Part 7
Lodgepole pine has been long and widely used as a ranch timber in the Far West, serving for poles and rails in fences, for sheds, barns, corrals, pens, and small bridges. Where it could be had at all, it was generally plentiful. Stock ranges high among the mountains frequently depend almost solely upon lodgepole pine for necessary timber.
Mine operators find it a valuable resource. As props it is cheap, substantial, and convenient in many parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana. A large proportion of this timber which is cut for mining purposes has been standing dead from fire injury many years, and is thoroughly seasoned and very light. It is in excellent condition for receiving preservative treatment.
Sawmills do not list lodgepole pine separately in reports of lumber cut, and it is impossible to determine what the annual supply from the species is. It is well known that the quantity made into lumber in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho is large. Its chief market is among the newly established agricultural communities in those states. They use it for fruit and vegetable shipping boxes, fencing plank, pickets, and plastering lath.
Railroads buy half a million lodgepole pine crossties yearly. When creosoted, they resist decay many years. Lodgepole pine has been a tie material since the first railroads entered the region, and while by no means the best, it promises to fill a much more important place in the future than in the past. It is an ideal fence post material as far as size and form are concerned, and with preservative treatment it is bound to attain a high place. It is claimed that treated posts will last twenty years, and that puts them on a par with the cedars.
In Colorado and Wyoming much lodgepole was formerly burned for charcoal to supply the furnaces which smelted ore and the blacksmith shops of the region. This is done now less than formerly, since railroad building has made coal and coke accessible.
In one respect, lodgepole pine is to the western mountains what loblolly pine is to the flat country of the south Atlantic and other southern states. It is aggressive, and takes possession of vacant ground. Although the wood is not as valuable as loblolly, it is useful, and has an important place to fill in the western country’s development. Its greatest drawback is its exceedingly slow growth. A hundred years is a long time to wait for trees of pole size. Two crops of loblolly sawlogs can be harvested in that time. However, the land on which the lodgepole grows is fit only for timber, and the acreage is so vast that there is enough to grow supplies, even with the wait of a century or two for harvest. The stand has increased enormously within historic time, the same as loblolly, and for a similar reason. Men cleared land in the East, and loblolly took possession; fires destroyed western forests of other species and lodgepole seized and held the burned tracts.
If fires cease among the western mountains, as will probably be the case under more efficient methods of patrol, and with stricter enforcement of laws against starting fires, the spread of lodgepole pine will come to a standstill, and existing forests will grow old without much extension of their borders.
JEFFREY PINE (_Pinus jeffreyi_) is often classed as western yellow pine, both in the forest and at the mill. Its range extends from southern Oregon to Lower California, a distance of 1,000 miles, and its width east and west varies from twenty to one hundred and fifty miles. It is a mountain tree and generally occupies elevations above the western yellow pine. In the North its range reaches 3,600 feet above sea level; in the extreme South it is 10,000 feet. The darker and more deeply-furrowed bark of the Jeffrey pine is the usual character by which lumbermen distinguish it from the western yellow pine. It is known under several names, most of them relating to the tree’s appearance, such as black pine, redbark pine, blackbark pine, sapwood pine, and bull pine. It reaches the same size as the western yellow pine, though the average is a little smaller. The leaves are from four to nine inches long, and fall in eight or nine years. The cones are large, and armed with slender, curved spines. The seeds are too heavy to fly far, their wing area being small. It is a vigorous tree, and in some regions it forms good forests. Some botanists have considered the Jeffrey pine a variety of the western yellow pine.
GRAY PINE (_Pinus sabiniana_), called also Digger pine because the Digger Indians formerly collected the seeds, which are as large as peanuts, to help eke out a living, is confined to California, and grows in a belt on the foothills surrounding the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. Its cones are large and armed with hooked spines. When green, the largest cones weigh three or four pounds. Leaves are from eight to twelve inches long, in clusters of two and three, and fall the third and fourth years. The wood is remarkable for the quickness of its decay in damp situations. It lasts one or two years as fence posts. A mature gray pine is from fifty to seventy feet high, and eighteen to thirty inches in diameter. Some trees are much larger. It is of considerable importance, but is not in the same class as western yellow and sugar pine. The wood is light, soft, rather strong, brittle. The annual rings are generally wide, indicating rapid growth. Very old gray pines are not known. An age of 185 years seems to be the highest on record. The wood is resinous, and it has helped in a small way to supply the Pacific coast markets with high-grade turpentine, distilled from roots. It yields resin when boxed like the southern longleaf pine. There are two flowing seasons. One is very early, and closes when the weather becomes hot; the other is in full current by the middle of August. It maintains life among the California foothills during the long rainless seasons, on ground so dry that semi-desert chaparral sometimes succumbs; but it is able to make the most of favorable conditions, and it grows rapidly under the slightest encouragement. The seedlings are more numerous now than formerly, which is attributed to decrease of forest fires. The tree has enemies which generally attack it in youth. Two fungi, _Peridermium harknessi_, and _Dædalia vorax_, destroy the young tree’s leader or topmost shoot, causing the development of a short trunk. The latter fungus is the same or is closely related to that which tunnels the trunk of incense cedar and produces pecky cypress.
