WHITE ELM

WHITE ELMWhite elmWhite Elm

White elmWhite Elm

White Elm

WHITE ELM(Ulmus Americana)Six species of elm occur in the United States, not counting the planer tree as an elm, though lumbermen usually consider it as such.[5]The white elm is the most common, is distributed most widely, and is commercially the most important. More of it is used as lumber, slack cooperage, and other forms of forest products, than all other elms of this country combined. The statistics of sawmill output collected annually by the United States census are not compiled in a way to show the elms separately. All go in as one. The annual lumber cut of elm in the whole country is about 265,000,000 feet, distributed over thirty-four states, with Wisconsin leading, followed in the order named by Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, New York, and Minnesota. In addition to lumber, elm furnishes about 130,000,000 slack cooperage staves yearly.[5]The elms are white elm (Ulmus americana), cork elm (Ulmus racemosa), slippery elm (Ulmus pubescens), cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia), wing elm (Ulmus alata), and red elm (Ulmus serotina). They are all confined to the region east of the Rocky Mountains.The elms, taken as a class, are much alike. There is more resemblance between the species than between species of oaks or pines, yet some difference exists between elms. This holds not only between different species, but between individuals of the same species. Climate, situation, and soil have much to do with the character of the wood of the same species. So great is the difference at times that fairly good judges of timber are deceived as to the species. A tree growing on dry, rocky soil produces wood quite different from one on rich, deep, well-watered soil. Not only is the wood of one different from that of the other, but the appearances of the standing trees are not alike. The differences may not show in leaves, flowers, and fruit as much as in the shapes and sizes of trees, and the habit of the branches.White elm is by common consent the type of the genus, the standard by which the other species are measured. It is proper to compare certain properties and characters of other elms with white elm, in order that a general view of all may be had. The dry weights, per cubic foot, of wood are as follows: White elm 40.54 pounds, slippery elm 43.35, cedar elm 45.15, cork elm 45.26, and wing elm 46.69. Figures which show the weight of the southern red elm (Ulmus serotina) are not available. White elm is thus shown to be lightest of the group.Its breaking strength averages 12,158 pounds per cubic inch, underthe usual tests by which the strength of woods is determined. Reduced to everyday language that means that 12,158 pounds would just break a white elm stick, 25â„8inches square, and resting on supports twelve inches apart. That is the meaning of â€œbreaking strength,â€ or â€œmodulus of rupture,â€ as the term is used in engineering text books relating to woods. The following figures for the breaking strength of other elms make comparisons with white elm easy: Cedar elm 11,000; wing elm 11,162; slippery elm 12,342; cork elm (often called rock elm) 15,172. It is shown that two elms are stronger and two weaker than white elm. This wood rates very little below white oak in strength.The different species of elms vary considerably in stiffness, or the ability to spring back when bent. This factor is expressed by engineers in high figures, is purely technical, and is based on a woodâ€™s ability to stretch and regain its former position. The only service which the figures can render to the layman is to furnish a basis for comparing one wood with another. The stiffer a wood, the greater its resistance to an effort to stretch it lengthwise. White elmâ€™s measure of stiffness (modulus of elasticity) is 1,070,000 pounds per square inch; wing elm 853,000; cedar elm 981,000; slippery elm 1,318,000; cork elm 1,512,000. It is shown here, as was shown in the figures representing the strength of the elms, that two species rate above and two below white elm in stiffness.White elm is known by several names. The color of the bark is responsible for the name gray elm among lumbermen and woodworkers of the Lake States. American elm is a translation of its botanical name, and is neither descriptive nor definitive, because there are other elms as truly American as this one. White elm distinguishes its wood from the redder wood of slippery elm, but it would often be difficult if not impossible to identify the elms, or any one of them, by the color of the wood alone. Some persons who call this elm white doubtless refer to the color of the bark, as is the case with those who speak of it as gray elm. It is known as water elm in several states, but that name is applied indiscriminately to any elm that frequents river banks, as most of them do in some part of their range. It is called rock elm when it is found on stony uplands, and swamp elm on low wet ground. In some parts of the Appalachian mountain ranges it is called astringent elm to distinguish it from slippery elm.White elm surpasses the others in extent of range. Its northern boundary stretches from Newfoundland, across Canada to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles. It runs south through the Atlantic states to Florida, a distance of 1,200 miles or more. Its southwestern limit is in Texas. The area thus bounded isabout 2,500,000 square miles. A few other trees have ranges as large, but none much exceed it. It covers so much of America, and is so important in many parts of its range, that it is clearly the leading elm in this country. It is entitled to first place among elms for other reasons.It is not easy to give any sure features or characteristics by which the layman may always distinguish this elm from others with which it is associated; however, by carefully observing certain features, the identity of white elm is generally easy to establish.The leaves have teeth along the margins like beech and birch. They have straight primary veins running from the midrib to the points of the teeth. Before falling in autumn the leaves turn yellow. The foliage is not very thick, and most of it is near the ends of the limbs. The bloom comes early in the spring, ahead of the leaves, and the seeds are ripe and ready for flight before the leaves are grown. Sometimes the seeds are ripe almost before the leaves are out of the buds. The seeds are oblong, and about the size of a small lentil. The wing entirely surrounds the seed, and is about half an inch long. The flight of elm seeds is an interesting phenomenon. The individual seeds are so small that they are not easily seen as they sail away from the tall tree top but when they go in swarms, in fitful puffs of wind, they are not hard to see. It is chiefly by their fruits that they are known, that is, by the multitudes of seedlings that appear a few weeks later. If one seedling elm in a thousand should reach maturity, there would be little besides elms in the whole country. They spring up by highways and hedges, in gutters, fields, and even between cobbles and bricks of paved streets; but in a few days they have crowded one another to death, or have perished from other causes, and those which manage to live to maturity do not much more than make up for old trees which perish from natural causes.The botanist Michaux pronounced the white elm â€œthe most magnificent vegetable of the temperate zone.â€ A number of trees are larger, though this reaches great size. Sargent sets the limit of the tree at 120 feet high and eleven feet in trunk diameter. That size is, of course, unusual, but it has been surpassed at least in height. A tree in Jefferson county, Pennsylvania, was 140 feet high, and although forest grown, it had a spread of crown of seventy-six feet. It was sent to the sawmill where it made 8,820 feet of lumber. That trunk was only five feet in diameter.Some of the finest forest grown elms in this country have been cut in Michigan. Their trunks were as tall, straight, and shapely as yellow poplars, and their crowns surpassed those of poplars. It was formerly not unusual for sawlogs to be cut from elm limbs which branched from the trunk fifty or more feet from the ground. The best of the forestgrown elm of this country has been cut; but it is still lumbered throughout the whole eastern half of the United States.The finest elms of this country, and doubtless the finest in the world, are the planted trees in some of the New England villages. The largest of them have been growing for two hundred years, and in many instances they still show the vigor of youth. Trunks six or seven feet through are not uncommon, but the glory of the trees is not alone in the trunks. Their spread and form of crown are magnificent. The largest are 150 feet across, and some of the splendid branches, rising in parabolic curves, are fully 100 feet long, from the junction with the tree to the tips of the twigs. The most apt comparison for that form of elm is the spray of a fountain. The upward jet of water corresponds to the trunk of the tree; the upward, outward, and downward curves of the spray represent the crown of the elm. Trees which take that form are grown in open ground where sunlight and air reach every side. Forest grown trees are less symmetrical, but even in dense woods, the elm frequently rises clear above the canopy of other trees, and develops the fountain form of crown. The new England street and park elms surpass those farther west only because they are older. The splendid trunks and crowns are the work of centuries.White elm branch

Six species of elm occur in the United States, not counting the planer tree as an elm, though lumbermen usually consider it as such.[5]The white elm is the most common, is distributed most widely, and is commercially the most important. More of it is used as lumber, slack cooperage, and other forms of forest products, than all other elms of this country combined. The statistics of sawmill output collected annually by the United States census are not compiled in a way to show the elms separately. All go in as one. The annual lumber cut of elm in the whole country is about 265,000,000 feet, distributed over thirty-four states, with Wisconsin leading, followed in the order named by Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, New York, and Minnesota. In addition to lumber, elm furnishes about 130,000,000 slack cooperage staves yearly.

[5]The elms are white elm (Ulmus americana), cork elm (Ulmus racemosa), slippery elm (Ulmus pubescens), cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia), wing elm (Ulmus alata), and red elm (Ulmus serotina). They are all confined to the region east of the Rocky Mountains.

The elms, taken as a class, are much alike. There is more resemblance between the species than between species of oaks or pines, yet some difference exists between elms. This holds not only between different species, but between individuals of the same species. Climate, situation, and soil have much to do with the character of the wood of the same species. So great is the difference at times that fairly good judges of timber are deceived as to the species. A tree growing on dry, rocky soil produces wood quite different from one on rich, deep, well-watered soil. Not only is the wood of one different from that of the other, but the appearances of the standing trees are not alike. The differences may not show in leaves, flowers, and fruit as much as in the shapes and sizes of trees, and the habit of the branches.

White elm is by common consent the type of the genus, the standard by which the other species are measured. It is proper to compare certain properties and characters of other elms with white elm, in order that a general view of all may be had. The dry weights, per cubic foot, of wood are as follows: White elm 40.54 pounds, slippery elm 43.35, cedar elm 45.15, cork elm 45.26, and wing elm 46.69. Figures which show the weight of the southern red elm (Ulmus serotina) are not available. White elm is thus shown to be lightest of the group.

Its breaking strength averages 12,158 pounds per cubic inch, underthe usual tests by which the strength of woods is determined. Reduced to everyday language that means that 12,158 pounds would just break a white elm stick, 25â„8inches square, and resting on supports twelve inches apart. That is the meaning of â€œbreaking strength,â€ or â€œmodulus of rupture,â€ as the term is used in engineering text books relating to woods. The following figures for the breaking strength of other elms make comparisons with white elm easy: Cedar elm 11,000; wing elm 11,162; slippery elm 12,342; cork elm (often called rock elm) 15,172. It is shown that two elms are stronger and two weaker than white elm. This wood rates very little below white oak in strength.

