separated into groups, one group referring to the foliage, another to
the situations in which the tree grows, and a third to certain
characters or uses of the wood. Names descriptive of the leaves are
longschat pine, longshucks pine, shortleaf pine, foxtail pine, and
longstraw pine. The names which refer to locality or situation are
loblolly pine, old-field pine, slash pine, black slash pine, Virginia
pine, meadow pine and swamp pine. Names which refer to the character of
the wood or of the standing tree are torch pine, rosemary pine,
frankincense pine, cornstalk pine, spruce pine, and yellow pine. Not one
of these names is applied to the tree in its entire range, and it has
several names other than those listed. Sap pine is widely applied to the
lumber, because the tree’s sapwood is very thick, sometimes amounting to
eighty per cent of a trunk. It has borne the name old-field pine for a
hundred and fifty years in Virginia, and the name suggests a good deal
of history. Some of the improvident early Virginia tobacco growers
neglected to fertilize their fields, and the land wore out under
constant cropping, and was abandoned. The pine quickly took possession,
for the fields which were too far exhausted to produce tobacco or corn
were amply able to grow dense stands of loblolly pine, and the farmers
noticing this, called it old-field pine. It has been taking possession
of abandoned fields in Virginia and North Carolina ever since, and the
name still applies. The tree grows from New Jersey to Florida, west to
Texas, north to Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia, but it does not
cover the whole territory thus outlined. It is very scarce near its
northern limit. There is evidence that the range of loblolly has
extended in historic times, not into new or distant regions, but outside
the borders which once marked its range. Since white men in Texas
stopped the Indians’ grass fires, the pine has encroached upon the
prairie. Early writers in Virginia and North Carolina spoke of pine as
scarce or totally wanting, except on the immediate coast. It is now
found from one hundred to two hundred miles inland, and many sawmills
now cut logs which have grown in fields abandoned since the
Revolutionary war. This has occurred on the Atlantic coast rather than
west of the Appalachian ranges of mountains. Virginia has more sawmills
than any other state, and many of them are working on loblolly pine
which has grown in the last hundred years.
The tree bears seeds abundantly and scatters them widely. It is
vigorous, grows with great rapidity, and is able to fight its way if it
finds conditions in any way favorable. Turpentine operators have not
found the working of loblolly pine profitable, and this has relieved it
of a drain which has done much to deplete the southern forests of
longleaf pine.
Loblolly’s leaves are from six to nine inches long, and fall the third
year. This species, in common with other southern yellow pines, is
disposed to grow tall, clear trunks, with a meager supply of limbs and
foliage at the top. The lumber sawed from trunks of that kind is clear
of knots. No other important forest tree of the United States comes as
nearly being a cultivated tree as the loblolly pine. This is
particularly true in the northeastern part of its range, in North
Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Though nature has done the actual
planting, men provided the seed beds by giving up old fields to that
use; and many of the stands are as thick and even as if they had been
planted and cared for by regular forestry methods. Trees are from eighty
to one hundred feet tall, and from two to four in diameter, some very
old ones being a little larger.
The annual rings of loblolly pine are broad, with good contrast between
the spring and summer growth. The wood is light, not strong, brittle,
not durable, very resinous, the resin passages are few and not
conspicuous; medullary rays are numerous and obscure; color, light
brown, the thick sapwood orange or nearly white. When this tree is of
slow growth it is lighter, less resinous, and has thinner sapwood. It is
sometimes known as rosemary pine.
The use of loblolly pine lumber was greatly stimulated when the custom
of drying it in kilns became general. It is largely sapwood and dries
slowly in air. Its market is found in all eastern and central parts of
the United States, and it is exported to Europe and Central and South
America. It is a substantial material for many common purposes and its
use is very large on the Atlantic coast. In quantity it exceeds any
other species in the wood-using industries of Maryland, and all others
combined in North Carolina. It is not as often employed in heavy
structural timbers as longleaf pine, but in the market of which
Baltimore is the center, much use is made of it for that purpose. It is
ten pounds a cubic foot lighter than longleaf, has about three-fourths
of the strength, and nearly four-fifths of longleaf’s elasticity. It is
thus seen to be considerably inferior to it as a structural timber where
heavy loads must be sustained; but builders use it for many purposes in
preference to or on an equality with longleaf. It is fine for interior
finish and doors. Railroads employ large quantities in building freight
cars, much for crossties, and bridge builders find many places for it.
