Part 26
Differences of opinion exist concerning the value of shingle oak for commercial purposes. It belongs in the black oak group, and its wood goes to market as red oak, and apparently is never listed as anything else. It is never named in market reports; shops and factories never report it, and it has been pronounced inferior to red oak in strength and seasoning properties. Tests have been made of some of its physical properties, and the results do not indicate that the wood belongs with inferior timbers. Its breaking strength is given at 39 per cent greater than white oak, and its stiffness at 28 per cent greater. However, these values, which are calculated from Sargent’s tables, are based on tests of only a few specimens of the wood, and fuller investigation might make revision necessary.
The wood is heavy, hard, and is said to check badly in drying. The pores are large and are arranged in rows; medullary rays are broad and conspicuous. The wood is light brown, tinged with red, the sapwood much lighter. The broad medullary rays, running radially, give the wood its good splitting qualities.
The tree is fairly abundant in different parts of its range, and is cut and manufactured with other oaks and hardwoods. Slack coopers use it for barrels; box makers employ it for crates; chair mills saw dimension stock and ship it to factories to be finished; some goes to furniture factories; some is turned for spindles for grills, and for balusters for stairs; other fills various places as interior finish and molding. But it all goes to market and passes through factories under names other than its own.
WATER OAK (_Quercus nigra_) has several names, some of them bestowed with little apparent reason. It is called possum oak and duck oak, but these names are neither descriptive nor definitive. Punk oak is another name. It may refer to a decayed condition of the wood, but this tree is no more affected by decay than others of the same region. In Texas it is sometimes known as spotted oak. It thrives in wet situations though not actually in swamps. It prefers margins of ponds, banks of rivers, and low swales where the ground water is just below the surface, but it is not confined to such situations. It does well, within its range, wherever willow oak flourishes, but willow oak has a wider range. The leaves take on various forms, and they change shape as they increase in size. Some have smooth margins, others are lobed. Some are wedge-shaped, others coffin-shaped. Their typical form, if it may be said of them that they have a typical form, is narrow at the stem end and wide at the other. To this is usually added rudimentary lobes, which are sometimes nearly as well developed as in any other oak. Their typical form is like the leaf of the black jack oak; but they are not half as large, and are thin and delicate, while the black jack’s leaf is thick and leathery.
The range of water oak begins in Delaware and follows the Atlantic coastal plain south to central Florida, and through the Gulf States to Texas. It grows as far north as Kentucky and Missouri. It keeps clear of the Appalachian mountain region, and other hilly districts. It is plentiful in some parts of its range, and trunks three feet in diameter and long enough for two or three logs are not unusual, yet large numbers of water oaks may be seen in the South which are not fit for sawlogs because they stand in open ground and are limby down to ten feet of the ground. Many have been planted for shade trees in streets and in parks, and are justly admired. They grow rapidly and are extremely graceful. Their leaves are deciduous, but adhere to the branches most of the year. South of the belt of severe frost, the old leaves frequently hang until the buds for the new crop are opening. The acorns are bitter, and even the southern pine hog passes them by until the pinch of famine edges up his appetite.
Water oak possesses value as a source of lumber, but it belongs with the large class of oaks which lose their names and their identity when they pass the threshold of the sawmill. They come out red oak. Only in rare instances is water oak called by its own name in the factory and lumber yard. Wagon makers employ it for bolsters, axles, spokes, tongues, sandboards, hounds, felloes and reaches. Entire dump carts, except the iron, are constructed of this wood. Furniture manufacturers use it as frame material, but seldom as the outside visible parts, though no reason for not doing so is offered. Objection is made to its seasoning qualities, but the same objection applies to most red oaks. A considerable amount of water oak is cut in the South into thick planks for bridge floors. It is strong and hard, and satisfactorily resists decay in that place; though, in common with the black oaks generally, it is liable to decay when exposed to dampness. The wood weighs a little less than white oak, and is not quite as strong or as stiff. It is porous, but the pores are small, except one or two rows in the springwood. The medullary rays are thin and not numerous, but they are conspicuous, and the wood may be successfully quarter-sawed. The lumber has the appearance of red oak, though the reddish color is not so pronounced.
BARTRAM OAK (_Quercus heterophylla_). This interesting but commercially unimportant oak was named by Michaux from a single tree found in a field belonging to John Bartram near Philadelphia more than a century ago. A few trees have since been found in widely scattered districts as far south as North Carolina and as far west as Texas. Botanists believe it is a hybrid, one parent being the willow oak (_Quercus phellos_) and the other yellow oak (_Quercus velutina_). It is probable that here may be witnessed the origin of a tree species. The leaves seem to be a compromise between the deeply cut foliage of yellow oak and the entire leaf of willow oak. The new species is so scarce that few people have ever seen it.