The different species of elms vary considerably in stiffness, or the ability to spring back when bent. This factor is expressed by engineers in high figures, is purely technical, and is based on a woodâ€™s ability to stretch and regain its former position. The only service which the figures can render to the layman is to furnish a basis for comparing one wood with another. The stiffer a wood, the greater its resistance to an effort to stretch it lengthwise. White elmâ€™s measure of stiffness (modulus of elasticity) is 1,070,000 pounds per square inch; wing elm 853,000; cedar elm 981,000; slippery elm 1,318,000; cork elm 1,512,000. It is shown here, as was shown in the figures representing the strength of the elms, that two species rate above and two below white elm in stiffness.

White elm is known by several names. The color of the bark is responsible for the name gray elm among lumbermen and woodworkers of the Lake States. American elm is a translation of its botanical name, and is neither descriptive nor definitive, because there are other elms as truly American as this one. White elm distinguishes its wood from the redder wood of slippery elm, but it would often be difficult if not impossible to identify the elms, or any one of them, by the color of the wood alone. Some persons who call this elm white doubtless refer to the color of the bark, as is the case with those who speak of it as gray elm. It is known as water elm in several states, but that name is applied indiscriminately to any elm that frequents river banks, as most of them do in some part of their range. It is called rock elm when it is found on stony uplands, and swamp elm on low wet ground. In some parts of the Appalachian mountain ranges it is called astringent elm to distinguish it from slippery elm.

White elm surpasses the others in extent of range. Its northern boundary stretches from Newfoundland, across Canada to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles. It runs south through the Atlantic states to Florida, a distance of 1,200 miles or more. Its southwestern limit is in Texas. The area thus bounded isabout 2,500,000 square miles. A few other trees have ranges as large, but none much exceed it. It covers so much of America, and is so important in many parts of its range, that it is clearly the leading elm in this country. It is entitled to first place among elms for other reasons.

It is not easy to give any sure features or characteristics by which the layman may always distinguish this elm from others with which it is associated; however, by carefully observing certain features, the identity of white elm is generally easy to establish.

The leaves have teeth along the margins like beech and birch. They have straight primary veins running from the midrib to the points of the teeth. Before falling in autumn the leaves turn yellow. The foliage is not very thick, and most of it is near the ends of the limbs. The bloom comes early in the spring, ahead of the leaves, and the seeds are ripe and ready for flight before the leaves are grown. Sometimes the seeds are ripe almost before the leaves are out of the buds. The seeds are oblong, and about the size of a small lentil. The wing entirely surrounds the seed, and is about half an inch long. The flight of elm seeds is an interesting phenomenon. The individual seeds are so small that they are not easily seen as they sail away from the tall tree top but when they go in swarms, in fitful puffs of wind, they are not hard to see. It is chiefly by their fruits that they are known, that is, by the multitudes of seedlings that appear a few weeks later. If one seedling elm in a thousand should reach maturity, there would be little besides elms in the whole country. They spring up by highways and hedges, in gutters, fields, and even between cobbles and bricks of paved streets; but in a few days they have crowded one another to death, or have perished from other causes, and those which manage to live to maturity do not much more than make up for old trees which perish from natural causes.

The botanist Michaux pronounced the white elm â€œthe most magnificent vegetable of the temperate zone.â€ A number of trees are larger, though this reaches great size. Sargent sets the limit of the tree at 120 feet high and eleven feet in trunk diameter. That size is, of course, unusual, but it has been surpassed at least in height. A tree in Jefferson county, Pennsylvania, was 140 feet high, and although forest grown, it had a spread of crown of seventy-six feet. It was sent to the sawmill where it made 8,820 feet of lumber. That trunk was only five feet in diameter.

Some of the finest forest grown elms in this country have been cut in Michigan. Their trunks were as tall, straight, and shapely as yellow poplars, and their crowns surpassed those of poplars. It was formerly not unusual for sawlogs to be cut from elm limbs which branched from the trunk fifty or more feet from the ground. The best of the forestgrown elm of this country has been cut; but it is still lumbered throughout the whole eastern half of the United States.

The finest elms of this country, and doubtless the finest in the world, are the planted trees in some of the New England villages. The largest of them have been growing for two hundred years, and in many instances they still show the vigor of youth. Trunks six or seven feet through are not uncommon, but the glory of the trees is not alone in the trunks. Their spread and form of crown are magnificent. The largest are 150 feet across, and some of the splendid branches, rising in parabolic curves, are fully 100 feet long, from the junction with the tree to the tips of the twigs. The most apt comparison for that form of elm is the spray of a fountain. The upward jet of water corresponds to the trunk of the tree; the upward, outward, and downward curves of the spray represent the crown of the elm. Trees which take that form are grown in open ground where sunlight and air reach every side. Forest grown trees are less symmetrical, but even in dense woods, the elm frequently rises clear above the canopy of other trees, and develops the fountain form of crown. The new England street and park elms surpass those farther west only because they are older. The splendid trunks and crowns are the work of centuries.

White elm branch

CORK ELMCork elmCork Elm

Cork elmCork Elm

Cork Elm

CORK ELM(Ulmus Racemosa)This tree is called cork elm in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Ohio; rock elm in Rhode Island, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska; hickory elm in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana; white elm in Ontario; Thomas elm in Tennessee; northern cork-barked elm in Tennessee; corkbark elm, New York; northern cork elm, Vermont; wahoo, Ohio; cliff elm in Wisconsin.Cork elm is the natural name. It is a descriptive term which a stranger would be apt to apply on seeing the tree for the first time. The bark of the branches, after it has attained an age of three or four years, becomes rough by the growth of ridges and protuberances. This feature is sometimes so prominent that it at once attracts attention, particularly when the branches are bare of leaves; hence the name cork elm.Lumbermen insist on naming the tree rock elm. They refer to the hardness of the wood, or they may have in mind the dry, stony situations where tough, strong elm grows. The latter is often the case, because the name is applied also to slippery elm and white elm if they grow on stony ground. A wide-spread opinion prevails that wood which grows among rocks is harder, tougher, stronger, and more durable than that produced by deep, fertile soil. It is possible to cite much evidence to support that view, and the case might be considered proved, but for the fact that an equal, or greater amount of evidence, in every way as trustworthy, may be cited on the other side. The strongest hickory, ash, and oak do not come from stony land. It sometimes happens that a species with tough, strong wood, is found on rocks, but it is not tough because it is there, but in spite of being there.The name cliff elm which this tree bears in Wisconsin is but another form of the name rock elm, and clearly has reference to the situation where the tree grows in that part of the country. Hickory elm, on the other hand, a name applied to this tree much farther south, is a recognition of the woodâ€™s toughness.In some particulars it does not fall much below hickory in toughness, but is not as strong, elastic, or capable of as smooth polish. The latter property is one of the recommendations of hickory when used for handles. It is very smooth to the touch; cork elm is less so. In the northern woods, elm ax handles are in use, and some axmen prefer themto hickory. Such is probably the case when the best cork elm and a medium or poor quality of hickory are in competition.The fibers of cork elm are interlaced, rendering the splitting of the wood difficult. For uses in which that is a desirable property, it is preferable to hickory. It is better for hubs for large wagons, and that is a very important use for this elm.The wood of all the elms is ring-porous; that is, the springwood, or inner part of the annual ring, consists of one or more rows of large ducts. The summerwood contains pores in large numbers, but they are small, and are usually arranged in short curved lines. The medullary rays are not prominent in the wood of any of the elms, and quarter-sawing adds no beauty to the lumber. The wood is practically without figure, on account of either annual rings or medullary rays; but it may be stained, polished, and made very attractive. That is done oftener with white elm than with any other.The strength of cork elm created demand for it in boat building at an early day. The tree is and always was scarce in the vicinity of the Atlantic sea board, and the earliest boat builders seem not to have been acquainted with the wood. It was most abundant in the forests of Michigan, though it extended westward to Nebraska. It was plentiful in the province of Ontario, and the timbers from that region acquainted English shipbuilders with the merits of the wood. They sent contractors into Michigan to buy cork elm, long before the other hardwoods of that region had attracted the attention of the outside world. The most convenient supplies of cork elm on the Lower Michigan peninsula thus passed through Canada to ship yards on the other side of the sea. The wood is reputed to be more durable than any of the other elms.It is generally understood that the countryâ€™s supply of cork elm is running short, but there are no statistics which show how much is left or how much has been cut. It is doubtful if the original forests, including the whole country, had one tree of cork elm to twenty of white elm. The average size of cork elm is sixty feet high and two in diameter. The trunks are well shaped, if forest grown. They develop small crowns in proportion to the size of trunks; and the crowns are less graceful than those of white elmâ€”lacking the long, sweeping curves of the latter. The general contour of the tree has been compared to white oak.Cork elm grows well when planted on the Pacific coast, in environments quite different from its native habitat. In the forest it increases in size slowly; when planted it makes much better headway. It has a disagreeable habit of sprouting which puts it out of favor as a park tree.The wood of the different elms is largely used for manufacturing purposes. They are sometimes kept separate, but generally not. Theparticular place where cork elm is preferred is in the manufacture of vehicles and boats, but it is by no means confined to those commodities.The state of Michigan alone sends 50,000,000 feet of elm a year to its factories to be converted into articles of general utility. Furniture makers take over 2,000,000 feet of it, though elm is not classed as a furniture wood. In certain places it is superior to almost every other wood. No matter how discolored it becomes by weathering and the accumulation of foreign substances, a vigorous application of soap, water, and a scrubbing brush will whiten it. It is liked in certain parts of refrigerators which need constant scrubbing. Elm to the extent of 8,000,000 feet goes into refrigerators in Michigan alone.The strength and toughness of elm make it suitable for frames of tables. When thus used, it is generally out of sight, but not infrequently it is made into table legs as well as frames. Statistics show that more than a million feet are manufactured yearly into handles in Michigan alone. All three of the northern elmsâ€”white, cork, and slipperyâ€”are listed in the handle industry.Many millions of feet of elm are yearly converted into automobile stockâ€”3,000,000 in Michigan. Horse-drawn vehicles take more. The most common place for it is the hub, but it serves also as shafts, poles, reaches, and even as spokes for wagons of the largest size.The important place in the slack cooperage industry held by elm is well known. It is a flour barrel wood, but is employed for barrels of many other kinds. It stands high as veneer, not the kind of which the visible parts of furniture are made, but the invisible interior, built up of veneer sheets glued together. A similar kind of veneer forms the boxes or frames of trunksâ€”the part to be covered by metal, leather, or cloth. The slats which strengthen the outside of trunks are frequently of elm.This wood is not in favor for one important purpose, hardwood distillation. It has escaped pretty generally also from being employed as a farm material, on account of its poor lasting qualities. Some slippery elm was mauled into fence rails in the pioneer days of Ohio, Indiana, and southern Michigan, but that was only because it was plentiful and convenient. Cork elm probably never made a fence rail, because it is so unwedgeable that no rail splitter would have anything to do with it. At the best, it is but a temporary makeshift as fence posts, but by applying creosote and other preservative treatments to lessen decay, it measures up with most other post woods.The elms are not indispensable woods in this country, but their exhaustion, should it ever come, will leave many places hard to fill. As far as known, no woodlots of any species of elm have been planted in this country, and there is little prospect that any will be planted, becausethe slow growth of the trees discourages foresters. A century or two is a long look ahead.However, the exhaustion of no species of the elms in this country need be expected soon. The most apparent peril lies ahead of cork elm, because it never was abundant, and demand, which has been large for a long time, is still strong. The species is scattered over more than 200,000 square miles, and a long time must elapse before the last cork elm finds its way to the sawmill. The situation of white elm is more promising. It may be among the last trees of the American forests to take its final departure. Its wide range and its bounteous seed crops insure a supply, though not necessarily a large one, for a long time. The greatest peril to elms, as well as to many other forest trees, is that, when weakened by depletion, some disease will attack them and destroy the remnants. Experience in New England and elsewhere has shown that elm has no great resisting power when a strong attack is made upon it.Cork elm branch