It is not a long lasting wood when exposed to weather, unless it has
been treated with creosote to preserve it from decay. It is one of the
most easily treated woods.
In North Carolina and Virginia loblolly tobacco hogsheads are common;
and box factories within easy reach of it use much. A list of its uses,
compiled from reports of factory operations in Maryland, will give an
idea of the range it covers: Basket bottoms, beer bottle boxes, boats,
cart bodies, crates, flooring, frames for doors and windows, fruit
boxes, interior finish, nail kegs, oyster boxes, seats for boats, siding
for houses, staves for slack cooperage, store fixtures, wagon beds,
balusters, brackets, chiffoniers, mantels, molding, picture frames,
stair railing, sash, scrollwork, sideboards, tables.
The amount of loblolly pine timber in this country is not known. No
other important species comes so near growing as much as is cut from
year to year. It covers 200,000 square miles with stands ranging from
little or nothing in some parts to 20,000 feet per acre in others, or
more in exceptional cases. The area of fully stocked loblolly pine is
believed to be as large now as it ever was. Before the Civil war it was
predicted that its period of greatest production was over; but large
tracts are now being logged on which the pine seeds had not been sown in
1860.
POND PINE (_Pinus serotina_). Sargent’s table of weights of woods shows
this to be the heaviest pine of the United States; but, as his
calculations were made from a single sample which grew in Duval county,
Florida, further data should be secured before his figures, 49.5 pounds
per cubic foot, are accepted as an average weight for the species. It is
rated in strength about equal to longleaf and Cuban pine. Its structure
shows a large percentage of dense summerwood in the yearly ring. The
leaves are in clusters of three, rarely four, and are six or eight
inches long, and fall in their third and fourth years. The name suggests
that the cones are tightly closed, and that they adhere tenaciously to
the twigs on which they grow. This is found true. The principal
impression made on a person who sees the pond pine for the first time is
that it is overloaded with cones, and that it must be a prolific seeder.
Better acquaintance modifies the latter part of that impression. It is
overloaded with cones, but most of them are many years old, and have
long been seedless, although most of the trees have the seed crops of
two years on the branches at one time. Enough seed is shed to perpetuate
the species, but too little to insure an aggressive spread into
surrounding vacant ground. The pond pine may reach a diameter of three
feet and a height of eighty, but that is twice the average size. The
wood is very resinous, and is brittle.
SCRUB PINE (_Pinus virginiana_). This tree is often called Jersey
pine because it is a prominent feature of the landscapes in the
southern part of that state where it has spread extensively since
the settlement of the country. Its short needles have been
responsible for several of its names, among them being shortshuck
pine in Maryland and Virginia, shortshat pine in Delaware,
shortleaved pine in North Carolina, and spruce pine and cedar pine
in some parts of the South. In Tennessee it is known as nigger pine,
and in some parts of North Carolina as river pine. The range is
fairly well outlined by the above discussion of its names. It grows
from New York to South Carolina, and west of the mountains it is
found in northern Alabama and middle Tennessee, in Kentucky and West
Virginia. It reaches its largest size in southern Indiana where it
is sometimes 100 feet high and three in diameter. It is there a
valuable tree for many purposes, but is not abundant. Its average
size is small in the eastern states, usually not over fifty feet
high, and often little more than half of that. Few trunks east of
the Allegheny mountains are more than eighteen inches in diameter.