Gray pine has been cut to some extent for lumber, but its principal uses have been as fuel and mine timbers. Many quartz mines have been located in the region where the tree grows; and the engines which pumped the shafts and raised and crushed the ore were often heated with this pine. Thousands of acres of hillsides in the vicinity of mines were stripped of it, and it went to the engine house ricks in wagons, on sleds, and on the backs of burros. In two respects it is an economical fuel for remote mines: it is light in weight, and gives more heat than an equal quantity of the oak that is associated with it.
CHIHUAHUA PINE (_Pinus chihuahuana_) is not abundant, but it exists in small commercial quantities in southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. Trees are from fifty to eighty feet high, and from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. The wood is medium light, soft, rather strong, brittle, narrow ringed and compact. The resin passages are few, large, and conspicuous; color, clear light orange, the thick sapwood lighter. The tree reaches best development at altitudes of from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. When the wood is used, it serves the same purposes as western yellow pine; but the small size of the tree makes lumber of large size impossible. The leaves are in clusters of three, and fall the fourth year. The cones have long stalks and are from one and a half to two inches long.
[Illustration]
TAMARACK
[Illustration: TAMARACK]
TAMARACK
(_Larix Laricina_)
There are three species of tamarack or larch in the United States, and probably a fourth is confined to Alaska. One has its range in the northeastern states, extending south to West Virginia and northwestward to Alaska. Two are found in the northwestern states. Other species are native of the eastern hemisphere, and some of them have been planted to some extent in this country. A species of Europe is of much importance in that country. The tamaracks lose their leaves in the fall and the branches are bare during the winter. The name tamarack or larch should be applied only to trees of the genus _larix_. This rule is not observed in some parts of the West where the noble fir (_Abies nobilis_) is occasionally called larch by lumbermen. It is not entitled to that name, and confusion results from such use.
The larches are easily identified. They have needle leaves like those of pines and firs, but they are differently arranged. They are produced in little brush-like bundles, from twelve to forty leaves in each, on all the shoots, except the leaders. On these the leaves occur singly. The little brushes are so conspicuous, and so characteristic of this genus, including all its species, that there should be little difficulty in identifying the larches when the leaves are on. In winter, when the branches are bare, there are other easy marks of identification.
The little brushes are interesting objects of study. Botanists tell us that the excrescence or bud-like knob from which the leaves grow is really a suppressed or aborted branch, with all its leaves crowded together at the end. If it were developed, it would bear its leaves singly, scattered along its full length, as they occur on the leading shoots. The warty appearance of the branches in winter is a very convenient means of identification when the leaves are down.
The cones of larches mature in a single season, and often hang on the trees several years. They are conspicuous in winter when the branches are bare of foliage. The adhering cones are generally seedless after the first season, since they quickly let their winged seeds go. The male and female flowers are produced singly on branches of the previous year.
The eastern and northern larch (_Larix laricina_) has a number of names. It is commonly known as tamarack in the New England states and in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and in Canada. The name larch is applied in practically all the regions where it grows, but it is not used as frequently as tamarack. Hackmatack, which was the Indian name for the tree in part of its eastern range, is still in use in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, and Ontario. Nurserymen call it American larch to distinguish it from other larches on the market, particularly the European larch. Michaux, an early French botanist who explored American forests, called it American larch (_Larix americana_), and the name which he gave has been retained by many scientists to this day. In the Canadian provinces north of the Great Lakes, and also in Maine and New Brunswick, it is frequently called juniper, but without good reason, for it has little of the appearance and few of the qualities of the junipers. In some localities it is called black larch, and in others red larch. The first name refers to the color of its bark, the last to the leaves when about to fall, for they then change to a brown or reddish color. They fall in the autumn, and the branches are bare until the next spring. Some of the New York Indians observed that peculiarity of the tree which they thought should be an evergreen like the balsam and pines with which it was often associated, and they named it kenehtens, meaning “the leaves fall”. Indians did not, as a rule, give separate names to tree species, and when they did so, it was because of food value, or from some peculiarity which could not fail to attract the notice of a savage.