This tree is called cork elm in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Ohio; rock elm in Rhode Island, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska; hickory elm in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana; white elm in Ontario; Thomas elm in Tennessee; northern cork-barked elm in Tennessee; corkbark elm, New York; northern cork elm, Vermont; wahoo, Ohio; cliff elm in Wisconsin.

Cork elm is the natural name. It is a descriptive term which a stranger would be apt to apply on seeing the tree for the first time. The bark of the branches, after it has attained an age of three or four years, becomes rough by the growth of ridges and protuberances. This feature is sometimes so prominent that it at once attracts attention, particularly when the branches are bare of leaves; hence the name cork elm.

Lumbermen insist on naming the tree rock elm. They refer to the hardness of the wood, or they may have in mind the dry, stony situations where tough, strong elm grows. The latter is often the case, because the name is applied also to slippery elm and white elm if they grow on stony ground. A wide-spread opinion prevails that wood which grows among rocks is harder, tougher, stronger, and more durable than that produced by deep, fertile soil. It is possible to cite much evidence to support that view, and the case might be considered proved, but for the fact that an equal, or greater amount of evidence, in every way as trustworthy, may be cited on the other side. The strongest hickory, ash, and oak do not come from stony land. It sometimes happens that a species with tough, strong wood, is found on rocks, but it is not tough because it is there, but in spite of being there.

The name cliff elm which this tree bears in Wisconsin is but another form of the name rock elm, and clearly has reference to the situation where the tree grows in that part of the country. Hickory elm, on the other hand, a name applied to this tree much farther south, is a recognition of the woodâ€™s toughness.

In some particulars it does not fall much below hickory in toughness, but is not as strong, elastic, or capable of as smooth polish. The latter property is one of the recommendations of hickory when used for handles. It is very smooth to the touch; cork elm is less so. In the northern woods, elm ax handles are in use, and some axmen prefer themto hickory. Such is probably the case when the best cork elm and a medium or poor quality of hickory are in competition.

The fibers of cork elm are interlaced, rendering the splitting of the wood difficult. For uses in which that is a desirable property, it is preferable to hickory. It is better for hubs for large wagons, and that is a very important use for this elm.

The wood of all the elms is ring-porous; that is, the springwood, or inner part of the annual ring, consists of one or more rows of large ducts. The summerwood contains pores in large numbers, but they are small, and are usually arranged in short curved lines. The medullary rays are not prominent in the wood of any of the elms, and quarter-sawing adds no beauty to the lumber. The wood is practically without figure, on account of either annual rings or medullary rays; but it may be stained, polished, and made very attractive. That is done oftener with white elm than with any other.

The strength of cork elm created demand for it in boat building at an early day. The tree is and always was scarce in the vicinity of the Atlantic sea board, and the earliest boat builders seem not to have been acquainted with the wood. It was most abundant in the forests of Michigan, though it extended westward to Nebraska. It was plentiful in the province of Ontario, and the timbers from that region acquainted English shipbuilders with the merits of the wood. They sent contractors into Michigan to buy cork elm, long before the other hardwoods of that region had attracted the attention of the outside world. The most convenient supplies of cork elm on the Lower Michigan peninsula thus passed through Canada to ship yards on the other side of the sea. The wood is reputed to be more durable than any of the other elms.

It is generally understood that the countryâ€™s supply of cork elm is running short, but there are no statistics which show how much is left or how much has been cut. It is doubtful if the original forests, including the whole country, had one tree of cork elm to twenty of white elm. The average size of cork elm is sixty feet high and two in diameter. The trunks are well shaped, if forest grown. They develop small crowns in proportion to the size of trunks; and the crowns are less graceful than those of white elmâ€”lacking the long, sweeping curves of the latter. The general contour of the tree has been compared to white oak.

Cork elm grows well when planted on the Pacific coast, in environments quite different from its native habitat. In the forest it increases in size slowly; when planted it makes much better headway. It has a disagreeable habit of sprouting which puts it out of favor as a park tree.

The wood of the different elms is largely used for manufacturing purposes. They are sometimes kept separate, but generally not. Theparticular place where cork elm is preferred is in the manufacture of vehicles and boats, but it is by no means confined to those commodities.

The state of Michigan alone sends 50,000,000 feet of elm a year to its factories to be converted into articles of general utility. Furniture makers take over 2,000,000 feet of it, though elm is not classed as a furniture wood. In certain places it is superior to almost every other wood. No matter how discolored it becomes by weathering and the accumulation of foreign substances, a vigorous application of soap, water, and a scrubbing brush will whiten it. It is liked in certain parts of refrigerators which need constant scrubbing. Elm to the extent of 8,000,000 feet goes into refrigerators in Michigan alone.

The strength and toughness of elm make it suitable for frames of tables. When thus used, it is generally out of sight, but not infrequently it is made into table legs as well as frames. Statistics show that more than a million feet are manufactured yearly into handles in Michigan alone. All three of the northern elmsâ€”white, cork, and slipperyâ€”are listed in the handle industry.

Many millions of feet of elm are yearly converted into automobile stockâ€”3,000,000 in Michigan. Horse-drawn vehicles take more. The most common place for it is the hub, but it serves also as shafts, poles, reaches, and even as spokes for wagons of the largest size.

The important place in the slack cooperage industry held by elm is well known. It is a flour barrel wood, but is employed for barrels of many other kinds. It stands high as veneer, not the kind of which the visible parts of furniture are made, but the invisible interior, built up of veneer sheets glued together. A similar kind of veneer forms the boxes or frames of trunksâ€”the part to be covered by metal, leather, or cloth. The slats which strengthen the outside of trunks are frequently of elm.

This wood is not in favor for one important purpose, hardwood distillation. It has escaped pretty generally also from being employed as a farm material, on account of its poor lasting qualities. Some slippery elm was mauled into fence rails in the pioneer days of Ohio, Indiana, and southern Michigan, but that was only because it was plentiful and convenient. Cork elm probably never made a fence rail, because it is so unwedgeable that no rail splitter would have anything to do with it. At the best, it is but a temporary makeshift as fence posts, but by applying creosote and other preservative treatments to lessen decay, it measures up with most other post woods.

The elms are not indispensable woods in this country, but their exhaustion, should it ever come, will leave many places hard to fill. As far as known, no woodlots of any species of elm have been planted in this country, and there is little prospect that any will be planted, becausethe slow growth of the trees discourages foresters. A century or two is a long look ahead.

However, the exhaustion of no species of the elms in this country need be expected soon. The most apparent peril lies ahead of cork elm, because it never was abundant, and demand, which has been large for a long time, is still strong. The species is scattered over more than 200,000 square miles, and a long time must elapse before the last cork elm finds its way to the sawmill. The situation of white elm is more promising. It may be among the last trees of the American forests to take its final departure. Its wide range and its bounteous seed crops insure a supply, though not necessarily a large one, for a long time. The greatest peril to elms, as well as to many other forest trees, is that, when weakened by depletion, some disease will attack them and destroy the remnants. Experience in New England and elsewhere has shown that elm has no great resisting power when a strong attack is made upon it.

