Part 13

YELLOW CEDAR (Chamæcyparis nootkatensis) describes this tree quite well. The small twigs are of that color, and so is the heartwood. Many give it the name yellow cypress. Others know it as Alaska cypress, Alaska ground cypress, Nootka cypress, or Nootka sound cypress. The name of the species, nootkatensis, was given it by Archibald Menzies, a Scotch botanist who discovered it on the shore of Nootka sound in Alaska.

Yellow cedar’s geographic range extends from southeastern Alaska to Oregon, a distance of 1,000 miles. It does not usually go far inland, and consequently the range is narrow in most places. North of the international boundary the tree seldom reaches an altitude of more than 2,000 or 3,000 feet, but in Washington and Oregon it is occasionally met with at elevations of 4,000 and 5,000 feet. The species reaches its best development on the islands off the coast of southern Alaska and British Columbia, where the air is moist, the winds warm in winter, the rainfall abundant, and the snowfall often deep. Well developed trees under such circumstances are from ninety to 120 feet high, from two to six in diameter. The blue-green leaves remain active two years, and then die, but they do not usually fall until a year later. The presence of the dead leaves on the twigs tones down the general color of the tree crowns.

The cones are about half an inch long and have four, five, or six scales. From two to four seeds lie beneath each scale until September or October when they ripen and escape. Their wings are large enough to carry them away from the immediate vicinity of the parent tree, and reproduction under natural conditions is generally good. Yellow cedar is abundant within its range, but nature has circumscribed its range, and it shows no disposition to pass the boundary line.

The bark is thin and exhibits cedar’s characteristic stringiness. It is shed in thin strips.

The wood is moderately light, and is strong and stiff. It is probably the hardest of the cedars, and the grain is so regular that high polish is possible. Under favorable circumstances trees grow with fair rapidity, but when conditions are unfavorable, as on high mountains where summers are short and winters severe, growth is remarkably slow, and twenty years or more may be required for one inch increase in trunk diameter. The wood of such trees is hard, dense, and strong.

The grain of yellow cedar is usually straight. The bands of summerwood are narrow, the annual rings are indistinct, and an attempt to count them is often attended with considerable difficulty. The wood is easily worked, satiny, susceptible of a beautiful polish, and possesses an agreeable resinous odor. The heartwood is bright, clear yellow, and the thin sapwood is a little lighter in color. In common with all other cedars, yellow cedar resists decay many years. Logs which have lain in damp woods half a century remain sound inside the sapwood. Sometimes fallen timber in that region is quickly buried under deep beds of moss which preserves it from decay much longer than if the logs lie exposed to alternate dampness and dryness.

Statistics of sawmill operations in the Northwest do not distinguish between the different cedars, and the cut of yellow cedar is unknown. It is considerable, but of course not to be compared with the more abundant western red cedar. Statistics of uses are as meager as of the lumber output. In Washington the factories which use wood as raw material report only 7,500 feet of yellow cedar a year. Doubtless much more than that is used, but under other names. There is no occasion to disguise this wood under other names. It has a striking individuality and deserves a place of its own. In some respects it is one of the best woods of the Pacific Northwest. In nearly every situation where it has been tried, it has been found satisfactory. Its rich yellow presents a fine appearance in furniture and interior finish, and the polish which it takes surpasses that possible with any other cedar, with the probable exception of some of the scarce, high mountain junipers. It has been used for pyrography and patterns, two hard places to fill, and for which few woods are suitable. Indians long ago in Alaska learned that it was the best material for boat paddles which their forests afforded. It possesses the requisite stiffness and strength, and it wears to a smoothness almost like ebony. Boat factories have many uses for the wood, decking, railing, and interior finish being among the most important. It is said to be a satisfactory substitute for Spanish cedar in the manufacture of cigar boxes, but its use for that purpose is not yet large.

It is said that occasional exports of this wood go to China where it is finished in imitation of scarce and expensive woods of that country.

