TAMARACK

TAMARACKTamarackTamarack

TamarackTamarack

Tamarack

TAMARACK(Larix Laricina)There are three species of tamarack or larch in the United States, and probably a fourth is confined to Alaska. One has its range in the northeastern states, extending south to West Virginia and northwestward to Alaska. Two are found in the northwestern states. Other species are native of the eastern hemisphere, and some of them have been planted to some extent in this country. A species of Europe is of much importance in that country. The tamaracks lose their leaves in the fall and the branches are bare during the winter. The name tamarack or larch should be applied only to trees of the genuslarix. This rule is not observed in some parts of the West where the noble fir (Abies nobilis) is occasionally called larch by lumbermen. It is not entitled to that name, and confusion results from such use.The larches are easily identified. They have needle leaves like those of pines and firs, but they are differently arranged. They are produced in little brush-like bundles, from twelve to forty leaves in each, on all the shoots, except the leaders. On these the leaves occur singly. The little brushes are so conspicuous, and so characteristic of this genus, including all its species, that there should be little difficulty in identifying the larches when the leaves are on. In winter, when the branches are bare, there are other easy marks of identification.The little brushes are interesting objects of study. Botanists tell us that the excrescence or bud-like knob from which the leaves grow is really a suppressed or aborted branch, with all its leaves crowded together at the end. If it were developed, it would bear its leaves singly, scattered along its full length, as they occur on the leading shoots. The warty appearance of the branches in winter is a very convenient means of identification when the leaves are down.The cones of larches mature in a single season, and often hang on the trees several years. They are conspicuous in winter when the branches are bare of foliage. The adhering cones are generally seedless after the first season, since they quickly let their winged seeds go. The male and female flowers are produced singly on branches of the previous year.The eastern and northern larch (Larix laricina) has a number of names. It is commonly known as tamarack in the New England states and in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and in Canada. The name larch is applied in practically all the regions where it grows, but it is not used asfrequently as tamarack. Hackmatack, which was the Indian name for the tree in part of its eastern range, is still in use in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, and Ontario. Nurserymen call it American larch to distinguish it from other larches on the market, particularly the European larch. Michaux, an early French botanist who explored American forests, called it American larch (Larix americana), and the name which he gave has been retained by many scientists to this day. In the Canadian provinces north of the Great Lakes, and also in Maine and New Brunswick, it is frequently called juniper, but without good reason, for it has little of the appearance and few of the qualities of the junipers. In some localities it is called black larch, and in others red larch. The first name refers to the color of its bark, the last to the leaves when about to fall, for they then change to a brown or reddish color. They fall in the autumn, and the branches are bare until the next spring. Some of the New York Indians observed that peculiarity of the tree which they thought should be an evergreen like the balsam and pines with which it was often associated, and they named it kenehtens, meaning “the leaves fall”. Indians did not, as a rule, give separate names to tree species, and when they did so, it was because of food value, or from some peculiarity which could not fail to attract the notice of a savage.The tamarack’s geographical range is remarkable. It is said to be best developed in the region east of Manitoba, but it extends southward into West Virginia and northward to the land of the midnight sun. It maintains its place almost to the arctic snows, and the willow is about the only tree that pushes farther north. It is found from Newfoundland and Labrador far down toward the mouth of the Mackenzie river, north of the arctic circle. It grows on dry land as well as wet, but is oftenest found in cold swamps, particularly in the southern part of its range. Silted-up lakes are favorite situations, and on the made-land above old beaver dams.Tamarack forests frequently stand on ground so soft that a pole may be thrust ten feet deep in the mud. The moist, monotonous sphagnum moss generally furnishes ground cover in such places. A tamarack swamp in summer is cool and pleasant—provided there is not too much water on the ground—but in winter a more desolate picture can scarcely be imagined. The leafless trees appear to be dead, and covered with lifeless cones; but the first warm days bring it to life.The average height of tamarack trees is from forty to sixty feet, diameter twenty inches or less. Leaves are one-half or one and a half inches long; cones one-half or three-quarter inches, and bright chestnut brown at maturity. They fall when two years old. The winged seedsare very small. The tree is neither a frequent nor abundant seeder. The foliage is thin, and is not sufficient to shut much sunlight from the ground.The wood is heavy, hard, very strong, and is durable in contact with the soil. The growth is slow, annual rings narrow, summerwood occupies nearly half the ring, and is dark-colored, resinous, and conspicuous; resin passages few and obscure; medullary rays numerous and obscure; color of wood light brown, the sapwood nearly white.The uses of tamarack go back to prehistoric times. The Indians of Canada and northeastern United States drew supplies from four forest trees when they made their bark canoes. The bark for the shell came from paper birch, threads for sewing the strips of bark together were tamarack roots, resin for stopping leaks was a product of balsam fir, and the light framework of wood was northern white cedar.The roots which best suited the Indian’s purpose came from trees which grew in soft, deep mud, where lakes and beaver ponds had silted up. Such roots are long, slender, and very tough and pliant, and may be gathered in large numbers, particularly where running streams have partly undermined standing trees.White men likewise made use of tamarack roots in boat building, but the roots were different from what the Indians used. “Instep” crooks were hewed for ship knees. These were large roots, the larger the better. Trees which produced them did not grow in deep mud, for there the roots did not develop crooks. The ship knee operator hunted for tamarack forests growing on a soft surface soil two or three feet deep, underlaid by stiff clay or rock which roots could not penetrate. In situations like that the roots go straight down until they reach the hard stratum, and then turn at right angles and grow in a horizontal direction. The turning point in the root develops the crook of which the ship knee is made.Tamarack is seldom of sufficient size for the largest ship knees. Such were formerly supplied by southern live oak; and in that case crooks formed by the union of trunk and large branches were as good as those produced by the union of trunk and large roots.Tamarack is still employed in the manufacture of boat knees, but not as much as formerly. Steel frames have largely taken the place of wood in the construction of ship skeletons. Boat builders use tamarack now for floors, keels, stringers, and knees.Tamarack has come into much use in recent years. Sawmills cut from it more than 125,000,000 feet of lumber a year. Fourteen states contribute, but most of the lumber is produced in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Railroads in the United States buy 5,000,000 or moretamarack ties a year, which reduced to board measure amount to over 150,000,000 feet. Fence posts and telegraph poles come in large numbers from tamarack forests.The wood is stiff and strong, its stiffness being eighty-four per cent of that of long leaf pine, and its strength about eighty per cent. Unusual variations in both strength and stiffness are found. One stick of tamarack may rate twice as high as another.The wood-using factories of Michigan consume nearly 20,000,000 feet of this wood yearly. It is made into boxes, excelsior, pails, tanks, tubs, house finish, refrigerators, windmills, and wooden pipes for waterworks and for draining mines.There is little likelihood that the supply of tamarack will run short in the near future. While it is not in the first rank of the important trees in this country, it is useful, and it is fortunate that it promises to hold its ground against fires which do grave injury to northern forests. In the swamps where the most of it is found the ground litter is too damp to burn. The tree does not grow rapidly, but it usually occupies lands which cannot be profitably devoted to agriculture, and it will, therefore, be let alone until it reaches maturity.Tamarack is a familiar tree in parks, and it grows farther south than its natural range extends. It is not as desirable a park tree as hemlock, spruce, fir, the cedars, and some of the pines, because its foliage is thin in summer and wanting in winter. It is in a class with cypress. In the early spring, however, while its soft green needles are beginning to show themselves in clusters along the twigs, its delicate and unusual appearance attracts more attention than its companion trees which are always in full leaf and for that reason are somewhat monotonous.Tamarack branch

There are three species of tamarack or larch in the United States, and probably a fourth is confined to Alaska. One has its range in the northeastern states, extending south to West Virginia and northwestward to Alaska. Two are found in the northwestern states. Other species are native of the eastern hemisphere, and some of them have been planted to some extent in this country. A species of Europe is of much importance in that country. The tamaracks lose their leaves in the fall and the branches are bare during the winter. The name tamarack or larch should be applied only to trees of the genuslarix. This rule is not observed in some parts of the West where the noble fir (Abies nobilis) is occasionally called larch by lumbermen. It is not entitled to that name, and confusion results from such use.

The larches are easily identified. They have needle leaves like those of pines and firs, but they are differently arranged. They are produced in little brush-like bundles, from twelve to forty leaves in each, on all the shoots, except the leaders. On these the leaves occur singly. The little brushes are so conspicuous, and so characteristic of this genus, including all its species, that there should be little difficulty in identifying the larches when the leaves are on. In winter, when the branches are bare, there are other easy marks of identification.

The little brushes are interesting objects of study. Botanists tell us that the excrescence or bud-like knob from which the leaves grow is really a suppressed or aborted branch, with all its leaves crowded together at the end. If it were developed, it would bear its leaves singly, scattered along its full length, as they occur on the leading shoots. The warty appearance of the branches in winter is a very convenient means of identification when the leaves are down.

The cones of larches mature in a single season, and often hang on the trees several years. They are conspicuous in winter when the branches are bare of foliage. The adhering cones are generally seedless after the first season, since they quickly let their winged seeds go. The male and female flowers are produced singly on branches of the previous year.

The eastern and northern larch (Larix laricina) has a number of names. It is commonly known as tamarack in the New England states and in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and in Canada. The name larch is applied in practically all the regions where it grows, but it is not used asfrequently as tamarack. Hackmatack, which was the Indian name for the tree in part of its eastern range, is still in use in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, and Ontario. Nurserymen call it American larch to distinguish it from other larches on the market, particularly the European larch. Michaux, an early French botanist who explored American forests, called it American larch (Larix americana), and the name which he gave has been retained by many scientists to this day. In the Canadian provinces north of the Great Lakes, and also in Maine and New Brunswick, it is frequently called juniper, but without good reason, for it has little of the appearance and few of the qualities of the junipers. In some localities it is called black larch, and in others red larch. The first name refers to the color of its bark, the last to the leaves when about to fall, for they then change to a brown or reddish color. They fall in the autumn, and the branches are bare until the next spring. Some of the New York Indians observed that peculiarity of the tree which they thought should be an evergreen like the balsam and pines with which it was often associated, and they named it kenehtens, meaning “the leaves fall”. Indians did not, as a rule, give separate names to tree species, and when they did so, it was because of food value, or from some peculiarity which could not fail to attract the notice of a savage.