The name scrub pine is an index to the opinions held by most people
regarding this tree. It is often considered an encumbrance rather
than an asset; yet statistics of wood-using industries hardly
justify that view. Millions of feet of it are employed annually in
each of the states of New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North
Carolina, for boxes, slack cooperage, and common lumber. The wood is
moderately strong, but is not stiff. It is medium light, soft,
brittle, with summerwood narrow and very resinous. Its color is
light orange or yellow, the thick sapwood ivory white. The needles
are from one and a half to three inches long, and fall in the third
and fourth years. Cones are two or three inches long, and scatter
their seeds in autumn. The wings are too small to carry the seeds
far, yet the tree succeeds in quickly spreading into surrounding
vacant spaces. Cones adhere to the branches three or four years. Tar
makers and charcoal burners utilized scrub pine in New Jersey,
northeastern Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvania a century and a
half ago. The tree seems to be as abundant now as it ever was.
Unless it occupies very poor land--which it generally does--the
growth is liable to be suppressed and crowded to death by broadleaf
trees before the stands become very old. As a species, it is weak in
self-defense, and it owes its survival to its habit of retreating to
poor soils where enemies cannot follow. It may be said of it as the
Roman historian Tacitus said of certain men: “The cowards fly the
farthest, and are the longest survivors.”
[Illustration]
NORWAY PINE
[Illustration: NORWAY PINE]
NORWAY PINE
(_Pinus Resinosa_)
Early explorers who were not botanists mistook this tree for Norway
spruce, and gave it the name which has since remained in nearly all
parts of its range. It is called red pine also, and this name is
strictly descriptive. The brown or red color of the bark is instantly
noticed by one who sees the tree for the first time. In the Lake States
it has been called hard pine for the purpose of distinguishing it from
the softer white pine with which it is associated. In England they call
it Canadian red pine, because the principal supply in England is
imported from the Canadian provinces.
Its chief range lies in the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence river,
which includes the Great Lakes and the rivers which flow into them.
Newfoundland forms the eastern and Manitoba the western outposts of this
species. It is found as far south as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
northern Ohio, central Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It conforms
pretty generally to the range of white pine but does not accompany that
species southward along the Appalachian mountain ranges across West
Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Where it was left to
compete in nature’s way with white pine, the contest was friendly, but
white pine got the best of it. The two species grew in intermixture, but
in most instances white pine had from five to twenty trees to Norway’s
one. As a survivor under adversity, however, the Norway pine appears to
surpass its great friendly rival, at least in the Lake States where the
great pineries once flourished and have largely passed away. Solitary or
small clumps of Norway pines are occasionally found where not a white
pine, large or small, is in sight.
The forest appearance of Norway pine resembles the southern yellow
pines. The stand is open, the trunks are clean and tall, the branches
are at the top. The Norway’s leaves are in clusters of two, and are five
or six inches long. They fall during the fourth or fifth year. Cones are
two inches long, and when mature, closely resemble the color of the
tree’s bark, that is, light chestnut brown. Exceptionally tall Norway
pines may reach a height of 150 feet, but the average is seventy or
eighty, with diameters of from two to four. Young trees are limby, but
early in life the lower branches die and fall, leaving few protruding
stubs or knots. It appears to be a characteristic that trunks are seldom
quite straight. They do not have the plumb appearance of forest grown
white pine and spruce.
The wood of Norway pine is medium light, its strength and stiffness
about twenty-five per cent greater than white pine, and it is moderately
soft. The annual rings are rather wide, indicating rapid growth. The
bands of summerwood are narrow compared with the springwood, which gives
a generally light color to the wood, though not as light as the wood of
white pine. The resin passages are small and fairly numerous. The
sapwood is thick, and the wood is not durable in contact with the soil.
Norway pine has always had a place of its own in the lumber trade, but
large quantities have been marketed as white pine. If such had not been
the case, Norway pine would have been much oftener heard of during the
years when the Lake State pineries were sending their billions of feet
of lumber to the markets of the world.
Because of the deposit of resinous materials in the wood, Norway pine
stumps resist decay much better than white pine. In some of the early
cuttings in Michigan, where only stumps remain to show how large the
trees were and how thick they stood, the Norway stumps are much better
preserved than the white pine. Using that fact as a basis of estimate,
it may be shown that in many places the Norway pine constituted
one-fifth or one-fourth of the original stand. The lumbermen cut clean,
and statistics of that period do not show that the two pines were
generally marketed separately. In recent years many of the Norway stumps
have been pulled, and have been sold to wood-distillation plants where
the rosin and turpentine are extracted.
