WHITE ASH

WHITE ASHWhite ashWhite Ash

White ashWhite Ash

White Ash

WHITE ASH(Fraxinus Americana)This tree is generally called white or gray ash, or simply ash. American ash is a translation of its botanical name and is not often used in business transactions in this country. In some parts of the South the term cane ash is occasionally employed, but there seems to be no agreement among those who use the name as to what it means. This is the common ash in the lumber trade. There are more than a dozen species in the United States, but white ash goes to market in larger amounts than all others together. This is known in a general way, but exact figures cannot be given, because statistics of the cut of different species of ash are not kept separate.The range of this tree covers at least a million square miles, and all or part of every state east of the Mississippi river and west of it from Nebraska to Texas. It is reported cut for lumber in thirty states. The various ashes are lumbered in thirty-nine states. Ash does not occur in pure stands but is scattered in forests of other species, sometimes growing in small clumps. It is difficult to name an average size for the tree, because climate and soil control the growth over a large area where conditions vary. Trees 120 feet high and six feet in diameter are said to have stood in the primeval forests in the lower Ohio valley; but logs four feet through are seldom seen now. Trees seventy or eighty feet high and three in diameter are above the average in any region where this tree is now lumbered. Some of the old planted trees of New England are five or six feet through, and are finely proportioned, but growing as they do in the open, they have larger crowns than are found in forest trees.All species of ash have compound leaves, and those of white ash are from eight to twelve inches long. The under sides of the leaflets are white, and some persons have this fact in mind when they call the species white ash, while others refer to the bark, and still others to the wood. It is a characteristic of the tree that most of the leaves grow near the ends of the limbs. For that reason the crown appears open when viewed from below, and the larger limbs and branches are naked. The leaves demand light, and they arrange themselves on the extremities of the limbs to get it. When the tree is crowded, it sheds its lower limbs and its crown rises rapidly until it reaches abundance of light. This produces long trunks in forests.The boles are often not quite straight, but have several slight crooks, yet keep close to a general perpendicular line. That form is dueto a peculiarity of growth. The leading shoot of a growing ash has more than one terminal bud. If a side bud pushes ahead, the stem leans a little in that direction; next, a bud on the other side may gain the ascendancy, producing a slight lean for a few years in that direction; or two side buds may develop simultaneously, causing a forked trunk. Mature trees often carry the history of these peculiarities of growth.The seeds of white ash are equipped for moderate flight. The wing is large, but the seed attached to the end of it is heavy enough to give it a sharp tilt downward when it begins its flight through the air, and it generally shoots at a steep angle toward the ground. It is not apt to whirl through the air with a gliding motion like a maple seed. Consequently, ash seeds are not great travelers. They are dispersed with economy, however, for all do not come down at once, but many hang on the tree for months, and a few go with every strong wind, thus getting themselves scattered in every direction. Their power of germination is low, and only about forty per cent of seeds are fertile. This is due to the fact that pistillate and staminate flowers do not grow on the same tree, and fertilization is imperfect.The importance of ash in the industries of the country does not depend on the quantity but the quality of the wood. Although the various species are produced in thirty-nine states, as shown by mill statistics, the total yield is less than 250,000,000 feet a year. That is exceeded by several woods, among them hickory, elm, beech, basswood, chestnut, and even larch.The wood of ash which has grown rapidly is generally considered superior to that of slow growth. The reason is found in the fact that trees of slow growth do most of their growing early in the season, and the wood is porous; but trees of rapid growth lay summerwood on abundantly, and it is dense. Few species show a sharper line between spring and summerwood than ash, for which reason the annual rings are clear-cut and distinct. What figure ash has is produced by the growth rings, and not by medullary rays. Quarter-sawing brings out no additional beauty. Slight crooks in many logs produce a moderate cross grain in lumber, which gives to finished ash its characteristic figure or grain. When straight-grained wood is wanted, as when it is for tool handles and oars, logs without crooks are selected.The wood of white ash is heavy, hard, strong, elastic, but rather brittle. It lacks the toughness of hickory. The medullary rays are numerous, but small and obscure. The color is brown, the sapwood much lighter, often nearly white. It is not durable in contact with the soil. Notwithstanding its name, the wood rates low in ash, and its fuel value is under that of white oak. The states which produce the largestyearly cut of this species are, ranging downward in the order named: Arkansas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and Tennessee.The uses of white ash are so numerous that they can be presented only in classes. It goes into almost every wood-using industry, but in different sections of country certain uses lead. Thus in Illinois the makers of butter tubs take more of it than any other industry; in Michigan automobiles lead, and in Arkansas the handle factories are largest buyers; in Louisiana boat oars consume most; in Alabama and Missouri car construction is in the lead; in Texas boxes and crates; in North Carolina wagons; in Kentucky handles; in Maryland musical instruments; and in Massachusetts furniture. The utilization of ash in these states, scattered over the eastern half of the United States, indicates fairly well the wood’s most important lines of usefulness. A considerable quantity is made into flooring and interior finish. It is classed among sanitary woods, that is, it does not stain or taint food products by contact.The total quantity of merchantable white ash in the country is not known, but there is still enough to meet demand, and the extent of the tree’s range makes supplies convenient in nearly all manufacturing states. The species grows rather rapidly, and trees a hundred or a hundred and fifty years old yield logs of good size.Texas Ash(Fraxinus texensis) has been regarded by some as a variety of white ash, while others, including Sudworth and Sargent, consider it a distinct species. It is often called mountain ash where it occurs among the mountains of western Texas. Its range lies wholly in that state, and extends from the vicinity of Dallas to the valley of Devil’s river. The compound leaves are smaller than those of white ash, and are usually composed of five leaflets. The winged seeds ripen in May, and are an inch or less in length. The largest trees are fifty feet high and two or three in diameter; but generally the trees are much smaller. The wood is strong, heavy, and hard. The annual rings are marked by one or more rows of open ducts, and the medullary rays are inconspicuous. The heartwood is light brown, the sapwood lighter. This ash is employed within its range for various purposes, but it is not of sufficient abundance to constitute an important commodity. In market it is not distinguished from white ash.Gregg Ash(Fraxinus greggii) has some peculiarities which make it worthy of mention as one of the minor species. Its range is in the dry mountains of western Texas where a number of ashes seem to have put in an appearance as members of the thinly-peopled vegetable kingdom of that region. The compound leaves of Gregg ash are seldom three inches long, and the leaflets are often half an inch long and lessthan a quarter of an inch wide. The petioles are winged like the twigs of wing elm. The undersides of the leaves have small black dots. The winged seeds are as proportionately small as the leaves. The flowers have not been described by botanists, for the species is not well known. The largest trees are scarcely twenty-five feet high and eight inches in diameter. More frequently they are shrubs from four to twelve feet tall. The wood is heavy, hard, brown in color and of slow growth.Dwarf Ash(Fraxinus anomala) might be mistaken for some other species were its telltale winged seeds missing. It has lost the leaflets from its compound leaf, and a single one remains. Occasionally, however, a stem bearing three leaflets is found. The seeds are equipped with wide, oblong wings. It is a desert species, and the desolate surroundings of its habitat explain why nature has dispensed with as much foliage as possible. It is found in southwestern Colorado, in southern Utah, and on the western slopes of the Charleston mountains in southern Nevada. Trees are small and the wood is not of much use for other than fuel, but a few small ranch timbers are made of it where other kinds are scarce. Trunks are usually not more than six or seven inches in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard, and light brown in color.Fringe Ash(Fraxinus cuspidata) has some difficulty in proving that it is entitled to be called a tree in the United States, though southward in Mexico its right to that title is unquestioned. It is very small where its range extends over the dry ridges and rocky slopes of southwestern Texas and southern New Mexico and Arizona. Its compound leaves are five or seven inches long, and the leaflets which number from three to seven have long, slender tips. The trowel-shaped fruit is about one inch long. The wood resembles white ash, but trunks of considerable size are not found. The name refers to the flowers, and they give this small tree its value for ornamental purposes. The flowers appear in April and are extremely fragrant.White ash branch

This tree is generally called white or gray ash, or simply ash. American ash is a translation of its botanical name and is not often used in business transactions in this country. In some parts of the South the term cane ash is occasionally employed, but there seems to be no agreement among those who use the name as to what it means. This is the common ash in the lumber trade. There are more than a dozen species in the United States, but white ash goes to market in larger amounts than all others together. This is known in a general way, but exact figures cannot be given, because statistics of the cut of different species of ash are not kept separate.

The range of this tree covers at least a million square miles, and all or part of every state east of the Mississippi river and west of it from Nebraska to Texas. It is reported cut for lumber in thirty states. The various ashes are lumbered in thirty-nine states. Ash does not occur in pure stands but is scattered in forests of other species, sometimes growing in small clumps. It is difficult to name an average size for the tree, because climate and soil control the growth over a large area where conditions vary. Trees 120 feet high and six feet in diameter are said to have stood in the primeval forests in the lower Ohio valley; but logs four feet through are seldom seen now. Trees seventy or eighty feet high and three in diameter are above the average in any region where this tree is now lumbered. Some of the old planted trees of New England are five or six feet through, and are finely proportioned, but growing as they do in the open, they have larger crowns than are found in forest trees.

All species of ash have compound leaves, and those of white ash are from eight to twelve inches long. The under sides of the leaflets are white, and some persons have this fact in mind when they call the species white ash, while others refer to the bark, and still others to the wood. It is a characteristic of the tree that most of the leaves grow near the ends of the limbs. For that reason the crown appears open when viewed from below, and the larger limbs and branches are naked. The leaves demand light, and they arrange themselves on the extremities of the limbs to get it. When the tree is crowded, it sheds its lower limbs and its crown rises rapidly until it reaches abundance of light. This produces long trunks in forests.

The boles are often not quite straight, but have several slight crooks, yet keep close to a general perpendicular line. That form is dueto a peculiarity of growth. The leading shoot of a growing ash has more than one terminal bud. If a side bud pushes ahead, the stem leans a little in that direction; next, a bud on the other side may gain the ascendancy, producing a slight lean for a few years in that direction; or two side buds may develop simultaneously, causing a forked trunk. Mature trees often carry the history of these peculiarities of growth.

The seeds of white ash are equipped for moderate flight. The wing is large, but the seed attached to the end of it is heavy enough to give it a sharp tilt downward when it begins its flight through the air, and it generally shoots at a steep angle toward the ground. It is not apt to whirl through the air with a gliding motion like a maple seed. Consequently, ash seeds are not great travelers. They are dispersed with economy, however, for all do not come down at once, but many hang on the tree for months, and a few go with every strong wind, thus getting themselves scattered in every direction. Their power of germination is low, and only about forty per cent of seeds are fertile. This is due to the fact that pistillate and staminate flowers do not grow on the same tree, and fertilization is imperfect.

The importance of ash in the industries of the country does not depend on the quantity but the quality of the wood. Although the various species are produced in thirty-nine states, as shown by mill statistics, the total yield is less than 250,000,000 feet a year. That is exceeded by several woods, among them hickory, elm, beech, basswood, chestnut, and even larch.

The wood of ash which has grown rapidly is generally considered superior to that of slow growth. The reason is found in the fact that trees of slow growth do most of their growing early in the season, and the wood is porous; but trees of rapid growth lay summerwood on abundantly, and it is dense. Few species show a sharper line between spring and summerwood than ash, for which reason the annual rings are clear-cut and distinct. What figure ash has is produced by the growth rings, and not by medullary rays. Quarter-sawing brings out no additional beauty. Slight crooks in many logs produce a moderate cross grain in lumber, which gives to finished ash its characteristic figure or grain. When straight-grained wood is wanted, as when it is for tool handles and oars, logs without crooks are selected.