The tamarack’s geographical range is remarkable. It is said to be best developed in the region east of Manitoba, but it extends southward into West Virginia and northward to the land of the midnight sun. It maintains its place almost to the arctic snows, and the willow is about the only tree that pushes farther north. It is found from Newfoundland and Labrador far down toward the mouth of the Mackenzie river, north of the arctic circle. It grows on dry land as well as wet, but is oftenest found in cold swamps, particularly in the southern part of its range. Silted-up lakes are favorite situations, and on the made-land above old beaver dams.
Tamarack forests frequently stand on ground so soft that a pole may be thrust ten feet deep in the mud. The moist, monotonous sphagnum moss generally furnishes ground cover in such places. A tamarack swamp in summer is cool and pleasant--provided there is not too much water on the ground--but in winter a more desolate picture can scarcely be imagined. The leafless trees appear to be dead, and covered with lifeless cones; but the first warm days bring it to life.
The average height of tamarack trees is from forty to sixty feet, diameter twenty inches or less. Leaves are one-half or one and a half inches long; cones one-half or three-quarter inches, and bright chestnut brown at maturity. They fall when two years old. The winged seeds are very small. The tree is neither a frequent nor abundant seeder. The foliage is thin, and is not sufficient to shut much sunlight from the ground.
The wood is heavy, hard, very strong, and is durable in contact with the soil. The growth is slow, annual rings narrow, summerwood occupies nearly half the ring, and is dark-colored, resinous, and conspicuous; resin passages few and obscure; medullary rays numerous and obscure; color of wood light brown, the sapwood nearly white.
The uses of tamarack go back to prehistoric times. The Indians of Canada and northeastern United States drew supplies from four forest trees when they made their bark canoes. The bark for the shell came from paper birch, threads for sewing the strips of bark together were tamarack roots, resin for stopping leaks was a product of balsam fir, and the light framework of wood was northern white cedar.
The roots which best suited the Indian’s purpose came from trees which grew in soft, deep mud, where lakes and beaver ponds had silted up. Such roots are long, slender, and very tough and pliant, and may be gathered in large numbers, particularly where running streams have partly undermined standing trees.
White men likewise made use of tamarack roots in boat building, but the roots were different from what the Indians used. “Instep” crooks were hewed for ship knees. These were large roots, the larger the better. Trees which produced them did not grow in deep mud, for there the roots did not develop crooks. The ship knee operator hunted for tamarack forests growing on a soft surface soil two or three feet deep, underlaid by stiff clay or rock which roots could not penetrate. In situations like that the roots go straight down until they reach the hard stratum, and then turn at right angles and grow in a horizontal direction. The turning point in the root develops the crook of which the ship knee is made.
Tamarack is seldom of sufficient size for the largest ship knees. Such were formerly supplied by southern live oak; and in that case crooks formed by the union of trunk and large branches were as good as those produced by the union of trunk and large roots.
Tamarack is still employed in the manufacture of boat knees, but not as much as formerly. Steel frames have largely taken the place of wood in the construction of ship skeletons. Boat builders use tamarack now for floors, keels, stringers, and knees.
Tamarack has come into much use in recent years. Sawmills cut from it more than 125,000,000 feet of lumber a year. Fourteen states contribute, but most of the lumber is produced in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Railroads in the United States buy 5,000,000 or more tamarack ties a year, which reduced to board measure amount to over 150,000,000 feet. Fence posts and telegraph poles come in large numbers from tamarack forests.
The wood is stiff and strong, its stiffness being eighty-four per cent of that of long leaf pine, and its strength about eighty per cent. Unusual variations in both strength and stiffness are found. One stick of tamarack may rate twice as high as another.
The wood-using factories of Michigan consume nearly 20,000,000 feet of this wood yearly. It is made into boxes, excelsior, pails, tanks, tubs, house finish, refrigerators, windmills, and wooden pipes for waterworks and for draining mines.
There is little likelihood that the supply of tamarack will run short in the near future. While it is not in the first rank of the important trees in this country, it is useful, and it is fortunate that it promises to hold its ground against fires which do grave injury to northern forests. In the swamps where the most of it is found the ground litter is too damp to burn. The tree does not grow rapidly, but it usually occupies lands which cannot be profitably devoted to agriculture, and it will, therefore, be let alone until it reaches maturity.
