Part 23

This oak’s acorns are remarkably free from the bitterness due to tannin and are therefore pleasant to the taste. Herbivorous animals eat them when they are to be had, and the eagerness with which cattle gather them in the fall is doubtless the reason for calling the tree cow oak. Hogs and sheep are as eager hunters for the acorns as cattle are, and the half-wild swine in the southern forests become marketable during the two months of the acorn season. Children know the excellency of the cow oak acorns, and gather them in large quantities during the early weeks of autumn in the South. The tree is widely known as basket oak, and the name refers to a prevailing use for the wood in early times, and a rather common use yet. Long before anyone had made a study of the structure of this wood, it was learned that it splits nicely into long, slender bands, and these were employed by basket weavers for all sorts of wares in that line. Tens of thousands of baskets were in use before the war in the southern cottonfields, and they have not gone out of use there yet. It is safe to say that millions of dollars worth of cotton has been picked and “toted” in baskets made of this oak. It was natural, therefore, that the name basket oak should be given it. Large, coarse baskets are still made of splits of this wood, and china and other merchandise are packed in them; while baskets of finer pattern and workmanship are doing service about the farms and homes of thousands of people.

When the structure of wood became a subject of study among dendrologists, the secret of the cow oak’s adaptability to basket making was discovered. The annual rings of growth are broad, and the bands of springwood and summerwood are distinct. The springwood is so perforated with large pores that it contains comparatively little real wood substance. The early basket maker did not notice that but he found by experimenting that the wood split along the rings of growth into fine ribbons. The splitting occurs along the springwood. Ribbons may be pulled off as thin as the rings of annual growth, that is, from an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch thick. These are the “splits” of which baskets are made. When subjected to rough usage, such as being dragged and hauled about cornfields and cotton plantations, such a basket will outlast two or three of willow.

The tree is sometimes called swamp white oak, and swamp chestnut oak. It bears some resemblance to the swamp white oak (Quercus platanoides) and some people believe that both are of one species, but of slightly different forms. It is not surprising that there should be a conflict of names and confusion in identification. The leaf resembles that of the chestnut oak, and to that fact is due the belief which some hold that the chief difference between the trees is that the chestnut oak (Quercus prinus) grows on dry land and cow oak in damp situations. Botanists make a clear distinction between cow oak and all other species, though it closely resembles some of them in several particulars.

From the northern limits of its growth in Delaware, where it is not of any considerable size, it extends south through the Atlantic states and into Florida, west in the Gulf states to the Trinity river in Texas, and up the Mississippi valley, including in its range Arkansas, eastern Missouri, southern Indiana and Illinois and western Kentucky and Tennessee. It is distinctly of the South and may be considered the best southern representative of the white oak group. It does best in swampy localities where it is found in company with water hickory, sweet magnolia, planer tree, water oak, willow oak, red maple, and red and black gum.

In general appearance the tree gives the impression of massiveness and strength, offset by the delicate, silvery effect of the bark and the lining of the foliage. The usual height is sixty or eighty feet, but it often exceeds a hundred feet, the bole attaining a diameter of as high as seven feet and showing three log lengths clear. The characteristic light gray, scaly, white oak bark covers trunk and heavy limbs, which rise at narrow angles, forming a rounded head and dividing into stout branches and twigs. The winter buds are not characteristic of white oak, being long and pointed rather than rounded. They are about a half inch in length, scaly, with red hairs and usually in threes on the ends of the twigs. The general texture of the leaves is thick and heavy, their upper surfaces being dark, lustrous green and the lower white and covered with hairs. They are from five to seven inches long with petioles an inch in length and of the general outline of the chestnut leaf. Their rich crimson color is conspicuous in the fall after turning.

The wood of cow oak is hard, heavy, very tough, strong, and durable. The heartwood is light brown, the sapwood darker colored. It weighs 50.10 pounds per cubic foot, and is not quite up to white oak in strength and elasticity. In quarter-sawing it does not equal white oak, because the medullary rays, though broad, are not regularly distributed, and the surface of the quarter-sawed board has a splotchy appearance, and it is not as easy to match figures as with white oak.

Cow oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the South. Its uses are much the same as those for white oak farther north. The custom of calling it white oak when it goes to market renders the collection of statistics of uses difficult. Sawmills seldom or never list cow oak in making reports of cut. Factories which further manufacture lumber, after it leaves the mill, sometimes distinguish between cow oak and other oaks. It has been found suitable material in the South for canthook handles where it takes the place of hickory which is more expensive. It is reported for that use in considerable quantity in Louisiana. The handles are subjected to great strain and violent shocks. The billets are split to the proper size, because if they are sawed they are liable to contain cross grain which is a fatal defect. The wood is cut in dimensions for chair stock and furniture, the better grades usually going to furniture factories. Defective logs, short lengths, and odds and ends may be worked into chair stock which contains a large proportion of small pieces. The making of large plantation baskets of this wood is still a fairly large business in Louisiana and Mississippi. Braided bottoms of cheap chairs are of the same workmanship as baskets.