The wood of white ash is heavy, hard, strong, elastic, but rather brittle. It lacks the toughness of hickory. The medullary rays are numerous, but small and obscure. The color is brown, the sapwood much lighter, often nearly white. It is not durable in contact with the soil. Notwithstanding its name, the wood rates low in ash, and its fuel value is under that of white oak. The states which produce the largestyearly cut of this species are, ranging downward in the order named: Arkansas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and Tennessee.

The uses of white ash are so numerous that they can be presented only in classes. It goes into almost every wood-using industry, but in different sections of country certain uses lead. Thus in Illinois the makers of butter tubs take more of it than any other industry; in Michigan automobiles lead, and in Arkansas the handle factories are largest buyers; in Louisiana boat oars consume most; in Alabama and Missouri car construction is in the lead; in Texas boxes and crates; in North Carolina wagons; in Kentucky handles; in Maryland musical instruments; and in Massachusetts furniture. The utilization of ash in these states, scattered over the eastern half of the United States, indicates fairly well the wood’s most important lines of usefulness. A considerable quantity is made into flooring and interior finish. It is classed among sanitary woods, that is, it does not stain or taint food products by contact.

The total quantity of merchantable white ash in the country is not known, but there is still enough to meet demand, and the extent of the tree’s range makes supplies convenient in nearly all manufacturing states. The species grows rather rapidly, and trees a hundred or a hundred and fifty years old yield logs of good size.

Texas Ash(Fraxinus texensis) has been regarded by some as a variety of white ash, while others, including Sudworth and Sargent, consider it a distinct species. It is often called mountain ash where it occurs among the mountains of western Texas. Its range lies wholly in that state, and extends from the vicinity of Dallas to the valley of Devil’s river. The compound leaves are smaller than those of white ash, and are usually composed of five leaflets. The winged seeds ripen in May, and are an inch or less in length. The largest trees are fifty feet high and two or three in diameter; but generally the trees are much smaller. The wood is strong, heavy, and hard. The annual rings are marked by one or more rows of open ducts, and the medullary rays are inconspicuous. The heartwood is light brown, the sapwood lighter. This ash is employed within its range for various purposes, but it is not of sufficient abundance to constitute an important commodity. In market it is not distinguished from white ash.

Gregg Ash(Fraxinus greggii) has some peculiarities which make it worthy of mention as one of the minor species. Its range is in the dry mountains of western Texas where a number of ashes seem to have put in an appearance as members of the thinly-peopled vegetable kingdom of that region. The compound leaves of Gregg ash are seldom three inches long, and the leaflets are often half an inch long and lessthan a quarter of an inch wide. The petioles are winged like the twigs of wing elm. The undersides of the leaves have small black dots. The winged seeds are as proportionately small as the leaves. The flowers have not been described by botanists, for the species is not well known. The largest trees are scarcely twenty-five feet high and eight inches in diameter. More frequently they are shrubs from four to twelve feet tall. The wood is heavy, hard, brown in color and of slow growth.

Dwarf Ash(Fraxinus anomala) might be mistaken for some other species were its telltale winged seeds missing. It has lost the leaflets from its compound leaf, and a single one remains. Occasionally, however, a stem bearing three leaflets is found. The seeds are equipped with wide, oblong wings. It is a desert species, and the desolate surroundings of its habitat explain why nature has dispensed with as much foliage as possible. It is found in southwestern Colorado, in southern Utah, and on the western slopes of the Charleston mountains in southern Nevada. Trees are small and the wood is not of much use for other than fuel, but a few small ranch timbers are made of it where other kinds are scarce. Trunks are usually not more than six or seven inches in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard, and light brown in color.

Fringe Ash(Fraxinus cuspidata) has some difficulty in proving that it is entitled to be called a tree in the United States, though southward in Mexico its right to that title is unquestioned. It is very small where its range extends over the dry ridges and rocky slopes of southwestern Texas and southern New Mexico and Arizona. Its compound leaves are five or seven inches long, and the leaflets which number from three to seven have long, slender tips. The trowel-shaped fruit is about one inch long. The wood resembles white ash, but trunks of considerable size are not found. The name refers to the flowers, and they give this small tree its value for ornamental purposes. The flowers appear in April and are extremely fragrant.

Fringe Ash(Fraxinus cuspidata) has some difficulty in proving that it is entitled to be called a tree in the United States, though southward in Mexico its right to that title is unquestioned. It is very small where its range extends over the dry ridges and rocky slopes of southwestern Texas and southern New Mexico and Arizona. Its compound leaves are five or seven inches long, and the leaflets which number from three to seven have long, slender tips. The trowel-shaped fruit is about one inch long. The wood resembles white ash, but trunks of considerable size are not found. The name refers to the flowers, and they give this small tree its value for ornamental purposes. The flowers appear in April and are extremely fragrant.

White ash branch

BLACK ASHBlack ashBlack Ash

Black ashBlack Ash

Black Ash

BLACK ASH(Fraxinus Nigra)When George Washington was a surveyor locating land on the upper waters of the Potomac river, and westward on the Kanawha and Ohio rivers, he always spoke of this ash as “hoop tree” when he marked it with two or with three “hacks,” depending upon whether it designated a “corner” or a “line,” or a “pointer” in the system of surveying then in use. Trees were used then as landmarks, and were duly recorded in the surveyor’s field notes, and were described in the deeds when the title to the land passed from one party to another. It was not unusual, if subsequent litigation came up, to cut blocks from marked trees to prove that such a corner was at such a place. The “hacks” or ax marks, were sometimes healed over and invisible at the bark, but were found deep in the wood. The rings of growth covering the ax marks afforded an admissible record of the years that had passed since the survey was made. The selection of the black ash as a landmark was one of the few instances in which Washington showed poor judgment; because it is a tree of short life, and might be expected to die before a great many years.The name hoop ash is applied to this tree yet. It has always been good material for barrel hoops, because it splits into thin pieces, and is sufficiently tough. It is known as basket ash for the same reason. The New England Indians were making fish baskets of it when the first white people landed on those shores, and settlers speedily learned the art from the children of the wilderness. Those untutored savages knew little of wood technology, but they were able to take advantage of a peculiarity in the structure of black ash wood, which the white man’s microscope has revealed to him. The Indians doubtless discovered it accidentally. The springwood in the annual ring of black ash is made up of large pores, crowded so closely together that there is really very little actual wood substance there. In other words, the springwood is chiefly air spaces. The result is, that billets of black ash are easily separated into thin strips, the cleavage following the weak lines of springwood. A little beating and bending causes the annual rings to fall apart. In some way the Indians found that out, and utilized their knowledge in manufacturing baskets in which to carry fish, acorns, hickory nuts, and other forest and water commodities.The white people extended the scope of application to include chairs and other furniture in which splits are manipulated. It is worthy of note that Indians made a similar discovery with northern white cedaror arborvitæ, which separates into thin pieces by beating and bending. Barrel makers took advantage of the splitting properties of black ash to make hoops of it, hence the name hoop ash, or hoop tree as Washington called it. The name basket ash has a similar origin.The names swamp ash and water ash refer to situations in which the tree grows best. It is one of the thirstiest inhabitants of the forest. Its aggressive roots ramify through the soil and drink up the moisture so voraciously that if water is not abundant, neighboring trees and plants may find their roots robbed, and the functions of healthy growth will be interfered with. This has led to a general belief that black ash poisons trees that it touches. It simply robs their roots. Carolina and Lombardy poplars will sometimes do the same thing.The name black ash by which this tree is now known in most regions where it grows refers to the color of the large, prominent, shiny, blue-black buds in late winter and early spring; to the very dark green leaves in summer—which at a distance resemble the foliage of post oak—and, to some extent, to the dark brown color of the heartwood, though the wood is not always a safe means of identification if judged from superficial appearance only. The form of the tree assists in identifying it; for it is the slimmest of the ashes, in proportion to its height. Trunks three feet through are heard of, but few persons have ever seen one much over twenty inches, and many are about done growing when they are one foot in diameter. Yet the trunks of such are very tall, perhaps seventy or eighty feet. Their appearance has been likened to tall, slender columns of dark gray granite. They often stand so straight that a plummet line will not reveal a deviation from the perpendicular.The tree has been called elder-leaved ash. The form of the foliage has something to do with that name, but the odor more. Crush the leaves, and they smell like elder. The compound leaves are from twelve to sixteen inches long; the leaflets range from seven to eleven in number, and the side leaflets have no stalks. The leaves appear late in spring, and they fall early in autumn. They drop with the butternut leaves, and like them, all at once. The seed is winged, and the wing forms a margin entirely round the seed.The wood of black ash is rather soft, moderately heavy, tough, but only moderately strong, not durable in contact with the soil, dark brown in color with sapwood whiter. The species ranges farther north than any other ash, and grows in cold swamps and on the low banks of streams and lakes from Newfoundland to Winnipeg, and southward to Virginia, southern Illinois, southern Missouri, and Arkansas.Black ash fills many important places in the country’s wood-using industries, but the total quantity is not large. In 1910 Michigan manufacturersreported the annual quantity in that state at 9,110,432 feet, and in Illinois the total was 9,936,000 feet. The uses for the wood in Michigan may be regarded as typical of the whole country. The reported uses were, auto seats, baskets, boat finish, butter tubs, candy pails, carriage seats, crating, church pews, fish nets, office fixtures, flooring, furniture, ice chests, interior finish, jelly buckets, kitchen cabinets, lard tubs, piano frames, putty kegs, racked hoops, spice kegs, tin plate boxes, veneer, washboards, and woven splint boxes.Black ash burls are characteristic excrescences on the trunk. They begin as small lumps or knobs under the bark, and never cease growing while the tree lives. They may reach the dimensions of wash tubs, but most do not exceed the size of a gallon measure. The grain of the wood is exceedingly distorted and involved. The burls are sliced or sawed in veneers which are much prized by cabinet makers. Early New Englanders made bowls of them, which seldom checked or split during generations of service. The burls are believed to be due to adventitious buds; that is, buds which originate deep in the wood, but are never able to force their way through the bark. The internal structure of the ash burl indicates that the buried bud grows, branches, and sends shoots in various directions, but all of them are hopelessly enmeshed in the wood substance, and never are able to free themselves and burst through the bark. A constantly enlarging excrescence is the result.Blue Ash(Fraxinus quadrangulata) is named from a blue dye procured from the inner bark. The botanical name relates to the square shape of the young twigs, particularly the twigs of young trees, and was given by A. F. Michaux who found the species growing in the South. It reaches its best development on the lower Wabash river in Indiana and Illinois and on the Big Smoky mountains in Tennessee. Its northern limit reaches southern Michigan, its western is in Missouri. It is not abundant, if found at all, east of the Appalachian mountains. Trees may reach a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three, but about seventy is the average height, with a diameter of two feet or less. The leaves resemble those of black ash in form, but the foliage when seen in mass is yellow-green instead of dark green like that of black ash. The seeds look like those of black ash. The tree bears perfect flowers, and in that respect differs from most other species of ash.The wood is heavier than that of any other member of the ash group, except Texas ash. It weighs about the same as white oak, which is six pounds per cubic foot more than white ash weighs. In general appearance the wood resembles white ash, but it is usually considered stronger and more springy. The trunks of young trees are largely or entirely sapwood. Sometimes no heartwood is formed until an age ofseventy or eighty years is reached. Many manufacturers of ash tool handles prefer this species to any other ash, because of its thick, white sapwood. It is often made into handles for hoes, rakes, shovels, pitchforks, spades, and snaths for scythes. Makers of vehicles draw liberally upon this wood within its range, as do furniture makers and the manufacturers of flooring. It is regarded as harder than white ash, and consequently better flooring material.Leatherleaf Ash(Fraxinus velutina) changes its velvety leaves to a leathery condition, hence the conflict in the meanings of its two names.Velutinameans velvet-like. The compound leaves are seldom six inches long, often not three, and they are made up of from three to nine leaflets. The small seeds are equipped with wings. The tree is small and would be without any commercial importance except that it grows in an arid region where any wood is welcome. It is made into ax, hammer, and pick handles, and wagon makers are often glad to get it. It is found among the mountains and canyons of western Texas, in New Mexico, Arizona, southern Nevada, and southeastern California, near the shores of Owen’s lake. The largest trees are scarcely forty feet high and eight inches in diameter. The wood is not hard or strong, and is of slow growth. The largest trunks are apt to be hollow. Sapwood is comparatively thick.Berlandier Ash(Fraxinus berlandieriana) may not be entitled to a place among native species, of the United States. Some suppose it was introduced from Mexico by early Spanish settlers in western Texas. It now grows wild there along Nueces and Blanco rivers where specimens thirty feet high and a foot in diameter are found. Southward in Mexico it is a popular street tree, and trunks reach six or eight feet in diameter. The wood is soft and is used only locally and in very small quantities.Black ash branch