Cork elm branch

SLIPPERY ELMSlippery elmSlippery Elm

Slippery elmSlippery Elm

Slippery Elm

SLIPPERY ELM(Ulmus Pubescens)This tree is known as slippery elm in every state where it grows, thirty or more; but in some localities it has other names also. It is doubtful if any person who is acquainted with the tree would fail to recognize it by the name slippery elm, though some who are acquainted with the lumber only might not know it by that name. Those who call it red elm have in mind the color of the heartwood which is of deeper red than the wood of any other elm, or they may refer to the tawny pubescence on the young shoots in winter. The botanical name describes that characteristic.In the North, the slippery elm is sometimes known as moose elm. It furnishes forage in winter for the moose and other herbivorous animals when ground plants are covered with snow. The moose is able to eat branches as thick as a manâ€™s thumb. The principal food element in the twigs is the mucilaginous inner bark. It is this which gives the tree its name slippery elm. The value of the bark as a food has been questioned. It is agreeable to the taste of both man and beast, but it is claimed that a human being will starve to death on it, though it will prolong life several days. The lower animals, however, seem able to derive more benefit from eating the bark. An incident of the War of 1812 appears to prove this. The army under General Harrison, operating in the vicinity of Lake Erie, kept the horses of the expedition alive by feeding them on slippery elm bark, stripped from the trees and chopped in small bits.The inner bark has long been used for medicinal purposes. It is now ground fine and is kept for sale in drug stores, but formerly it was a household remedy which most families in the country provided and kept in store along with catnip, mandrake, sage, dogwood blossoms, and other rural remedies which were depended upon to rout diseases in the days when physicians were few. The slippery elm bark was peeled from the tree in long strips, the rough outer layers were shaved off, leaving the mucilaginous inner layer. That was from an eighth to a quarter of an inch thick. It was dried and put away for use. When needed it was pounded to a pulp, moistened with water, and applied as a poultice, if an external remedy was wanted. If a medicine was needed, a decoction was drunk as tea. There is no question that the remedy often produced good results when no doctor was within reach. A well-known medical writer said three-quarters of a century ago that the slippery elm tree was worth its weight in gold.The range of slippery elm extends from the lower St. Lawrence river through Canada to North Dakota. It is found in Texas as far west as the San Antonio river, and its western limit is generally from 200 to 300 miles west of the Mississippi river. Its range extends south nearly to the Gulf of Mexico. It is not this treeâ€™s habit to grow in thick stands, but it occurs singly or in small groups on the banks of streams or on rich hillsides.The average size is scarcely half that of white elm. Few trees exceed a height of seventy feet and a diameter of two. It grows rapidly at first, but does not live to old age. The crown lacks the symmetry and beauty so conspicuous in white elm. The limbs follow no law of regularity, but leave the trunk at haphazard. The fruit is mature before the leaves are half grown. The seeds have more wing area than those of white elm; and, like those of white elm, the wing surrounds the flat seed on all its edges. The leaves are rough to the touch, and when crumpled in the hand, the crunching sensation is unpleasant.Next to white elm, slippery elm appears to be more abundant than any other member of the group; but statistics do not give the basis for close estimates. The factories of Michigan use 3,700,000 feet of slippery elm a year, and 44,000,000 of white elm. The proportion of slippery to white is larger in the factories of Illinois.The uses are the same as for other elms. The wood is rated more durable than the others, but it is not in much demand for outdoor work where resistance to decay is an important consideration. It is sometimes set for fence posts, but the results are scarcely satisfactory, particularly for round posts which are largely sapwood. Posts sawed from the heartwood of large trees would do better. The deeper red of the heartwood gives it an advantage over the other elms for furniture and finish where natural colors are shown; but this is not important because no elmâ€™s natural color stands for much in the estimation of users of fine woods. The more common use of slippery elm is for boxes and cooperage. Next to red gum, it is employed in larger quantities for cooperage in Illinois than any other wood.The supply is rapidly decreasing. The cut for lumber is the chief drain, but a not inconsiderable one is the peeling of trees for bark. This goes on all over the speciesâ€™ range and much of it is done by boys with knives and hatchets. It is often hard to find slippery elms within miles of a town, because all have succumbed to bark hunters.Cedar Elm(Ulmus crassifolia) appears to bear this name because it is often found associated with red cedars on the dry limestone hills of Texas. There is little in the form and appearance of the tree to suggest the tall, tapering conical crown of cedar. There is still less in the wood. In some parts of Texas the species is called red elm, on account of the color of the wood, while in Arkansas, which is near thenorthern boundary of its range, it is locally known as basket elm, because basket makers find desirable qualities in its wood. It is a species of rather limited range, but it is abundant in certain regions. It is found as far east as Sunflower river, Mississippi, north into Arkansas, west to Pecos river, Texas, and south into Mexico. It is confined to three states, this side the Rio Grande. Trees on dry hills are inclined to be shrubby, but in damp valleys where soil is fertile, specimens attain a height of eighty feet and a diameter of three, but the average is not nearly so large. The leaves are small but numerous. The flowering habits of this elm are somewhat erratic. The usual time for bloom to appear is August, and a month or six weeks afterwards the small seeds are ready for flight; but occasionally, as if not satisfied with its first effort, the tree blooms again in October, and ripens a second crop late in the fall. The seeds are poorly supplied with wings, which are reduced to narrow margins surrounding the seed. It does not appear, however, that the species is in any way handicapped in securing reproduction. The small shoots are equipped with flat, corky keels, similar to but much smaller than those of the wing elm.This tree is important for the lumber it produces. It is the common and most abundant elm of Texas, and it is found in a large part of that state. The wood is the weakest of the elms, and is likewise quite brittle; but in the region where it is most abundant it compares favorably with any other. The best is cut from the largest trees, which grow in valleys where moisture is abundant. The growth found on the dry hills is of poor quality, and is worth little, even for fuel. The highest development in Texas, and also the highest in the speciesâ€™ range, is in the valleys of Trinity and Guadalupe rivers. In Texas this wood is employed in furniture factories as inside frames, to be covered by other woods, but it is not employed as outside parts of furniture, unless in very cheap kinds. It is suitable for drain boards and floors of refrigerators where it is wet much of the time. Under such circumstances it is more easily kept clean than most other woods. It whitens with repeated scrubbings. One of its most common uses in Texas is for wagon hubs. Some wheelwrights pronounce it next to the best native wood for that purpose, the first place being accorded Osage orange. The tree is often planted for shade along the streets of Texas towns, and develops thick crowns and satisfactory forms.Red Elm(Ulmus serotina) is a lately discovered member of the elm family. It so closely resembles the cork elm that it was supposed to be of the same species, and the close scrutiny of a botanist was required to discover that it was a separate species. Sargent observed the flowers opening in September while those of cork elm appear in early spring. The seeds ripen in November, while cork elmâ€™s are ripe early in the summer. The tree was named red elm, the wood being reddish-brown. That name is widely applied to slippery elm, but it is improbable that much confusion will result. The red elmâ€™s range is quite restricted and in that area the slippery elm is not important. Red elm occurs on limestone hills and river banks from central Kentucky to northern Georgia and Alabama. It attains a height of fifty or sixty feet and a diameter of two or three. The leaves are from two to four inches in length, and one or two wide, with margins toothed like the other elms. The midrib is yellow, and in the autumn the leaves change to an orange yellow before falling. Branches which are two or three years old develop corky wings, two or three in number.It is not known that mechanical tests of the wood have been made in a regular way to determine its physical properties, but superficial examination indicates that it is hard, tough, and strong, apparently about the same as cork elm. Special lists of uses for this wood have not been compiled for the reason that lumbermen and operators of sawmills have never distinguished it from other elms of theregion. Since it has never been left standing in districts where other elms are cut, it is evident that it has been regularly put to use for vehicles, agricultural implements, boxes, crates, and slack cooperage, because such articles have been manufactured in the region. The red elm has been occasionally planted as a shade tree along streets of towns in northern Georgia and Alabama.Slippery elm branch

This tree is known as slippery elm in every state where it grows, thirty or more; but in some localities it has other names also. It is doubtful if any person who is acquainted with the tree would fail to recognize it by the name slippery elm, though some who are acquainted with the lumber only might not know it by that name. Those who call it red elm have in mind the color of the heartwood which is of deeper red than the wood of any other elm, or they may refer to the tawny pubescence on the young shoots in winter. The botanical name describes that characteristic.

In the North, the slippery elm is sometimes known as moose elm. It furnishes forage in winter for the moose and other herbivorous animals when ground plants are covered with snow. The moose is able to eat branches as thick as a manâ€™s thumb. The principal food element in the twigs is the mucilaginous inner bark. It is this which gives the tree its name slippery elm. The value of the bark as a food has been questioned. It is agreeable to the taste of both man and beast, but it is claimed that a human being will starve to death on it, though it will prolong life several days. The lower animals, however, seem able to derive more benefit from eating the bark. An incident of the War of 1812 appears to prove this. The army under General Harrison, operating in the vicinity of Lake Erie, kept the horses of the expedition alive by feeding them on slippery elm bark, stripped from the trees and chopped in small bits.

The inner bark has long been used for medicinal purposes. It is now ground fine and is kept for sale in drug stores, but formerly it was a household remedy which most families in the country provided and kept in store along with catnip, mandrake, sage, dogwood blossoms, and other rural remedies which were depended upon to rout diseases in the days when physicians were few. The slippery elm bark was peeled from the tree in long strips, the rough outer layers were shaved off, leaving the mucilaginous inner layer. That was from an eighth to a quarter of an inch thick. It was dried and put away for use. When needed it was pounded to a pulp, moistened with water, and applied as a poultice, if an external remedy was wanted. If a medicine was needed, a decoction was drunk as tea. There is no question that the remedy often produced good results when no doctor was within reach. A well-known medical writer said three-quarters of a century ago that the slippery elm tree was worth its weight in gold.

The range of slippery elm extends from the lower St. Lawrence river through Canada to North Dakota. It is found in Texas as far west as the San Antonio river, and its western limit is generally from 200 to 300 miles west of the Mississippi river. Its range extends south nearly to the Gulf of Mexico. It is not this treeâ€™s habit to grow in thick stands, but it occurs singly or in small groups on the banks of streams or on rich hillsides.

The average size is scarcely half that of white elm. Few trees exceed a height of seventy feet and a diameter of two. It grows rapidly at first, but does not live to old age. The crown lacks the symmetry and beauty so conspicuous in white elm. The limbs follow no law of regularity, but leave the trunk at haphazard. The fruit is mature before the leaves are half grown. The seeds have more wing area than those of white elm; and, like those of white elm, the wing surrounds the flat seed on all its edges. The leaves are rough to the touch, and when crumpled in the hand, the crunching sensation is unpleasant.