Yellow cedar is a wood with a future. Its splendid properties cannot fail to give it a place of no small importance in factories and in general building operations. The supply has scarcely yet been touched, but it cannot much longer remain an undeveloped asset. It is apparently a high-class cooperage material, but it does not seem to have been used much if at all in that industry. The same might be said of it for doors. It is heavier than spruce, white pine, and redwood, but where weight is not a matter for objection, it ought to equal them in all desirable qualities.

In much of its range it is generally exempt from forest fire injury, because its native woods are nearly always too wet to burn.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN JUNIPER (Juniperus scopulorum) is scattered over the mountains from Dakota and Nebraska to Washington and British Columbia, and southward to western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Except near the Pacific coast, it is usually found at altitudes above 5,000 feet. It clings closely to dry, rocky ridges where it attains a height of thirty or forty feet, and a diameter of three feet or less. The trunk usually divides near the ground into several stems. The bright blue berries ripen the second year. The wood resembles that of red cedar, and is used in the same way, as far as it is used at all. It is not a source of lumber. A little is sawed occasionally on mountain mills, and the lumber is used locally in house building, particularly for window and door frames; but sawlogs are short, and because of their poor form, the output of lumber is negligible. Some of it finds its way into Texas where it is manufactured into clothes chests and wardrobes, and these are sold as red cedar. A choice mountain juniper log, with large, sound heartwood, produces lumber with a delicate grain and is more attractive than red cedar when made into chests and boxes. By habit of growth, it includes patches of white sapwood in the darker heartwood. When these are sawed through in converting the logs into boards, the islands of white wood scattered over the surface produce a unique effect not wanting in artistic value. Some of the other western junipers possess similar characteristics. Sometimes patches of bark are also found imbedded in the interior of the trees.

RED SPRUCE

RED SPRUCE

(Picea Rubens)

In New York the tree is called yellow spruce, while in foreign literature it is known as North American red spruce. The tree is sometimes difficult to distinguish from black spruce (Picea nigra), the main points of difference in the appearance of the two trees being the size and shape of the cones and of the staminate blossoms. The cones of red spruce are larger than those of black, and they mature and drop from the branches during their first winter, while those of the latter named species frequently remain on the trees for several seasons. Certain eminent botanists incline to the belief that the two are different varieties of one species, inasmuch as even the timber of red spruce bears a close resemblance to that of the black spruce. Other botanists dispute this theory, saying that the trees are entirely different in appearance; that the red spruce is a light olive-green, while black spruce is inclined to a darker olive with perhaps a purplish tinge, so that when seen together they have no resemblance in point of color. They further say that the cones are not only different in size but that the scales are quite unlike in texture, those of black spruce being much thinner and more brittle. The same authorities maintain that the tiny twigs of red spruce are more conspicuous on account of their reddish tinge.

Generally speaking the principal spruce growth of northern New England and New York is black spruce, although interspersed with it in some localities is a considerable quantity of red spruce. On the contrary the chief stand of spruce in West Virginia, Virginia, western North Carolina, and eastern Tennessee and the other high altitudes over the South Carolina line, is largely red spruce. This botanical analysis of the two species of wood is based entirely on the authority of botanists, but from the viewpoint of the average lumberman there is absolutely no difference between red and black spruce and none in the physics of the two woods except that which rises from varying conditions of growth as soil, rainfall, altitude or latitude, or general environment. The larger spruce of West Virginia and the mountain region farther south, has certain qualities of strength and texture, combined with a large percentage of clear lumber that is not approximated by the spruce of New England and the British maritime provinces. In shape the tree is pyramidal, with spreading branches. It reaches a height of from seventy to a hundred feet. Its bark is reddish brown, slightly scaly. The twigs are light colored when young and are covered with tiny hairs. The leaves are thickly clustered along the branches, and are simple and slender, pointed at the apex. They become lustrous at maturity. The staminate flowers are oval, bright red in color; the pistillate ones are oblong, with thin rounded scales. The fruit of the red spruce is a cone, from one to two and a half inches in length; it is green when young, turning dark with age, and falling from the branches when the scales open. The seeds are dark brown, and winged.