When George Washington was a surveyor locating land on the upper waters of the Potomac river, and westward on the Kanawha and Ohio rivers, he always spoke of this ash as “hoop tree” when he marked it with two or with three “hacks,” depending upon whether it designated a “corner” or a “line,” or a “pointer” in the system of surveying then in use. Trees were used then as landmarks, and were duly recorded in the surveyor’s field notes, and were described in the deeds when the title to the land passed from one party to another. It was not unusual, if subsequent litigation came up, to cut blocks from marked trees to prove that such a corner was at such a place. The “hacks” or ax marks, were sometimes healed over and invisible at the bark, but were found deep in the wood. The rings of growth covering the ax marks afforded an admissible record of the years that had passed since the survey was made. The selection of the black ash as a landmark was one of the few instances in which Washington showed poor judgment; because it is a tree of short life, and might be expected to die before a great many years.

The name hoop ash is applied to this tree yet. It has always been good material for barrel hoops, because it splits into thin pieces, and is sufficiently tough. It is known as basket ash for the same reason. The New England Indians were making fish baskets of it when the first white people landed on those shores, and settlers speedily learned the art from the children of the wilderness. Those untutored savages knew little of wood technology, but they were able to take advantage of a peculiarity in the structure of black ash wood, which the white man’s microscope has revealed to him. The Indians doubtless discovered it accidentally. The springwood in the annual ring of black ash is made up of large pores, crowded so closely together that there is really very little actual wood substance there. In other words, the springwood is chiefly air spaces. The result is, that billets of black ash are easily separated into thin strips, the cleavage following the weak lines of springwood. A little beating and bending causes the annual rings to fall apart. In some way the Indians found that out, and utilized their knowledge in manufacturing baskets in which to carry fish, acorns, hickory nuts, and other forest and water commodities.

The white people extended the scope of application to include chairs and other furniture in which splits are manipulated. It is worthy of note that Indians made a similar discovery with northern white cedaror arborvitæ, which separates into thin pieces by beating and bending. Barrel makers took advantage of the splitting properties of black ash to make hoops of it, hence the name hoop ash, or hoop tree as Washington called it. The name basket ash has a similar origin.

The names swamp ash and water ash refer to situations in which the tree grows best. It is one of the thirstiest inhabitants of the forest. Its aggressive roots ramify through the soil and drink up the moisture so voraciously that if water is not abundant, neighboring trees and plants may find their roots robbed, and the functions of healthy growth will be interfered with. This has led to a general belief that black ash poisons trees that it touches. It simply robs their roots. Carolina and Lombardy poplars will sometimes do the same thing.

The name black ash by which this tree is now known in most regions where it grows refers to the color of the large, prominent, shiny, blue-black buds in late winter and early spring; to the very dark green leaves in summer—which at a distance resemble the foliage of post oak—and, to some extent, to the dark brown color of the heartwood, though the wood is not always a safe means of identification if judged from superficial appearance only. The form of the tree assists in identifying it; for it is the slimmest of the ashes, in proportion to its height. Trunks three feet through are heard of, but few persons have ever seen one much over twenty inches, and many are about done growing when they are one foot in diameter. Yet the trunks of such are very tall, perhaps seventy or eighty feet. Their appearance has been likened to tall, slender columns of dark gray granite. They often stand so straight that a plummet line will not reveal a deviation from the perpendicular.

The tree has been called elder-leaved ash. The form of the foliage has something to do with that name, but the odor more. Crush the leaves, and they smell like elder. The compound leaves are from twelve to sixteen inches long; the leaflets range from seven to eleven in number, and the side leaflets have no stalks. The leaves appear late in spring, and they fall early in autumn. They drop with the butternut leaves, and like them, all at once. The seed is winged, and the wing forms a margin entirely round the seed.

The wood of black ash is rather soft, moderately heavy, tough, but only moderately strong, not durable in contact with the soil, dark brown in color with sapwood whiter. The species ranges farther north than any other ash, and grows in cold swamps and on the low banks of streams and lakes from Newfoundland to Winnipeg, and southward to Virginia, southern Illinois, southern Missouri, and Arkansas.

Black ash fills many important places in the country’s wood-using industries, but the total quantity is not large. In 1910 Michigan manufacturersreported the annual quantity in that state at 9,110,432 feet, and in Illinois the total was 9,936,000 feet. The uses for the wood in Michigan may be regarded as typical of the whole country. The reported uses were, auto seats, baskets, boat finish, butter tubs, candy pails, carriage seats, crating, church pews, fish nets, office fixtures, flooring, furniture, ice chests, interior finish, jelly buckets, kitchen cabinets, lard tubs, piano frames, putty kegs, racked hoops, spice kegs, tin plate boxes, veneer, washboards, and woven splint boxes.

Black ash burls are characteristic excrescences on the trunk. They begin as small lumps or knobs under the bark, and never cease growing while the tree lives. They may reach the dimensions of wash tubs, but most do not exceed the size of a gallon measure. The grain of the wood is exceedingly distorted and involved. The burls are sliced or sawed in veneers which are much prized by cabinet makers. Early New Englanders made bowls of them, which seldom checked or split during generations of service. The burls are believed to be due to adventitious buds; that is, buds which originate deep in the wood, but are never able to force their way through the bark. The internal structure of the ash burl indicates that the buried bud grows, branches, and sends shoots in various directions, but all of them are hopelessly enmeshed in the wood substance, and never are able to free themselves and burst through the bark. A constantly enlarging excrescence is the result.

Blue Ash(Fraxinus quadrangulata) is named from a blue dye procured from the inner bark. The botanical name relates to the square shape of the young twigs, particularly the twigs of young trees, and was given by A. F. Michaux who found the species growing in the South. It reaches its best development on the lower Wabash river in Indiana and Illinois and on the Big Smoky mountains in Tennessee. Its northern limit reaches southern Michigan, its western is in Missouri. It is not abundant, if found at all, east of the Appalachian mountains. Trees may reach a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three, but about seventy is the average height, with a diameter of two feet or less. The leaves resemble those of black ash in form, but the foliage when seen in mass is yellow-green instead of dark green like that of black ash. The seeds look like those of black ash. The tree bears perfect flowers, and in that respect differs from most other species of ash.

The wood is heavier than that of any other member of the ash group, except Texas ash. It weighs about the same as white oak, which is six pounds per cubic foot more than white ash weighs. In general appearance the wood resembles white ash, but it is usually considered stronger and more springy. The trunks of young trees are largely or entirely sapwood. Sometimes no heartwood is formed until an age ofseventy or eighty years is reached. Many manufacturers of ash tool handles prefer this species to any other ash, because of its thick, white sapwood. It is often made into handles for hoes, rakes, shovels, pitchforks, spades, and snaths for scythes. Makers of vehicles draw liberally upon this wood within its range, as do furniture makers and the manufacturers of flooring. It is regarded as harder than white ash, and consequently better flooring material.

Leatherleaf Ash(Fraxinus velutina) changes its velvety leaves to a leathery condition, hence the conflict in the meanings of its two names.Velutinameans velvet-like. The compound leaves are seldom six inches long, often not three, and they are made up of from three to nine leaflets. The small seeds are equipped with wings. The tree is small and would be without any commercial importance except that it grows in an arid region where any wood is welcome. It is made into ax, hammer, and pick handles, and wagon makers are often glad to get it. It is found among the mountains and canyons of western Texas, in New Mexico, Arizona, southern Nevada, and southeastern California, near the shores of Owen’s lake. The largest trees are scarcely forty feet high and eight inches in diameter. The wood is not hard or strong, and is of slow growth. The largest trunks are apt to be hollow. Sapwood is comparatively thick.Berlandier Ash(Fraxinus berlandieriana) may not be entitled to a place among native species, of the United States. Some suppose it was introduced from Mexico by early Spanish settlers in western Texas. It now grows wild there along Nueces and Blanco rivers where specimens thirty feet high and a foot in diameter are found. Southward in Mexico it is a popular street tree, and trunks reach six or eight feet in diameter. The wood is soft and is used only locally and in very small quantities.

Leatherleaf Ash(Fraxinus velutina) changes its velvety leaves to a leathery condition, hence the conflict in the meanings of its two names.Velutinameans velvet-like. The compound leaves are seldom six inches long, often not three, and they are made up of from three to nine leaflets. The small seeds are equipped with wings. The tree is small and would be without any commercial importance except that it grows in an arid region where any wood is welcome. It is made into ax, hammer, and pick handles, and wagon makers are often glad to get it. It is found among the mountains and canyons of western Texas, in New Mexico, Arizona, southern Nevada, and southeastern California, near the shores of Owen’s lake. The largest trees are scarcely forty feet high and eight inches in diameter. The wood is not hard or strong, and is of slow growth. The largest trunks are apt to be hollow. Sapwood is comparatively thick.

Berlandier Ash(Fraxinus berlandieriana) may not be entitled to a place among native species, of the United States. Some suppose it was introduced from Mexico by early Spanish settlers in western Texas. It now grows wild there along Nueces and Blanco rivers where specimens thirty feet high and a foot in diameter are found. Southward in Mexico it is a popular street tree, and trunks reach six or eight feet in diameter. The wood is soft and is used only locally and in very small quantities.