Next to white elm, slippery elm appears to be more abundant than any other member of the group; but statistics do not give the basis for close estimates. The factories of Michigan use 3,700,000 feet of slippery elm a year, and 44,000,000 of white elm. The proportion of slippery to white is larger in the factories of Illinois.

The uses are the same as for other elms. The wood is rated more durable than the others, but it is not in much demand for outdoor work where resistance to decay is an important consideration. It is sometimes set for fence posts, but the results are scarcely satisfactory, particularly for round posts which are largely sapwood. Posts sawed from the heartwood of large trees would do better. The deeper red of the heartwood gives it an advantage over the other elms for furniture and finish where natural colors are shown; but this is not important because no elmâ€™s natural color stands for much in the estimation of users of fine woods. The more common use of slippery elm is for boxes and cooperage. Next to red gum, it is employed in larger quantities for cooperage in Illinois than any other wood.

The supply is rapidly decreasing. The cut for lumber is the chief drain, but a not inconsiderable one is the peeling of trees for bark. This goes on all over the speciesâ€™ range and much of it is done by boys with knives and hatchets. It is often hard to find slippery elms within miles of a town, because all have succumbed to bark hunters.

Cedar Elm(Ulmus crassifolia) appears to bear this name because it is often found associated with red cedars on the dry limestone hills of Texas. There is little in the form and appearance of the tree to suggest the tall, tapering conical crown of cedar. There is still less in the wood. In some parts of Texas the species is called red elm, on account of the color of the wood, while in Arkansas, which is near thenorthern boundary of its range, it is locally known as basket elm, because basket makers find desirable qualities in its wood. It is a species of rather limited range, but it is abundant in certain regions. It is found as far east as Sunflower river, Mississippi, north into Arkansas, west to Pecos river, Texas, and south into Mexico. It is confined to three states, this side the Rio Grande. Trees on dry hills are inclined to be shrubby, but in damp valleys where soil is fertile, specimens attain a height of eighty feet and a diameter of three, but the average is not nearly so large. The leaves are small but numerous. The flowering habits of this elm are somewhat erratic. The usual time for bloom to appear is August, and a month or six weeks afterwards the small seeds are ready for flight; but occasionally, as if not satisfied with its first effort, the tree blooms again in October, and ripens a second crop late in the fall. The seeds are poorly supplied with wings, which are reduced to narrow margins surrounding the seed. It does not appear, however, that the species is in any way handicapped in securing reproduction. The small shoots are equipped with flat, corky keels, similar to but much smaller than those of the wing elm.This tree is important for the lumber it produces. It is the common and most abundant elm of Texas, and it is found in a large part of that state. The wood is the weakest of the elms, and is likewise quite brittle; but in the region where it is most abundant it compares favorably with any other. The best is cut from the largest trees, which grow in valleys where moisture is abundant. The growth found on the dry hills is of poor quality, and is worth little, even for fuel. The highest development in Texas, and also the highest in the speciesâ€™ range, is in the valleys of Trinity and Guadalupe rivers. In Texas this wood is employed in furniture factories as inside frames, to be covered by other woods, but it is not employed as outside parts of furniture, unless in very cheap kinds. It is suitable for drain boards and floors of refrigerators where it is wet much of the time. Under such circumstances it is more easily kept clean than most other woods. It whitens with repeated scrubbings. One of its most common uses in Texas is for wagon hubs. Some wheelwrights pronounce it next to the best native wood for that purpose, the first place being accorded Osage orange. The tree is often planted for shade along the streets of Texas towns, and develops thick crowns and satisfactory forms.Red Elm(Ulmus serotina) is a lately discovered member of the elm family. It so closely resembles the cork elm that it was supposed to be of the same species, and the close scrutiny of a botanist was required to discover that it was a separate species. Sargent observed the flowers opening in September while those of cork elm appear in early spring. The seeds ripen in November, while cork elmâ€™s are ripe early in the summer. The tree was named red elm, the wood being reddish-brown. That name is widely applied to slippery elm, but it is improbable that much confusion will result. The red elmâ€™s range is quite restricted and in that area the slippery elm is not important. Red elm occurs on limestone hills and river banks from central Kentucky to northern Georgia and Alabama. It attains a height of fifty or sixty feet and a diameter of two or three. The leaves are from two to four inches in length, and one or two wide, with margins toothed like the other elms. The midrib is yellow, and in the autumn the leaves change to an orange yellow before falling. Branches which are two or three years old develop corky wings, two or three in number.It is not known that mechanical tests of the wood have been made in a regular way to determine its physical properties, but superficial examination indicates that it is hard, tough, and strong, apparently about the same as cork elm. Special lists of uses for this wood have not been compiled for the reason that lumbermen and operators of sawmills have never distinguished it from other elms of theregion. Since it has never been left standing in districts where other elms are cut, it is evident that it has been regularly put to use for vehicles, agricultural implements, boxes, crates, and slack cooperage, because such articles have been manufactured in the region. The red elm has been occasionally planted as a shade tree along streets of towns in northern Georgia and Alabama.

This tree is important for the lumber it produces. It is the common and most abundant elm of Texas, and it is found in a large part of that state. The wood is the weakest of the elms, and is likewise quite brittle; but in the region where it is most abundant it compares favorably with any other. The best is cut from the largest trees, which grow in valleys where moisture is abundant. The growth found on the dry hills is of poor quality, and is worth little, even for fuel. The highest development in Texas, and also the highest in the speciesâ€™ range, is in the valleys of Trinity and Guadalupe rivers. In Texas this wood is employed in furniture factories as inside frames, to be covered by other woods, but it is not employed as outside parts of furniture, unless in very cheap kinds. It is suitable for drain boards and floors of refrigerators where it is wet much of the time. Under such circumstances it is more easily kept clean than most other woods. It whitens with repeated scrubbings. One of its most common uses in Texas is for wagon hubs. Some wheelwrights pronounce it next to the best native wood for that purpose, the first place being accorded Osage orange. The tree is often planted for shade along the streets of Texas towns, and develops thick crowns and satisfactory forms.

Red Elm(Ulmus serotina) is a lately discovered member of the elm family. It so closely resembles the cork elm that it was supposed to be of the same species, and the close scrutiny of a botanist was required to discover that it was a separate species. Sargent observed the flowers opening in September while those of cork elm appear in early spring. The seeds ripen in November, while cork elmâ€™s are ripe early in the summer. The tree was named red elm, the wood being reddish-brown. That name is widely applied to slippery elm, but it is improbable that much confusion will result. The red elmâ€™s range is quite restricted and in that area the slippery elm is not important. Red elm occurs on limestone hills and river banks from central Kentucky to northern Georgia and Alabama. It attains a height of fifty or sixty feet and a diameter of two or three. The leaves are from two to four inches in length, and one or two wide, with margins toothed like the other elms. The midrib is yellow, and in the autumn the leaves change to an orange yellow before falling. Branches which are two or three years old develop corky wings, two or three in number.

It is not known that mechanical tests of the wood have been made in a regular way to determine its physical properties, but superficial examination indicates that it is hard, tough, and strong, apparently about the same as cork elm. Special lists of uses for this wood have not been compiled for the reason that lumbermen and operators of sawmills have never distinguished it from other elms of theregion. Since it has never been left standing in districts where other elms are cut, it is evident that it has been regularly put to use for vehicles, agricultural implements, boxes, crates, and slack cooperage, because such articles have been manufactured in the region. The red elm has been occasionally planted as a shade tree along streets of towns in northern Georgia and Alabama.