Tamarack is a familiar tree in parks, and it grows farther south than its natural range extends. It is not as desirable a park tree as hemlock, spruce, fir, the cedars, and some of the pines, because its foliage is thin in summer and wanting in winter. It is in a class with cypress. In the early spring, however, while its soft green needles are beginning to show themselves in clusters along the twigs, its delicate and unusual appearance attracts more attention than its companion trees which are always in full leaf and for that reason are somewhat monotonous.
[Illustration]
WESTERN LARCH
[Illustration: WESTERN LARCH]
WESTERN LARCH
(_Larix Occidentalis_)
This is a magnificent tree of the Northwest, and its range lies principally on the upper tributaries of the Columbia river, in Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, but it occurs also among the Blue Mountains of Washington and Oregon. It is the largest member of the larch genus, either in the old world or the new. The finest trees are 250 feet high with diameters of six or eight feet, but sizes half of that are nearer the average. The trunk is of splendid form. In early life it is limby, but later it prunes itself, and a long, tapering bole is developed with a very small crown of thin foliage. No other tree of its size, with the possible exception of old sequoias, has so little foliage in proportion to the trunk.
The result is apparent in the rate of growth after the larch has passed its youth. Sometimes such a tree does not increase its trunk diameter as much in seventy-five years as a vigorous loblolly pine or willow oak will in one year. The trunk of a tree, as is well known, grows by means of food manufactured by the leaves and sent down to be transformed into wood. With so few leaves and a trunk so large, the slowness of growth is a natural consequence. Though the annual rings are usually quite narrow, the bands of summerwood are relatively broad. That accounts for the density of larchwood and its great weight. It is six per cent heavier than longleaf pine, and is not much inferior in strength and elasticity. The leaves are from one to one and three-quarter inches long, the cones from one to one and a half inches, and the seeds nearly one-quarter inch in length. They are equipped with wings of sufficient power to carry them a short distance from the parent tree.
The bark on young larches is thin, but on large trunks, and near the ground, it may be five or six inches thick. When a notch is cut in the trunk it collects a resin of sweetish taste which the Indians use as an article of food.
The western larch reaches its best development in northern Idaho and Montana on streams which flow into Flathead lake. The tree prefers moist bottom lands, but grows well in other situations, at altitudes of from 2,000 to 7,000 feet. The figures given above on the wood’s weight, strength, and stiffness show its value for manufacturing purposes. Its remoteness from markets has stood in the way of large use, but it has been tried for many purposes and with highly satisfactory results. In 1910 sawmills in the four western states where it grows cut 255,186,000 feet. Most of this is used as rough lumber, but some is made into furniture, finish, boxes, and boats. The wood has several names, though larch is the most common. It is otherwise known as tamarack and hackmatack, which names are oftener applied to the eastern tree; red American larch, western tamarack, and great western larch.
Some of the annual cut of lumber credited to western larch does not belong to it. Lumbermen have confused names and mixed figures by applying this tree’s name to noble fir, which is a different tree. If the fir lumber listed as larch were given its proper name, it would result in lowering the output of larch as shown in statistical figures. In spite of this, however, larch lumber fills an important place in the trade of the northern Rocky Mountain region.
There is little doubt that it will fill a much more important place in the future, for a beginning has scarcely been made in marketing this timber. The available supply is large, but exact figures are not available. Some stands are dense and extensive, and the trees are of large size and fine form. It is not supposed, however, that there will be much after the present stand has been cut, because a second crop from trees of so slow growth will be far in the future. Sudworth says that larch trees eighteen or twenty inches in diameter are from 250 to 300 years old, and that the ordinary age of these trees in the forests of the Northwest is from 300 to 500 years; while larger trees are 600 or 700. Much remains to be learned concerning the ages of these trees in different situations and in different parts of its range. It is apparent, however, that when a period covering two or three centuries is required to produce a sawlog of only moderate size, timber owners will not look forward with much eagerness to a second growth forest of western larch.
The value of the wood of western larch has been the subject of much controversy. In the tables compiled for the federal census of 1880, under direction of Charles S. Sargent, its strength and elasticity were shown to be remarkably high. The figures indicate that it is about thirty-nine per cent stronger than white oak and fifty-one per cent stiffer. This places it a little above longleaf pine in strength and nearly equal to it in stiffness or elasticity. Engineers have expressed doubts as to the correctness of Sargent’s figures. They believe them too high. The samples tested by Sargent were six in number, four of them collected in Washington and two in Montana.