pulled from floors of old barns, and mills. Many old fence rails were made into gun stocks during the Civil war. Later, walnut stumps were pulled from field and wayside, and went to veneer mills. Some finely figured wood comes from stumps where roots and trunk join.An occasional walnut tree develops a large burl which is valued for its figured wood. Sometimes the burl is the form of a door knob, with the tree trunk growing through the center. The burl sometimes has a diameter three or four times as great as the trunk. The origin of such burls is supposed to be a mass of buds which fail to break through the bark.Black walnut has a compound leaf from one to two feet long, with from fifteen to twenty-three leaflets, each about three inches long and an inch or two wide. The nuts ripen in the fall, and are valuable. They are borne chiefly by trees growing in open ground; forest trees do not bear until old, and then only a few nuts. The walnuts which germinate are usually those buried by squirrels, and forgotten.Within the past twenty or thirty years plantations have been made in states of the Middle West. Many young planted trees have been cut for fence posts, with disappointing results. It was known that old walnut is durable, and it was supposed young trunks would be, when used for posts; but young trees are nearly all sapwood which rots quickly.Forest grown walnut trees vary in size from a diameter of two feet and a height of fifty, to a diameter of six or more and a height of 100 or 120. Trunks which grow in the shade are tall, clear, and symmetrical; those in the open are shorter, with more taper.Pale-leaf Hickory(Hicoria villosa) is a small tree but large enough to be useful wherever it exists in sufficient quantity. The largest specimens attain a height of fifty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches. The tree bears nuts when very small, and the kernel is sweet. The bark of this hickory is rough but not shaggy. The range extends from New Jersey to Florida and west to Missouri and Texas. It is most abundant in the lower Appalachian ranges. The wood possesses the common characteristics of the hickories, and it is cut with them wherever it is found, but is seldom or never reported separately in lumber operations.Small Pignut Hickory(Hicoria odorata) is considered a species by some botanists while others regard it as a variety. It is called small pignut in Maryland, and occasionally little shagbark. This last name refers to the roughness of the bark which resembles the bark of elm. The range of the tree extends from Massachusetts to Missouri and south to the Ohio and the Potomac rivers. The wood differs little from that of pignut hickory, and the uses are the same. No distinction is made between them at the shop and factory. This tree is by some botanists believed to be a hybrid between shagbark and pignut. It is sometimes called false shagbark. The nut is edible.Black walnut branch

This tree has few names. It is called walnut, black walnut, and walnut-tree. The color of the wood and bark is responsible for the word black in the name, though some people use the adjective to distinguish the tree from butternut which is often known as white walnut. The natural range of black walnut covers 600,000 or 700,000 square miles, and it has been extended by planting. Its northern limit stretches from New York to Minnesota, its southern from Florida to Texas. It is difficult to say where the species found its highest development in the primeval forests, for very large trees were reported in New York, among the southern Appalachian mountains, in the Ohio valley, and beyond the Mississippi in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas. The wood cut in Ohio and Indiana has been of greater commercial importance than that from any other portion of its range, but that has been due, in part, to the fact that it came into market before the best of the forest growth had been destroyed in those states, and instead of burning it or mauling it into rails, as eastern farmers did in early times, the farmers of the Ohio valley sold their walnut. Early in the history of black walnut lumbering, Indiana and Ohio came to the front as the most important sources of supply, and they still hold that position, notwithstanding the original forests of those states were supposed to be nearly exhausted long ago. The states cutting most black walnut in 1910, in the order named, were Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Iowa.

During the period from 1860 to 1880 black walnut was in much demand for furniture, and the largest yearly cut was 125,000,000 feet. It was during that period of twenty years that operators pushed into all of the out-of-the-way places in search of the timber. Logs were hauled on wagons long distances to bring them out of remote valleys and slopes where no timber buyer had ever gone before. The walnut buyers made such a thorough canvas of the country that it was generally supposed no merchantable tree from Kansas to Virginia would escape. Many a dooryard giant whose wide branches had shaded the family roof for generations, fell before the ax of the contractor who was willing to pay fifty dollars for a single trunk, though it might be twenty miles from the nearest railroad or navigable stream. In spite of the thoroughness of the search, many a walnut tree was spared. Logs have been going to market ever since, and still they go. They will continue to go for years, generations, and centuries; for walnut trees grow with rapidity.

The trunk’s value increases with age. The dark colored heartwood only is merchantable, and young trees have little heartwood. The thick, white sap constitutes most of the trunk until long after the tree has reached small sawlog size. Then the transformation to the dark, valuable heartwood goes on with fair rapidity, and the outer shell of sapwood becomes thinner as the heart increases, and in time a trunk is produced which is fit for good logs. Value comes only with age. The quarter or half a century which has passed since the country was so diligently ransacked for merchantable walnut, has been sufficient to develop many a tree which was then rejected by the purchasers. Many a tree now a foot in diameter had scarcely sprouted then. In a region of 700,000 square miles, walnut trees do not need to grow very close together to produce a yearly cut of 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 feet.

