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.
[Illustration]
CYPRESS
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration]
BALSAM FIR
[Illustration: BALSAM FIR]
BALSAM FIR
(_Abies Balsamea_)
Balsam fir is the usual name applied to this tree in New England, New
York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ontario. The
shorter name balsam suffices in some parts of that region, and
particularly in New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Because it is
common north of the international boundary, the name Canada balsam has
been given it in some regions. In Delaware it is known as balm of
Gilead, but that name belongs to a tree of the cottonwood group,
(_Populus balsamifera_) which is a broadleaf species. In New York and
Pennsylvania a word of distinction is added, and it is called balm of
Gilead fir. Toward the southern limit of its range it is spoken of as
fir pine and blister pine. New York Indians knew the tree as blisters.
They referred to the pockets under the bark of young trees and near the
tops of mature trunks, in which resin collected. The name balsam refers
to that characteristic also, as does the word balm. In some parts of
Canada the tree is known as silver pine, and as silver spruce. The
secretion of resin in bark blisters is a characteristic of several firs.
The list of names and the locality of their use indicate fairly well the
geographical range of balsam fir. Its northern limit forms a line across
eastern Canada from Labrador to Hudson bay. From Hudson bay its northern
boundary trends northwestward and reaches the vicinity of Great Bear
lake. In the United States it grows westward to Minnesota and southward
to Pennsylvania. It is cut for lumber in eleven states.
In a range so large and including situations so various, it is natural
that the tree should vary greatly in size. In the Lake States the common
height is fifty or sixty feet, and the diameter is twelve or fifteen
inches. Young balsam firs grow vigorously when the ground is suitable
and their tops receive sufficient light. In lumbered regions in the Lake
States, this fir gets a foothold in the shade of a dense growth of paper
birch and other quickly-growing species; and in a few years the pointed,
intensely green spires of the balsams may be seen piercing the canopy of
other young tree tops, and shooting above into the light. This is
accomplished after a struggle of some years in the shade; but the firs
ultimately win their way upward, and in a few years they shade to death
most of their broadleaf associates. If they are in competition with
northern white cedar or tamarack, they are not always successful in
winning first place.
The leaves of balsam fir are from one-half to one and one-fourth inches
long. They are green and lustrous above and silver white below, the
whiteness due to stomata on their undersides. On young twigs the leaves
bristle out on all sides and are very numerous and crowded together, but
on older branches the leaves are more scattered, due to the dropping of
some of them. It is their habit to adhere to the stems about eight
years.
The leaves of balsam fir possess a pleasing and characteristic odor
which is turned to account in a practical way. The small needles are
stripped from the branches in large quantities, cleaned, dried, and are
used for stuffing sofa pillows, cushions, and other kinds of upholstery.
The odor persists a long time. Much of the collecting of the needles is
done in summer as a pastime by summer campers in the northern woods. The
needles are sufficiently tough to stand much wear in pillows, and they
are still odorous when long use has ground them to powder.
The cones of balsam fir follow the fashion of all species of fir, and
stand erect on the branches. Seeds are one-fourth inch in length and are
winged. The wood is of approximately the same weight as white pine, but
it falls considerably below white pine in strength and stiffness. It is
of moderately rapid growth when conditions are favorable, and the annual
ring has a fair proportion of summerwood. The yearly rings are quite
distinct. The medullary rays are numerous, and for a softwood they are
prominent. When a log is quarter-sawed, and the surfaces of the boards
are planed, the wood presents a silvery appearance, but it is too
monotonous to be very attractive. The heartwood is pale brown, streaked
with yellow, the thick sapwood much lighter in color. It is perishable
in contact with the soil.
Pulp manufacturers are the largest users of balsam fir. About three per
cent of all the pulpwood cut in the United States in 1910 was from this
species. Its use is on the increase, or appears to be; but recent
statistics relating to this wood cannot be safely compared with returns
for former years, because the custom of mixing fir with spruce and other
pulpwoods formerly prevailed in New England, and it was then not
possible to determine exactly how much fir reached the market. At the
present time fir goes under its own name, and the output exceeds 132,000
cords, which is equivalent to 105,000,000 feet, board measure, yearly.
Eleven states contribute to the balsam fir lumber cut, but most is
supplied by Maine, Minnesota, Vermont, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The
total for 1910 was 74,580,000 feet. Much of it is employed in rough form
for fences and buildings, while other is further manufactured by planing
mills and factories. Car builders employ it in several ways. It serves
as doors, siding, lining, and roofing for freight cars. It is not a
durable wood when exposed to weather. The largest reported use of the
wood in New England is by box makers. Massachusetts alone works nearly
15,000,000 feet a year into crates and shipping boxes. Its uses in the
Lake States are more varied. The makers of berry, fruit, and vegetable
baskets draw supplies from the wood. Some of the product is of thin
split slats, and other of veneer or sawed material.
The light weight and white color of balsam fir make it acceptable to the
manufacturers of excelsior. The product is employed in packing
merchandise for shipment, and to a small extent in upholstery. The wood
fills a rather important place in the woodenware industry, where its
white color and light weight constitute its most important
recommendations. It is sawed into staves for pails and tubs.
Though balsam fir has little figure and its appearance is rather common,
it finds its way to planing mills and woodworking shops where it is made
into ceiling, newel posts, molding, railing, spindles, chair-boards, and
other interior finish.
The most widely known commercial product manufactured from this tree is
Canada balsam. Strictly speaking, it is not a manufactured article
except what is done in nature’s laboratory, and the product is the resin
stored under bark blisters. The resin is transparent, and is employed by
microscopists in mounting objects for examination. Little machinery or
apparatus is used in removing the viscid fluid from the pockets in the
bark. With a knife the thin, soft blister is slit and the resin is
scraped out. All kinds of claims of medicinal virtue are made for balsam
resin in the region where the tree grows; but the treatment in most
cases effects cures--if any cures are really effected--by appeals to
faith and the imagination.
Balsam fir owes a large part of its importance to its abundance. It is
not exactly a swamp tree, but it does best in damp situations where the
ground is moist and cool in summer. Only in periods of protracted
drought does the ground litter become sufficiently dry to burn fiercely,
and to that fact is due much of the promise of future supply of balsam
fir. That which grows on the dry uplands may fall prey to forest fires,
but that in the damp flats, associated with northern white cedar and
tamarack, will hold its ground and continue to supply demand.
Balsam fir has an importance which can not be wholly measured in feet,
pounds, cords, or dollars. Many of the choicest Christmas trees which in
December go by tens of thousands to the cities, are of this tree. Its
form is almost perfect, being conical, broad near the bottom, and
running to a sharp apex. The deep green of the needles, which retain
their color from two weeks to a month after the trunk is severed, gives
balsam Christmas trees much of their popularity. The trees are cut from
Maine to Michigan, and many are shipped across the international
boundary from Canada. The custom of cutting Christmas trees is often
condemned as a waste of resources. It has been argued that the
destruction in one month of 1,000,000 young trees is equivalent to the
destruction of 500,000,000 feet of lumber, because, if allowed to reach
maturity, they would yield that much lumber. That argument does not take
into consideration the fact that not one of the young trees in ten would
reach maturity if left to the course of nature.