Vehicle makers in the South are large users of this wood. It is employed in heavy wagons chiefly, and is worked into many parts, including axles, bolsters, felloes, hubs, hounds, tongues, reaches, spokes, and bedbottoms.

This tree is classed as white oak by coopers who accept it as stave material. The amount used is much less than of the true white oak, but the exact quantity taken yearly by barrel makers is not known because statistics do not list the different white oaks separately. Cow oak rives well when a trunk is found clear of knots. The trees are usually smaller and less perfect than true white oak in the North.

Railroads accept crossties of this species and they give as long service as white oak, are as hard, and hold spikes as well. The wood is accepted by car shops for use in repairs and in new work. Trunks are split or sawed into fence posts and are used in probably larger numbers than any other southern oak.

This tree’s future seems fairly well assured. It will further decline in available supply, because it is cut faster than it is growing. That is the status of all the timber oaks of this country. This one has advantage over some of the others in that it occupies wet land which will not soon be in demand for agricultural purposes, and young growth will be left to develop.

ENGELMANN OAK (Quercus engelmanni) occupies a restricted range in southwestern California where it is generally spoken of as a desert tree; but its rate of growth appears to be much more rapid than is usual with trees in arid situations. It occupies a narrow belt in San Diego county and its range extends into Lower California. It forms about one-third of the stand in Palomar mountains, and is much scarcer in the Cuyamaca mountains. The tree seldom attains a height greater than forty or fifty feet, or a diameter more than twenty or thirty inches. The largest trees are of small value for lumber and in rare instances only, if at all, do they go to sawmills. The trunks fork and each branch forks, until a fairly large bole near the ground is divided among numerous limbs. The tree’s chief value is as fuel. It rates high as such. The leaves are bluish-green and are thick with sharp points on their margins. The leaves vary greatly in size, and are largest on young shoots. They remain a year on the tree, and are classed as evergreen. The acorns ripen in one year. This interesting species was named for Dr. George Engelmann, whose name is borne also by Engelmann spruce. The wood is among the heaviest of the oaks, exceeding white oak by more than twelve pounds per cubic foot. It is brittle and weak, and very dark brown. The green wood checks and warps badly in seasoning. The medullary rays are numerous and large, but are so irregularly dispersed that quarter-sawing promises no satisfactory results, even if logs of suitable size could be found. The annual rings are indistinct, owing to no clear line of separation between springwood and summerwood. Pores are numerous, diffuse, and some of them large. The species is entitled to recognition only because it is found in a region where forests are scarce and scrubby, and every trunk has value as fuel, if for nothing else. It affords a cover for hills which otherwise would be barren, and it frequently occurs in fairly dense thickets.

PACIFIC POST OAK

PACIFIC POST OAK

(Quercus Garryana)

David Douglas named this tree the Garry oak, in honor of Nicholas Garry of the Hudson Bay Company, who furnished valuable assistance to botanists and other explorers of early times in the northwestern parts of America. This tree is best developed in the neighborhood of Puget Sound, the present state of Washington, and at the period of explorations in that region by Douglas, who was a Scotchman, the country was a sort of “no man’s land.” It was claimed by both England and the United States, and Russia had cast covetous eyes on it as a southern extension of her Alaska holdings. England at that time put a good deal of dependence in the Hudson Bay Company to get possession of and to hold as much country as possible, and Garry’s help given to explorers was part of a well-laid plan to possess as much of the northwestern country as possible. Douglas doubtless had that in mind when he named the oak in honor of Garry. It was a witness and perpetual reminder that the Hudson Bay Company’s strong arms had been stretched in that direction.

The people in California and Oregon often speak of the tree simply as white oak, but it is sometimes called Oregon white oak, and more often Oregon oak without a qualifying word. When it is spoken of as western white oak, which frequently is the case, it is compared with the well-known eastern white oak. It bears more resemblance to the eastern post oak (Quercus minor) and for that reason it has been named Pacific post oak. The leaves and twigs, particularly when they are young, resemble post oak.

The northern limit of the tree’s range crosses southern British Columbia. It is found in the lower valley of Frazer river and on Vancouver island. It is the only oak tree of British Columbia. Its range extends southward to the Santa Cruz mountains in California, but near the southern limit of its range it is found chiefly in valleys near the coast. It is best developed in western Washington and Oregon. It occurs of good size on dry gravelly slopes of low hills; and it ascends the Cascade mountains to considerable elevations, but becomes stunted and shrubby. It is abundant in northwestern California.

The tree has a height from sixty to a hundred feet; sometimes it attains a diameter of three and one-half feet. It carries a broad and compact crown, especially when the tree is surrounded by young coniferous growth as is the case in its best habitat where natural pruning gets rid of the lower limbs and causes an outward and later a pendulous growth of the upper part. The limbs are strong and heavy as are the branches and twigs. The bark is a grayish-brown with shallow fissures, the broad ridges being sometimes broken across forming square plates which are covered with the grayish flakes or scales. The buds are long and acute, and are coated with a red fuzz. The leaves are from four to six inches long and are bilaterally developed, having seven or nine coarse round lobes; the sinuses being rounded or rather shallow. The color is a dark lustrous green and the texture leathery.