The tamarack’s geographical range is remarkable. It is said to be best developed in the region east of Manitoba, but it extends southward into West Virginia and northward to the land of the midnight sun. It maintains its place almost to the arctic snows, and the willow is about the only tree that pushes farther north. It is found from Newfoundland and Labrador far down toward the mouth of the Mackenzie river, north of the arctic circle. It grows on dry land as well as wet, but is oftenest found in cold swamps, particularly in the southern part of its range. Silted-up lakes are favorite situations, and on the made-land above old beaver dams.

Tamarack forests frequently stand on ground so soft that a pole may be thrust ten feet deep in the mud. The moist, monotonous sphagnum moss generally furnishes ground cover in such places. A tamarack swamp in summer is cool and pleasant—provided there is not too much water on the ground—but in winter a more desolate picture can scarcely be imagined. The leafless trees appear to be dead, and covered with lifeless cones; but the first warm days bring it to life.

The average height of tamarack trees is from forty to sixty feet, diameter twenty inches or less. Leaves are one-half or one and a half inches long; cones one-half or three-quarter inches, and bright chestnut brown at maturity. They fall when two years old. The winged seedsare very small. The tree is neither a frequent nor abundant seeder. The foliage is thin, and is not sufficient to shut much sunlight from the ground.

The wood is heavy, hard, very strong, and is durable in contact with the soil. The growth is slow, annual rings narrow, summerwood occupies nearly half the ring, and is dark-colored, resinous, and conspicuous; resin passages few and obscure; medullary rays numerous and obscure; color of wood light brown, the sapwood nearly white.

The uses of tamarack go back to prehistoric times. The Indians of Canada and northeastern United States drew supplies from four forest trees when they made their bark canoes. The bark for the shell came from paper birch, threads for sewing the strips of bark together were tamarack roots, resin for stopping leaks was a product of balsam fir, and the light framework of wood was northern white cedar.

The roots which best suited the Indian’s purpose came from trees which grew in soft, deep mud, where lakes and beaver ponds had silted up. Such roots are long, slender, and very tough and pliant, and may be gathered in large numbers, particularly where running streams have partly undermined standing trees.

White men likewise made use of tamarack roots in boat building, but the roots were different from what the Indians used. “Instep” crooks were hewed for ship knees. These were large roots, the larger the better. Trees which produced them did not grow in deep mud, for there the roots did not develop crooks. The ship knee operator hunted for tamarack forests growing on a soft surface soil two or three feet deep, underlaid by stiff clay or rock which roots could not penetrate. In situations like that the roots go straight down until they reach the hard stratum, and then turn at right angles and grow in a horizontal direction. The turning point in the root develops the crook of which the ship knee is made.

Tamarack is seldom of sufficient size for the largest ship knees. Such were formerly supplied by southern live oak; and in that case crooks formed by the union of trunk and large branches were as good as those produced by the union of trunk and large roots.

Tamarack is still employed in the manufacture of boat knees, but not as much as formerly. Steel frames have largely taken the place of wood in the construction of ship skeletons. Boat builders use tamarack now for floors, keels, stringers, and knees.

Tamarack has come into much use in recent years. Sawmills cut from it more than 125,000,000 feet of lumber a year. Fourteen states contribute, but most of the lumber is produced in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Railroads in the United States buy 5,000,000 or moretamarack ties a year, which reduced to board measure amount to over 150,000,000 feet. Fence posts and telegraph poles come in large numbers from tamarack forests.

The wood is stiff and strong, its stiffness being eighty-four per cent of that of long leaf pine, and its strength about eighty per cent. Unusual variations in both strength and stiffness are found. One stick of tamarack may rate twice as high as another.

The wood-using factories of Michigan consume nearly 20,000,000 feet of this wood yearly. It is made into boxes, excelsior, pails, tanks, tubs, house finish, refrigerators, windmills, and wooden pipes for waterworks and for draining mines.

There is little likelihood that the supply of tamarack will run short in the near future. While it is not in the first rank of the important trees in this country, it is useful, and it is fortunate that it promises to hold its ground against fires which do grave injury to northern forests. In the swamps where the most of it is found the ground litter is too damp to burn. The tree does not grow rapidly, but it usually occupies lands which cannot be profitably devoted to agriculture, and it will, therefore, be let alone until it reaches maturity.

Tamarack is a familiar tree in parks, and it grows farther south than its natural range extends. It is not as desirable a park tree as hemlock, spruce, fir, the cedars, and some of the pines, because its foliage is thin in summer and wanting in winter. It is in a class with cypress. In the early spring, however, while its soft green needles are beginning to show themselves in clusters along the twigs, its delicate and unusual appearance attracts more attention than its companion trees which are always in full leaf and for that reason are somewhat monotonous.

Tamarack branch

WESTERN LARCHWestern larchWestern Larch

Western larchWestern Larch

Western Larch

WESTERN LARCH(Larix Occidentalis)This is a magnificent tree of the Northwest, and its range lies principally on the upper tributaries of the Columbia river, in Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, but it occurs also among the Blue Mountains of Washington and Oregon. It is the largest member of the larch genus, either in the old world or the new. The finest trees are 250 feet high with diameters of six or eight feet, but sizes half of that are nearer the average. The trunk is of splendid form. In early life it is limby, but later it prunes itself, and a long, tapering bole is developed with a very small crown of thin foliage. No other tree of its size, with the possible exception of old sequoias, has so little foliage in proportion to the trunk.The result is apparent in the rate of growth after the larch has passed its youth. Sometimes such a tree does not increase its trunk diameter as much in seventy-five years as a vigorous loblolly pine or willow oak will in one year. The trunk of a tree, as is well known, grows by means of food manufactured by the leaves and sent down to be transformed into wood. With so few leaves and a trunk so large, the slowness of growth is a natural consequence. Though the annual rings are usually quite narrow, the bands of summerwood are relatively broad. That accounts for the density of larchwood and its great weight. It is six per cent heavier than longleaf pine, and is not much inferior in strength and elasticity. The leaves are from one to one and three-quarter inches long, the cones from one to one and a half inches, and the seeds nearly one-quarter inch in length. They are equipped with wings of sufficient power to carry them a short distance from the parent tree.The bark on young larches is thin, but on large trunks, and near the ground, it may be five or six inches thick. When a notch is cut in the trunk it collects a resin of sweetish taste which the Indians use as an article of food.The western larch reaches its best development in northern Idaho and Montana on streams which flow into Flathead lake. The tree prefers moist bottom lands, but grows well in other situations, at altitudes of from 2,000 to 7,000 feet. The figures given above on the wood’s weight, strength, and stiffness show its value for manufacturing purposes. Its remoteness from markets has stood in the way of large use, but it has been tried for many purposes and with highly satisfactory results. In 1910 sawmills in the four western states where it grows cut 255,186,000 feet. Most of this is used as rough lumber, but some is made intofurniture, finish, boxes, and boats. The wood has several names, though larch is the most common. It is otherwise known as tamarack and hackmatack, which names are oftener applied to the eastern tree; red American larch, western tamarack, and great western larch.Some of the annual cut of lumber credited to western larch does not belong to it. Lumbermen have confused names and mixed figures by applying this tree’s name to noble fir, which is a different tree. If the fir lumber listed as larch were given its proper name, it would result in lowering the output of larch as shown in statistical figures. In spite of this, however, larch lumber fills an important place in the trade of the northern Rocky Mountain region.There is little doubt that it will fill a much more important place in the future, for a beginning has scarcely been made in marketing this timber. The available supply is large, but exact figures are not available. Some stands are dense and extensive, and the trees are of large size and fine form. It is not supposed, however, that there will be much after the present stand has been cut, because a second crop from trees of so slow growth will be far in the future. Sudworth says that larch trees eighteen or twenty inches in diameter are from 250 to 300 years old, and that the ordinary age of these trees in the forests of the Northwest is from 300 to 500 years; while larger trees are 600 or 700. Much remains to be learned concerning the ages of these trees in different situations and in different parts of its range. It is apparent, however, that when a period covering two or three centuries is required to produce a sawlog of only moderate size, timber owners will not look forward with much eagerness to a second growth forest of western larch.The value of the wood of western larch has been the subject of much controversy. In the tables compiled for the federal census of 1880, under direction of Charles S. Sargent, its strength and elasticity were shown to be remarkably high. The figures indicate that it is about thirty-nine per cent stronger than white oak and fifty-one per cent stiffer. This places it a little above longleaf pine in strength and nearly equal to it in stiffness or elasticity. Engineers have expressed doubts as to the correctness of Sargent’s figures. They believe them too high. The samples tested by Sargent were six in number, four of them collected in Washington and two in Montana.The wood of western larch is heavier than longleaf pine, and approximately of the same weight as white oak. It is among the heaviest, if not actually the heaviest, of softwoods of the United States. Sargent thus described the physical properties of the wood: “Heavy, exceedingly hard and strong, rather coarse grained, compact, satiny, susceptible of a fine polish, very durable in contact with the soil; bands of smallsummer cells broad, occupying fully half the width of the annual growth, very resinous, dark-colored, conspicuous resin passages few, obscure; medullary rays few, thin; color, light bright red, the thin sapwood nearly white.” The wood is described by Sudworth: “Clear, reddish brown, heavy, and fine grained; commercially valuable; very durable in an unprotected state, differing greatly in this respect from the wood of the eastern larch.”The seasoning of western larch has given lumbermen much trouble. It checks badly and splinters rise from the surface of boards. It is generally admitted that this is the most serious obstacle in the way of securing wide utilization for the wood. The structure of the annual ring is reason for believing that there is slight adhesion between the springwood and that of the late season. Checks are very numerous parallel with the growth rings, and splinters part from the board along the same lines. Standing timber is frequently windshaken, and the cracks follow the rings.All of this is presumptive evidence that the principle defect of larch is a lack of adhesion between the early and the late wood. If that is correct, it is a fundamental defect in the growing tree, and is inherent in the wood. No artificial treatment can wholly remove it. It should not be considered impossible, however, to devise methods of seasoning which would not accentuate the weaknesses natural to the wood.The form of the larch’s trunk is perfect, from the lumberman’s viewpoint, and its size is all that could be desired. It is amply able to perpetuate its species, though it consumes a great deal of time in the process. Abundant crops of seeds are borne, but only once in several years. It rarely bears seeds as early as its twenty-fifth year, and generally not until it passes forty; but its fruitful period is long, extending over several centuries. The seeds retain their vitality moderately well, which is an important consideration in view of the tree’s habit of opening and closing its cones alternately as the weather happens to be damp or dry. The dispersion of seeds extends over a considerable part of the season, and the changing winds scatter them in all directions. Many seeds fall on the snow in winter to be let down on the damp ground ready to germinate during the early spring. The best germination occurs on mineral soil, and this is often found in areas recently bared by fire. Lodgepole pine contends also for this ground; but the race between the two species is not swift after the process of scattering seeds has been completed; for both are of growth so exceedingly slow that a hundred years will scarcely tell which is gaining. In the long run, however, the larch outstrips the pine and becomes a larger tree. If both start at the same time, and there is not room for both, the pinewill kill the larch by shading it. The latter’s thin foliage renders it incapable of casting a shadow dense enough to hurt the pine. The best areas for larch are those so thoroughly burned as to preclude the immediate heavy reproduction of lodgepole pine.Much of the natural ranges of larch and lodgepole pine lie in the national forests owned by the government, and careful studies have been made in recent years to determine the requirements, and the actual and comparative values of the two species. It has been shown that larch is one of the most intolerant of the western forest trees. It cannot endure shade. Its own thin foliage, where it occurs in pure stands, is sufficient to shade off the lower limbs of boles, and produce tall, clean trunks; but if a larch happens to stand in the open, where light is abundant, it retains its branches almost to the ground. It is more intolerant, even, than western yellow pine, which so often grows in open, parklike stands.Alpine Larch(Larix lyallii) never grows naturally below an altitude of 4,000 feet, and near the southern border of its range it climbs to 8,000, where it stands on the brink of precipices, faces of cliffs, and on windswept summits. It is too much exposed to storms, and has its roots in soil too sterile to develop symmetrical forms. It is found in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The finest trees are sometimes seventy-five feet high and three or four in diameter, but the average height ranges from forty to fifty, with diameters of twenty inches or less. Its leaves are one and a half inches or less in length; cones one and a half inches long, and bristling with hair; seeds one-eighth of an inch long with wings one-fourth inch; wood heavy, hard, and of a light, reddish brown color. It is seldom used except about mountain camps where it is sometimes burned for fuel or is employed in constructing corrals for sheep and cattle. It is impossible for lumbermen ever to make much use of it, because it is scarce and hard to get at.Western larch branch