At an early date Norway pine from Canada and northern New York was
popular ship timber in this country and England. Slender, straight
trunks were selected as masts, or were sawed for decking planks thirty
or forty feet long. Shipbuilders insisted that planks be all heartwood,
because when sapwood was exposed to rain and sun, it changed to a green
color, due to the presence of fungus. The wood wears well as ship
decking. The British navy was still using some Norway pine masts as late
as 1875.
The scarcity of this timber has retired it from some of the places which
it once filled, and the southern yellow pines have been substituted. It
is still employed for many important purposes, the chief of which is car
building, if statistics for the state of Illinois are a criterion for
the whole country. In 1909 in that state 24,794,000 feet of it were used
for all purposes, and 14,783,000 feet in car construction.
For many years Chicago has been the center of the Norway pine trade. It
is landed there by lake steamers and by rail, and is distributed to
ultimate consumers. The uses for the wood, as reported by Illinois
manufacturers, follow: Baskets, boxes, boats, brackets, casing and
frames for doors and windows, crating, derricks for well-boring
machines, doors, elevators, fixtures for stores and offices, foot or
running boards for tank cars, foundry flasks, freight cars, hand rails,
insulation for refrigerator cars, ladders, picture moldings, roofing,
sash, siding for cattle cars, sign boards and advertising signs, tanks,
and windmill towers.
As with white pine, Norway pine has passed the period of greatest
production, though much still goes to market every year and will long
continue to do so. The land which lumbermen denuded in the Lake States,
particularly Michigan and Wisconsin, years ago, did not reclothe itself
with Norway seedlings. That would have taken place in most instances but
for fires which ran periodically through the slashings until all
seedlings were destroyed. In many places there are now few seedlings and
few large trees to bear seeds, and consequently the pine forest in such
places is a thing of the past. The outlook is better in other
localities.
The Norway pine is much planted for ornament, and is rated one of the
handsomest of northern park trees.
PITCH PINE (_Pinus rigida_). The name pitch pine is locally applied
to almost every species of hard, resinous pine in this country. The
_Pinus rigida_ has other names than pitch pine. In Delaware it is
called longleaved pine, since its needles are longer than the scrub
pine’s with which it is associated. For the same reason it is known
in some localities as longschat pine. In Massachusetts it is called
hard pine, in Pennsylvania yellow pine, in North Carolina and
eastern Tennessee black pine, and black Norway pine in New York. The
botanical name is translated “rigid pine,” but the rigid refers to
the leaves, not the wood. Its range covers New England, New York,
Pennsylvania, southern Canada, eastern Ohio, and southward along the
mountains to northern Georgia. It has three leaves in a cluster,
from three to five inches long, and they fall the second year. Cones
range in length from one to three inches, and they hang on the
branches ten or twelve years. The wood is medium light, moderately
strong, but low in stiffness. It is soft and brittle. The annual
rings are wide, the summerwood broad, distinct, and very resinous.
Medullary rays are few but prominent; color, light brown or red, the
thick sapwood yellow or often nearly white. The difference in the
hardness between springwood and summerwood renders it difficult to
work, and causes uneven wear when used as flooring. It is fairly
durable in contact with the soil.
The tree attains a height of from forty to eighty feet and a
diameter of three. This pine is not found in extensive forests, but
in scattered patches, nearly always on poor soil where other trees
will not crowd it. Light and air are necessary to its existence. If
it receives these, it will fight successfully against adversities
which would be fatal to many other species. In resistance to forest
fires, it is a salamander among trees. That is primarily due to its
thick bark, but it is favored also by the situations in which it is
generally found--open woods, and on soil so poor that ground litter
is thin. It is a useful wood for many purposes, and wherever it is
found in sufficient quantity, it goes to market, but under its own
name only in restricted localities. Its resinous knots were once
used in place of candles in frontier homes. Tar made locally from
its rich wood was the pioneer wagoner’s axle grease, and the
ever-present tar bucket and tar paddle swung from the rear axle.