Slippery elm branch

PLANERTREEPlanertreePlanertree

PlanertreePlanertree

Planertree

PLANERTREE(Planera Aquatica)This tree is a first cousin of the elms, but it is no more an elm than a hackberry is an elm. It is a member of the family but is of a different genus, and it is the sole representative of its genus in the known world. There is only one kind of planertree, with no nearer relatives than the elms on one side and hackberry, sugarberry, and palo blanco on the other. Except those kinsfolk, it is alone on earth. The name is in honor of Johann Jacob Planer, a German botanist whose efforts did much for science nearly two hundred years ago. The name of the speciesaquatica, recognizes the treeâ€™s habit of growing where water is abundant. It is a swamp species, or rather, it prefers situations subject to periodic overflow. It looks like an elm, and that has led people to call it water elm. That is the name by which it is usually known in Florida. In Alabama it is called the American planertree, which is an unnecessary restriction, since there is no planertree except this one. The Louisiana French gave it the name plene, and the abridgement of its name is yet heard in that state. In North Carolina it has acquired the name sycamore, but without good reason. It does not look in the least like sycamore.It has the leaf of an elm, and it resembles that tree in bark, and somewhat in general form. The layman detects the first important difference when he examines the seeds. Those of the elms have wings, but the planertreeâ€™s are without those appendages, and they would be useless if it had them, unless they were as large as the parachute of the basswood seed. The planertree bears a sort of nut, a third of an inch long, and too heavy to be transported far on the ordinary membranous wings of tree seeds. Water is doubtless the principal agent in carrying the seeds from place to place. Probably few of them are transported far, because the water about the trees is generally stagnant; and, besides, the species does not seem to be extending its range or increasing in numbers.The planertree has a history. If the terms which the Roman historian Tacitus applied to people, could be applied to trees, it might be said of this species, as he said of certain tribes: â€œThe cowards fly the farthest and are the last survivors.â€ The planertree is now found only in certain southern swamps, from North Carolina to Florida, and west to Missouri and Texas. In former periods, as is shown by the records of geology, there were several species, and they had a wide range over portions of the northern hemisphere. They appear to have been a stronggroup of trees, able to hold their ground with the best inhabitants of the forest. They were in the Rocky Mountains, and far north in Alaska. They were in Europe also, or were represented there by some very similar species.For some reason which is not definitely known, they lost out when competition with other trees became keen, and in the course of long periods of time they disappeared from their former ranges in the North and West. They took to the swamps, just as the tribes of which Tacitus spoke, took to the morasses when they could no longer face their enemies on open ground. It was a far cry from Alaska to the Chattahoochee swamps in Florida, yet that was where A. H. Curtis and Charles Mohr went to procure typical planertree specimens for the tests which Sargent made of American woods.It has been suggested that tree species which have lost out in competition for ground, have been those which were at some decided disadvantage in the matter of getting their seeds properly scattered and planted. The case has not been proved, because there are as many facts and as much argument against that hypothesis as for it. The bigtrees of California are a noted example of a species which lost out and retreated to a corner, yet their seeds fly like birds. Plainly, something besides winged seeds is needed to keep the species in the fight. However, it is not difficult to see that the planertree, with wingless seeds and of so little use as food that no bird or rodent will carry them or bury them, has been much handicapped in the long contest which has crowded it from the arctic circle to the cotton belt.It has the habits of the subdued and conquered tree. It has adapted itself to swamps where few species can grow, and where competition for light and room is reduced to a minimum. Yet, even there, it is content to take the leavings of more ambitious species. The crowns make little effort to rise up to the light, for which many other trees battle during their whole existence. The planertreeâ€™s low, broad top of contorted branches places it perpetually in the shade of any other trees which overtop it.The wood of the planertree is lighter in weight, poorer in fuel value, weaker, and more brittle than the poorest of the elms. The annual ring lacks the rows of large open pores common in all the elms, but it has many small pores scattered through the whole yearâ€™s growth. It is not easy to note a difference between the springwood and that which grows later. The wood is soft, light brown in color, and the nearly white sapwood is thick. It is often, perhaps generally, a tree of fairly rapid growth, and since it does not reach large size, it is probably short-lived, but exact information along that line is lacking.The tallest trees seldom exceed a height of forty feet and a diameter of two. It is evident that a tree of that size and form does not tempt the lumberman to much exertion to procure it. An examination of reports of sawmill operations and of the utilization of woods by shops and factories in the southern states has failed to find a single instance where the planertree has been reported in use for any purpose whatever. Doubtless, trees are sometimes cut and the lumber gets into the market, but not under its own name. The species is interesting for reasons other than that it ever has had or ever can have a place in the countryâ€™s lumber industry.Wing Elm(Ulmus alata), which is the smallest of the elms, is plentifully supplied with names, but in most parts of its range it is known as wing or winged elm. It is also called wahoo or wahoo elm, and the West Virginians have named it witch elm; the North Carolinans refer to it often as simply elm; from Florida to Texas some call it cork elm; in Alabama it is water elm; in Arkansas mountain elm; while in other regions it is corky elm, small-leaf elm, and red elm. Some of these names are self-explanatory. Wing elm does not relate to a winged seed, but to winged twigs. That characteristic of the tree is very prominent. The wings consist of flattened keels along opposite sides of the branches. A twig no more than a quarter of an inch in diameter may be decorated with wings half an inch or more wide, making the twig four or five times as wide as it is thick. As the twig enlarges, the wings do not broaden in proportion. The lowest branches and those nearest the trunk are most generously furnished with wings. They appear to be entirely ornamental, for it is not known that they serve any useful purpose. The growth is different from those which give cork elm its name. The latter occur on the large branches, often in the form of isolated protuberances, but the wings are fairly continuous for a foot or more, except that they terminate abruptly at the nodes, but recommence immediately after. Branches less than a year old seldom have wings. The name wahoo appears to have lost its etymology if it ever had any. Dictionaries tell what it means, but they shy at its origin. It is a southern word which is applied to this elm, and also to other trees, and occasionally it means a fish instead of a tree. Some would trace it to the cry of an owl, others to a name in Gulliverâ€™s Travels, with a slight change in spelling.Wing elm at its best is about fifty feet high and two in diameter; but much of the stand is small. The best occurs west of the Mississippi river. The range extends from Texas to Virginia, south to Florida, and north to Illinois. In Texas it is a fairly important wood in furniture factories, the annual supply being about a million feet. It is used by turners for table legs. In an investigation of the uses of the wood, the same difficulty is encountered that makes difficult a study of the uses of all the elmsâ€”conflict and uncertainty of names. There are few regions in the hardwood areas of this country which produce one elm and no more; and after all practical means of identification are resorted to, there is often doubt and uncertainty concerning the exact species of elm lumber found in use. Fortunately, it generally makes little difference, because anyone of them is good enough for ordinary use. Wing elm is extensively planted for shade along the streets of towns in the lower Mississippi valley, but more frequently on the west side of the valley. When the trees grow in the open they develop broad crowns, and the branches, even of comparatively small trees, are long enough to reach well over the sidewalks, and cast satisfactory shade.The dark-colored winged twigs add much to the ornamental value of the street trees.Fremontia(Fremontodendron californicum) is not botanically in the elm family, but it is popularly known as slippery elm in the region where it occurs, and for that reason it is here given place among the elms. It is known also as leatherwood. It is a California species, ranging among the lower mountains and higher foothills in dry, gravelly soils, from the Mexican boundary five hundred miles northward in the state. The mucilaginous inner bark tastes like that of the true slippery elm. The shape of the leaf much more resembles sycamore than elm; and it is an evergreen. It bears a bright yellow, roselike flower, and the seeds are small, reddish-brown. The wood is fine grained, clear reddish-brown, with thick, whitish sapwood. It is very soft. The tree attains its largest size among the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, but even there it is too small to have much economic value, seldom exceeding thirty feet in height and a foot in diameter. Its most important use is as a forage plant for cattle and sheep. In that particular it resembles slippery elm in northern woods. The tree is occasionally planted in the eastern states and in Europe for ornament. In its native range it grows slowly.Planertree branch

This tree is a first cousin of the elms, but it is no more an elm than a hackberry is an elm. It is a member of the family but is of a different genus, and it is the sole representative of its genus in the known world. There is only one kind of planertree, with no nearer relatives than the elms on one side and hackberry, sugarberry, and palo blanco on the other. Except those kinsfolk, it is alone on earth. The name is in honor of Johann Jacob Planer, a German botanist whose efforts did much for science nearly two hundred years ago. The name of the speciesaquatica, recognizes the treeâ€™s habit of growing where water is abundant. It is a swamp species, or rather, it prefers situations subject to periodic overflow. It looks like an elm, and that has led people to call it water elm. That is the name by which it is usually known in Florida. In Alabama it is called the American planertree, which is an unnecessary restriction, since there is no planertree except this one. The Louisiana French gave it the name plene, and the abridgement of its name is yet heard in that state. In North Carolina it has acquired the name sycamore, but without good reason. It does not look in the least like sycamore.

It has the leaf of an elm, and it resembles that tree in bark, and somewhat in general form. The layman detects the first important difference when he examines the seeds. Those of the elms have wings, but the planertreeâ€™s are without those appendages, and they would be useless if it had them, unless they were as large as the parachute of the basswood seed. The planertree bears a sort of nut, a third of an inch long, and too heavy to be transported far on the ordinary membranous wings of tree seeds. Water is doubtless the principal agent in carrying the seeds from place to place. Probably few of them are transported far, because the water about the trees is generally stagnant; and, besides, the species does not seem to be extending its range or increasing in numbers.

The planertree has a history. If the terms which the Roman historian Tacitus applied to people, could be applied to trees, it might be said of this species, as he said of certain tribes: â€œThe cowards fly the farthest and are the last survivors.â€ The planertree is now found only in certain southern swamps, from North Carolina to Florida, and west to Missouri and Texas. In former periods, as is shown by the records of geology, there were several species, and they had a wide range over portions of the northern hemisphere. They appear to have been a stronggroup of trees, able to hold their ground with the best inhabitants of the forest. They were in the Rocky Mountains, and far north in Alaska. They were in Europe also, or were represented there by some very similar species.

For some reason which is not definitely known, they lost out when competition with other trees became keen, and in the course of long periods of time they disappeared from their former ranges in the North and West. They took to the swamps, just as the tribes of which Tacitus spoke, took to the morasses when they could no longer face their enemies on open ground. It was a far cry from Alaska to the Chattahoochee swamps in Florida, yet that was where A. H. Curtis and Charles Mohr went to procure typical planertree specimens for the tests which Sargent made of American woods.

It has been suggested that tree species which have lost out in competition for ground, have been those which were at some decided disadvantage in the matter of getting their seeds properly scattered and planted. The case has not been proved, because there are as many facts and as much argument against that hypothesis as for it. The bigtrees of California are a noted example of a species which lost out and retreated to a corner, yet their seeds fly like birds. Plainly, something besides winged seeds is needed to keep the species in the fight. However, it is not difficult to see that the planertree, with wingless seeds and of so little use as food that no bird or rodent will carry them or bury them, has been much handicapped in the long contest which has crowded it from the arctic circle to the cotton belt.

It has the habits of the subdued and conquered tree. It has adapted itself to swamps where few species can grow, and where competition for light and room is reduced to a minimum. Yet, even there, it is content to take the leavings of more ambitious species. The crowns make little effort to rise up to the light, for which many other trees battle during their whole existence. The planertreeâ€™s low, broad top of contorted branches places it perpetually in the shade of any other trees which overtop it.

The wood of the planertree is lighter in weight, poorer in fuel value, weaker, and more brittle than the poorest of the elms. The annual ring lacks the rows of large open pores common in all the elms, but it has many small pores scattered through the whole yearâ€™s growth. It is not easy to note a difference between the springwood and that which grows later. The wood is soft, light brown in color, and the nearly white sapwood is thick. It is often, perhaps generally, a tree of fairly rapid growth, and since it does not reach large size, it is probably short-lived, but exact information along that line is lacking.