Black ash branch

OREGON ASHOregon ashOregon Ash

Oregon ashOregon Ash

Oregon Ash

OREGON ASH(Fraxinus Oregona)This tree is unusual in that it has only one common name, and that is a translation of its botanical name which was given it by Nuttall who visited the Pacific coast several years before the discovery of gold.The moist bottom lands of southwestern Oregon are best suited to its growth, and here the best individuals and most abundant stands are found. Moist soil and climate are essential to proper development of this tree, and in such environment it is found from Puget Sound southward along the coast to San Francisco. A little further from the coast it grows along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, to the low mountains in San Diego and San Bernardino counties, California, in the southern extension of its range occupying a rather dry region.The trunk grows to a height of eighty or 100 feet, and is often three feet in diameter. It is covered with a gray-brown bark, exfoliating in flaky scales. The leaves are from five to fourteen inches long, and have five or seven firm, light-green leaflets, finely toothed and bluntly pointed. The flowers appear in April and May and are in compact panicles; the fruit in clusters, broadly winged and round pointed, and from one to two inches long.The scarcity of good hardwoods on the Pacific coast gives this ash more importance than it otherwise would have, and the importance which it possesses has been frequently overstated. It is not abundant of form and size fitting it for lumber. It has long been cut in small quantities, but never in large. The census returns for 1910 show that less than 400,000 feet per year are reported in its entire range. Three-fourths of this is sawed in Oregon, the remainder in Washington. Though the species has a range of 800 miles north and south through California, no sawmill reported a foot of it. However, it is probable that census returns fail to do this wood full justice; for it is well known that considerable quantities are manufactured into articles without passing through sawmills. Chief among such commodities is slack cooperage. Butter tubs of Oregon ash are common. Much goes to wagon shops, and some of it without aid of sawmills.Little or none of this wood is shipped outside its range, and its use is local. Boat builders work it into finish for cabins and upper parts, and some serves as ribs. It is often seen as handles for picks, shovels, spades, pitchforks, and rakes. A little finds place, combined with other woods, in office and store fixtures. Its grain resembles that of white ash. It is not as heavy, and it is not believed to be as strong. It ishard, brittle, brown in color, with thick, lighter-colored sapwood. Furniture makers list it as shop material, and such is its largest reported use in Washington. A moderate amount is made into saddletrees and stirrups, and much is used as fuel.Oregon ash has been planted for shade and ornament in both this country and Europe. It grows rapidly and develops a symmetrical crown. The habit it has of coming into leaf late in the spring and throwing its foliage down early in autumn is held by some as a serious objection to it as an ornamental tree; but it has compensating habits. It is remarkably free from disease, and, though leaves come late and go early, while its foliage is on, it is healthy and vigorous. Reproduction is satisfactory in the tree’s wild state, and there is no danger that the species will disappear. No movement has yet been made to plant this ash for commercial timber growing.Green Ash(Fraxinus lanceolata) has been given that name on account of the bright color of its foliage. It has other names, however, which indicate that its greenness is not always preëminently prominent. In Iowa and Arkansas they call it blue ash; in Kansas and Nebraska white ash; in some regions it is known as water ash, and elsewhere swamp ash. Some botanists do not regard it as a separate species but call it a variety of red ash, but the consensus of opinion is that it is a distinct species, though there appear to be connecting forms grading from red ash into green ash. Certain it is that the two are distinct enough in certain parts of the country. The range of green ash is more extensive than that of any other ash in this country. Beginning in Vermont it passes southward to Florida; northwestward to the Saskatchewan river several hundred miles north of the international boundary line; along the base of the Rocky Mountains and over the ranges to Arizona, and through Texas. This includes more than half of the area of the United States. Notwithstanding a range so extensive, the total quantity of green ash timber in the country is not large. No pure forests or extensive stands exist. Trees are widely dispersed, and when lumbermen cut them, the wood is sold as some other, usually as white ash. The wood has the general characters of red ash. It weighs about forty-four pounds per cubic foot of dry wood; is moderately strong, fairly stiff and elastic, and, like other species of ash, it is not durable in contact with the soil.Green ash is more planted than any other in the cold and dry regions of the West and Northwest. It is a prairie tree and is found along highways and in door yards from Kansas northward into British America. It stands drought better than any other ash, and resists cold fully as well, and yet it endures the warm weather and the rains of theSouth and flourishes there. It is not a large tree, but of sufficient size for use as furniture, finish, and vehicle making. It is seldom listed in statistics of woods which go to sawmills, yet it is known that a good many logs find their way to mills, while wagon makers and slack coopers employ it in producing their commodities. The tree is an abundant seeder, and the seeds continue to fall during most of the winter.Red Ash(Fraxinus pennsylvanica) is neither a large tree nor very abundant, yet it has a wide range and is put to use wherever lumbermen find it convenient. The lumber generally passes in the market as white ash, and for most purposes it is as good, but is rated lower than that wood in elasticity. It is called brown ash in Maine, black ash in New Jersey, river ash in Rhode Island. The last name is bestowed because the tree prefers moist land near rivers and ponds, and largest specimens are found in such situations, where it is often an associate of black ash and is frequently mistaken for it, though it should not be difficult to tell the species apart. A slight reddish tinge sometimes shows on the outer bark; the inner layer of bark is reddish; the small twigs and the under sides of leaves are clothed with hairs which sometimes suggest redness; and the heartwood is reddish-brown. Persons who speak of the tree as red ash probably have one or more of those characteristics in mind. As a tree it has no striking peculiarities. Its usual height is forty or sixty feet; its diameter from fifteen to twenty inches; its compound leaves ten or twelve inches long, with seven or nine leaflets; its seeds one or two inches in length, narrow, and sharply pointed, with slender, graceful wing.The range of red ash is from New Brunswick to Dakota, and from Florida to Alabama, with all of the included region of a million square miles. It attains its best development in the north Atlantic states, while it is usually inferior west of the Alleghany mountains. It develops a broad crown in open ground, but even there its lower limbs die and drop, while in forests the trunk grows tall and the crown is reduced. It is planted for shade and ornament, but it seems to have no superiority over white ash for that purpose. Some of the Michigan manufacturers list red ash separately in their factories, and apparently this is not done elsewhere in the country. About three-quarters of a million feet a year are used in that state, and since uses there are doubtless typical of uses in the country generally, the list possesses importance: Automobile frames, boxes, butter tubs, crates, eveners, flooring, furniture, interior finish, neck yokes, singletrees, wagon poles. Farther east in early times red ash was occasionally split for fence rails, but that use is important now only as history.Pumpkin Ash(Fraxinus profunda) is a tree of peculiar interest. It was unknown before 1893, though the region had been settled over a hundred years. It has the largest leaves, largest fruit, and largest swelled base of all American ashes. Notwithstanding that, it remained so deeply hidden in swamps that it escaped discovery. The botanical name refers to the deep swamps in which the tree chooses its habitation. Its great, swelled base enables it to stand on the soft mud of lagoon bottoms, and the abnormal swelling is ribbed like a pumpkin, hence the only English name the tree has ever had. These are not the only remarkable things connected with this ash. Its range includes three or four deep swamps, far apart. One is in southern Missouri, New Madrid country, another near Varney, Arkansas, and a third, in a vast morass on the Apalachicola river, Florida. It is believed to have been originally a Florida species, and by some freak of nature it reached the Missouri and Arkansas swamps. Certain other Florida plants accompanied it, one of which was corkwood (Leitneria floridana). It is expected that pumpkin ash will be found elsewherein deep swamps intermediate between the extremes of its range. The uses of this wood are few, because it is scarce, and the trees are difficult of access on account of being nearly always surrounded by water. Lumbermen who operate in swamps occasionally bring out a few ash logs with cypress and tupelo. No tests seem to have been made of the wood. Trees are sometimes 120 feet high and three in diameter above the swelled bases.Water Ash(Fraxinus caroliniana) is much lighter in weight than any other American ash, and the wood is also lighter in color. It is weaker and less elastic than any other, and is lower in fuel value. It weighs less than white pine. It grows in deep swamps from southern Virginia to Florida and westward in swamps to Texas. Some have confused it with pumpkin ash, but the two are quite distinct. This tree is also called poppy ash. The leaves are from seven to twelve inches long, with five or seven leaflets which are much blunter than most other ash leaves. The seeds are nearly in the center of the broad, long wing, and are better flyers than most ash seeds. The tree seldom exceeds forty feet in height, or twelve inches in diameter. It is not known that the wood is ever used. Its scarcity will keep it from becoming important, though its uncommon lightness may lead to its employment for certain purposes.Biltmore Ash(Fraxinus biltmoreana) is named from Biltmore, N. C., where the tree attains its best development, a height of forty or fifty feet and a foot or less in diameter. Its range extends from northern West Virginia southward along the foothills of the Appalachian mountains to Georgia, Alabama, and middle Tennessee. The seed wings are slender, and only slightly narrowed at the end. The leaf is ten or twelve inches long, with seven or nine leaflets. The twigs of young trees are hairy. An occasional log doubtless goes to sawmills, but no report has been made of uses of the wood.Florida Ash(Fraxinus floridana) is a deep swamp tree, thirty or forty feet high, and a few inches in diameter. It is found in the valley of St. Mary’s river, southern Georgia, and along the lower Apalachicola river, Florida. The compound leaves are five or more inches long with three or five leaflets. The seeds are small but their wings are wide and long. No report has been made concerning the quality of the wood, nor has it been used, as far as known. The supply is very small.Oregon ash branch

This tree is unusual in that it has only one common name, and that is a translation of its botanical name which was given it by Nuttall who visited the Pacific coast several years before the discovery of gold.

The moist bottom lands of southwestern Oregon are best suited to its growth, and here the best individuals and most abundant stands are found. Moist soil and climate are essential to proper development of this tree, and in such environment it is found from Puget Sound southward along the coast to San Francisco. A little further from the coast it grows along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, to the low mountains in San Diego and San Bernardino counties, California, in the southern extension of its range occupying a rather dry region.

The trunk grows to a height of eighty or 100 feet, and is often three feet in diameter. It is covered with a gray-brown bark, exfoliating in flaky scales. The leaves are from five to fourteen inches long, and have five or seven firm, light-green leaflets, finely toothed and bluntly pointed. The flowers appear in April and May and are in compact panicles; the fruit in clusters, broadly winged and round pointed, and from one to two inches long.

The scarcity of good hardwoods on the Pacific coast gives this ash more importance than it otherwise would have, and the importance which it possesses has been frequently overstated. It is not abundant of form and size fitting it for lumber. It has long been cut in small quantities, but never in large. The census returns for 1910 show that less than 400,000 feet per year are reported in its entire range. Three-fourths of this is sawed in Oregon, the remainder in Washington. Though the species has a range of 800 miles north and south through California, no sawmill reported a foot of it. However, it is probable that census returns fail to do this wood full justice; for it is well known that considerable quantities are manufactured into articles without passing through sawmills. Chief among such commodities is slack cooperage. Butter tubs of Oregon ash are common. Much goes to wagon shops, and some of it without aid of sawmills.

Little or none of this wood is shipped outside its range, and its use is local. Boat builders work it into finish for cabins and upper parts, and some serves as ribs. It is often seen as handles for picks, shovels, spades, pitchforks, and rakes. A little finds place, combined with other woods, in office and store fixtures. Its grain resembles that of white ash. It is not as heavy, and it is not believed to be as strong. It ishard, brittle, brown in color, with thick, lighter-colored sapwood. Furniture makers list it as shop material, and such is its largest reported use in Washington. A moderate amount is made into saddletrees and stirrups, and much is used as fuel.

Oregon ash has been planted for shade and ornament in both this country and Europe. It grows rapidly and develops a symmetrical crown. The habit it has of coming into leaf late in the spring and throwing its foliage down early in autumn is held by some as a serious objection to it as an ornamental tree; but it has compensating habits. It is remarkably free from disease, and, though leaves come late and go early, while its foliage is on, it is healthy and vigorous. Reproduction is satisfactory in the tree’s wild state, and there is no danger that the species will disappear. No movement has yet been made to plant this ash for commercial timber growing.