This is a magnificent tree of the Northwest, and its range lies principally on the upper tributaries of the Columbia river, in Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, but it occurs also among the Blue Mountains of Washington and Oregon. It is the largest member of the larch genus, either in the old world or the new. The finest trees are 250 feet high with diameters of six or eight feet, but sizes half of that are nearer the average. The trunk is of splendid form. In early life it is limby, but later it prunes itself, and a long, tapering bole is developed with a very small crown of thin foliage. No other tree of its size, with the possible exception of old sequoias, has so little foliage in proportion to the trunk.

The result is apparent in the rate of growth after the larch has passed its youth. Sometimes such a tree does not increase its trunk diameter as much in seventy-five years as a vigorous loblolly pine or willow oak will in one year. The trunk of a tree, as is well known, grows by means of food manufactured by the leaves and sent down to be transformed into wood. With so few leaves and a trunk so large, the slowness of growth is a natural consequence. Though the annual rings are usually quite narrow, the bands of summerwood are relatively broad. That accounts for the density of larchwood and its great weight. It is six per cent heavier than longleaf pine, and is not much inferior in strength and elasticity. The leaves are from one to one and three-quarter inches long, the cones from one to one and a half inches, and the seeds nearly one-quarter inch in length. They are equipped with wings of sufficient power to carry them a short distance from the parent tree.

The bark on young larches is thin, but on large trunks, and near the ground, it may be five or six inches thick. When a notch is cut in the trunk it collects a resin of sweetish taste which the Indians use as an article of food.

The western larch reaches its best development in northern Idaho and Montana on streams which flow into Flathead lake. The tree prefers moist bottom lands, but grows well in other situations, at altitudes of from 2,000 to 7,000 feet. The figures given above on the wood’s weight, strength, and stiffness show its value for manufacturing purposes. Its remoteness from markets has stood in the way of large use, but it has been tried for many purposes and with highly satisfactory results. In 1910 sawmills in the four western states where it grows cut 255,186,000 feet. Most of this is used as rough lumber, but some is made intofurniture, finish, boxes, and boats. The wood has several names, though larch is the most common. It is otherwise known as tamarack and hackmatack, which names are oftener applied to the eastern tree; red American larch, western tamarack, and great western larch.

Some of the annual cut of lumber credited to western larch does not belong to it. Lumbermen have confused names and mixed figures by applying this tree’s name to noble fir, which is a different tree. If the fir lumber listed as larch were given its proper name, it would result in lowering the output of larch as shown in statistical figures. In spite of this, however, larch lumber fills an important place in the trade of the northern Rocky Mountain region.

There is little doubt that it will fill a much more important place in the future, for a beginning has scarcely been made in marketing this timber. The available supply is large, but exact figures are not available. Some stands are dense and extensive, and the trees are of large size and fine form. It is not supposed, however, that there will be much after the present stand has been cut, because a second crop from trees of so slow growth will be far in the future. Sudworth says that larch trees eighteen or twenty inches in diameter are from 250 to 300 years old, and that the ordinary age of these trees in the forests of the Northwest is from 300 to 500 years; while larger trees are 600 or 700. Much remains to be learned concerning the ages of these trees in different situations and in different parts of its range. It is apparent, however, that when a period covering two or three centuries is required to produce a sawlog of only moderate size, timber owners will not look forward with much eagerness to a second growth forest of western larch.

The value of the wood of western larch has been the subject of much controversy. In the tables compiled for the federal census of 1880, under direction of Charles S. Sargent, its strength and elasticity were shown to be remarkably high. The figures indicate that it is about thirty-nine per cent stronger than white oak and fifty-one per cent stiffer. This places it a little above longleaf pine in strength and nearly equal to it in stiffness or elasticity. Engineers have expressed doubts as to the correctness of Sargent’s figures. They believe them too high. The samples tested by Sargent were six in number, four of them collected in Washington and two in Montana.

The wood of western larch is heavier than longleaf pine, and approximately of the same weight as white oak. It is among the heaviest, if not actually the heaviest, of softwoods of the United States. Sargent thus described the physical properties of the wood: “Heavy, exceedingly hard and strong, rather coarse grained, compact, satiny, susceptible of a fine polish, very durable in contact with the soil; bands of smallsummer cells broad, occupying fully half the width of the annual growth, very resinous, dark-colored, conspicuous resin passages few, obscure; medullary rays few, thin; color, light bright red, the thin sapwood nearly white.” The wood is described by Sudworth: “Clear, reddish brown, heavy, and fine grained; commercially valuable; very durable in an unprotected state, differing greatly in this respect from the wood of the eastern larch.”

The seasoning of western larch has given lumbermen much trouble. It checks badly and splinters rise from the surface of boards. It is generally admitted that this is the most serious obstacle in the way of securing wide utilization for the wood. The structure of the annual ring is reason for believing that there is slight adhesion between the springwood and that of the late season. Checks are very numerous parallel with the growth rings, and splinters part from the board along the same lines. Standing timber is frequently windshaken, and the cracks follow the rings.

All of this is presumptive evidence that the principle defect of larch is a lack of adhesion between the early and the late wood. If that is correct, it is a fundamental defect in the growing tree, and is inherent in the wood. No artificial treatment can wholly remove it. It should not be considered impossible, however, to devise methods of seasoning which would not accentuate the weaknesses natural to the wood.

The form of the larch’s trunk is perfect, from the lumberman’s viewpoint, and its size is all that could be desired. It is amply able to perpetuate its species, though it consumes a great deal of time in the process. Abundant crops of seeds are borne, but only once in several years. It rarely bears seeds as early as its twenty-fifth year, and generally not until it passes forty; but its fruitful period is long, extending over several centuries. The seeds retain their vitality moderately well, which is an important consideration in view of the tree’s habit of opening and closing its cones alternately as the weather happens to be damp or dry. The dispersion of seeds extends over a considerable part of the season, and the changing winds scatter them in all directions. Many seeds fall on the snow in winter to be let down on the damp ground ready to germinate during the early spring. The best germination occurs on mineral soil, and this is often found in areas recently bared by fire. Lodgepole pine contends also for this ground; but the race between the two species is not swift after the process of scattering seeds has been completed; for both are of growth so exceedingly slow that a hundred years will scarcely tell which is gaining. In the long run, however, the larch outstrips the pine and becomes a larger tree. If both start at the same time, and there is not room for both, the pinewill kill the larch by shading it. The latter’s thin foliage renders it incapable of casting a shadow dense enough to hurt the pine. The best areas for larch are those so thoroughly burned as to preclude the immediate heavy reproduction of lodgepole pine.

Much of the natural ranges of larch and lodgepole pine lie in the national forests owned by the government, and careful studies have been made in recent years to determine the requirements, and the actual and comparative values of the two species. It has been shown that larch is one of the most intolerant of the western forest trees. It cannot endure shade. Its own thin foliage, where it occurs in pure stands, is sufficient to shade off the lower limbs of boles, and produce tall, clean trunks; but if a larch happens to stand in the open, where light is abundant, it retains its branches almost to the ground. It is more intolerant, even, than western yellow pine, which so often grows in open, parklike stands.

Alpine Larch(Larix lyallii) never grows naturally below an altitude of 4,000 feet, and near the southern border of its range it climbs to 8,000, where it stands on the brink of precipices, faces of cliffs, and on windswept summits. It is too much exposed to storms, and has its roots in soil too sterile to develop symmetrical forms. It is found in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The finest trees are sometimes seventy-five feet high and three or four in diameter, but the average height ranges from forty to fifty, with diameters of twenty inches or less. Its leaves are one and a half inches or less in length; cones one and a half inches long, and bristling with hair; seeds one-eighth of an inch long with wings one-fourth inch; wood heavy, hard, and of a light, reddish brown color. It is seldom used except about mountain camps where it is sometimes burned for fuel or is employed in constructing corrals for sheep and cattle. It is impossible for lumbermen ever to make much use of it, because it is scarce and hard to get at.