The acorn is rather large being about an inch and a quarter in length and usually about half as broad as long; has a shallow cup covered with pointed sometimes elongated scales.

This oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the far Northwest. It is often compared with the eastern white oak, but its physical properties fall below that species in some important particulars. The two woods weigh about the same, but the eastern species is stronger and more elastic, and is of better color and figure. All oaks season somewhat slowly, but the Pacific post oak is hardly up to the average. It is a common saying that it must remain two years on the sticks to fit it for the shop, but that time may be shortened in many instances. Checking must be carefully guarded against.

Some of this oak is exceedingly tough, and when carefully sorted and prepared it is excellent material for heavy wagons; but the best comes from young and comparatively small trees. When they attain large size they are apt to become brash. The tree usually grows rapidly, and is not old in proportion to the size of its trunk. An examination of the wood shows broad bands of summerwood and narrow, very porous springwood. The medullary rays are broad and numerous, and ought to show well in quarter-sawed stock; but it does not appear that much quarter-sawing has been done.

Practically all of this species cut in the United States is credited to Oregon in the census of sawmill output in 1910. The cut was 2,887,000 feet, and was produced by fourteen sawmills, while in Washington only one mill reported any oak, and the quantity was only 4,000 feet. On the northwest Pacific coast it comes in competition with eastern oak and also with Siberian or Japanese oak.

Basket makers put this wood to considerable use. Young trees are selected on account of their toughness. The wood is either split in long, thin ribbons for basket weaving, or it is first made into veneer and then cut in ribbons of required width. The largest users are furniture makers, but boat yards find it convenient material and it takes the place of imported oak for frames, keels, ribs, sills, and interior finish. It is durable, and it may be depended upon for long service in any part of boat construction. Its toughness fits it for ax, hammer, and other handles. It is far inferior to hickory, but on the Pacific coast it can be had much cheaper. Its strength and durability make it one of the best western woods for insulator pins for telephone and telegraph lines. It is worked into saddle trees and stirrups.

The scarcity of woods on the Pacific coast suitable for tight cooperage gives this oak a rather important place, because barrels and casks made of it hold alcoholic liquors. Available statistics do not show the quantity of staves produced from this wood, but it is known to be used for staves in Oregon.

Much Pacific post oak is employed as rough lumber for various purposes. Railroads buy crossties, hewed or sawed from small trunks, and country bridges are occasionally floored with thick planks which wear well and offer great resistance to decay.

The quantity of this oak growing in the Northwest is not known. It falls far below some of the softwoods of the same region, and the area on which it is found in commercial amounts is not large. It is holding its ground fairly well. Trees bear full crops of acorns frequently, and if they fall on damp humus they germinate and grow. The seedlings imitate the eastern white oak, and send tap roots deep into the ground, and are then prepared for fortune or adversity. It happens, however, that trees which bear the most bountiful crops of acorns do not stand in forests where the ground is damp and humus abundant, but on more open ground on grass covered slopes. Acorns which fall on sod seldom germinate, and consequently few seedlings are to be seen in such situations. Open-grown trees are poorly suited for lumber, on account of many limbs low on the trunks, but they grow large amounts of cordwood.

CALIFORNIA SCRUB OAK (Quercus dumosa) has been a puzzle to botanists, and a hopeless enigma to laymen. Some would split the species into no fewer than three species and three varieties, basing distinctions on forms of leaves and acorns and other botanical differences; but Sudworth, after a prolonged study of this matter, recognized only one species and one variety, but admitted that “California scrub oak unquestionably varies more than all other oaks in the form and size of its leaves and acorns.” He thought it might possibly be equalled in that respect by Quercus undulata of the Rocky Mountains. Some of the leaves of California scrub oak are three-fourths of an inch long and half an inch wide, while others may be four inches long. The edges of some leaves are as briery as the leaves of holly, others are comparatively smooth. The shapes and sizes of acorns vary as much as the leaves. Some are long and slender, others short and stocky. This peculiar oak is found only in California, but it shows a disposition to advance as far as possible into the sea, for it has gained a foothold on islands lying off the California coast, and it there finds its most acceptable habitat. It reaches its largest size in sheltered canyons on the islands, and attains a height of twenty or twenty-five feet, and a diameter of a foot or less. It is not large enough to win favor with lumbermen but in its scrubby form it is abundant in many localities. It is scattered over several thousand square miles, from nearly sea level up to 7,000 feet in the mountains of southern California. It is found scattered through the coast range and the Sierra Nevadas from Mendocino county to Lower California, 700 miles or more. It grows from sprouts and from acorns. The leaves adhere to the twigs thirteen months, and fall after the new crop has appeared. The wood is light brown, hard, and brittle. No use is made of it, except to a small extent for fuel. On the mountains it grows in thickets scarcely five feet high, but they cover the ground in dense jungles, and the roots go deep in the ground. The species is valuable chiefly for protection to steep slopes which would otherwise be without much growth of any kind. Being low on the ground, forest fires are particularly destructive to this oak; but its ability to send up sprouts repairs the damage to some extent.