Part 14

The leaves of this species are usually less than one inch in length, and in color are light yellowish green. They stand out like bristles on all sides of the twigs. Cones are from two to four inches long, and hang by short stems, usually at the ends of twigs. They ripen the first year, release their seeds, which fly away on small but ample wings, and the cones drop during the fall and winter. Sitka spruce bark is generally less than half an inch in thickness. Trunks which grow in forests prune themselves well, and are usually clear of limbs from forty to eighty feet. The bases of trees which grow on wet land are much enlarged like cypress and tupelo, and lumbermen frequently cut above the swell, leaving from 1,000 to 5,000 feet or more of lumber in the stump. Sitka spruce’s characteristic root system is shallow; but on mountain sides where soil is dry, roots penetrate deep in search of moisture.

The wood of this spruce varies greatly in color, but it is usually a very pale brown, with the faintest tinge of red. It is a little heavier than white pine, considerably weaker, and with less elasticity. The size of the trunks, with their freedom from limbs, insures a high percentage of clear lumber when Sitka spruce is manufactured. The tree grows slowly, the annual rings are narrow, and the bands of summer growth are comparatively broad, to which fact the rather dark color of the wood of the spruce is due.

Sitka spruce is an important source of lumber. The total cut in Washington, Oregon, and California in 1910 was about 255,000,000 feet. It is below red spruce in quantity of sawmill cut, but above all other spruces in the United States. The people of the Pacific coast use much of it at home, but large quantities are shipped to markets in eastern states, and some to foreign countries. Nearly 4,000,000 feet were bought by Illinois manufacturers in 1909, in addition to what was used rough in the state. The commodities manufactured of this spruce in Illinois indicate with a fair degree of accuracy the uses made of the wood in most parts of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and north of the Ohio river and the Potomac. Among articles so manufactured in Illinois are playground apparatus, porch and stair balusters, doors, blinds, sash and frames, poultry brooders, sounding boards for pianos and other musical instruments, parts of mandolins and guitars, pipes for organs, cornice brackets, store and office fronts, decking and spars for boats, wagon beds and windmill wheel slats, refrigerators and cold storage rooms, ironing boards and other wooden ware.

Twenty times as much Sitka spruce is made into finished commodities in Washington as in Illinois. That is to be expected, since Washington is the home of the tree and the center of supply. A partial list of its uses in that state will show that the wood is liked at home. Douglas fir was the only wood bought in larger amounts by Washington manufacturers. They made 55,429,000 feet of it into boxes, and coopers employed 12,000,000 more. The next largest users were pulpmills, while 2,000,000 feet went into sounding boards, many of which were for shipment abroad. Other users were basket makers, and the manufacturers of furniture, fixtures, finish, caskets, veneer, trunks, pulleys, vehicles, boats, and patterns. Sitka spruce decays quickly when exposed to rain and weather.

Sitka spruce can be depended upon for the future. Though it grows slowly it may be expected to keep growing. Its range lies in regions generally too wet for woods to burn, and it will suffer less from forest fires than trees of inland regions. It is an abundant seeder, and its favorite seedbed is moss, muck, decayed wood, and wet ground litter of various kinds. For the first few years seedlings are sensitive to frost, but not in later life.

Sitka spruce is often planted as an ornamental tree in western Europe, and occasionally in the middle Atlantic states. The New England climate is too severe for it.