Western larch branch

RED CEDARRed cedarRed Cedar

Red cedarRed Cedar

Red Cedar

RED CEDAR(Juniperus Virginiana)This widely distributed tree is called red cedar in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario; cedar in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, South Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio; savin in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota; juniper in New York and Pennsylvania; juniper bush in Minnesota; cedre in Louisiana.The names as given above indicate the tree’s commercial range. It appears as scattered growth and in doubtful forms outside of that range, particularly in the West where several cedars closely resemble the red cedar, yet differ sufficiently from it to give them places as separate species in the lists of some botanists. They are so listed by the United States Forest Service; and the following names are given: Western Juniper, Rocky Mountain Juniper, One Seed Juniper, Mountain Juniper, California Juniper, Utah Juniper, Drooping Juniper, Dwarf Juniper, and Alligator Juniper. These species are not of much importance from the lumberman’s viewpoint, yet they are highly interesting trees, and in this book will be treated individually.The red cedar grows slowly, and thrives in almost any soil and situation except deep swamps. It is often classed as a poor-land species, yet it does not naturally seek poor land. That it is often found in such situations is because it has been crowded from better places by stronger trees, and has retreated to rocky ridges, dry slopes, and thin soils where competitors are unable to follow. The trees often stand wide apart or solitary, yet they can grow in thickets almost impenetrable, as they do in Texas and other southern states. It is an old-field tree in much of its range. Birds plant the seeds, particularly along fence rows. That is why long lines of cedars may often be seen extending across old fields or deserted plantations.The extreme size attained by this cedar is four feet in diameter, and one hundred in height, but that size was never common, and at present the half of it is above the average. That which reaches market is more often under than over eighteen inches in diameter. The reddish-brown and fibrous bark may be peeled in long strips. Stringiness of bark is characteristic of all the cedars, and typical of red cedar.The wood is medium light and is strong, considering that it is verybrittle. Tests show it to be eighty per cent as strong as white oak. The grain is very fine, even, and homogeneous, except as interfered with by knots. The annual rings are narrow, the summerwood narrow and indistinct; medullary rays numerous but very obscure. The color is red, the thin sapwood nearly white. The heart and sap are sometimes intermingled, and this characteristic is prominent in the closely-related western species of red cedar. The wood is easily worked, gives little trouble because of warping and shrinking, and the heart is considered as durable as any other American wood. It has a delicate, agreeable fragrance, which is especially marked. This odor is disagreeable to insects, and for that reason chests and closets of cedar are highly appreciated as storage places for garments subject to the ravages of the moth and buffalo bug. An extract from the fruit and leaves is used in medicine, while oil of red cedar, distilled from the wood, is used in making perfume. Cedar has a sweet taste. It burns badly, scarcely being able to support a flame; it is exceedingly aromatic and noisy when burning and the embers glow long in still air. Some of the bungalow owners in Florida buy cedar fuel in preference to all others for burning in open fireplaces.Its representative uses are for posts, railway ties, pails, sills, cigar boxes, interior finish and cabinet making, but its most general use is in the manufacture of lead pencils, for which its fine, straight grain and soft texture are peculiarly adapted. The farther south cedar is found, the softer and clearer it is. In the North, in ornamental trees, it is very hard, slow-growing, and knotty. It shows but a small percentage of clear lumber. In eastern Tennessee there were considerable quantities of red cedar brake that were for years considered of little value. About the only way the wood was employed a few years ago was in fence rails and posts, fuel, and charcoal. Of late people in localities where cedar grows in any abundance have awakened to its value, and cedar fences are rapidly disappearing, owing to the high prices now paid for the wood, and the excellent demand. On no other southern wood has such depredation been practiced. Because of its lightness and the ease with which it can be worked, it has been used for purposes for which other and less valuable woods were well adapted. On account of its slow growth, its complete exhaustion has often been predicted, but a second growth has appeared which, though much inferior to the virgin timber, can be used in many ways to excellent advantage. Instead of the huge piles of cedar flooring, chest boards, and smooth railings of the old days, one now sees at points of distribution great piles of knotty, rough poles, ten to forty feet long, which years ago would have been discarded. Today they represent bridge piling, the better and smoother among them being used for telephone and telegraph poles.Middle Tennessee has produced more red cedar than any other part of the United States, but the bulk of production has been confined to a few counties, which produce a higher class and more aromatic variety of wood than that found elsewhere. A century ago these counties abounded in splendid forests of cedar. The early settlers built their cabins of cedar logs, sills, studding, and rafters; their smoke houses were built of them; their barns; even the roofs were shingled with cedar and the rooms and porches floored with the sweet-scented wood. Not many years ago trees three feet or more in diameter were often found, but the days are past when timber like that can be had anywhere.Although the most general use at the present time is for lead pencils, few people who sharpen one and smell the fragrant wood, stop to wonder where it came from. One would smile were it suggested to him that perhaps his pencil was formerly part of some Tennessee farmer’s worm fence. The best timber obtained now is hewn into export logs and shipped to Europe, particularly Germany, where a great quantity is converted into pencils. The red wood is made into the higher grades and the sap or streaked wood is used for the cheaper varieties and for pen holders. The smaller and inferior logs are cut into slats, while odds and ends, cutoffs, etc., are collected and sold by the hundred pounds to pencil factories. There are many such factories in the United States now, as well as in Europe, and pencil men are scouring the cedar sections to buy all they can. The farmer who has a red cedar picket or worm fence can sell it to these companies at a round price. Pencil men are even going back over tracts from which the timber was cut twenty-five years ago, buying up the stumps. When the wood was plentiful lumbermen were not frugal, and usually cut down a tree about two feet above the ground, allowing the best part of it to be wasted.The German and Austrian pencil makers foresaw a shortage in American red cedar, and many years ago planted large areas to provide for the time of scarcity. The planted timber is now large enough for use, but the wood has been a disappointment. It does not possess the softness and brittleness which give so high value to the forest cedar of this country. As far as can be seen, when present pencil cedar has been exhausted, there will be little more produced of like grade. It grows so slowly that owners will not wait for trees to become old, but sell them while young for posts and poles.One of the earliest demands for red cedar was for woodenware made of staves, such as buckets, kegs, keelers, small tubs, and firkins. Material for the manufacture of such wares was among the exports to the West Indies before the Revolutionary war. The ware was no lesspopular in this country, and the home-made articles were in all neighborhoods in the red cedar’s range. Scarcity of suitable wood limits the manufacture of such wares now, but they are still in use.Cedar was long one of the best woods for skiffs and other light boats, and it was occasionally employed in shipbuilding for the upper parts of vessels. A little of it is still used as trim and finish, particularly for canoes, motor boats, and yachts.The early clothes chest makers selected clear lumber, because it could be had and was considered to be better; but modern chest manufacturers who cannot procure clear stock, make a merit of necessity, and use boards filled with knots. The wood is finished with oils, but the natural colors remain, and the knots give the chest a rustic and pleasing appearance.Southern Red Juniper(Juniperus barbadensis) so closely resembles the red cedar with which it is associated that the two were formerly considered the same species, and most people familiar with both notice no difference. However, botanists clearly distinguish the two. The southern red cedar’s range is much smaller than the other’s. It grows from Georgia to the Indian river, Florida, in swamps. It is found in the vicinity of the Apalachicola river, forming dense thickets. Its average size is much under that of the red cedar, but its wood is not dissimilar. It has been used for the same purposes as far as it has been used at all. One of the largest demands upon it has been for lead pencils. Those who bought and sold it, generally supposed they were dealing in the common red cedar.Red cedar branch

This widely distributed tree is called red cedar in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario; cedar in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, South Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio; savin in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota; juniper in New York and Pennsylvania; juniper bush in Minnesota; cedre in Louisiana.

The names as given above indicate the tree’s commercial range. It appears as scattered growth and in doubtful forms outside of that range, particularly in the West where several cedars closely resemble the red cedar, yet differ sufficiently from it to give them places as separate species in the lists of some botanists. They are so listed by the United States Forest Service; and the following names are given: Western Juniper, Rocky Mountain Juniper, One Seed Juniper, Mountain Juniper, California Juniper, Utah Juniper, Drooping Juniper, Dwarf Juniper, and Alligator Juniper. These species are not of much importance from the lumberman’s viewpoint, yet they are highly interesting trees, and in this book will be treated individually.

The red cedar grows slowly, and thrives in almost any soil and situation except deep swamps. It is often classed as a poor-land species, yet it does not naturally seek poor land. That it is often found in such situations is because it has been crowded from better places by stronger trees, and has retreated to rocky ridges, dry slopes, and thin soils where competitors are unable to follow. The trees often stand wide apart or solitary, yet they can grow in thickets almost impenetrable, as they do in Texas and other southern states. It is an old-field tree in much of its range. Birds plant the seeds, particularly along fence rows. That is why long lines of cedars may often be seen extending across old fields or deserted plantations.

The extreme size attained by this cedar is four feet in diameter, and one hundred in height, but that size was never common, and at present the half of it is above the average. That which reaches market is more often under than over eighteen inches in diameter. The reddish-brown and fibrous bark may be peeled in long strips. Stringiness of bark is characteristic of all the cedars, and typical of red cedar.

The wood is medium light and is strong, considering that it is verybrittle. Tests show it to be eighty per cent as strong as white oak. The grain is very fine, even, and homogeneous, except as interfered with by knots. The annual rings are narrow, the summerwood narrow and indistinct; medullary rays numerous but very obscure. The color is red, the thin sapwood nearly white. The heart and sap are sometimes intermingled, and this characteristic is prominent in the closely-related western species of red cedar. The wood is easily worked, gives little trouble because of warping and shrinking, and the heart is considered as durable as any other American wood. It has a delicate, agreeable fragrance, which is especially marked. This odor is disagreeable to insects, and for that reason chests and closets of cedar are highly appreciated as storage places for garments subject to the ravages of the moth and buffalo bug. An extract from the fruit and leaves is used in medicine, while oil of red cedar, distilled from the wood, is used in making perfume. Cedar has a sweet taste. It burns badly, scarcely being able to support a flame; it is exceedingly aromatic and noisy when burning and the embers glow long in still air. Some of the bungalow owners in Florida buy cedar fuel in preference to all others for burning in open fireplaces.