Torches made by tying splinters in bundles answered for lanterns in
night travel. It was the best pine for floors in some localities.
It is probably used more for boxes than for anything else at
present. In 1909 Massachusetts box makers bought 600,000 feet, and a
little more went to Maryland box factories. Its poor holding power
on spikes limits its employment as railroad ties and in
shipbuilding. Carpenters and furniture makers object to the numerous
knots. Country blacksmiths who repair and make wagons as a side
line, find it suitable for wagon beds. It is much used as fuel where
it is convenient.
TORREY PINE (_Pinus torreyana_), called del mar pine and Soledad
pine, is an interesting tree from the fact that its range is so
restricted that the actual number of trees could be easily known to
one who would take the trouble to count them. A rather large
quantity formerly occupied a small area in San Diego county,
California, but woodchoppers who did not appreciate the fact that
they were exterminating a species of pine from the face of the
earth, cut nearly all of the trees for fuel. Its range covered only
a few square miles, and fortunately part of that was included in the
city limits of San Diego. An ordinance was passed prohibiting the
cutting of a Torrey pine under heavy penalty, and the tree was thus
saved. A hundred and fifty miles off the San Diego coast a few
Torrey pines grow on the islands of Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, and
owing to their isolated situation they bid fair to escape the
cordwood cutter for years to come. Those who have seen this tree on
its native hills have admired the gameness of its battle for
existence against the elements. Standing in the full sweep of the
ocean winds, its strong, short branches scarcely move, and all the
agitation is in the thick tufts of needles which cling to the ends
of the branches. Trees exposed to the seawinds are stunted, and are
generally less than a foot in diameter and thirty feet high; but
those which are so fortunate as to occupy sheltered valleys are
three or four times that size. The needles are five in a cluster.
The cones persist on the branches three or four years. The wood is
light, soft, moderately strong, very brittle; the rings of yearly
growth are broad, and the yellow bands of summerwood occupy nearly
half. The sapwood is very thick and is nearly white.
[Illustration]
WESTERN YELLOW PINE
[Illustration: WESTERN YELLOW PINE]
WESTERN YELLOW PINE
(_Pinus Ponderosa_)
The range of western yellow pine covers a million square miles. Its
eastern boundary is a line drawn from South Dakota to western Texas. The
species covers much of the country between that line and the Pacific
ocean. It is natural that it should have more names than one in a region
so extensive. It is best known as western yellow pine, but lumbermen
often call it California white pine. The standing timber is frequently
designated bull pine, but that name is not often given to the lumber.
Where there is no likelihood of confusing it with southern pines, it is
called simply yellow pine. The name heavy-wooded pine, sometimes applied
to the lumber in England, is misleading. When well seasoned it weighs
about thirty pounds per cubic foot, and ordinarily it would not be
classed heavy. In California it is called heavy pine, but that is to
distinguish it from sugar pine which is considerably lighter. The color
of its bark has given it the name Sierra brownbark pine. The same tree
in Montana is called black pine.
The tree has developed two forms. Some botanists have held there are two
species, but that is not the general opinion. In the warm, damp climate
of the Pacific slope the tree is larger, and somewhat different in
appearance from the form in the Rocky Mountain region. The same
observation holds true of Douglas fir.
The wood of western yellow pine is medium light, not strong, is low in
elasticity, medullary rays prominent but not numerous; resinous, color
light to reddish, the thick sapwood almost white. The annual rings are
variable in width, and the proportionate amounts of springwood and
summerwood also vary. It is not durable in contact with the ground.
The wood is easy to work and some of the best of it resembles white
pine, but as a whole it is inferior to that wood, though it is
extensively employed as a substitute for it in the manufacture of doors,
sash, and frames. It is darker than white pine, harder, heavier,
stronger, almost exactly equal in stiffness, but the annual rings of the
two woods do not bear close resemblance.
The tree reaches a height of from 100 to 200 feet, a diameter from three
to seven. It is occasionally much larger. Its size depends much on its
habitat. The best development occurs on the Sierra Nevada mountains in
California and the best wood comes from that region, though certain
other localities produce high-grade lumber.