Green Ash(Fraxinus lanceolata) has been given that name on account of the bright color of its foliage. It has other names, however, which indicate that its greenness is not always preëminently prominent. In Iowa and Arkansas they call it blue ash; in Kansas and Nebraska white ash; in some regions it is known as water ash, and elsewhere swamp ash. Some botanists do not regard it as a separate species but call it a variety of red ash, but the consensus of opinion is that it is a distinct species, though there appear to be connecting forms grading from red ash into green ash. Certain it is that the two are distinct enough in certain parts of the country. The range of green ash is more extensive than that of any other ash in this country. Beginning in Vermont it passes southward to Florida; northwestward to the Saskatchewan river several hundred miles north of the international boundary line; along the base of the Rocky Mountains and over the ranges to Arizona, and through Texas. This includes more than half of the area of the United States. Notwithstanding a range so extensive, the total quantity of green ash timber in the country is not large. No pure forests or extensive stands exist. Trees are widely dispersed, and when lumbermen cut them, the wood is sold as some other, usually as white ash. The wood has the general characters of red ash. It weighs about forty-four pounds per cubic foot of dry wood; is moderately strong, fairly stiff and elastic, and, like other species of ash, it is not durable in contact with the soil.

Green ash is more planted than any other in the cold and dry regions of the West and Northwest. It is a prairie tree and is found along highways and in door yards from Kansas northward into British America. It stands drought better than any other ash, and resists cold fully as well, and yet it endures the warm weather and the rains of theSouth and flourishes there. It is not a large tree, but of sufficient size for use as furniture, finish, and vehicle making. It is seldom listed in statistics of woods which go to sawmills, yet it is known that a good many logs find their way to mills, while wagon makers and slack coopers employ it in producing their commodities. The tree is an abundant seeder, and the seeds continue to fall during most of the winter.

Red Ash(Fraxinus pennsylvanica) is neither a large tree nor very abundant, yet it has a wide range and is put to use wherever lumbermen find it convenient. The lumber generally passes in the market as white ash, and for most purposes it is as good, but is rated lower than that wood in elasticity. It is called brown ash in Maine, black ash in New Jersey, river ash in Rhode Island. The last name is bestowed because the tree prefers moist land near rivers and ponds, and largest specimens are found in such situations, where it is often an associate of black ash and is frequently mistaken for it, though it should not be difficult to tell the species apart. A slight reddish tinge sometimes shows on the outer bark; the inner layer of bark is reddish; the small twigs and the under sides of leaves are clothed with hairs which sometimes suggest redness; and the heartwood is reddish-brown. Persons who speak of the tree as red ash probably have one or more of those characteristics in mind. As a tree it has no striking peculiarities. Its usual height is forty or sixty feet; its diameter from fifteen to twenty inches; its compound leaves ten or twelve inches long, with seven or nine leaflets; its seeds one or two inches in length, narrow, and sharply pointed, with slender, graceful wing.The range of red ash is from New Brunswick to Dakota, and from Florida to Alabama, with all of the included region of a million square miles. It attains its best development in the north Atlantic states, while it is usually inferior west of the Alleghany mountains. It develops a broad crown in open ground, but even there its lower limbs die and drop, while in forests the trunk grows tall and the crown is reduced. It is planted for shade and ornament, but it seems to have no superiority over white ash for that purpose. Some of the Michigan manufacturers list red ash separately in their factories, and apparently this is not done elsewhere in the country. About three-quarters of a million feet a year are used in that state, and since uses there are doubtless typical of uses in the country generally, the list possesses importance: Automobile frames, boxes, butter tubs, crates, eveners, flooring, furniture, interior finish, neck yokes, singletrees, wagon poles. Farther east in early times red ash was occasionally split for fence rails, but that use is important now only as history.Pumpkin Ash(Fraxinus profunda) is a tree of peculiar interest. It was unknown before 1893, though the region had been settled over a hundred years. It has the largest leaves, largest fruit, and largest swelled base of all American ashes. Notwithstanding that, it remained so deeply hidden in swamps that it escaped discovery. The botanical name refers to the deep swamps in which the tree chooses its habitation. Its great, swelled base enables it to stand on the soft mud of lagoon bottoms, and the abnormal swelling is ribbed like a pumpkin, hence the only English name the tree has ever had. These are not the only remarkable things connected with this ash. Its range includes three or four deep swamps, far apart. One is in southern Missouri, New Madrid country, another near Varney, Arkansas, and a third, in a vast morass on the Apalachicola river, Florida. It is believed to have been originally a Florida species, and by some freak of nature it reached the Missouri and Arkansas swamps. Certain other Florida plants accompanied it, one of which was corkwood (Leitneria floridana). It is expected that pumpkin ash will be found elsewherein deep swamps intermediate between the extremes of its range. The uses of this wood are few, because it is scarce, and the trees are difficult of access on account of being nearly always surrounded by water. Lumbermen who operate in swamps occasionally bring out a few ash logs with cypress and tupelo. No tests seem to have been made of the wood. Trees are sometimes 120 feet high and three in diameter above the swelled bases.Water Ash(Fraxinus caroliniana) is much lighter in weight than any other American ash, and the wood is also lighter in color. It is weaker and less elastic than any other, and is lower in fuel value. It weighs less than white pine. It grows in deep swamps from southern Virginia to Florida and westward in swamps to Texas. Some have confused it with pumpkin ash, but the two are quite distinct. This tree is also called poppy ash. The leaves are from seven to twelve inches long, with five or seven leaflets which are much blunter than most other ash leaves. The seeds are nearly in the center of the broad, long wing, and are better flyers than most ash seeds. The tree seldom exceeds forty feet in height, or twelve inches in diameter. It is not known that the wood is ever used. Its scarcity will keep it from becoming important, though its uncommon lightness may lead to its employment for certain purposes.Biltmore Ash(Fraxinus biltmoreana) is named from Biltmore, N. C., where the tree attains its best development, a height of forty or fifty feet and a foot or less in diameter. Its range extends from northern West Virginia southward along the foothills of the Appalachian mountains to Georgia, Alabama, and middle Tennessee. The seed wings are slender, and only slightly narrowed at the end. The leaf is ten or twelve inches long, with seven or nine leaflets. The twigs of young trees are hairy. An occasional log doubtless goes to sawmills, but no report has been made of uses of the wood.Florida Ash(Fraxinus floridana) is a deep swamp tree, thirty or forty feet high, and a few inches in diameter. It is found in the valley of St. Mary’s river, southern Georgia, and along the lower Apalachicola river, Florida. The compound leaves are five or more inches long with three or five leaflets. The seeds are small but their wings are wide and long. No report has been made concerning the quality of the wood, nor has it been used, as far as known. The supply is very small.

Red Ash(Fraxinus pennsylvanica) is neither a large tree nor very abundant, yet it has a wide range and is put to use wherever lumbermen find it convenient. The lumber generally passes in the market as white ash, and for most purposes it is as good, but is rated lower than that wood in elasticity. It is called brown ash in Maine, black ash in New Jersey, river ash in Rhode Island. The last name is bestowed because the tree prefers moist land near rivers and ponds, and largest specimens are found in such situations, where it is often an associate of black ash and is frequently mistaken for it, though it should not be difficult to tell the species apart. A slight reddish tinge sometimes shows on the outer bark; the inner layer of bark is reddish; the small twigs and the under sides of leaves are clothed with hairs which sometimes suggest redness; and the heartwood is reddish-brown. Persons who speak of the tree as red ash probably have one or more of those characteristics in mind. As a tree it has no striking peculiarities. Its usual height is forty or sixty feet; its diameter from fifteen to twenty inches; its compound leaves ten or twelve inches long, with seven or nine leaflets; its seeds one or two inches in length, narrow, and sharply pointed, with slender, graceful wing.

The range of red ash is from New Brunswick to Dakota, and from Florida to Alabama, with all of the included region of a million square miles. It attains its best development in the north Atlantic states, while it is usually inferior west of the Alleghany mountains. It develops a broad crown in open ground, but even there its lower limbs die and drop, while in forests the trunk grows tall and the crown is reduced. It is planted for shade and ornament, but it seems to have no superiority over white ash for that purpose. Some of the Michigan manufacturers list red ash separately in their factories, and apparently this is not done elsewhere in the country. About three-quarters of a million feet a year are used in that state, and since uses there are doubtless typical of uses in the country generally, the list possesses importance: Automobile frames, boxes, butter tubs, crates, eveners, flooring, furniture, interior finish, neck yokes, singletrees, wagon poles. Farther east in early times red ash was occasionally split for fence rails, but that use is important now only as history.

Pumpkin Ash(Fraxinus profunda) is a tree of peculiar interest. It was unknown before 1893, though the region had been settled over a hundred years. It has the largest leaves, largest fruit, and largest swelled base of all American ashes. Notwithstanding that, it remained so deeply hidden in swamps that it escaped discovery. The botanical name refers to the deep swamps in which the tree chooses its habitation. Its great, swelled base enables it to stand on the soft mud of lagoon bottoms, and the abnormal swelling is ribbed like a pumpkin, hence the only English name the tree has ever had. These are not the only remarkable things connected with this ash. Its range includes three or four deep swamps, far apart. One is in southern Missouri, New Madrid country, another near Varney, Arkansas, and a third, in a vast morass on the Apalachicola river, Florida. It is believed to have been originally a Florida species, and by some freak of nature it reached the Missouri and Arkansas swamps. Certain other Florida plants accompanied it, one of which was corkwood (Leitneria floridana). It is expected that pumpkin ash will be found elsewherein deep swamps intermediate between the extremes of its range. The uses of this wood are few, because it is scarce, and the trees are difficult of access on account of being nearly always surrounded by water. Lumbermen who operate in swamps occasionally bring out a few ash logs with cypress and tupelo. No tests seem to have been made of the wood. Trees are sometimes 120 feet high and three in diameter above the swelled bases.

Water Ash(Fraxinus caroliniana) is much lighter in weight than any other American ash, and the wood is also lighter in color. It is weaker and less elastic than any other, and is lower in fuel value. It weighs less than white pine. It grows in deep swamps from southern Virginia to Florida and westward in swamps to Texas. Some have confused it with pumpkin ash, but the two are quite distinct. This tree is also called poppy ash. The leaves are from seven to twelve inches long, with five or seven leaflets which are much blunter than most other ash leaves. The seeds are nearly in the center of the broad, long wing, and are better flyers than most ash seeds. The tree seldom exceeds forty feet in height, or twelve inches in diameter. It is not known that the wood is ever used. Its scarcity will keep it from becoming important, though its uncommon lightness may lead to its employment for certain purposes.

Biltmore Ash(Fraxinus biltmoreana) is named from Biltmore, N. C., where the tree attains its best development, a height of forty or fifty feet and a foot or less in diameter. Its range extends from northern West Virginia southward along the foothills of the Appalachian mountains to Georgia, Alabama, and middle Tennessee. The seed wings are slender, and only slightly narrowed at the end. The leaf is ten or twelve inches long, with seven or nine leaflets. The twigs of young trees are hairy. An occasional log doubtless goes to sawmills, but no report has been made of uses of the wood.

Florida Ash(Fraxinus floridana) is a deep swamp tree, thirty or forty feet high, and a few inches in diameter. It is found in the valley of St. Mary’s river, southern Georgia, and along the lower Apalachicola river, Florida. The compound leaves are five or more inches long with three or five leaflets. The seeds are small but their wings are wide and long. No report has been made concerning the quality of the wood, nor has it been used, as far as known. The supply is very small.