Black walnut is valuable for its color, figure, and the fine polish it takes. It is stronger than white oak, weight for weight, but it is eight pounds lighter per cubic foot. The figure of the wood is due wholly to the annual rings, as its medullary rays are invisible to the naked eye. The wood is very porous, and the pores are diffused in all parts of the annual rings, except in the thin, pencil-like mark representing the outward boundary of the summerwood. When sapwood changes to heartwood, some of the pores disappear, but those which remain are abundantly sufficient to absorb any stains or fillers which the wood finisher may wish to apply.

The annual sawmill cut of black walnut in the United States is from 35,000,000 to 40,000,000 feet, but much goes to foreign countries in the log, and a considerable quantity goes to veneer mills—about 2,500,000 feet a year—and a quantity finds its way to various factories where it is worked up without any statistical record being made of it.

Black walnut is never used as rough lumber. It all goes to factories of some kind to be converted into finished commodities. It is not possible to say where it all goes, for statistics of manufacture are fragmentary in this country. It may be of interest to know that demand for walnut by factories in the following states was 11,641,137 feet in 1910: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas. The wood served so many purposes that a list of them would be monotonous. In Illinois the largest users are the sewing machine and the musical instrument industries; in Michigan the makers of automobiles and of musical instruments; in Kentucky the manufacturers of coffins, furniture, and musical instruments; in Massachusetts, the makers of furniture and of firearms. These uses probably afford a fairly accurate index for the whole country. During the Civil war the largest demand for walnut came from gunstockmakers. Doubtless the largest use from 1865 to 1885 was for furniture.

Much of the best black walnut is exported. The logs are flattened on the four sides to make them fit better in ships and cars, and also to be rid of most of the sapwood which is valueless. The ends are painted with red lead or some other substance to lessen liability to check. Sometimes export walnut is sawed in thick planks.

Large quantities of old-time walnut furniture have been resurrected in recent years from granary and garret where it was stored long ago to have it out of the way. Some of the old beds, lounges, cupboards, and chairs were of heavy, solid walnut, the kind not made now. Some of it has been furbished, re-upholstered, and set among the heirlooms; other pieces have been sold to furniture makers who saw the solid wood in veneers, and use it again.

The search for old walnut did not stop with dragging antique furniture from cubbyholes and attics, but two-inch lumber has been pulled from floors of old barns, and mills. Many old fence rails were made into gun stocks during the Civil war. Later, walnut stumps were pulled from field and wayside, and went to veneer mills. Some finely figured wood comes from stumps where roots and trunk join.

An occasional walnut tree develops a large burl which is valued for its figured wood. Sometimes the burl is the form of a door knob, with the tree trunk growing through the center. The burl sometimes has a diameter three or four times as great as the trunk. The origin of such burls is supposed to be a mass of buds which fail to break through the bark.

Black walnut has a compound leaf from one to two feet long, with from fifteen to twenty-three leaflets, each about three inches long and an inch or two wide. The nuts ripen in the fall, and are valuable. They are borne chiefly by trees growing in open ground; forest trees do not bear until old, and then only a few nuts. The walnuts which germinate are usually those buried by squirrels, and forgotten.

Within the past twenty or thirty years plantations have been made in states of the Middle West. Many young planted trees have been cut for fence posts, with disappointing results. It was known that old walnut is durable, and it was supposed young trunks would be, when used for posts; but young trees are nearly all sapwood which rots quickly.

Forest grown walnut trees vary in size from a diameter of two feet and a height of fifty, to a diameter of six or more and a height of 100 or 120. Trunks which grow in the shade are tall, clear, and symmetrical; those in the open are shorter, with more taper.

Pale-leaf Hickory(Hicoria villosa) is a small tree but large enough to be useful wherever it exists in sufficient quantity. The largest specimens attain a height of fifty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches. The tree bears nuts when very small, and the kernel is sweet. The bark of this hickory is rough but not shaggy. The range extends from New Jersey to Florida and west to Missouri and Texas. It is most abundant in the lower Appalachian ranges. The wood possesses the common characteristics of the hickories, and it is cut with them wherever it is found, but is seldom or never reported separately in lumber operations.Small Pignut Hickory(Hicoria odorata) is considered a species by some botanists while others regard it as a variety. It is called small pignut in Maryland, and occasionally little shagbark. This last name refers to the roughness of the bark which resembles the bark of elm. The range of the tree extends from Massachusetts to Missouri and south to the Ohio and the Potomac rivers. The wood differs little from that of pignut hickory, and the uses are the same. No distinction is made between them at the shop and factory. This tree is by some botanists believed to be a hybrid between shagbark and pignut. It is sometimes called false shagbark. The nut is edible.

Small Pignut Hickory(Hicoria odorata) is considered a species by some botanists while others regard it as a variety. It is called small pignut in Maryland, and occasionally little shagbark. This last name refers to the roughness of the bark which resembles the bark of elm. The range of the tree extends from Massachusetts to Missouri and south to the Ohio and the Potomac rivers. The wood differs little from that of pignut hickory, and the uses are the same. No distinction is made between them at the shop and factory. This tree is by some botanists believed to be a hybrid between shagbark and pignut. It is sometimes called false shagbark. The nut is edible.

Black walnut branch

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