Its representative uses are for posts, railway ties, pails, sills, cigar boxes, interior finish and cabinet making, but its most general use is in the manufacture of lead pencils, for which its fine, straight grain and soft texture are peculiarly adapted. The farther south cedar is found, the softer and clearer it is. In the North, in ornamental trees, it is very hard, slow-growing, and knotty. It shows but a small percentage of clear lumber. In eastern Tennessee there were considerable quantities of red cedar brake that were for years considered of little value. About the only way the wood was employed a few years ago was in fence rails and posts, fuel, and charcoal. Of late people in localities where cedar grows in any abundance have awakened to its value, and cedar fences are rapidly disappearing, owing to the high prices now paid for the wood, and the excellent demand. On no other southern wood has such depredation been practiced. Because of its lightness and the ease with which it can be worked, it has been used for purposes for which other and less valuable woods were well adapted. On account of its slow growth, its complete exhaustion has often been predicted, but a second growth has appeared which, though much inferior to the virgin timber, can be used in many ways to excellent advantage. Instead of the huge piles of cedar flooring, chest boards, and smooth railings of the old days, one now sees at points of distribution great piles of knotty, rough poles, ten to forty feet long, which years ago would have been discarded. Today they represent bridge piling, the better and smoother among them being used for telephone and telegraph poles.

Middle Tennessee has produced more red cedar than any other part of the United States, but the bulk of production has been confined to a few counties, which produce a higher class and more aromatic variety of wood than that found elsewhere. A century ago these counties abounded in splendid forests of cedar. The early settlers built their cabins of cedar logs, sills, studding, and rafters; their smoke houses were built of them; their barns; even the roofs were shingled with cedar and the rooms and porches floored with the sweet-scented wood. Not many years ago trees three feet or more in diameter were often found, but the days are past when timber like that can be had anywhere.

Although the most general use at the present time is for lead pencils, few people who sharpen one and smell the fragrant wood, stop to wonder where it came from. One would smile were it suggested to him that perhaps his pencil was formerly part of some Tennessee farmer’s worm fence. The best timber obtained now is hewn into export logs and shipped to Europe, particularly Germany, where a great quantity is converted into pencils. The red wood is made into the higher grades and the sap or streaked wood is used for the cheaper varieties and for pen holders. The smaller and inferior logs are cut into slats, while odds and ends, cutoffs, etc., are collected and sold by the hundred pounds to pencil factories. There are many such factories in the United States now, as well as in Europe, and pencil men are scouring the cedar sections to buy all they can. The farmer who has a red cedar picket or worm fence can sell it to these companies at a round price. Pencil men are even going back over tracts from which the timber was cut twenty-five years ago, buying up the stumps. When the wood was plentiful lumbermen were not frugal, and usually cut down a tree about two feet above the ground, allowing the best part of it to be wasted.

The German and Austrian pencil makers foresaw a shortage in American red cedar, and many years ago planted large areas to provide for the time of scarcity. The planted timber is now large enough for use, but the wood has been a disappointment. It does not possess the softness and brittleness which give so high value to the forest cedar of this country. As far as can be seen, when present pencil cedar has been exhausted, there will be little more produced of like grade. It grows so slowly that owners will not wait for trees to become old, but sell them while young for posts and poles.

One of the earliest demands for red cedar was for woodenware made of staves, such as buckets, kegs, keelers, small tubs, and firkins. Material for the manufacture of such wares was among the exports to the West Indies before the Revolutionary war. The ware was no lesspopular in this country, and the home-made articles were in all neighborhoods in the red cedar’s range. Scarcity of suitable wood limits the manufacture of such wares now, but they are still in use.

Cedar was long one of the best woods for skiffs and other light boats, and it was occasionally employed in shipbuilding for the upper parts of vessels. A little of it is still used as trim and finish, particularly for canoes, motor boats, and yachts.

The early clothes chest makers selected clear lumber, because it could be had and was considered to be better; but modern chest manufacturers who cannot procure clear stock, make a merit of necessity, and use boards filled with knots. The wood is finished with oils, but the natural colors remain, and the knots give the chest a rustic and pleasing appearance.

Southern Red Juniper(Juniperus barbadensis) so closely resembles the red cedar with which it is associated that the two were formerly considered the same species, and most people familiar with both notice no difference. However, botanists clearly distinguish the two. The southern red cedar’s range is much smaller than the other’s. It grows from Georgia to the Indian river, Florida, in swamps. It is found in the vicinity of the Apalachicola river, forming dense thickets. Its average size is much under that of the red cedar, but its wood is not dissimilar. It has been used for the same purposes as far as it has been used at all. One of the largest demands upon it has been for lead pencils. Those who bought and sold it, generally supposed they were dealing in the common red cedar.

Southern Red Juniper(Juniperus barbadensis) so closely resembles the red cedar with which it is associated that the two were formerly considered the same species, and most people familiar with both notice no difference. However, botanists clearly distinguish the two. The southern red cedar’s range is much smaller than the other’s. It grows from Georgia to the Indian river, Florida, in swamps. It is found in the vicinity of the Apalachicola river, forming dense thickets. Its average size is much under that of the red cedar, but its wood is not dissimilar. It has been used for the same purposes as far as it has been used at all. One of the largest demands upon it has been for lead pencils. Those who bought and sold it, generally supposed they were dealing in the common red cedar.

Red cedar branch

NORTHERN WHITE CEDARNorthern white cedarNorthern White Cedar

Northern white cedarNorthern White Cedar

Northern White Cedar

NORTHERN WHITE CEDAR(Thuja Occidentalis)This tree is designated as northern white cedar because there is also a southern white cedar, (Chamæcyparis thyoides) and the boundaries of their ranges approach pretty closely. The nameoccidentalis, meaning western, applied to the northern white cedar is employed by botanists to distinguish it from a similar cedar in Asia, which is calledorientalis, or eastern.The American species has several names, as is usual with trees which grow in different regions. It is called arborvitæ in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario. White cedar is a name often used in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario. In Maine, Vermont, and New York it is called cedar. In New York, and where cultivated in England, American arborvitæ is the name applied to it. The Indians in New York knew it as feather-leaf. In Delaware the name is abridged to vitæ.The tree has been widely planted, and under the influence of cultivation it runs quickly into varieties, of which forty-five are listed by nurserymen. It is a northern species which follows the Appalachian mountains southward to North Carolina and Tennessee. It grows from New Brunswick to Manitoba, and is abundant in the Lake States.The bark of arborvitæ is light brown, tinged with red on the branchlets; it is thin, and cracks into ridges with stringy, rough edges; the branchlets are very smooth.In general appearance the tree is conical and compact, with short branches; it attains a height of from twenty-five to seventy feet, and a diameter of from one to three feet. It thrives best in low, swampy land, along the borders of streams.The wood of arborvitæ is soft, brittle, light and weak; it is very inflammable. The fact that it is durable, even in contact with the soil, permits its use for railway ties, telegraph poles, posts, fencing, shingles and boats. However, the trunk is so shaped that it is seldom used for lumber, but oftener for poles and posts, the lower section being flattened into ties. A cubic foot of the seasoned wood weighs approximately nineteen pounds. The heartwood is light brown, becoming darker with exposure; the sapwood is thin and nearly white, with fine grain.The northern white cedar varies greatly in size and shape, depending on the soil, climate, and situation. Though it is usually associated with swamps in the North, it adapts itself to quite different situations. It grows in narrow, rocky ravines, on stony ridges, and it clings to the faces of cliffs, or hangs on their summits as tenaciously as the western juniper of the Sierra Nevada mountains. However, little good timber is produced by this species on rocky soils. Trees in such situations are short, crooked, and limby.The wood of the northern white cedar possesses a peculiar toughness which is seen in its wearing qualities. A thin shaving, such as a carpenter’s plane makes, may be folded, laid on an anvil, and struck repeatedly with a hammer, without breaking. It is claimed for it that it will stand a severer test of that kind than any other American wood. Toughness and wearing qualities combined make it an admirable wood for planking and decking for small boats. Its exceptionally light weight is an additional factor as a boat building material. The Indians knew how to work it into frames for bark canoes. Its lightness appealed to them; but the ease with which they could work it with their primitive tools was more important. It is a characteristic of the wood to part readily along the rings of annual growth. The Indian was able to split canoe ribs with a stone maul, by pounding a cedar billet until it parted along the growth rings and was reduced to very thin slats.The property of this cedar which appealed to the Indians is disliked by the sawmill man. It is hard to make thin lumber that will hang together. The tendency to part along the growth rings develops wind-shake while the tree is standing. About nine trees in ten are so defective from shake that little good lumber can be made from them. It is a common saying, which probably applies in certain localities only, that a thousand feet of white cedar must be sawed to get one hundred feet of good lumber.It is good material for small cooperage such as buckets, pails, and tubs, and has been long used for that purpose in the northern states.It was once laid in large quantities for paving blocks. Hundreds of miles of streets of northern cities were paved with round blocks sawed from trunks of trees from five to ten inches in diameter. They were not usually treated with chemicals to prevent decay, but they gave service ranging from six to twelve years. They are less used now than formerly. Southern yellow pine has largely taken the cedar’s place as paving material. Much northern cedar has been used in the manufacture of bored pipe for municipal waterworks, shops, salt works, paper mills, and other factories.The early settlers of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania madea rheumatism ointment by bruising the leaves and molding them with lard. This is probably not made now, but pharmacists distill an oil from twigs and wood, and make a tincture of the leaves which they use in the manufacture of pulmonary and other medicines.There is little likelihood that northern white cedar will ever cease to be a commercial wood in this country. It will become scarcer, but its manner of growth is the best guarantee that it will hold its place. It lives in swamps, and the land is not in demand for any other purpose.One-Seed Juniper(Juniperus monosperma) is also called naked-seed juniper. Its range lies in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Arizona. It attains its greatest development in the bottoms of canyons in northern Arizona. It is a scrawny desert tree which lives in adversity but holds its ground for centuries, if fire does not cut its career short. Its growth is too scattered to attract lumbermen, and the form of its trunk is uninviting. It may reach a height of forty or fifty feet, and a diameter of three, but that is above the average in the best of its range. The desert Indians make the most of one-seed juniper. They weave its stringy bark into sleeping mats, rough blankets, and saddle girts. They make cords and ropes of it for use where great strength is not required, such as leashes for leading dogs, strands with which to tie bundles on the backs of their squaws, and cords for fastening their wigwam poles together. They likewise weave the bark into pokes and pouches for storing and carrying their dried meat and mesquite beans. The juniper berries are an article of diet and commerce with the Indians, who mix them with divers ingredients, pulp them in stone mortars, and bake them in cakes which become the greatest delicacy on their bill of fare. White men, when driven to it by starvation, have sustained life by making food of the berries. A small quantity of one-seed juniper reaches woodworkers in Texas. The lumber is short and rough. The numerous knots are generally much darker than the body of the wood. That is not necessarily a defect, for in making clothes chests, the striking contrast in color between the knots, and the other wood gives the article a peculiar and attractive appearance. The trunks are sharply buttressed and deeply creased. Sometimes the folds of bark within the creases almost reach the center of the tree. The sapwood is thin, the heartwood irregular in color. Some is darker than the heartwood of southern red cedar, other is clouded and mottled, pale yellow, cream-colored, the shade of slate, or streaked with various tints. The wood can be economically worked only as small pieces. It takes a soft and pleasing finish. It is a lathe wood and shows to best advantage as balusters, ornaments, grill spindles and small posts, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, balls, and lodge gavels. It has been made into small game boards with fine effect, and it is an excellent material for small picture frames. Furniture makers put it to use in several ways, and it has been recommended for small musical instruments where the variegated colors can be displayed to excellent advantage. At the best it can never be more than a minor species, because it is difficult of access in the remote deserts, and it is not abundant.Mountain Juniper(Juniperus sabinoides) is a Texas tree, occupying a range southward and westward of the Colorado river. It has several local names, rock cedar being a favorite. This name is due to the tree’s habit of growing on rocky ridges and among ledges where soil is scarce. It is called juniper cedar, and juniper. Under the most favorable circumstances the tree may attain a height of 100 feet and a diameter of two, but it nearly always grows where conditions are adverse, and itssize and form change to conform to circumstances. It is often small and ragged. Its lead-colored bark is apt to attract attention on account of its woeful appearance, hanging in strings and tatters which persistently cling to the trunk in spite of whipping winds. When the tree is cut for fuel, or for any other purpose, the ragged bark is occasionally pulled off and is tied in bales or bundles to be sold for kindling. When the mountain juniper is taken from its native wilds and planted where environments are different, it sometimes assumes fantastic forms. It has been planted for ornament on the low, flat coast in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, and though it lives and grows, it often takes on a peculiar appearance. The trunks resemble twisted and interwoven bundles of lead-colored vines, buttressed, fluted, and gnarled. The branches lose their upright position, and hang in careless abandon, with drooping festoons. In winter the wind whips most of the foliage from them. The leaves become brittle and may be easily brushed from the twigs by a stroke of the hand. Some of the planted trees have trunks so deeply creased as to be divided in two separate stems. This very nearly happens with some of the wild trees among the western mountains. The sapwood of mountain juniper is very thin. The average tree cannot be profitably cut into lumber of the usual dimensions because of the odd-shaped and irregular trunk. It lends itself more economically to the manufacture of articles made up of small pieces. Some of the wood is extremely beautiful, having the color and figure of French walnut; but there is great difference in the figure and color, and the wood of one tree is not a sure guide to what another may be. Boards a foot wide, or even less, may show several figures and colors. Some pieces suggest variegated marble; others are like plain red cedar; some are light red in color, others have a tinge of blue. It varies greatly in hardness, even in the same tree. Part of it may be soft and brittle enough for lead pencils; another part may be hard and tough. Clothes chests have been made of it, of most peculiar appearance—resembling crazy quilts of subdued colors. Sometimes the heartwood and the sapwood are inextricably mixed, both being found in all parts of the trunk from the heart out. On the whole, the tree can never have much importance as a source of lumber, but it is a most interesting member of the cedar group.Northern white cedar branch