ENGELMANN SPRUCE (Picea engelmanni) was named for Dr. George Engelmann. It has other names. In Utah it is called balsam, white spruce in Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, mountain spruce in Montana, Arizona spruce farther south, while in Idaho it is sometimes known as white pine. That name is misleading, for Idaho has a species of white pine (Pinus monticola). In eastern markets the wood is known as western spruce; but that, also, is indefinite, for Sitka spruce is also a western species and is found in the same markets as Engelmann spruce. This tree’s range extends from Yukon territory to Arizona, fully 3,000 miles. It is a mountain species and is found in elevated ranges. In the southern part of its habitat it ascends mountains to heights of nearly 12,000 feet. It grows in the Cascade mountain ranges in Washington and Oregon. The species’ best development occurs in British Columbia. At its best, trees are 150 feet high and four or five in diameter; but every size less than that occurs in different parts of its range, down to a height of two or three feet for fully matured trees. Such are found on lofty and sterile mountains where frost occurs practically every night in summer, and winter snows bury all objects for months at a time. Though the stunted spruce trees may be only two or three feet high, their branches spread many feet, and lie flat on the rocks. Though such situations are exceedingly unfavorable to tree growth, the stunted spruces survive sometimes for two hundred years, and during that long period may not grow a trunk above five inches in diameter and four feet high. The Engelmann spruce is naturally a long-lived tree, and large trunks are 500 or 600 years old; and trees ordinarily cut for lumber are 300 or 400 years old. When the tree is young, its form is symmetrical, the longest branches being near the ground, the shortest near the top; but in crowded stands the trunk finally clears itself. Engelmann spruce lumber is usually full of small knots, each of which represents a limb which was shaded off as the tree advanced in age. The wood is lighter than white pine, and is the lightest of the spruces, the weight being 21.49 pounds per cubic foot. It is not strong, and it rates low in elasticity. The wood is pale yellow, tinged with red. The thick sapwood is hardly distinguishable from the heart. It would be difficult to compile a list of this tree’s uses, because in markets it hardly ever carries its right name. It is used for fuel and charcoal in the region of its growth; also as farm timber, and as props and lagging in mines. When it goes to market, it is manufactured into doors, window frames, sash, interior finish for houses, and for purposes along with other spruces. Large quantities of this wood will be accessible when lumbermen penetrate remote mountain regions where it grows. It may be expected to increase in importance. It is occasionally planted in eastern states as an ornament.

BLUE SPRUCE (Picea parryana) is found among mountains in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, from 6,500 to 10,000 feet above sea level. It attains a height of 150 feet and a diameter of three under favorable circumstances, but its usual size is little more than half of that. Its name is given on account of the color of its foliage, but it has other names, among them being Parry’s spruce, balsam, white spruce, silver spruce, Colorado blue spruce, and prickly spruce, the last name referring to the sharp-pointed leaves which are an inch or more in length. Cones are three inches long, and usually grow near the top of the tree. It is not unusual for blue spruce trees to divide near the ground in three or four branches. In its youth, particularly in open ground, blue spruce develops a conical crown. The wood is lighter than white pine, is soft, weak, and pale brown or nearly white in color. The sapwood is hardly distinguishable from the heart. This is a valuable tree for ornamental planting; but in later years it loses its lower limbs, and becomes less desirable.

WEEPING SPRUCE (Picea breweriana) is of little commercial importance because of scarcity. It grows among the mountains of northern California and southern Oregon, at elevations of from 4,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level. The leaves are an inch or less in length, the cones from two to four inches long. They fall soon after they scatter their seeds. This tree is named on account of its drooping branchlets, some of which hang down eight feet. The wood seems not to have been investigated, but its color is pale yellowish to very light brown, and the annual rings are rather narrow. The tree ought to be valuable for ornamental planting, but nurseries have experienced much difficulty in making it grow. It grows on high and dry mountains where few ever see it, but refuses to become domesticated or to grace eastern parks.

CYPRESS

CYPRESS

(Taxodium Distichum)