[Illustration]
RED GUM
[Illustration: RED GUM]
RED GUM
(_Liquidambar Styraciflua_)
This tree does not belong to the same group as black gum and tupelo, which are in the dogwood family, while red gum is of the witch hazel family. If a tree is to be judged and named by its character, red gum is more entitled to the name “gum” than any other tree of this country, because it exudes a yellow resin from wounds in the bark. The botanical name recognizes that fact. Storax is procured from a closely related tree is Asia, and has been known in commerce for many centuries. The other popular names of red gum are sweet gum, liquid-amber gum, gum tree, alligator wood, bilsted, starleaved gum, and satin walnut.
The last name originated in England where it was desirable to avoid the name gum when applied to the wood of this tree. Though botanically it is about as distantly related to walnut as any tree can be, the figure of the wood often suggests walnut. The name sweet gum refers to the pleasant odor of the resin which is sometimes used in France, and probably elsewhere, to perfume gloves. Alligator wood is descriptive of warty excrescences on the bark of some trees, but they are not common to all. Starleaved gum relates to the leaf. It is a lopsided star--a six point star with one point missing.
This tree’s range in the United States extends from Connecticut to Texas and as far northwest of the Alleghanies as Missouri and Illinois. It reaches its greatest size in the lower Mississippi valley in rich bottom land which is subject to repeated inundation. It is not, however, as purely a swamp tree as tupelo and cypress. It grows well on land which is never inundated, but it needs plenty of moisture. The largest specimens exceed a height of 120 feet and a diameter of four; but logs from eighteen inches to three feet are the usual sizes. The tree’s range extends southward through Mexico into Central America.
The rise of red gum lumber into prominence forms an interesting chapter in the industry. It was formerly considered so difficult to season that few mills cared to deal with it, but that difficulty has been largely overcome. In the past, gum, having no market value, was left standing after logging; or, where the land was cleared for farming, was girdled and allowed to rot, and then felled and burned. Not only were the trees a total loss to the farmer, but, from their great size and the labor required to handle them, they were so serious an obstruction as often to preclude the clearing of valuable land. Now that there is a market for the timber, it is profitable to cut gum with other hardwoods, and land can be cleared more cheaply. This increase in the value of gum timber will be of great benefit to the South in many ways.
Throughout its entire life red gum is intolerant of shade. As a rule seedlings appear only in clearings or in open spots in the forest. It is seldom that an overtopped tree is found, for the gum dies quickly if suppressed, and is consequently nearly always a dominant or intermediate tree. In a hardwood bottom forest, the timber trees are all of nearly the same age over considerable areas, and there is little young growth to be found in the older stands. The reason for this is the intolerance of most of the swamp species.
Red gum reproduces both by seed and by sprouts, fairly abundantly every year, but about once in three years there is a heavy production. In the Mississippi valley the abandoned fields on which young stands of red gum have sprung up are, for the most part, being rapidly cleared again. The second growth here is considered of little worth in comparison with the value of the land for agricultural purposes.
A large amount of red gum growing in the South can be economically transported from the forests to the mills only by means of the streams, owing to the expense of putting in railroads solely for handling the timber. Green red gum, however, is so heavy that it scarcely floats and, to overcome this difficulty, various methods of driving out the sap before the logs are thrown into the river have been tried. One method is to girdle the trees and leave them standing a year. That partly seasons them, but does not give time for the sapwood to decay. The logs from such trees float readily, and the swamps and streams are utilized to carry the logs to the mills.
Some years ago that method of seasoning red gum was extensively advertised in England by contractors who sold paving blocks of this wood. It was claimed that the common defects of red gum were thus overcome. Large sales of paving material were made, particularly in London, and red gum was popular for a time, but it finally lost its hold as a paving wood in competition with certain Australian woods. The theory that by girdling a tree and allowing it to die, the amount of heartwood will be increased has been abandoned. In selecting trees for cutting, those with doty tops, rotten stumps, and heavy bark, indications of an old tree which contains a very small proportion of sapwood, are now chosen. These are found mainly in the drier localities. In low, wet places the trees have more sapwood and are smaller. The heartwood forms while the tree is living, not after it dies.