Oregon ash branch

SUGAR MAPLESugar mapleSugar Maple

Sugar mapleSugar Maple

Sugar Maple

SUGAR MAPLE(Acer Saccharum)The makers of sugar in the North call this tree sugar maple, but lumbermen and users of wood nearly always speak of it as hard maple. All maples—and there are nearly a dozen—are tolerably hard, and sugar may be obtained from most of them; but this species is hardest of all, and the most prolific sugar maker, hence the two names are appropriate. It is often called rock maple, which name refers to its hard wood. In some regions the name most heard is sugar tree.Its range extends from Newfoundland through Canada to Lake of the Woods, southward through Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Arkansas to Texas. It is found in every state east of the Mississippi, but it is not abundant in the South. Its best development is found from New England across the northern states to Michigan. Some very fine sugar maple is found in fertile valleys and on slopes among the Appalachian ranges from Pennsylvania southward. The largest lumber cut of maple is in the following states, ranging in the order given: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Vermont. Since the different species of maple are not reported separately in statistics, there is no way of determining how much each of the maples supplies. It is well known that sugar maple greatly exceeds all others.At its best this tree may exceed a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three; but the average for mature timber in the best part of its range is sixty or eighty feet in height, and two in diameter. The flowers appear with the leaves in early spring, but the seeds do not ripen until autumn, when they are bright red. They are winged, and usually two grow together, but they sometimes become detached, in which case each is capable of flight with its single wing. It is characteristic of maple seeds to whirl rapidly while falling, and if a moderate wind is blowing, they glide considerable distances. They usually fly farther than the seeds of ash although their wings are no larger. The immense numbers of seeds borne by the sugar maple insure abundant reproduction in the vicinity of parent trees. The seeds sprout readily, but often so closely crowded together that most of them die the first few weeks. Not one in ten thousand can even become a large tree, and yet large trees are exceedingly abundant in extensive regions. They often form nearly pure stands, crowding to death all rivals that try to obtain a foothold. On the other hand, this maple often contents itself with a place among other forest trees.It is one of the most vigorous and dependable of trees. It does not grow fast, but it keeps steadily at it a long time, and enjoys unusually good health. Its worst enemy is coal smoke, but fortunately, most sugar maple forests are out of reach of that disturber, though shade trees near factory towns and in the vicinity of coke ovens often suffer. Woodlots of sugar maple, occupying corners of farms in the northern states from Minnesota to Maine, present pictures of health, vigor, cleanliness, and beauty which no forest tree surpasses. The intense green and the density of the crowns in summer make the trees conspicuous in any landscape where they occur, while their brilliant colors in autumn are the chief glory of the forest where they abound.The wood of this tree is hard, strong, and dense. It is three pounds lighter per cubic foot than white oak, and theoretically it rates a little lower in fuel value, but those who use both woods as fuel consider maple worth more. It is thirty per cent stronger than white oak, and fifty-three per cent stiffer. The wood is diffuse-porous, that is, the pores are not arranged in bands or rows, as they usually are in oaks, but are scattered in all parts. They are too small to be seen with the naked eye, but under a magnifying glass they are visible in large numbers. The yearly ring is not very distinct, because of the slight contrast between spring and summerwood. The medullary rays are numerous but small. In wood sawed along radial lines, from heart to sap, small silvery flecks are numerous. These are the medullary rays. They add something to the appearance of quarter-sawed maple, but not enough to induce mills to turn out much of it.Such figures as maple has are brought out best in tangential sawing—that is, cut like a slab off the side of the log. Three distinct figures are recognized in sugar maple, and to some extent they belong to other maples. These forms of wood are known as birdseye, curly, and blister maple. They are accidental forms and exist in certain trees only. Students of wood structure are not wholly agreed as to the cause of these forms, but one of them, the birdseye effect, is believed to be due to adventitious buds which distort the wood in their vicinity. These buds start near the center of the tree when it is small, but never succeed in forcing their way out. They remain just beneath the bark during most or the whole of the tree’s life. A pin-like core, resembling a fine thread, connects the birdseye with the tree’s pith. This thread is the pith of the embryonic branch formed by the bud which never breaks through the bark. When the wood is sawed tangentially, small, dark-brown points or dots show the center of the buds, or the pith line connecting it with the tree’s center. Curly maple and blister maple are not believed to be formed in the same way as birdseye.The uses of sugar maple are nearly universal, where a hard, white wood is wanted. Many large trees contain little colored heart, and trees are generally fifty years old before they have any. More maple is worked into flooring than into any other one commodity. Mills in Michigan alone, in 1910, made 185,611,662 feet of maple flooring. It was shipped to practically every civilized country in the world. Many builders consider it the best wooden floor that can be laid. In a test made in a large store in Philadelphia some years ago, a marble floor wore through sooner than maple, when the same wear was on both.Nearly all kinds and classes of furniture have places for maple, either as outside material or inside frames, drawer bottoms, or partitions. Vehicle manufacturers employ it for heavy axles, running gear, parts of automobiles, sleigh runners and frames, and hand sleds. It is made into handles from gimlet sizes to cant hooks. Gymnasium apparatus owes much to the whiteness, smoothness, and strength of maple. Woodenware from toothpicks to ironing boards; from butcher blocks to butter molds; from door knobs to die blocks, is dependent on maple for some of its best material. It is largely used for boxes, in both solid and veneer form. Only two woods are now employed in larger amounts for veneers in the United States than maple. They are red gum and yellow pine.Maple is one of the three woods most largely employed in hardwood distillation in this country; beech and birch are the others. Maple sugar is a product of this tree almost exclusively, and the business is large. In some parts of New England it is claimed that a grove is worth more for sugar than the land is worth for agriculture.Silver Maple(Acer saccharinum) is generally called soft maple by lumbermen. It is known also as white maple, river maple, silver-leaved maple, swamp maple, and water maple. The sinuses of the leaves are very deep. The lighter color of its bark and the pale green of the leaves distinguish soft maple at a glance from sugar maple when both are in full leaf. The greenish-yellow flowers open in early spring, and the seeds are ripe in April or May, depending on the season and region. The seeds have large wings and fly well. They germinate in a few days after they find suitable soil, and before the end of the summer the seedlings have grown several leaves. The vigor thus displayed continues until the tree is large. It is a fast grower, and for that reason has been extensively planted as a street and park tree. The wisdom of doing so is doubtful, for this maple throws out long limbs which are often broken by wind. The trunk is subject to disease, and a row of old soft maples nearly always presents a ragged, unkempt, neglected appearance. As to beauty of form and crown, there is little comparison between it and the planted sugar maple. Soft maples in forests range from seventy-five to 120 feet in height, and two to four in diameter; that is, they attain about the same size as sugar maples. The species covers a million square miles, practically the whole country east of the Mississippi, some west of that river, and most of eastern Canada.It is a useful wood for many purposes. The custom of mixing this with sugar maple makes it impossible to clearly separate the two woods afterwards. It is theopinion of some well-informed manufacturers that about five per cent of the total maple cut in the United States is soft maple. The ratio is less in the North and more in the South. The wood is hard, strong, rather brittle, easily worked, pale brown with thick, white sapwood. Some rather large trunks have no sapwood. It is in general use, but not for as many purposes as sugar maple. The largest places found for it are as flooring and woodenware, though furniture and boxes, particularly veneer boxes, consume much. Its weight is three-fourths that of sugar maple. The largest trees and the best wood grow in the lower Ohio valley.Sugar maple branch

The makers of sugar in the North call this tree sugar maple, but lumbermen and users of wood nearly always speak of it as hard maple. All maples—and there are nearly a dozen—are tolerably hard, and sugar may be obtained from most of them; but this species is hardest of all, and the most prolific sugar maker, hence the two names are appropriate. It is often called rock maple, which name refers to its hard wood. In some regions the name most heard is sugar tree.

Its range extends from Newfoundland through Canada to Lake of the Woods, southward through Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Arkansas to Texas. It is found in every state east of the Mississippi, but it is not abundant in the South. Its best development is found from New England across the northern states to Michigan. Some very fine sugar maple is found in fertile valleys and on slopes among the Appalachian ranges from Pennsylvania southward. The largest lumber cut of maple is in the following states, ranging in the order given: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Vermont. Since the different species of maple are not reported separately in statistics, there is no way of determining how much each of the maples supplies. It is well known that sugar maple greatly exceeds all others.

At its best this tree may exceed a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three; but the average for mature timber in the best part of its range is sixty or eighty feet in height, and two in diameter. The flowers appear with the leaves in early spring, but the seeds do not ripen until autumn, when they are bright red. They are winged, and usually two grow together, but they sometimes become detached, in which case each is capable of flight with its single wing. It is characteristic of maple seeds to whirl rapidly while falling, and if a moderate wind is blowing, they glide considerable distances. They usually fly farther than the seeds of ash although their wings are no larger. The immense numbers of seeds borne by the sugar maple insure abundant reproduction in the vicinity of parent trees. The seeds sprout readily, but often so closely crowded together that most of them die the first few weeks. Not one in ten thousand can even become a large tree, and yet large trees are exceedingly abundant in extensive regions. They often form nearly pure stands, crowding to death all rivals that try to obtain a foothold. On the other hand, this maple often contents itself with a place among other forest trees.

It is one of the most vigorous and dependable of trees. It does not grow fast, but it keeps steadily at it a long time, and enjoys unusually good health. Its worst enemy is coal smoke, but fortunately, most sugar maple forests are out of reach of that disturber, though shade trees near factory towns and in the vicinity of coke ovens often suffer. Woodlots of sugar maple, occupying corners of farms in the northern states from Minnesota to Maine, present pictures of health, vigor, cleanliness, and beauty which no forest tree surpasses. The intense green and the density of the crowns in summer make the trees conspicuous in any landscape where they occur, while their brilliant colors in autumn are the chief glory of the forest where they abound.

The wood of this tree is hard, strong, and dense. It is three pounds lighter per cubic foot than white oak, and theoretically it rates a little lower in fuel value, but those who use both woods as fuel consider maple worth more. It is thirty per cent stronger than white oak, and fifty-three per cent stiffer. The wood is diffuse-porous, that is, the pores are not arranged in bands or rows, as they usually are in oaks, but are scattered in all parts. They are too small to be seen with the naked eye, but under a magnifying glass they are visible in large numbers. The yearly ring is not very distinct, because of the slight contrast between spring and summerwood. The medullary rays are numerous but small. In wood sawed along radial lines, from heart to sap, small silvery flecks are numerous. These are the medullary rays. They add something to the appearance of quarter-sawed maple, but not enough to induce mills to turn out much of it.

Such figures as maple has are brought out best in tangential sawing—that is, cut like a slab off the side of the log. Three distinct figures are recognized in sugar maple, and to some extent they belong to other maples. These forms of wood are known as birdseye, curly, and blister maple. They are accidental forms and exist in certain trees only. Students of wood structure are not wholly agreed as to the cause of these forms, but one of them, the birdseye effect, is believed to be due to adventitious buds which distort the wood in their vicinity. These buds start near the center of the tree when it is small, but never succeed in forcing their way out. They remain just beneath the bark during most or the whole of the tree’s life. A pin-like core, resembling a fine thread, connects the birdseye with the tree’s pith. This thread is the pith of the embryonic branch formed by the bud which never breaks through the bark. When the wood is sawed tangentially, small, dark-brown points or dots show the center of the buds, or the pith line connecting it with the tree’s center. Curly maple and blister maple are not believed to be formed in the same way as birdseye.

The uses of sugar maple are nearly universal, where a hard, white wood is wanted. Many large trees contain little colored heart, and trees are generally fifty years old before they have any. More maple is worked into flooring than into any other one commodity. Mills in Michigan alone, in 1910, made 185,611,662 feet of maple flooring. It was shipped to practically every civilized country in the world. Many builders consider it the best wooden floor that can be laid. In a test made in a large store in Philadelphia some years ago, a marble floor wore through sooner than maple, when the same wear was on both.