Formerly spruce was little thought of for lumber and manufacturing purposes in this country, though some use was made of it from the earliest settlements in the regions where it grew. White pine could generally be had where spruce was abundant, and the former wood was preferred. As pine became scarce, spruce was worked in for a number of purposes. The tree’s form is all that a sawmill man could desire. The trunk has more knots than white pine, for the reason that limbs are a longer time in dying and in dropping off; but knots are small and generally sound. By careful culling, a moderate amount of clear lumber may be obtained. The wood is light, soft, narrow-ringed, strong in proportion to its weight, elastic, and its color is pale with a slight tinge of red, the sapwood whiter and usually about two inches thick. The contrast between heart and sapwood is not strong. The medullary rays are numerous, but small and obscure. The summerwood is thin and not conspicuous. It is the wood’s red tinge which gives the tree its commercial name.

It is believed that the yearly cut of red spruce in the United States for lumber is about 500,000,000 feet, one-half of which comes from West Virginia and southward, where this species reaches its highest development; and the pulpwood cut in the same region is about one-tenth as much in quantity. The long fiber and white color of spruce make it one of the most satisfactory woods for pulp in this country. Red spruce is only one of several species of spruce which contribute to the supply. The total output of spruce pulpwood in the United States yearly is equivalent to about 1,000,000,000 feet of lumber.

Red spruce lumber has a long list of uses. Much flooring is made of it, and it wears well, but not as well as hard pine from the South. It is more used for shipping boxes in the northeastern part of the United States than any other wood, except white pine. Its good stenciling qualities recommend it. Manufacturers of sash, doors, and blinds find it excellent material, combining lightness, strength, and small tendency to warp, shrink, or swell. Coopers make buckets, tubs, kegs, and churns of it; manufacturers of refrigerators use it for doors and frames; and makers of furniture use it for many interior parts of bureaus, tables, and sideboards. Textile mills use spruce clothboards as center pieces round which to wind fabrics; and a further use in mills is for bobbins. It has many places in boat building, notably as spars and yards; and for window and door frames.

The makers of piano frames employ red spruce for certain parts; but as material for musical instruments its most important use is as sounding boards. All the commercial spruces are so used. Wood for this purpose must be free from defects of all kinds, and of straight and even grain. The sounding board’s value lies in its ability to vibrate in unison with the strings of the instrument. Spruce has no superior for that place.

Red spruce bears abundance of seeds, the best on the highest branches. The seeds are winged, and the wind scatters them. They germinate best on humus. In spruce forests, clumps of seedlings are often seen where logs have decayed and fallen to dust. Seedlings do not thrive on mineral soil, and for that reason red spruce makes a poor showing where fires have burned. It does not spread vigorously in old fields as white pine does. It must have forest conditions or it will do little good. For that reason it does not promise great things for the future. It grows very slowly, and land owners prefer white pine, where that species will grow. If spruce is to be planted, most persons prefer Norway spruce (Picea excelsa) of Europe. It grows faster than native spruces. It is the spruce usually seen in door yards and parks.

BLACK SPRUCE (Picea mariana) grows much farther north than red spruce, but the two species mingle in a region of 100,000 square miles or more northward of Pennsylvania and in New England and southern and eastern Canada. Black spruce grows from Labrador to the valley of the Mackenzie river, almost to the arctic circle. It is found as far south as the Lake States where it constitutes the principal spruce of commerce. In some of the swamps of northern Minnesota and in the neighboring parts of Canada it is little more than a shrub, and trees three or four feet high bear cones. On better land in that region the tree is large enough for sawlogs. It passes under several names, among which are double spruce, blue spruce, white spruce, and water spruce. The common name black spruce probably refers to the general appearance of the crown. The small cones (the smallest of the spruces) adhere to the branches many years, and give a ragged, black appearance to the tree when seen from a distance. The wood is as white as other spruces. Trees vary greatly in size. The best are 100 feet high and two and a half feet in diameter; but the average size is about thirty feet high and twelve inches in diameter. That size is not attractive to lumbermen; but cutters of pulpwood find it valuable and convenient, and much of it is manufactured into paper. The wood weighs 28.57 pounds per cubic foot, and is moderately strong, and high in elasticity. It is pale yellow-white with thin sapwood. In Manitoba, lumber is sawed from black spruce, and it is cut also in the Lake States, but it is preferred for pulp. It gives excellent service as canoe paddles. Spruce chewing gum is made of resinous exudations from this tree, and is an article of considerable importance. Spruce beer is another by-product which has long been manufactured in New England and the eastern Canadian provinces. It was made in Newfoundland three hundred years ago and has been bought and sold in the markets of that region ever since. Fishing vessels carry supplies of the beverage on long voyages as a preventive of scurvy. The beer is made by boiling leaves and twigs, and adding molasses to the concoction which is allowed to pass through mild fermentation. Foresters will probably never pay much attention to black spruce because other species promise more profit. It is little planted for ornamental purposes, as it does not grow rapidly, is of poor form, and the accumulation of dead cones on the branches gives it a poor appearance. Besides, planted trees do not live long.