The name cypress has been used quite loosely in this country and the old world, and botanists have taken particular care to explain what true cypress is. It is of no advantage in the present case to join in the discussion, and it will suffice to give the American cypresses according to the authorized list published by the United States Forest Service. Two genera, one having two and the other six species, are classed as cypress. These are Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum), Pond Cypress (Taxodium imbricarium), Monterey Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa), Gowen Cypress (Cupressus goveniana), Dwarf Cypress (Cupressus pygmæa) Macnab Cypress (Cupressus macnabiana), Arizona Cypress (Cupressus arizonica), and Smooth Cypress (Cupressus glabra). The first two grow in the southern states, and the others in the Far West. Bald cypress, which is generally known simply as cypress in the region where it grows, is more important as a source of lumber than are all the others combined. It probably supplies ninety-nine per cent of all cypress sold in this country. Its range is from southern Delaware to Florida, westward to the Gulf coast region of Texas, north through Louisiana, Arkansas, eastern Mississippi and Tennessee, southeastern Missouri, western Kentucky and sparsely in southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana. It is a deep swamp tree, and it is never of much importance far from lagoons, inundated tracts, and the low banks of rivers. Water that is a little brackish from the inwash of tides does not injure the tree, but the presence of a little salt is claimed by some to improve the quality of the wood. It is lumbered under difficulties. The deep water and miry swamps where it grows best must be reckoned with. Some of the ground is not dry for several years at a time. Neither felling nor hauling is possible in the manner practiced in the southern pineries. Owing to the great weight of the green wood, it will not float unless killed by being girdled for a year or more in advance of its being felled. In the older logging operations, cypress was girdled and snaked out to waterways and floated to the mills. Lately many cypress operations are carried on by the building of railroads through the swamps, which are largely on piling and stringers, although occasionally earth fills are utilized. The usual size of mature cypress ranges from seventy-five to 140 feet in height and three to six in diameter.

The wood is light, soft, rather weak, moderately stiff, and the grain is usually straight. The narrow annual rings indicate slow growth. The summerwood is comparatively broad and is slightly resinous; medullary rays are numerous and obscure. The wood is light to dark brown, the sapwood nearly white. At one time specimens of the wood in the markets of the world were known as black or white cypress, according as they sank or floated. Much of the dark cypress wood is now known as black cypress in the foreign markets, where it is employed chiefly for tank and vat building. Individual specimens of the wood in some localities are tinted in a variety of shades and some of the natural designs are extremely beautiful.

The wood is reputed to be among the most durable in this country when exposed to soil and weather. Some of it deserves that reputation, but other does not. Well-authenticated cases are cited where cypress has remained sound many years--in some instance a hundred or more--when subjected to alternate dampness and dryness. Such conditions afford severe tests. In other cases cypress has been known to decay as quickly as pine.

Historical cases from the old world are sometimes cited to show the wonderful lasting properties of cypress. Doors and statues, exposed more or less to weather, are said to have stood many centuries. The evidence has little value as far as this wood is concerned. In the first place, the long records claimed are subjects for suspicion; and in the second place, it was not the American cypress that was used--and probably no cypress--but the cedar of Lebanon.

Sound cypress logs have been dug from deep excavations near New Orleans, and geologists believe they had lain there 30,000 years. That would be a telling testament to endurance were it not that any other wood completely out of reach of air would last as long.

The estimated stand of cypress in the South is about 20,000,000,000 feet. The annual cut, including shingles, exceeds 1,000,000,000 feet. New growth is not coming on. The traveler through the South occasionally sees a small clump of little cypresses, but such are few and far between. It was formerly quite generally believed that cypress in deep swamps, where old and venerable stands are found, was not reproducing, and that no little trees were to be seen. It was argued from this, that some climatic or geographic change had taken place, and that the present stand of cypress would be the last of its race. More careful investigation, however, has shown that the former belief was erroneous. Seedling cypresses are found occasionally in the deepest swamps. Probably cypress which has not been disturbed by man is reproducing as well now as at any time in the past. The tree lives three or four centuries, and if it leaves one seedling to take its place it has done its part toward perpetuating the species. Fire, the mortal enemy of forests, seldom hurts cypress, because the undergrowth is not dry enough to burn.

The uses of cypress are so nearly universal that a list is impossible. In Illinois alone it is reported for seventy-eight different purposes. There is not a state, and scarcely a large wood-using factory, east of the Rocky Mountains which does not demand more or less cypress.

The tree is graceful when young, but ragged and uncouth when old. Though a needleleaf tree, it yearly sheds its foliage and most of its twigs. The fruit is a cone about one inch in diameter; and the seed is equipped with a wing one-fourth inch long and one-eighth inch wide.