Nearly all kinds and classes of furniture have places for maple, either as outside material or inside frames, drawer bottoms, or partitions. Vehicle manufacturers employ it for heavy axles, running gear, parts of automobiles, sleigh runners and frames, and hand sleds. It is made into handles from gimlet sizes to cant hooks. Gymnasium apparatus owes much to the whiteness, smoothness, and strength of maple. Woodenware from toothpicks to ironing boards; from butcher blocks to butter molds; from door knobs to die blocks, is dependent on maple for some of its best material. It is largely used for boxes, in both solid and veneer form. Only two woods are now employed in larger amounts for veneers in the United States than maple. They are red gum and yellow pine.

Maple is one of the three woods most largely employed in hardwood distillation in this country; beech and birch are the others. Maple sugar is a product of this tree almost exclusively, and the business is large. In some parts of New England it is claimed that a grove is worth more for sugar than the land is worth for agriculture.

Silver Maple(Acer saccharinum) is generally called soft maple by lumbermen. It is known also as white maple, river maple, silver-leaved maple, swamp maple, and water maple. The sinuses of the leaves are very deep. The lighter color of its bark and the pale green of the leaves distinguish soft maple at a glance from sugar maple when both are in full leaf. The greenish-yellow flowers open in early spring, and the seeds are ripe in April or May, depending on the season and region. The seeds have large wings and fly well. They germinate in a few days after they find suitable soil, and before the end of the summer the seedlings have grown several leaves. The vigor thus displayed continues until the tree is large. It is a fast grower, and for that reason has been extensively planted as a street and park tree. The wisdom of doing so is doubtful, for this maple throws out long limbs which are often broken by wind. The trunk is subject to disease, and a row of old soft maples nearly always presents a ragged, unkempt, neglected appearance. As to beauty of form and crown, there is little comparison between it and the planted sugar maple. Soft maples in forests range from seventy-five to 120 feet in height, and two to four in diameter; that is, they attain about the same size as sugar maples. The species covers a million square miles, practically the whole country east of the Mississippi, some west of that river, and most of eastern Canada.It is a useful wood for many purposes. The custom of mixing this with sugar maple makes it impossible to clearly separate the two woods afterwards. It is theopinion of some well-informed manufacturers that about five per cent of the total maple cut in the United States is soft maple. The ratio is less in the North and more in the South. The wood is hard, strong, rather brittle, easily worked, pale brown with thick, white sapwood. Some rather large trunks have no sapwood. It is in general use, but not for as many purposes as sugar maple. The largest places found for it are as flooring and woodenware, though furniture and boxes, particularly veneer boxes, consume much. Its weight is three-fourths that of sugar maple. The largest trees and the best wood grow in the lower Ohio valley.

Silver Maple(Acer saccharinum) is generally called soft maple by lumbermen. It is known also as white maple, river maple, silver-leaved maple, swamp maple, and water maple. The sinuses of the leaves are very deep. The lighter color of its bark and the pale green of the leaves distinguish soft maple at a glance from sugar maple when both are in full leaf. The greenish-yellow flowers open in early spring, and the seeds are ripe in April or May, depending on the season and region. The seeds have large wings and fly well. They germinate in a few days after they find suitable soil, and before the end of the summer the seedlings have grown several leaves. The vigor thus displayed continues until the tree is large. It is a fast grower, and for that reason has been extensively planted as a street and park tree. The wisdom of doing so is doubtful, for this maple throws out long limbs which are often broken by wind. The trunk is subject to disease, and a row of old soft maples nearly always presents a ragged, unkempt, neglected appearance. As to beauty of form and crown, there is little comparison between it and the planted sugar maple. Soft maples in forests range from seventy-five to 120 feet in height, and two to four in diameter; that is, they attain about the same size as sugar maples. The species covers a million square miles, practically the whole country east of the Mississippi, some west of that river, and most of eastern Canada.

It is a useful wood for many purposes. The custom of mixing this with sugar maple makes it impossible to clearly separate the two woods afterwards. It is theopinion of some well-informed manufacturers that about five per cent of the total maple cut in the United States is soft maple. The ratio is less in the North and more in the South. The wood is hard, strong, rather brittle, easily worked, pale brown with thick, white sapwood. Some rather large trunks have no sapwood. It is in general use, but not for as many purposes as sugar maple. The largest places found for it are as flooring and woodenware, though furniture and boxes, particularly veneer boxes, consume much. Its weight is three-fourths that of sugar maple. The largest trees and the best wood grow in the lower Ohio valley.

Sugar maple branch

RED MAPLERed mapleRed Maple

Red mapleRed Maple

Red Maple

RED MAPLE(Acer Rubrum)This tree’s names describe it. Some refer to color of leaves, flowers, and fruit, others to situation where it grows best. It is known as red maple and swamp maple; also as water maple, white maple, scarlet maple, and shoepeg maple. New York Indians called it ah-we-hot-kwah, which meant red flower. Most trees looked alike to Indians, and when they gave a name, it was descriptive.The redness of this maple is so marked that it cannot escape notice. The flowers, fruit, twigs, and leaves all possess the property at one time or another during the season. The flower comes before the leaf, during the first warm days of spring. That is pretty early in the South, and later in the North. The flowers are bright scarlet, and very conspicuous, growing in umbel-like, drooping clusters. The staminate and pistillate ones frequently grow on different trees, and always in separate clusters.The fruit ripens quickly, and is sometimes almost mature before the leaves appear. The date of ripening depends upon latitude. The tree’s range north and south exceeds a thousand miles and that makes much difference in climate. In the South the fruit outstrips the leaves and has about reached maturity before the unfolding leaves are large enough to hide it; but in New England and New York the leaves are large before the fruit is mature. The seed is the characteristic maple key, with a wing to carry it. The fruit—and by that term the seed with its attached wing is meant—is bright red, and a tree loaded with the vivid clusters is a beautiful spectacle. Two seeds are generally fast together, and they make surprising flights in that condition, passing with whirling motion through the air. Gravity spins them, but wind carries them forward, and the random of their flight depends on the strength of the wind, which happens to be blowing when they sever their connection with the tree.The seeds germinate quickly when they light on damp soil. If they do not find such situations, they soon perish; because they do not retain their vitality long. By the middle of summer the young trees have several leaves, and from that time on the struggle is mainly among themselves for space and moisture, because they stand so thick that it is a survival of the fittest.The young twigs are generally red in spring, but they do not present as conspicuous a mass as the flowers and fruit do. The leaves are simple, with long reddish petioles. They have three or five lobes, the lower pair often entirely missing, and small if present. Each lobe has a pointedapex, and is irregularly serrate. The base of the leaf is rounded; also the sinuses, which extend far into the body of the leaf. The upper surface of the leaf is bright green, the lower a silvery-white. In the fall this tree is entitled to the name scarlet; for then the brilliant hues of the leaves are remarkably fine.The range of red maple covers more than a million square miles, and touches every state east of the Mississippi river, and west of that stream it extends from South Dakota to Texas. It prefers rather swampy ground, but wants fertile soil. It is frequently found on the banks of creeks and rivers, and rarely on hillsides. It is most abundant in the South, particularly in the lower Mississippi valley, while trees of larger size are found in the valley of the lower Ohio. In the North it takes more to low wet swamps where it sometimes grows in such thickets as almost to exclude other species.The best red maple trees attain a height of 100 feet or more, and a diameter of four feet or less. The average size is seventy feet high and two in diameter. The form of the tree, like that of all other maples, depends much upon the situation in which it grows. Good saw timber is not often cut from this species near the outer borders of its range.The wood is about three-fourths as strong as hard maple, and is five pounds lighter per cubic foot, but is about six pounds heavier than soft or silver maple. It may, therefore, be considered that in some important points red maple is midway between hard and soft maple. In color it is light brown, slightly tinged with red. The sapwood is thick and lighter in color than the heart. The tree is usually not of rapid growth. The contrast between the springwood and summerwood is not strong. The wood is very porous, but the pores are so small that the unaided eye cannot discern them. The medullary rays are numerous, but thin, and are seldom considered in working the lumber.Mills which saw this maple do not separate the lumber from other maples. The woodsman knows the difference, but the lumberman does not consider it worth while to pile the sawed stock separately. It sometimes goes to market as hard maple, sometimes as soft, but never under its own name. Consequently, it has no uses which are not also common to other maples. Lumbermen cut it when they find it mixed with other hardwoods where they are carrying on logging operations.Red maple is made into flooring, interior finish, and veneer box material. Veneers are also made for furniture. These are the most important uses for the wood, but the manufacturers of woodenware employ it for numerous commodities, such as trays, bowls, ironing boards, grain scoops, snow shovels, clothes racks, garment hangers, and clothes pins. This species shows birdseye effect similar to that of sugar maple,but less of the stock goes to market. Logs with birdseye wood are generally reduced to veneer by the rotary process. Curly and wavy grains also occur in this maple. The wavy grain was much sought after by the early hunters who equipped their long rifles with stocks. Having found a piece of timber with the desired wavy grain, the hunter proceeded to shave and whittle until the stock was fitted to the barrel, and the gun was complete. Some of the stocks made with no tools but an ax, drawing knife, and a pocket knife, were works of art which are worthy of preservation in museums.Occasionally some unknown rural Stradivari made a violin and selected the curly wood of red maple for the neck and sides. A few of these instruments are floating about the country, but an age of fifty or a hundred years has not yet imparted classic value to them, but the wood is unsurpassed in delicacy of grain and figure.Sugar may be manufactured from red maple, but in smaller quantity than from sugar maple. In the days when every frontier settlement did its own manufacturing, inks and dyes were made from the bark of this tree. The tannin boiled from the bark was treated with sulphate of iron, and it became ink; when alum was added it became black dye; when the sulphate of iron was omitted, and alum alone was put in, a cinnamon-colored dye resulted.Red maple is one of the most desirable trees for planting in parks and by roadsides. Nurserymen complain that seedlings are more difficult to manage than silver maples; nor do they grow as rapidly, but the trees are worth much more when once established. They have shorter and stronger branches than silver maple; are less liable to be attacked by disease; are more handsome in every way; but they demand damper soil, and succeed poorly in any other. That drawback tends to restrict the artificial planting of this tree.Mountain Maple(Acer spicatum) is known also as moose maple, low maple, and water maple. It is a small tree at its best, seldom more than twenty-five feet high and eight inches in diameter, while in most parts of its range it is only a shrub. Its best growth is on mountain slopes of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. It likes moist, rich hillsides, and does not object to shade. The flowers come late, but within a month or six weeks after the bloom appears, the fruit is full grown, but it remains on the tree till autumn. The tree’s bark is smooth and very thin. The absence of stripes distinguishes this tree from striped maple, which has nearly the same range. Mountain maple grows from Maine to Minnesota, southward to Michigan, and along the mountains to Georgia. The wood is light, soft, brown tinged with red. The small size of the trunk forbids its conversion into ordinary lumber. The only commercial use reported for it is in Pennsylvania where it is cut along with other hardwoods for destructive distillation.Florida Maple(Acer floridanum) is a species according to some, and according to others is a variety of the hard maple. Its range is limited, and the availablequantity of the wood is small. It is found in the swamps of southern Georgia and western Florida, and westward to Texas, Louisiana, and southern Arkansas. Near the southwestern limits of its range in Texas and Mexico, it is often a shrub; but in the best part of its range it becomes a tree fifty or sixty feet high and two or three in diameter. The wood passes for hard maple when sawed into lumber, but it is not often sent to sawmills. The makers of bent wood rustic furniture in some of the southern towns, particularly in Louisiana, have found the slender branches of Florida maple well suited to that purpose.Drummond Maple(Acer rubrum drummondii) is a variety of red maple, not a separate species. Its range lies in the coastal plain of Alabama and Georgia, western Louisiana, eastern Texas, southwestern Tennessee, and southern Arkansas. It grows in deep swamps, and has three-lobed leaves, and large-winged fruit, ripening in April and May. The wood is too scarce to be important in the lumber trade, but where it can be had it is used. Violin makers have procured some finely curled wood of this maple in Union Parish, Louisiana. Some of the wood from that district has been made into gunstocks also.Whitebark Maple(Acer leucoderme) has been classed as a variety of sugar maple, and also as a separate species. It is named from the light gray color of the bark of young stems; but the color turns dark with age. The tree is usually twenty or thirty feet high with a diameter of a foot or more. The wood is of good quality, but no uses, except fuel, have been reported. Trees are not abundant, but the range covers parts of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas. It is occasionally planted as a shade tree along the streets of towns of Georgia and Alabama.Red maple branch

This tree’s names describe it. Some refer to color of leaves, flowers, and fruit, others to situation where it grows best. It is known as red maple and swamp maple; also as water maple, white maple, scarlet maple, and shoepeg maple. New York Indians called it ah-we-hot-kwah, which meant red flower. Most trees looked alike to Indians, and when they gave a name, it was descriptive.