WHITE SPRUCE (Picea canadensis) is of more importance in Canada than in the United States, because more abundant. It is one of the most plentiful timber trees of Alaska, and it is found west to Bering strait and north of the arctic circle. It is said to approach within twenty miles of the Arctic ocean. Its eastern limit is in Labrador, its southern in the northern tier of states from Maine to Idaho. A little of this species is cut for lumber in northern New England and in upper Michigan, and westward, just south of the Canadian line. The light blue-green foliage gives the tree its name. It is known by other names as well, single spruce, bog spruce, skunk spruce, cat spruce, double spruce, and pine. Some of its names are due to the odor of its foliage. The largest trees are 100 feet high and three in diameter, but most are smaller. Having a range so extensive, and in climates and situations so different, the tree naturally varies greatly in size and form. The wood of well-developed trees is white and handsome, the thin, pencil-like bands of summerwood having a slightly darker tone than the springwood. The two parts of the annual ring possess different degrees of hardness. The springwood is softer than the summerwood. The medullary rays are numerous, and the surface of quarter-sawed lumber has a silvery appearance, due to the exposed flat surfaces of the rays. In the markets, no distinction is made between white spruce lumber, and that cut from other species. The uses of the different species are much the same. As a pulpwood, white spruce is in demand wherever it is available. The largest output in the United States comes from northern New England. The tree is often planted for ornamental purposes in Europe and in northern states. When grown in the open, the crown is pyramidal, like that of balsam fir. It does not thrive where summers are warm and dry.

SITKA SPRUCE

SITKA SPRUCE

(Picea Sitchensis)

This is largest of the spruces. In height and in girth of trunk no other approaches it. The moist, warm climate of the north Pacific slope is its favorite home, though its range extends far northward along the islands and coast of Alaska. Toward the extreme limit of its habitat it loses its splendid form and size and degenerates into a sprawling shrub. The limit of the species southward lies in Mendocino county, California. Its range in a north and south direction is not less than 2,000 miles; but east and west the growth covers a mere ribbon facing the sea. It climbs some of the British Columbia mountains, 5,000 feet, but it prefers the low, wet valleys and flatlands, or the rainy and snowy slopes set to catch the sea winds. There it is at its best, and the largest trunks are 200 feet high, fifteen feet in diameter, and about 850 years old. All sizes less than this are found. It is not easy to name an average size when variation runs from giants to dwarfs; but in regions where this spruce is cut for lumber, the average height of mature trees is about 125 feet, with a diameter of four feet.

Tideland spruce is one of its names. That has reference to its habit of sticking close to the sea. Its other names are Menzies’ spruce, great tideland spruce, and western spruce. The last may be considered its trade name in lumber markets, for it is seldom called anything else when it is shipped east of the Rocky Mountains. The name is appropriate, except that other spruces grow in the West, and are equally entitled to the name. This applies particularly to Engelmann spruce of the northern Rocky Mountain region; but its lumber and that cut from Sitka spruce are not liable to be confused in the mind of anyone who is acquainted with the two woods. The name Sitka refers to the town of that name in Alaska.