The rapidity with which red gum has come into use in this country and elsewhere is the best evidence of the wood’s real value. Its range of uses extends from the most common articles, such as boxes and crates, to those of highest class, like furniture and interior finish. It is only moderately strong and stiff, and is not a competitor of hickory, ash, maple, and oak in vehicle manufacturing and other lines where strength or elasticity is demanded; but in nearly all other classes of wood uses, red gum has made itself a place. It has pushed to the front in spite of prejudice. As soon as the difficulties of seasoning were mastered, its victory was won. Its annual use in Michigan, the home and center of hardwood supply, exceeds 20,000,000 feet in manufactured articles, exclusive of what is employed in rough form. In Illinois, the most extensive wood-manufacturing state in the Union, red gum stands second in amount among the hardwoods, the only one above it being white oak. In Kentucky, only white oak and hickory are more important among the factory woods, while in Arkansas, where the annual amount of this wood in factories exceeds 100,000,000 feet, it heads the list of hardwoods.
As a veneer material, it is demanded in four times the quantity of any other species. The veneer is nearly all rotary cut, and it goes into cheap and expensive commodities, from berry crates to pianos.
The wood weighs 36.83 pounds per cubic foot. It is straight-grained, the medullary rays are numerous but not prominent, the pores diffuse but small, and the summerwood forms only a narrow band, like a line. The annual rings do not produce much figure, but wood has another kind of figure, the kind that characterizes English and Circassian walnuts, smoky, cloudy, shaded series of rings, independent of the growth rings. They have no definite width or constant color, but the color is usually deeper than the body of the wood. This figure is one of the most prized properties of red gum. It is that which makes the wood the closest known imitator of Circassian walnut.
All red gum is not figured, and that which is figured may be worked in a way to conceal or make little use of the figure. It shows best in rotary cut veneer and tangentially sawed lumber. Various woods are imitated with red gum. It is stained or painted to look like oak, cherry, mahogany, and even maple.
Some trees have thin sapwood, and others are all sapwood. This peculiarity sometimes leads to misunderstandings in lumber transactions. A buyer specifies red gum, expecting to get red heartwood, but the seller delivers lumber cut from the red gum tree, though light colored sapwood may predominate. Properly speaking, the name is applied to the tree as a whole and does not refer to any particular color of wood in the tree. The term “red” is said to have referred originally to the color of autumn leaves, and not to the wood.
The fruit of red gum is a bur, midway in appearance and size between the sycamore ball and the chestnut bur. It hangs on the tree until late in winter. The resin which exudes from wounds in the bark is of much commercial importance and is shipped from New Orleans and Mexican ports. Near the northern limit of the species’ range the trees yield little resin, but it is abundant farther south. In the southern states it is used locally as chewing gum. It is known commercially as copalm balm.
WITCH HAZEL (_Hamamelis virginiana_) is a cousin to red gum, but there is small resemblance. It is known as winter bloom, snapping hazel, and spotted alder. Its range extends from Nova Scotia to Nebraska, Texas, and Florida. It reaches its largest size among the southern Appalachian mountains where the extreme height is sometimes forty feet, with a diameter of eighteen inches; but few people have ever seen a witch hazel that large. It is usually fifteen or twenty feet high and three or four inches in diameter. The wood is much like that of red gum, being diffuse-porous with obscure medullary rays, and a thin line of summerwood. It is of little commercial use; in fact, no report has been found that a single foot of it has ever been used for any purpose. Yet it is a most interesting little tree. It blooms in the fall, sometimes as late as the middle of November. Its rusty summer foliage turns yellow in autumn, and as the leaves begin to fall, the tree bursts into delicately-scented golden flowers, the most visible part of each consisting of four petals which float out like streamers. At the same time that flowers are scenting the air, the seeds are discharging. A full year is required to ripen them; and when dry, cold weather comes, the contraction of their envelopes shoots them with sufficient force to send them fifteen or twenty feet. They depend on neither wings, birds, nor squirrels to scatter them. The origin of the name witch hazel is disputed; but the person who examines the open-topped button which holds the black seeds, and notes the fantastic resemblance to a weasen face, will feel satisfied that he can guess the origin of the name. The tree’s bark is used for medicine, in extracts and gargles.
[Illustration]
BLACK GUM
[Illustration: BLACK GUM]
BLACK GUM
(_Nyssa Sylvatica_)
Black gum grows from the Kennebec river in Maine to Tampa bay, Florida; westward to southern Ontario and southern Michigan; Southward through Missouri, as far as the Brazos river in Texas. The names by which it is known in different regions are black gum, sour gum, tupelo, pepperidge, wild pear tree, gum, and yellow gum.