This tree is designated as northern white cedar because there is also a southern white cedar, (Chamæcyparis thyoides) and the boundaries of their ranges approach pretty closely. The nameoccidentalis, meaning western, applied to the northern white cedar is employed by botanists to distinguish it from a similar cedar in Asia, which is calledorientalis, or eastern.

The American species has several names, as is usual with trees which grow in different regions. It is called arborvitæ in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario. White cedar is a name often used in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario. In Maine, Vermont, and New York it is called cedar. In New York, and where cultivated in England, American arborvitæ is the name applied to it. The Indians in New York knew it as feather-leaf. In Delaware the name is abridged to vitæ.

The tree has been widely planted, and under the influence of cultivation it runs quickly into varieties, of which forty-five are listed by nurserymen. It is a northern species which follows the Appalachian mountains southward to North Carolina and Tennessee. It grows from New Brunswick to Manitoba, and is abundant in the Lake States.

The bark of arborvitæ is light brown, tinged with red on the branchlets; it is thin, and cracks into ridges with stringy, rough edges; the branchlets are very smooth.

In general appearance the tree is conical and compact, with short branches; it attains a height of from twenty-five to seventy feet, and a diameter of from one to three feet. It thrives best in low, swampy land, along the borders of streams.

The wood of arborvitæ is soft, brittle, light and weak; it is very inflammable. The fact that it is durable, even in contact with the soil, permits its use for railway ties, telegraph poles, posts, fencing, shingles and boats. However, the trunk is so shaped that it is seldom used for lumber, but oftener for poles and posts, the lower section being flattened into ties. A cubic foot of the seasoned wood weighs approximately nineteen pounds. The heartwood is light brown, becoming darker with exposure; the sapwood is thin and nearly white, with fine grain.

The northern white cedar varies greatly in size and shape, depending on the soil, climate, and situation. Though it is usually associated with swamps in the North, it adapts itself to quite different situations. It grows in narrow, rocky ravines, on stony ridges, and it clings to the faces of cliffs, or hangs on their summits as tenaciously as the western juniper of the Sierra Nevada mountains. However, little good timber is produced by this species on rocky soils. Trees in such situations are short, crooked, and limby.

The wood of the northern white cedar possesses a peculiar toughness which is seen in its wearing qualities. A thin shaving, such as a carpenter’s plane makes, may be folded, laid on an anvil, and struck repeatedly with a hammer, without breaking. It is claimed for it that it will stand a severer test of that kind than any other American wood. Toughness and wearing qualities combined make it an admirable wood for planking and decking for small boats. Its exceptionally light weight is an additional factor as a boat building material. The Indians knew how to work it into frames for bark canoes. Its lightness appealed to them; but the ease with which they could work it with their primitive tools was more important. It is a characteristic of the wood to part readily along the rings of annual growth. The Indian was able to split canoe ribs with a stone maul, by pounding a cedar billet until it parted along the growth rings and was reduced to very thin slats.

The property of this cedar which appealed to the Indians is disliked by the sawmill man. It is hard to make thin lumber that will hang together. The tendency to part along the growth rings develops wind-shake while the tree is standing. About nine trees in ten are so defective from shake that little good lumber can be made from them. It is a common saying, which probably applies in certain localities only, that a thousand feet of white cedar must be sawed to get one hundred feet of good lumber.

It is good material for small cooperage such as buckets, pails, and tubs, and has been long used for that purpose in the northern states.

It was once laid in large quantities for paving blocks. Hundreds of miles of streets of northern cities were paved with round blocks sawed from trunks of trees from five to ten inches in diameter. They were not usually treated with chemicals to prevent decay, but they gave service ranging from six to twelve years. They are less used now than formerly. Southern yellow pine has largely taken the cedar’s place as paving material. Much northern cedar has been used in the manufacture of bored pipe for municipal waterworks, shops, salt works, paper mills, and other factories.

The early settlers of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania madea rheumatism ointment by bruising the leaves and molding them with lard. This is probably not made now, but pharmacists distill an oil from twigs and wood, and make a tincture of the leaves which they use in the manufacture of pulmonary and other medicines.

There is little likelihood that northern white cedar will ever cease to be a commercial wood in this country. It will become scarcer, but its manner of growth is the best guarantee that it will hold its place. It lives in swamps, and the land is not in demand for any other purpose.

One-Seed Juniper(Juniperus monosperma) is also called naked-seed juniper. Its range lies in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Arizona. It attains its greatest development in the bottoms of canyons in northern Arizona. It is a scrawny desert tree which lives in adversity but holds its ground for centuries, if fire does not cut its career short. Its growth is too scattered to attract lumbermen, and the form of its trunk is uninviting. It may reach a height of forty or fifty feet, and a diameter of three, but that is above the average in the best of its range. The desert Indians make the most of one-seed juniper. They weave its stringy bark into sleeping mats, rough blankets, and saddle girts. They make cords and ropes of it for use where great strength is not required, such as leashes for leading dogs, strands with which to tie bundles on the backs of their squaws, and cords for fastening their wigwam poles together. They likewise weave the bark into pokes and pouches for storing and carrying their dried meat and mesquite beans. The juniper berries are an article of diet and commerce with the Indians, who mix them with divers ingredients, pulp them in stone mortars, and bake them in cakes which become the greatest delicacy on their bill of fare. White men, when driven to it by starvation, have sustained life by making food of the berries. A small quantity of one-seed juniper reaches woodworkers in Texas. The lumber is short and rough. The numerous knots are generally much darker than the body of the wood. That is not necessarily a defect, for in making clothes chests, the striking contrast in color between the knots, and the other wood gives the article a peculiar and attractive appearance. The trunks are sharply buttressed and deeply creased. Sometimes the folds of bark within the creases almost reach the center of the tree. The sapwood is thin, the heartwood irregular in color. Some is darker than the heartwood of southern red cedar, other is clouded and mottled, pale yellow, cream-colored, the shade of slate, or streaked with various tints. The wood can be economically worked only as small pieces. It takes a soft and pleasing finish. It is a lathe wood and shows to best advantage as balusters, ornaments, grill spindles and small posts, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, balls, and lodge gavels. It has been made into small game boards with fine effect, and it is an excellent material for small picture frames. Furniture makers put it to use in several ways, and it has been recommended for small musical instruments where the variegated colors can be displayed to excellent advantage. At the best it can never be more than a minor species, because it is difficult of access in the remote deserts, and it is not abundant.