The tallest trees seldom exceed a height of forty feet and a diameter of two. It is evident that a tree of that size and form does not tempt the lumberman to much exertion to procure it. An examination of reports of sawmill operations and of the utilization of woods by shops and factories in the southern states has failed to find a single instance where the planertree has been reported in use for any purpose whatever. Doubtless, trees are sometimes cut and the lumber gets into the market, but not under its own name. The species is interesting for reasons other than that it ever has had or ever can have a place in the countryâ€™s lumber industry.

Wing Elm(Ulmus alata), which is the smallest of the elms, is plentifully supplied with names, but in most parts of its range it is known as wing or winged elm. It is also called wahoo or wahoo elm, and the West Virginians have named it witch elm; the North Carolinans refer to it often as simply elm; from Florida to Texas some call it cork elm; in Alabama it is water elm; in Arkansas mountain elm; while in other regions it is corky elm, small-leaf elm, and red elm. Some of these names are self-explanatory. Wing elm does not relate to a winged seed, but to winged twigs. That characteristic of the tree is very prominent. The wings consist of flattened keels along opposite sides of the branches. A twig no more than a quarter of an inch in diameter may be decorated with wings half an inch or more wide, making the twig four or five times as wide as it is thick. As the twig enlarges, the wings do not broaden in proportion. The lowest branches and those nearest the trunk are most generously furnished with wings. They appear to be entirely ornamental, for it is not known that they serve any useful purpose. The growth is different from those which give cork elm its name. The latter occur on the large branches, often in the form of isolated protuberances, but the wings are fairly continuous for a foot or more, except that they terminate abruptly at the nodes, but recommence immediately after. Branches less than a year old seldom have wings. The name wahoo appears to have lost its etymology if it ever had any. Dictionaries tell what it means, but they shy at its origin. It is a southern word which is applied to this elm, and also to other trees, and occasionally it means a fish instead of a tree. Some would trace it to the cry of an owl, others to a name in Gulliverâ€™s Travels, with a slight change in spelling.Wing elm at its best is about fifty feet high and two in diameter; but much of the stand is small. The best occurs west of the Mississippi river. The range extends from Texas to Virginia, south to Florida, and north to Illinois. In Texas it is a fairly important wood in furniture factories, the annual supply being about a million feet. It is used by turners for table legs. In an investigation of the uses of the wood, the same difficulty is encountered that makes difficult a study of the uses of all the elmsâ€”conflict and uncertainty of names. There are few regions in the hardwood areas of this country which produce one elm and no more; and after all practical means of identification are resorted to, there is often doubt and uncertainty concerning the exact species of elm lumber found in use. Fortunately, it generally makes little difference, because anyone of them is good enough for ordinary use. Wing elm is extensively planted for shade along the streets of towns in the lower Mississippi valley, but more frequently on the west side of the valley. When the trees grow in the open they develop broad crowns, and the branches, even of comparatively small trees, are long enough to reach well over the sidewalks, and cast satisfactory shade.The dark-colored winged twigs add much to the ornamental value of the street trees.Fremontia(Fremontodendron californicum) is not botanically in the elm family, but it is popularly known as slippery elm in the region where it occurs, and for that reason it is here given place among the elms. It is known also as leatherwood. It is a California species, ranging among the lower mountains and higher foothills in dry, gravelly soils, from the Mexican boundary five hundred miles northward in the state. The mucilaginous inner bark tastes like that of the true slippery elm. The shape of the leaf much more resembles sycamore than elm; and it is an evergreen. It bears a bright yellow, roselike flower, and the seeds are small, reddish-brown. The wood is fine grained, clear reddish-brown, with thick, whitish sapwood. It is very soft. The tree attains its largest size among the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, but even there it is too small to have much economic value, seldom exceeding thirty feet in height and a foot in diameter. Its most important use is as a forage plant for cattle and sheep. In that particular it resembles slippery elm in northern woods. The tree is occasionally planted in the eastern states and in Europe for ornament. In its native range it grows slowly.

Wing elm at its best is about fifty feet high and two in diameter; but much of the stand is small. The best occurs west of the Mississippi river. The range extends from Texas to Virginia, south to Florida, and north to Illinois. In Texas it is a fairly important wood in furniture factories, the annual supply being about a million feet. It is used by turners for table legs. In an investigation of the uses of the wood, the same difficulty is encountered that makes difficult a study of the uses of all the elmsâ€”conflict and uncertainty of names. There are few regions in the hardwood areas of this country which produce one elm and no more; and after all practical means of identification are resorted to, there is often doubt and uncertainty concerning the exact species of elm lumber found in use. Fortunately, it generally makes little difference, because anyone of them is good enough for ordinary use. Wing elm is extensively planted for shade along the streets of towns in the lower Mississippi valley, but more frequently on the west side of the valley. When the trees grow in the open they develop broad crowns, and the branches, even of comparatively small trees, are long enough to reach well over the sidewalks, and cast satisfactory shade.The dark-colored winged twigs add much to the ornamental value of the street trees.

Fremontia(Fremontodendron californicum) is not botanically in the elm family, but it is popularly known as slippery elm in the region where it occurs, and for that reason it is here given place among the elms. It is known also as leatherwood. It is a California species, ranging among the lower mountains and higher foothills in dry, gravelly soils, from the Mexican boundary five hundred miles northward in the state. The mucilaginous inner bark tastes like that of the true slippery elm. The shape of the leaf much more resembles sycamore than elm; and it is an evergreen. It bears a bright yellow, roselike flower, and the seeds are small, reddish-brown. The wood is fine grained, clear reddish-brown, with thick, whitish sapwood. It is very soft. The tree attains its largest size among the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, but even there it is too small to have much economic value, seldom exceeding thirty feet in height and a foot in diameter. Its most important use is as a forage plant for cattle and sheep. In that particular it resembles slippery elm in northern woods. The tree is occasionally planted in the eastern states and in Europe for ornament. In its native range it grows slowly.

Planertree branch

HACKBERRYHackberryHackberry

HackberryHackberry

Hackberry

HACKBERRY(Celtis Occidentalis)Hackberry is a common name for this tree in nearly all parts of its range, but it has other names. It is sometimes confused with sugarberry (Celtis mississippiensis). They call it nettle tree in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, and Michigan, and in Tennessee it is known as American nettle-tree. In Vermont it is hoop ash; in Rhode Island one-berry; hack-tree in Minnesota, and juniper tree in New Jersey.The name hackberry is not of American origin. It dates far back in the languages of western Europe and is believed to have the same origin as the word haw, which, in its turn meant hedge. If that etymology is correct, the word really means hedge berry, which is not an inappropriate name for the tree. The name is sometimes applied to a small bird cherry in Europe. The New Jersey name juniper-tree is in recognition of the resemblance of the berries to those of red cedar or red juniper. No reason has been assigned for the name nettle-tree.Its range covers about 2,000,000 square miles in the United States besides part of Canada. It grows from the Atlantic on the coast of New England to the tide water of the Pacific on Puget sound; in southern Florida and in Texas. It is not found in pure stands, but often as single trees far apart. This is the case in the northeastern part of the United States in particular where probably not more than one tree might be found in a whole county. Frequently the people in the neighborhood do not know what the tree is, and suppose it is the last representative on earth of some disappearing species.It is far from being a disappearing tree. Not only is it widely dispersed over the United States, but related species are scattered through many countries of the old world, from Denmark to India. There are said to be between fifty and sixty species, only two of which are in the United States.It has been claimed by scholars that the lotus referred to by ancient writers was the hackberry. It was reputed to cause forgetfulness when eaten, but the claim was fictitious, for the fruit does not produce that effect. It is not now regarded as human food. Tennyson deals with the fiction very beautifully in the poem â€œLotus Eaters,â€ but he took liberties with botany when he represented fruit and flowers on the same branch; for, though the berries hang several months, they drop before the next seasonâ€™s flowers appear.The hackberry belongs to the elm family, being of the same relationas the planertree. The leaves resemble those of the elm, but are more sharply pointed. The fruit is usually classed as a berry. It ripens in September and October, but remains on the tree several months, becoming dry. It is about one-fourth inch long, dark purple, with a tough, thick skin, and with flesh dark orange. Most of the pale brown seeds are eaten by birds.The tree varies greatly in size. In some remote corners of its immense range it is little more than a shrub, while at its best it may attain a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three or four. Its average size is about that of slippery elm. The bark varies as much in appearance as the tree in size. Sometimes it has the smooth surface and pale bluish-green appearance that suggest the bark of beech; again it is darker and rougher, like the elm. It frequently exhibits the harsh warty bark which is peculiar to the hackberry, and when present it is a pretty safe means of identification. The warts may be conical, oblong, or sharp-pointed, and probably an inch in height. When closely examined, most of them are found to consist of parallel strata of bark which may usually be pulled off without much difficulty. The warts are a decided disadvantage to the tree in some of the low swampy districts of Louisiana where Spanish moss is a pest. This moss (which is not a true moss), is propagated principally by tufts and strands which are carried by wind until they find anchorage among the branches of trees where they increase and multiply at a rapid rate until they finally smother or break down the unfortunate tree which supplied a lodging place. The hackberryâ€™s warts catch and hold every flying strand of moss that touches them, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of pounds of it may accumulate on a single tree. The grayish-green color of the moss often exactly matches the hue of the treeâ€™s bark.The reported annual cut of hackberry lumber in the United States is less than 5,000,000 feet. That can be only a fraction of the total output. Few mills report it separately, but list it as ash. The wood looks more like ash than elm. It is heavy, but only moderately hard and strong. Its color is more yellowish than ash, but the annual rings of growth resemble that wood. The sapwood is thick, and growth is rapid where conditions are favorable.It is doubtless used by industries in thirty states or more, but comparatively few factories report it. In Texas it is listed in the box and crate industry. In Louisiana it rises to more importance, for that is the region where the tree attains its best. Slack coopers make kegs, tubs, and barrels of it; vehicle manufacturers convert it into parts of buggy tops and the running gears of wagons; it serves for furniture and interior finish; and it takes the place of ash for hoe handles and parts ofagricultural implements. The uses are nearly the same in Mississippi, but it is used there for rustic seats and other outdoor furniture. In Missouri it is found suitable for cart axles, saddle trees, stitching horse jaws, and wagon beds. In Arkansas it goes with ash into flooring, and interior finish for houses. Illinois builders work it into fixtures for stores. In Michigan it serves the same purposes as in Texas, baskets, boxes, and crates. These examples doubtless are representative of its uses wherever the tree is found in commercial quantities. The wood is not durable in contact with the soil. It is also liable to attack by boring insects if logs are allowed to retain their bark.The hackberry has been planted to a small extent as a street tree in the southern towns, but it is not as popular as the elms and oaks. It will never occupy a more important position in the countryâ€™s lumber industry than it holds at present. It is a tree which, for some reason, inspires little enthusiasm in anybody; but nature takes care of it fairly well, and the small sweet drupes which it bears are a guarantee that the species will not want for seed carriers as long as birds continue to have access to its branches in winter.Sugarberry(Celtis mississippiensis) is frequently mistaken for hackberry even by persons who ought to be able to distinguish them. Botanists formerly confused the two, and probably some insist still that sugarberry is only a variety of hackberry. The leaves generally have smooth margins, and that would differentiate the tree from the hackberry were it not that sometimes the sugarberry has serrate leaves. The drupes are bright orange red and are usually smaller than the purple fruit of hackberry. As for the wood of the two species, it is not easy to tell one from the other. The sugarberryâ€™s range is not one-third as extensive as hackberryâ€™s, but covers some hundreds of thousands of square miles in the southeastern quarter of the United States. Its northern limit is in Illinois and Indiana where it occupies rich bottom lands and the banks of streams. It reaches its largest size in the lower Ohio river basin, grows southward into Florida and west into Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. It crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico, appearing to outstrip the hackberry in that direction. It outstrips it in another direction also, for it is found in the Bermuda islands. The French of Louisiana called it bois inconnu, or the unknown wood.This tree shows a marked tendency to run into varieties, and cultivation would probably develop the tendency. The differences between the species and the varieties are plain enough to the systematic botanist, but are such that the lumberman or other ordinary observer would scarcely notice them. The variety which has been namedCeltis mississippiensis reticulata, but without any English name except sugarberry, is a tree forty or fifty feet high, covered with blue-gray bark, very rough. It ranges from Dallas, Texas, to the Rio Grande and westward into New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and into southern California and Lower California. In eastern Texas it is found on dry limestone hills, but westward only in mountain canyons in the vicinity of water. In the southern part of Texas this tree is usually known as palo blanco, but those who apply that name have no idea that it is a variety of sugarberry but suppose it is a tree peculiar to their region. In Cameron and Hidalgo counties, Texas, either because an extra good quality grows there, or because some opinion exists in its favor, it is liked for wagon material, and occasionally is turned for table legs and other parts of furniture. It is quite common in that part of Texas as an ornamental tree in yards and along streets of small towns. The whiteness of the bark is the most striking feature.Hackberry branch