The redness of this maple is so marked that it cannot escape notice. The flowers, fruit, twigs, and leaves all possess the property at one time or another during the season. The flower comes before the leaf, during the first warm days of spring. That is pretty early in the South, and later in the North. The flowers are bright scarlet, and very conspicuous, growing in umbel-like, drooping clusters. The staminate and pistillate ones frequently grow on different trees, and always in separate clusters.

The fruit ripens quickly, and is sometimes almost mature before the leaves appear. The date of ripening depends upon latitude. The tree’s range north and south exceeds a thousand miles and that makes much difference in climate. In the South the fruit outstrips the leaves and has about reached maturity before the unfolding leaves are large enough to hide it; but in New England and New York the leaves are large before the fruit is mature. The seed is the characteristic maple key, with a wing to carry it. The fruit—and by that term the seed with its attached wing is meant—is bright red, and a tree loaded with the vivid clusters is a beautiful spectacle. Two seeds are generally fast together, and they make surprising flights in that condition, passing with whirling motion through the air. Gravity spins them, but wind carries them forward, and the random of their flight depends on the strength of the wind, which happens to be blowing when they sever their connection with the tree.

The seeds germinate quickly when they light on damp soil. If they do not find such situations, they soon perish; because they do not retain their vitality long. By the middle of summer the young trees have several leaves, and from that time on the struggle is mainly among themselves for space and moisture, because they stand so thick that it is a survival of the fittest.

The young twigs are generally red in spring, but they do not present as conspicuous a mass as the flowers and fruit do. The leaves are simple, with long reddish petioles. They have three or five lobes, the lower pair often entirely missing, and small if present. Each lobe has a pointedapex, and is irregularly serrate. The base of the leaf is rounded; also the sinuses, which extend far into the body of the leaf. The upper surface of the leaf is bright green, the lower a silvery-white. In the fall this tree is entitled to the name scarlet; for then the brilliant hues of the leaves are remarkably fine.

The range of red maple covers more than a million square miles, and touches every state east of the Mississippi river, and west of that stream it extends from South Dakota to Texas. It prefers rather swampy ground, but wants fertile soil. It is frequently found on the banks of creeks and rivers, and rarely on hillsides. It is most abundant in the South, particularly in the lower Mississippi valley, while trees of larger size are found in the valley of the lower Ohio. In the North it takes more to low wet swamps where it sometimes grows in such thickets as almost to exclude other species.

The best red maple trees attain a height of 100 feet or more, and a diameter of four feet or less. The average size is seventy feet high and two in diameter. The form of the tree, like that of all other maples, depends much upon the situation in which it grows. Good saw timber is not often cut from this species near the outer borders of its range.

The wood is about three-fourths as strong as hard maple, and is five pounds lighter per cubic foot, but is about six pounds heavier than soft or silver maple. It may, therefore, be considered that in some important points red maple is midway between hard and soft maple. In color it is light brown, slightly tinged with red. The sapwood is thick and lighter in color than the heart. The tree is usually not of rapid growth. The contrast between the springwood and summerwood is not strong. The wood is very porous, but the pores are so small that the unaided eye cannot discern them. The medullary rays are numerous, but thin, and are seldom considered in working the lumber.

Mills which saw this maple do not separate the lumber from other maples. The woodsman knows the difference, but the lumberman does not consider it worth while to pile the sawed stock separately. It sometimes goes to market as hard maple, sometimes as soft, but never under its own name. Consequently, it has no uses which are not also common to other maples. Lumbermen cut it when they find it mixed with other hardwoods where they are carrying on logging operations.

Red maple is made into flooring, interior finish, and veneer box material. Veneers are also made for furniture. These are the most important uses for the wood, but the manufacturers of woodenware employ it for numerous commodities, such as trays, bowls, ironing boards, grain scoops, snow shovels, clothes racks, garment hangers, and clothes pins. This species shows birdseye effect similar to that of sugar maple,but less of the stock goes to market. Logs with birdseye wood are generally reduced to veneer by the rotary process. Curly and wavy grains also occur in this maple. The wavy grain was much sought after by the early hunters who equipped their long rifles with stocks. Having found a piece of timber with the desired wavy grain, the hunter proceeded to shave and whittle until the stock was fitted to the barrel, and the gun was complete. Some of the stocks made with no tools but an ax, drawing knife, and a pocket knife, were works of art which are worthy of preservation in museums.

Occasionally some unknown rural Stradivari made a violin and selected the curly wood of red maple for the neck and sides. A few of these instruments are floating about the country, but an age of fifty or a hundred years has not yet imparted classic value to them, but the wood is unsurpassed in delicacy of grain and figure.

Sugar may be manufactured from red maple, but in smaller quantity than from sugar maple. In the days when every frontier settlement did its own manufacturing, inks and dyes were made from the bark of this tree. The tannin boiled from the bark was treated with sulphate of iron, and it became ink; when alum was added it became black dye; when the sulphate of iron was omitted, and alum alone was put in, a cinnamon-colored dye resulted.

Red maple is one of the most desirable trees for planting in parks and by roadsides. Nurserymen complain that seedlings are more difficult to manage than silver maples; nor do they grow as rapidly, but the trees are worth much more when once established. They have shorter and stronger branches than silver maple; are less liable to be attacked by disease; are more handsome in every way; but they demand damper soil, and succeed poorly in any other. That drawback tends to restrict the artificial planting of this tree.

Mountain Maple(Acer spicatum) is known also as moose maple, low maple, and water maple. It is a small tree at its best, seldom more than twenty-five feet high and eight inches in diameter, while in most parts of its range it is only a shrub. Its best growth is on mountain slopes of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. It likes moist, rich hillsides, and does not object to shade. The flowers come late, but within a month or six weeks after the bloom appears, the fruit is full grown, but it remains on the tree till autumn. The tree’s bark is smooth and very thin. The absence of stripes distinguishes this tree from striped maple, which has nearly the same range. Mountain maple grows from Maine to Minnesota, southward to Michigan, and along the mountains to Georgia. The wood is light, soft, brown tinged with red. The small size of the trunk forbids its conversion into ordinary lumber. The only commercial use reported for it is in Pennsylvania where it is cut along with other hardwoods for destructive distillation.Florida Maple(Acer floridanum) is a species according to some, and according to others is a variety of the hard maple. Its range is limited, and the availablequantity of the wood is small. It is found in the swamps of southern Georgia and western Florida, and westward to Texas, Louisiana, and southern Arkansas. Near the southwestern limits of its range in Texas and Mexico, it is often a shrub; but in the best part of its range it becomes a tree fifty or sixty feet high and two or three in diameter. The wood passes for hard maple when sawed into lumber, but it is not often sent to sawmills. The makers of bent wood rustic furniture in some of the southern towns, particularly in Louisiana, have found the slender branches of Florida maple well suited to that purpose.Drummond Maple(Acer rubrum drummondii) is a variety of red maple, not a separate species. Its range lies in the coastal plain of Alabama and Georgia, western Louisiana, eastern Texas, southwestern Tennessee, and southern Arkansas. It grows in deep swamps, and has three-lobed leaves, and large-winged fruit, ripening in April and May. The wood is too scarce to be important in the lumber trade, but where it can be had it is used. Violin makers have procured some finely curled wood of this maple in Union Parish, Louisiana. Some of the wood from that district has been made into gunstocks also.Whitebark Maple(Acer leucoderme) has been classed as a variety of sugar maple, and also as a separate species. It is named from the light gray color of the bark of young stems; but the color turns dark with age. The tree is usually twenty or thirty feet high with a diameter of a foot or more. The wood is of good quality, but no uses, except fuel, have been reported. Trees are not abundant, but the range covers parts of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas. It is occasionally planted as a shade tree along the streets of towns of Georgia and Alabama.

Mountain Maple(Acer spicatum) is known also as moose maple, low maple, and water maple. It is a small tree at its best, seldom more than twenty-five feet high and eight inches in diameter, while in most parts of its range it is only a shrub. Its best growth is on mountain slopes of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. It likes moist, rich hillsides, and does not object to shade. The flowers come late, but within a month or six weeks after the bloom appears, the fruit is full grown, but it remains on the tree till autumn. The tree’s bark is smooth and very thin. The absence of stripes distinguishes this tree from striped maple, which has nearly the same range. Mountain maple grows from Maine to Minnesota, southward to Michigan, and along the mountains to Georgia. The wood is light, soft, brown tinged with red. The small size of the trunk forbids its conversion into ordinary lumber. The only commercial use reported for it is in Pennsylvania where it is cut along with other hardwoods for destructive distillation.

Florida Maple(Acer floridanum) is a species according to some, and according to others is a variety of the hard maple. Its range is limited, and the availablequantity of the wood is small. It is found in the swamps of southern Georgia and western Florida, and westward to Texas, Louisiana, and southern Arkansas. Near the southwestern limits of its range in Texas and Mexico, it is often a shrub; but in the best part of its range it becomes a tree fifty or sixty feet high and two or three in diameter. The wood passes for hard maple when sawed into lumber, but it is not often sent to sawmills. The makers of bent wood rustic furniture in some of the southern towns, particularly in Louisiana, have found the slender branches of Florida maple well suited to that purpose.

Drummond Maple(Acer rubrum drummondii) is a variety of red maple, not a separate species. Its range lies in the coastal plain of Alabama and Georgia, western Louisiana, eastern Texas, southwestern Tennessee, and southern Arkansas. It grows in deep swamps, and has three-lobed leaves, and large-winged fruit, ripening in April and May. The wood is too scarce to be important in the lumber trade, but where it can be had it is used. Violin makers have procured some finely curled wood of this maple in Union Parish, Louisiana. Some of the wood from that district has been made into gunstocks also.

Whitebark Maple(Acer leucoderme) has been classed as a variety of sugar maple, and also as a separate species. It is named from the light gray color of the bark of young stems; but the color turns dark with age. The tree is usually twenty or thirty feet high with a diameter of a foot or more. The wood is of good quality, but no uses, except fuel, have been reported. Trees are not abundant, but the range covers parts of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas. It is occasionally planted as a shade tree along the streets of towns of Georgia and Alabama.

Red maple branch

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