When cypress stands in soft ground which most of the time is under water, the roots send up peculiar growths known as knees. They rise from a few inches to several feet above the surface of the mud, and extend above the water at ordinary stages. They are sharp cones, generally hollow. It is believed their function is to furnish air to the tree’s roots, and also to afford anchorage to the roots in the soft mud. When the water is drained away, the knees die.

Cypress is widely planted as an ornament, and a dozen or more varieties have been developed in cultivation.

POND CYPRESS (Taxodium imbricarium) so closely resembles bald cypress with which it is associated that the two were once supposed to be the same. Pond cypress averages smaller and its range is more circumscribed. The name pond cypress, by which it is popularly known in Georgia, indicates the localities where it is oftenest found. It is the prevailing cypress in the Okefenoke swamp in southeastern Georgia. The general aspect of the foliage and fruit is the same as of bald cypress. No detailed examination of the wood seems to have been made, but in general appearance it is like the other cypress. It is said that little of it ever gets to sawmills because it grows in situations where logging is inconvenient.

MONTEREY CYPRESS (Cupressus macrocarpa). This tree has only one name and that is due to its place of growth on the shores of Monterey bay, California. Its range is more restricted than that of any other American softwood. It does not much exceed 150 acres, though the trees are scattered in a narrow strip for two miles along the coast. They approach so close the breakers that spray flies over them in time of storm. Trees exposed to the sweep of the wind are gnarled and of fantastic shapes. Their crowns are broad and flat like an umbrella, but ragged and unsymmetrical in outline. That form offers least resistance to wind, and most surface to the sun. The trees take the best possible advantage of their opportunities. Tall crowns would be carried away by wind; and the flat tops, with a mass of green foliage, catch all the sunlight possible. They need it, for they grow in fog, and sunshine is scarce. Sheltered trees develop pyramidal tops. It is widely planted in this and other countries, and when conditions are favorable, it is graceful and symmetrical. The largest trees are from sixty to seventy feet tall, others are five or six in diameter; but the tallest trees and the largest trunks seldom go together. The cones are an inch or more in length, and each contains about 100 seeds. The leaves fall the third and fourth years. Wood is heavy, hard, strong, and durable, but is too scarce to be of value as lumber, even if the trunks were suitable for sawlogs. The Monterey cypress is of peculiar interest to botanists and also to physical geographers. The few trees on the shore of Monterey bay appear to be the last remnant of a species which was once more extensive. The ocean is eating away the coast at that point. Fragments of hills, cut sheer down from top to the breakers beneath, are plainly the last remnants of ranges which once extended westward, but have been washed away by the encroaching waves. No one knows how much of the former coast has been destroyed. Apparently the former range of the cypress was principally on land now swallowed up by the encroaching ocean. A mere fringe of the trees--a belt about 200 yards wide along the beach--remains, and the sea is undermining them one by one and carrying them down. So rapidly is the undermining process going on that many large roots of some of the trees are exposed to view.

ARIZONA CYPRESS (Cupressus arizonica), as its name implies, is an Arizona tree. It forms considerable forests in the eastern, central, and southern parts of the state, and is found also in Mexico. It grows at elevations up to 6,000 feet. Because of the small population in the region where this cypress grows, it has never been much used, but the size of the trees and the character of the wood fit it for many purposes. Its growth is often quite rapid, and the timber is soft, light, and with well-defined summerwood. Its usual color is gray, but occasionally faint streaks of yellow appear. The leaves fall during the fourth and fifth years; cones are small and flat; and the small seeds are winged. It is believed by persons familiar with Arizona cypress that it will attain considerable importance when the building of railroads and the settlement of the country make the forests accessible. The wood is durable in contact with the soil.

SMOOTH CYPRESS (Cupressus glabra) ranges in Arizona and is not believed to have or to promise much importance as a source of lumber supply. Its name was given on account of the smoothness of the bark. It is one of the latest species to be given a place among the cypresses, and was described and named by George B. Sudworth of the United States Forest Service.

BALSAM FIR

BALSAM FIR