Hackberry is a common name for this tree in nearly all parts of its range, but it has other names. It is sometimes confused with sugarberry (Celtis mississippiensis). They call it nettle tree in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, and Michigan, and in Tennessee it is known as American nettle-tree. In Vermont it is hoop ash; in Rhode Island one-berry; hack-tree in Minnesota, and juniper tree in New Jersey.

The name hackberry is not of American origin. It dates far back in the languages of western Europe and is believed to have the same origin as the word haw, which, in its turn meant hedge. If that etymology is correct, the word really means hedge berry, which is not an inappropriate name for the tree. The name is sometimes applied to a small bird cherry in Europe. The New Jersey name juniper-tree is in recognition of the resemblance of the berries to those of red cedar or red juniper. No reason has been assigned for the name nettle-tree.

Its range covers about 2,000,000 square miles in the United States besides part of Canada. It grows from the Atlantic on the coast of New England to the tide water of the Pacific on Puget sound; in southern Florida and in Texas. It is not found in pure stands, but often as single trees far apart. This is the case in the northeastern part of the United States in particular where probably not more than one tree might be found in a whole county. Frequently the people in the neighborhood do not know what the tree is, and suppose it is the last representative on earth of some disappearing species.

It is far from being a disappearing tree. Not only is it widely dispersed over the United States, but related species are scattered through many countries of the old world, from Denmark to India. There are said to be between fifty and sixty species, only two of which are in the United States.

It has been claimed by scholars that the lotus referred to by ancient writers was the hackberry. It was reputed to cause forgetfulness when eaten, but the claim was fictitious, for the fruit does not produce that effect. It is not now regarded as human food. Tennyson deals with the fiction very beautifully in the poem â€œLotus Eaters,â€ but he took liberties with botany when he represented fruit and flowers on the same branch; for, though the berries hang several months, they drop before the next seasonâ€™s flowers appear.

The hackberry belongs to the elm family, being of the same relationas the planertree. The leaves resemble those of the elm, but are more sharply pointed. The fruit is usually classed as a berry. It ripens in September and October, but remains on the tree several months, becoming dry. It is about one-fourth inch long, dark purple, with a tough, thick skin, and with flesh dark orange. Most of the pale brown seeds are eaten by birds.

The tree varies greatly in size. In some remote corners of its immense range it is little more than a shrub, while at its best it may attain a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three or four. Its average size is about that of slippery elm. The bark varies as much in appearance as the tree in size. Sometimes it has the smooth surface and pale bluish-green appearance that suggest the bark of beech; again it is darker and rougher, like the elm. It frequently exhibits the harsh warty bark which is peculiar to the hackberry, and when present it is a pretty safe means of identification. The warts may be conical, oblong, or sharp-pointed, and probably an inch in height. When closely examined, most of them are found to consist of parallel strata of bark which may usually be pulled off without much difficulty. The warts are a decided disadvantage to the tree in some of the low swampy districts of Louisiana where Spanish moss is a pest. This moss (which is not a true moss), is propagated principally by tufts and strands which are carried by wind until they find anchorage among the branches of trees where they increase and multiply at a rapid rate until they finally smother or break down the unfortunate tree which supplied a lodging place. The hackberryâ€™s warts catch and hold every flying strand of moss that touches them, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of pounds of it may accumulate on a single tree. The grayish-green color of the moss often exactly matches the hue of the treeâ€™s bark.

The reported annual cut of hackberry lumber in the United States is less than 5,000,000 feet. That can be only a fraction of the total output. Few mills report it separately, but list it as ash. The wood looks more like ash than elm. It is heavy, but only moderately hard and strong. Its color is more yellowish than ash, but the annual rings of growth resemble that wood. The sapwood is thick, and growth is rapid where conditions are favorable.

It is doubtless used by industries in thirty states or more, but comparatively few factories report it. In Texas it is listed in the box and crate industry. In Louisiana it rises to more importance, for that is the region where the tree attains its best. Slack coopers make kegs, tubs, and barrels of it; vehicle manufacturers convert it into parts of buggy tops and the running gears of wagons; it serves for furniture and interior finish; and it takes the place of ash for hoe handles and parts ofagricultural implements. The uses are nearly the same in Mississippi, but it is used there for rustic seats and other outdoor furniture. In Missouri it is found suitable for cart axles, saddle trees, stitching horse jaws, and wagon beds. In Arkansas it goes with ash into flooring, and interior finish for houses. Illinois builders work it into fixtures for stores. In Michigan it serves the same purposes as in Texas, baskets, boxes, and crates. These examples doubtless are representative of its uses wherever the tree is found in commercial quantities. The wood is not durable in contact with the soil. It is also liable to attack by boring insects if logs are allowed to retain their bark.

The hackberry has been planted to a small extent as a street tree in the southern towns, but it is not as popular as the elms and oaks. It will never occupy a more important position in the countryâ€™s lumber industry than it holds at present. It is a tree which, for some reason, inspires little enthusiasm in anybody; but nature takes care of it fairly well, and the small sweet drupes which it bears are a guarantee that the species will not want for seed carriers as long as birds continue to have access to its branches in winter.

Sugarberry(Celtis mississippiensis) is frequently mistaken for hackberry even by persons who ought to be able to distinguish them. Botanists formerly confused the two, and probably some insist still that sugarberry is only a variety of hackberry. The leaves generally have smooth margins, and that would differentiate the tree from the hackberry were it not that sometimes the sugarberry has serrate leaves. The drupes are bright orange red and are usually smaller than the purple fruit of hackberry. As for the wood of the two species, it is not easy to tell one from the other. The sugarberryâ€™s range is not one-third as extensive as hackberryâ€™s, but covers some hundreds of thousands of square miles in the southeastern quarter of the United States. Its northern limit is in Illinois and Indiana where it occupies rich bottom lands and the banks of streams. It reaches its largest size in the lower Ohio river basin, grows southward into Florida and west into Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. It crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico, appearing to outstrip the hackberry in that direction. It outstrips it in another direction also, for it is found in the Bermuda islands. The French of Louisiana called it bois inconnu, or the unknown wood.

This tree shows a marked tendency to run into varieties, and cultivation would probably develop the tendency. The differences between the species and the varieties are plain enough to the systematic botanist, but are such that the lumberman or other ordinary observer would scarcely notice them. The variety which has been namedCeltis mississippiensis reticulata, but without any English name except sugarberry, is a tree forty or fifty feet high, covered with blue-gray bark, very rough. It ranges from Dallas, Texas, to the Rio Grande and westward into New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and into southern California and Lower California. In eastern Texas it is found on dry limestone hills, but westward only in mountain canyons in the vicinity of water. In the southern part of Texas this tree is usually known as palo blanco, but those who apply that name have no idea that it is a variety of sugarberry but suppose it is a tree peculiar to their region. In Cameron and Hidalgo counties, Texas, either because an extra good quality grows there, or because some opinion exists in its favor, it is liked for wagon material, and occasionally is turned for table legs and other parts of furniture. It is quite common in that part of Texas as an ornamental tree in yards and along streets of small towns. The whiteness of the bark is the most striking feature.

Hackberry branch

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