One-Seed Juniper(Juniperus monosperma) is also called naked-seed juniper. Its range lies in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Arizona. It attains its greatest development in the bottoms of canyons in northern Arizona. It is a scrawny desert tree which lives in adversity but holds its ground for centuries, if fire does not cut its career short. Its growth is too scattered to attract lumbermen, and the form of its trunk is uninviting. It may reach a height of forty or fifty feet, and a diameter of three, but that is above the average in the best of its range. The desert Indians make the most of one-seed juniper. They weave its stringy bark into sleeping mats, rough blankets, and saddle girts. They make cords and ropes of it for use where great strength is not required, such as leashes for leading dogs, strands with which to tie bundles on the backs of their squaws, and cords for fastening their wigwam poles together. They likewise weave the bark into pokes and pouches for storing and carrying their dried meat and mesquite beans. The juniper berries are an article of diet and commerce with the Indians, who mix them with divers ingredients, pulp them in stone mortars, and bake them in cakes which become the greatest delicacy on their bill of fare. White men, when driven to it by starvation, have sustained life by making food of the berries. A small quantity of one-seed juniper reaches woodworkers in Texas. The lumber is short and rough. The numerous knots are generally much darker than the body of the wood. That is not necessarily a defect, for in making clothes chests, the striking contrast in color between the knots, and the other wood gives the article a peculiar and attractive appearance. The trunks are sharply buttressed and deeply creased. Sometimes the folds of bark within the creases almost reach the center of the tree. The sapwood is thin, the heartwood irregular in color. Some is darker than the heartwood of southern red cedar, other is clouded and mottled, pale yellow, cream-colored, the shade of slate, or streaked with various tints. The wood can be economically worked only as small pieces. It takes a soft and pleasing finish. It is a lathe wood and shows to best advantage as balusters, ornaments, grill spindles and small posts, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, balls, and lodge gavels. It has been made into small game boards with fine effect, and it is an excellent material for small picture frames. Furniture makers put it to use in several ways, and it has been recommended for small musical instruments where the variegated colors can be displayed to excellent advantage. At the best it can never be more than a minor species, because it is difficult of access in the remote deserts, and it is not abundant.

Mountain Juniper(Juniperus sabinoides) is a Texas tree, occupying a range southward and westward of the Colorado river. It has several local names, rock cedar being a favorite. This name is due to the tree’s habit of growing on rocky ridges and among ledges where soil is scarce. It is called juniper cedar, and juniper. Under the most favorable circumstances the tree may attain a height of 100 feet and a diameter of two, but it nearly always grows where conditions are adverse, and itssize and form change to conform to circumstances. It is often small and ragged. Its lead-colored bark is apt to attract attention on account of its woeful appearance, hanging in strings and tatters which persistently cling to the trunk in spite of whipping winds. When the tree is cut for fuel, or for any other purpose, the ragged bark is occasionally pulled off and is tied in bales or bundles to be sold for kindling. When the mountain juniper is taken from its native wilds and planted where environments are different, it sometimes assumes fantastic forms. It has been planted for ornament on the low, flat coast in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, and though it lives and grows, it often takes on a peculiar appearance. The trunks resemble twisted and interwoven bundles of lead-colored vines, buttressed, fluted, and gnarled. The branches lose their upright position, and hang in careless abandon, with drooping festoons. In winter the wind whips most of the foliage from them. The leaves become brittle and may be easily brushed from the twigs by a stroke of the hand. Some of the planted trees have trunks so deeply creased as to be divided in two separate stems. This very nearly happens with some of the wild trees among the western mountains. The sapwood of mountain juniper is very thin. The average tree cannot be profitably cut into lumber of the usual dimensions because of the odd-shaped and irregular trunk. It lends itself more economically to the manufacture of articles made up of small pieces. Some of the wood is extremely beautiful, having the color and figure of French walnut; but there is great difference in the figure and color, and the wood of one tree is not a sure guide to what another may be. Boards a foot wide, or even less, may show several figures and colors. Some pieces suggest variegated marble; others are like plain red cedar; some are light red in color, others have a tinge of blue. It varies greatly in hardness, even in the same tree. Part of it may be soft and brittle enough for lead pencils; another part may be hard and tough. Clothes chests have been made of it, of most peculiar appearance—resembling crazy quilts of subdued colors. Sometimes the heartwood and the sapwood are inextricably mixed, both being found in all parts of the trunk from the heart out. On the whole, the tree can never have much importance as a source of lumber, but it is a most interesting member of the cedar group.

Mountain Juniper(Juniperus sabinoides) is a Texas tree, occupying a range southward and westward of the Colorado river. It has several local names, rock cedar being a favorite. This name is due to the tree’s habit of growing on rocky ridges and among ledges where soil is scarce. It is called juniper cedar, and juniper. Under the most favorable circumstances the tree may attain a height of 100 feet and a diameter of two, but it nearly always grows where conditions are adverse, and itssize and form change to conform to circumstances. It is often small and ragged. Its lead-colored bark is apt to attract attention on account of its woeful appearance, hanging in strings and tatters which persistently cling to the trunk in spite of whipping winds. When the tree is cut for fuel, or for any other purpose, the ragged bark is occasionally pulled off and is tied in bales or bundles to be sold for kindling. When the mountain juniper is taken from its native wilds and planted where environments are different, it sometimes assumes fantastic forms. It has been planted for ornament on the low, flat coast in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, and though it lives and grows, it often takes on a peculiar appearance. The trunks resemble twisted and interwoven bundles of lead-colored vines, buttressed, fluted, and gnarled. The branches lose their upright position, and hang in careless abandon, with drooping festoons. In winter the wind whips most of the foliage from them. The leaves become brittle and may be easily brushed from the twigs by a stroke of the hand. Some of the planted trees have trunks so deeply creased as to be divided in two separate stems. This very nearly happens with some of the wild trees among the western mountains. The sapwood of mountain juniper is very thin. The average tree cannot be profitably cut into lumber of the usual dimensions because of the odd-shaped and irregular trunk. It lends itself more economically to the manufacture of articles made up of small pieces. Some of the wood is extremely beautiful, having the color and figure of French walnut; but there is great difference in the figure and color, and the wood of one tree is not a sure guide to what another may be. Boards a foot wide, or even less, may show several figures and colors. Some pieces suggest variegated marble; others are like plain red cedar; some are light red in color, others have a tinge of blue. It varies greatly in hardness, even in the same tree. Part of it may be soft and brittle enough for lead pencils; another part may be hard and tough. Clothes chests have been made of it, of most peculiar appearance—resembling crazy quilts of subdued colors. Sometimes the heartwood and the sapwood are inextricably mixed, both being found in all parts of the trunk from the heart out. On the whole, the tree can never have much importance as a source of lumber, but it is a most interesting member of the cedar group.

Northern white cedar branch

SOUTHERN WHITE CEDARSouthern white cedarSouthern White Cedar

Southern white cedarSouthern White Cedar

Southern White Cedar

SOUTHERN WHITE CEDAR(Chamæcyparis Thyoides)This tree is called southern white cedar to distinguish it from northern white cedar or arborvitæ. When there is little likelihood of confusion, the name white cedar is applied locally in different parts of its range from Massachusetts to Florida. It is a persistent swamp tree and on that account has been called swamp cedar; but that name alone would not distinguish it from the northern white cedar, for both grow in swamps; but it does separate it from red cedar which keeps away from swamps. The ranges of the two are side by side from New England to Florida. Post cedar is a common name for it in Delaware and New Jersey, because of the important place it has long filled as fence material; but again, the name does not set it apart from red cedar or northern white cedar, for both are used for posts. The only name thus far applied, which clearly distinguishes it from associated cedars, is southern white cedar. Its range extends northward to Maine, but the tree’s chief commercial importance has been in New Jersey and southward to North Carolina, very near the coast. Somehow, it seems to skip Georgia where no one has reported it for many years, though there is historical evidence that it once grew in that state. It grows as far west as Mississippi, but is scarce.The small leaves remain green two years and then turn brown but adhere to the branches several years longer. The fruit is about one-fourth inch in diameter, and the small seeds are equipped with wings.The wood is among the lightest in this country. It is only moderately strong and stiff. The tree usually grows slowly. Fifty years may be required to produce a fence post, but under favorable conditions results somewhat better than that may be expected. The summerwood of the yearly ring is narrow, dark in color, and conspicuous, making the counting of the rings an easy matter. The medullary rays are numerous but thin. When the sap is cut tangentially in very thin layers it is white and semi-transparent, presenting somewhat the appearance of oiled paper. The heartwood is light brown, tinged with red, growing darker with exposure. The wood is easily worked, and is very durable in contact with the soil. Fence posts of this wood have been reported to stand fifty years, and shingles are said to last longer. Trees reach a height of eighty feet and diameter of four; but such are of the largest size. Great numbers are cut for poles and posts which are little more than a foot in diameter. Few forest trees grow in denser stands than this. It often takes possession of swamps, crowds out all other trees, and developsthickets so dense as to be almost impenetrable. Southern white cedar is cut in ten or twelve states, but the annual supply is not known, because mills generally report all cedars as one, and the regions which produce this, produce one or more other species of cedar also. It has held its place nearly three hundred years, and much interesting history is connected with it. A considerable part of the Revolutionary war was fought with powder made from white cedar charcoal burned in New Jersey and Delaware. However, that was by no means the earliest place filled by this wood.Two hundred years ago in North Carolina John Lawson wrote of its use for “yards, topmasts, booms, bowsprits for boats, shingles, and poles.” It was cut for practically the same purposes in New Jersey at an earlier period, and 160 years ago Gottlieb Mittelberger, when he visited Philadelphia, declared that white cedar was being cut at a rate which would soon exhaust the supply. But that prophecy, like similar predictions that oak and red cedar were about gone, proved not well founded. Seventy years after the imminent exhaustion of this wood was foretold, William Cobbett, an English traveler, declared with evident exaggeration that “all good houses in the United States” were roofed with white cedar shingles.After boat building, the first general use of the southern white cedar was for fences and farm buildings, and doubtless twenty times as much went to the farms as to the boat yards. In all regions where the wood was convenient, little other was employed as fencing material, and many of the earliest houses in New Jersey and some in Pennsylvania were constructed almost wholly of this wood. Small trees which would split two, three, and four rails to the cut, were mauled by thousands to enclose the farms. The bark soon dropped off, or was removed, and the light rails quickly air-dried, and decay made little impression on them for many years. The larger trunks were rived for shingles or were sawed into lumber. About 1750 the use of round cedar logs for houses and barns began to give way to sawed lumber. It was an ideal milling timber, for the logs were symmetrical, clear, and easily handled. North Carolina sawmills were at work on this timber many years before the Revolution. It was acceptable material for doors, window frames, rafters, and floors, but especially for shingles which were split with frow and mallet, and were from twenty-four to twenty-seven inches long. They were known in market as juniper shingles and sold at four and five dollars a thousand. About 1750 builders in Philadelphia were criticized because they constructed houses with no provision for other than white cedar roofs; the walls being too weak for heavier material which would have to be substituted when cedar could be no longerprocured. Philadelphia was not alone in its preference for cedar roofs. Large shipments of shingles were going from New Jersey to New York, and even to the West Indies earlier than 1750.Southern white cedar is said to have been the first American wood used for organ pipes. The resonance of cedar shingles under a pattering rain suggested this use to Mittelberger when he visited America, and he tried the wood with such success that he pronounced it the best that he knew of for organ pipes.Coopers were among the early users of white cedar. The “cedar coopers of Philadelphia” were famous in their day. They used this wood and also red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), and their wares occupied an important place in domestic and some foreign markets. Small vessels prevailed, such as pails, churns, firkins, tubs, keelers, piggins, noggins, and kegs. The ware was handsome, strong, durable, and light in weight. Oil merchants, particularly those who dealt in whale oil which was once an important commodity, bought tanks of southern white cedar. It is a dense wood and seepage is small.A peculiar superstition once prevailed, and has not wholly disappeared at this day, that white cedar possessed powerful healing properties. It was thought that water was purified by standing in a cedar bucket, and even that a liquid was improved by simply running through a spigot of this wood. Some eastern towns at an early period laid cedar water mains, partly because the wood was known to be durable, and partly because it was supposed to exercise some favorable influence upon the water flowing through the pipes. It was even believed that standing trees purified the swamps in which they grew. Vessels putting to sea from Chesapeake bay, sometimes made special effort to fill their water casks with water from the Dismal swamp, where cedars grew abundantly in the stagnant lagoons.About 100 years ago it was found that whole forests of cedar had been submerged in New Jersey during prehistoric times, and that deep in swamps the trunks of trees were buried out of sight. No one knows how long the prostrate trees had lain beneath the accumulation of peat and mud, but the wood was sound. Mining the cedar became an important industry in some of the large swamps, and it has not ended yet. The wood is sound enough for shingles and lumber, though it has been buried for centuries, as is proved by the age of the forests which grew over the submerged logs. Sometimes a log which has lain under water hundreds of years, rises to the surface by its own buoyancy when pressure from above is removed. This is remarkable and shows how long a time this cedar resists complete waterlogging. The wood of green cedar has a strong odor, and that characteristic remains with the submerged trunks.Experienced men who have been long engaged in mining the timber, are able to tell by the odor of a chip brought to the surface from a deeply submerged log whether the wood is sufficiently well preserved to be worth recovering and manufacturing. Trunks six feet in diameter have been brought to the surface. Few if any living white cedars of that size exist now.Many of the early uses of southern white cedar have continued till the present time, but in much smaller quantities. Fence rails are no longer made of it; shingles and cooperage have declined. On the other hand, it now has some uses which were unknown in early times, such as telephone and telegraph poles, crossties, and piling for railroad bridges and culverts.The supply of southern white cedar is not large, and it is being cut faster than it is growing. The deep swamps where it grows protect white cedar forests from fire, and for that reason it is more fortunate than many other species. Not even cypress can successfully compete with it for possession of water soaked morasses. It does not promise great things for the future, for it will never be extensively planted. Its range has been pretty definitely fixed by nature to deep swamps near the Atlantic coast. Within those limits it will be of some importance for a long time. Where it finds its most congenial surroundings, little else that is profitable to man will grow. This will save it from utter extermination, because much of the land which it occupies will never be wanted for anything else.Southern white cedar branch