The leaves of black gum are simple and alternate; not serrate. They are attached by very short petioles, which are fuzzy when young; they are a rich, brilliant green above and lighter below; rather thick, with prominent midrib. As early as the latter part of August the leaves commence to turn a gorgeous red. The flowers are greenish and inconspicuous, growing in thick clusters, the staminate ones small and plentiful, the pistillate ones larger. They bloom in April, May or June. The fruit of black gum is a drupe about one and a half inches long; inside of it is a rough, oval pit; the pulp is acrid until mellowed by frost.
The bad name given to black gum by early settlers of this country has stayed with it, though the faults found with it then, should hold no longer. The pioneers were nearly all clearers of farms. They went into the woods with ax, maul, mattock, wedges and gluts, and made fields and fenced them. The fencing was as important as the clearing, for the woods were alive with hogs, cattle, and horses, and the crop was safe nowhere except behind an eight-rail staked and ridered fence. The farmer mauled the rails from timber which he cut in the clearing, and there it was that he and black gum got acquainted. The oak, chestnut, walnut, cherry, yellow poplar, and red cedar were split into rails and built into fences; but black gum never made a fence rail. No combination of maul, wedge, glut, determination, and elbow grease ever split a black gum log within the borders of the American continent. An iron wedge, driven to its head in the end of a rail cut, will not open a crack large enough to insert the point of a pocket knife. In fact, it is as easy to split the log crosswise as endwise. Consequently, the early farmers heaped their anathemas and maranathas on black gum and passed it by.
Nevertheless, the tree had its virtues even in the eyes of the rail-splitters; for, though it was unwedgeable, it helped along the fence rail industry in a very substantial way by furnishing the material of which mauls were made. It drove the wedges and gluts which opened other timbers. About the only maul that would beat out more rails than one of black gum was that made of a chestnut oak knot. The oak beetle’s only advantage over gum was that it was harder and wore longer. So involved and interlaced are the fibers of black gum, that they cross one another not only at right angles, but at every conceivable angle. This can be seen in examining very thin pieces with a magnifying glass.
The wood is not hard, but is moderately strong, and stiff. It has been compared with hickory, but it is so inferior in almost every essential that no comparison is justified.
Black gum weighs 39.61 pounds per cubic foot. It is very porous, but the pores are too small to be seen by the naked eye, and are diffused through the wood and form no distinct lines or groups. The summerwood is a thin dark line, not prominent enough to clearly delimit the yearly rings of growth. The medullary rays are numerous, but very thin. In quarter-sawed wood they produce a luster, but the individual rays are practically invisible. The wood is not durable in contact with the soil.
The standing tree is apt to fall a victim to the agencies of decay. Hollow trunks, mere shells, are not uncommon. The entire heartwood is liable to fall away. The pioneers cut these hollow trees, and sawing them in lengths of about two feet, made beehives of them. They called them gums because they were cut from gum trees. Larger sizes, used in place of barrels, were also called gums, but these were usually made from sycamores. The black gum is not usually large. Individuals have been measured that were five feet in diameter and more than a hundred in height, but an average of sixty feet high and two in diameter is probably too much, except in the southern Appalachian mountains where the species attains its largest size.
It is a tree which will always be easily recognized after it has been seen and identified once. Its general outline, particularly when leaves are off, is different from other trees associated with it. It might possibly be mistaken for persimmon unless looked at closely; but there are easily-recognized points of difference. Its branches are very small, slender, and short. Its bark is rougher than that of any other gum, and is much darker in color. It is the bark’s color that gives the tree its name. The leaves have smooth edges. In the fall they change to gorgeous red, and one of their peculiarities is that half a leaf may be red while the other half remains green. Toward the end of the season, the green disappears. The dark blue drupes ripen in October. They do not seem to be food for any living creature.
Sawmills include black gum with tupelo in reporting lumber cut, and generally call both of them gum without distinction. The woods are quite different, and neither the standing tree nor the lumber of one need be mistaken for the other. The range of black gum is much more extensive than that of tupelo. Gum lumber cut north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers may be safely classed as black gum, though a little of both red and tupelo gum is found north of those streams. In the South, the species cannot be separated by regions, for all the gums grow from Texas to Virginia. The total annual output of black gum is not known, but some operators estimate it at about 20,000,000 feet a year, or nearly one-fourth as much as tupelo.
The bulk of black gum lumber is used in the rough, for floors, sheathing, frames, and scaffolds; but a considerable portion is further manufactured. The amounts thus used annually have been ascertained for a few states, and furnish a basis for estimates for the whole country: Mississippi, 7,000 feet; Maryland, 85,000; Illinois, 120,000; Louisiana, 120,000; Missouri, 190,000; Texas, 360,000; Massachusetts, 475,000; Alabama, 486,000.