This tree is called southern white cedar to distinguish it from northern white cedar or arborvitæ. When there is little likelihood of confusion, the name white cedar is applied locally in different parts of its range from Massachusetts to Florida. It is a persistent swamp tree and on that account has been called swamp cedar; but that name alone would not distinguish it from the northern white cedar, for both grow in swamps; but it does separate it from red cedar which keeps away from swamps. The ranges of the two are side by side from New England to Florida. Post cedar is a common name for it in Delaware and New Jersey, because of the important place it has long filled as fence material; but again, the name does not set it apart from red cedar or northern white cedar, for both are used for posts. The only name thus far applied, which clearly distinguishes it from associated cedars, is southern white cedar. Its range extends northward to Maine, but the tree’s chief commercial importance has been in New Jersey and southward to North Carolina, very near the coast. Somehow, it seems to skip Georgia where no one has reported it for many years, though there is historical evidence that it once grew in that state. It grows as far west as Mississippi, but is scarce.

The small leaves remain green two years and then turn brown but adhere to the branches several years longer. The fruit is about one-fourth inch in diameter, and the small seeds are equipped with wings.

The wood is among the lightest in this country. It is only moderately strong and stiff. The tree usually grows slowly. Fifty years may be required to produce a fence post, but under favorable conditions results somewhat better than that may be expected. The summerwood of the yearly ring is narrow, dark in color, and conspicuous, making the counting of the rings an easy matter. The medullary rays are numerous but thin. When the sap is cut tangentially in very thin layers it is white and semi-transparent, presenting somewhat the appearance of oiled paper. The heartwood is light brown, tinged with red, growing darker with exposure. The wood is easily worked, and is very durable in contact with the soil. Fence posts of this wood have been reported to stand fifty years, and shingles are said to last longer. Trees reach a height of eighty feet and diameter of four; but such are of the largest size. Great numbers are cut for poles and posts which are little more than a foot in diameter. Few forest trees grow in denser stands than this. It often takes possession of swamps, crowds out all other trees, and developsthickets so dense as to be almost impenetrable. Southern white cedar is cut in ten or twelve states, but the annual supply is not known, because mills generally report all cedars as one, and the regions which produce this, produce one or more other species of cedar also. It has held its place nearly three hundred years, and much interesting history is connected with it. A considerable part of the Revolutionary war was fought with powder made from white cedar charcoal burned in New Jersey and Delaware. However, that was by no means the earliest place filled by this wood.

Two hundred years ago in North Carolina John Lawson wrote of its use for “yards, topmasts, booms, bowsprits for boats, shingles, and poles.” It was cut for practically the same purposes in New Jersey at an earlier period, and 160 years ago Gottlieb Mittelberger, when he visited Philadelphia, declared that white cedar was being cut at a rate which would soon exhaust the supply. But that prophecy, like similar predictions that oak and red cedar were about gone, proved not well founded. Seventy years after the imminent exhaustion of this wood was foretold, William Cobbett, an English traveler, declared with evident exaggeration that “all good houses in the United States” were roofed with white cedar shingles.

After boat building, the first general use of the southern white cedar was for fences and farm buildings, and doubtless twenty times as much went to the farms as to the boat yards. In all regions where the wood was convenient, little other was employed as fencing material, and many of the earliest houses in New Jersey and some in Pennsylvania were constructed almost wholly of this wood. Small trees which would split two, three, and four rails to the cut, were mauled by thousands to enclose the farms. The bark soon dropped off, or was removed, and the light rails quickly air-dried, and decay made little impression on them for many years. The larger trunks were rived for shingles or were sawed into lumber. About 1750 the use of round cedar logs for houses and barns began to give way to sawed lumber. It was an ideal milling timber, for the logs were symmetrical, clear, and easily handled. North Carolina sawmills were at work on this timber many years before the Revolution. It was acceptable material for doors, window frames, rafters, and floors, but especially for shingles which were split with frow and mallet, and were from twenty-four to twenty-seven inches long. They were known in market as juniper shingles and sold at four and five dollars a thousand. About 1750 builders in Philadelphia were criticized because they constructed houses with no provision for other than white cedar roofs; the walls being too weak for heavier material which would have to be substituted when cedar could be no longerprocured. Philadelphia was not alone in its preference for cedar roofs. Large shipments of shingles were going from New Jersey to New York, and even to the West Indies earlier than 1750.

Southern white cedar is said to have been the first American wood used for organ pipes. The resonance of cedar shingles under a pattering rain suggested this use to Mittelberger when he visited America, and he tried the wood with such success that he pronounced it the best that he knew of for organ pipes.

Coopers were among the early users of white cedar. The “cedar coopers of Philadelphia” were famous in their day. They used this wood and also red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), and their wares occupied an important place in domestic and some foreign markets. Small vessels prevailed, such as pails, churns, firkins, tubs, keelers, piggins, noggins, and kegs. The ware was handsome, strong, durable, and light in weight. Oil merchants, particularly those who dealt in whale oil which was once an important commodity, bought tanks of southern white cedar. It is a dense wood and seepage is small.

A peculiar superstition once prevailed, and has not wholly disappeared at this day, that white cedar possessed powerful healing properties. It was thought that water was purified by standing in a cedar bucket, and even that a liquid was improved by simply running through a spigot of this wood. Some eastern towns at an early period laid cedar water mains, partly because the wood was known to be durable, and partly because it was supposed to exercise some favorable influence upon the water flowing through the pipes. It was even believed that standing trees purified the swamps in which they grew. Vessels putting to sea from Chesapeake bay, sometimes made special effort to fill their water casks with water from the Dismal swamp, where cedars grew abundantly in the stagnant lagoons.

About 100 years ago it was found that whole forests of cedar had been submerged in New Jersey during prehistoric times, and that deep in swamps the trunks of trees were buried out of sight. No one knows how long the prostrate trees had lain beneath the accumulation of peat and mud, but the wood was sound. Mining the cedar became an important industry in some of the large swamps, and it has not ended yet. The wood is sound enough for shingles and lumber, though it has been buried for centuries, as is proved by the age of the forests which grew over the submerged logs. Sometimes a log which has lain under water hundreds of years, rises to the surface by its own buoyancy when pressure from above is removed. This is remarkable and shows how long a time this cedar resists complete waterlogging. The wood of green cedar has a strong odor, and that characteristic remains with the submerged trunks.Experienced men who have been long engaged in mining the timber, are able to tell by the odor of a chip brought to the surface from a deeply submerged log whether the wood is sufficiently well preserved to be worth recovering and manufacturing. Trunks six feet in diameter have been brought to the surface. Few if any living white cedars of that size exist now.

Many of the early uses of southern white cedar have continued till the present time, but in much smaller quantities. Fence rails are no longer made of it; shingles and cooperage have declined. On the other hand, it now has some uses which were unknown in early times, such as telephone and telegraph poles, crossties, and piling for railroad bridges and culverts.

The supply of southern white cedar is not large, and it is being cut faster than it is growing. The deep swamps where it grows protect white cedar forests from fire, and for that reason it is more fortunate than many other species. Not even cypress can successfully compete with it for possession of water soaked morasses. It does not promise great things for the future, for it will never be extensively planted. Its range has been pretty definitely fixed by nature to deep swamps near the Atlantic coast. Within those limits it will be of some importance for a long time. Where it finds its most congenial surroundings, little else that is profitable to man will grow. This will save it from utter extermination, because much of the land which it occupies will never be wanted for anything else.

Southern white cedar branch

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