pin oak, yellow oak, scrub oak, dwarf chestnut oak, shrub oak, and rock
oak. It should not be confused with _Quercus prinus_, the true chestnut
oak, although it is commonly known in so many sections of the country by
the latter name; the names yellow oak, pin oak, and scrub oak are
likewise applied to many species, so that the only way to accurately
designate members of this great family is to employ their botanical
names. However, this species should always be known as the chinquapin
oak, which is a distinctive term, and not applied to any other.
The bark of this tree is light gray and is broken into thin flakes,
silvery-white, sometimes slightly tinted with brown, rarely half an inch
thick. The branchlets are marked with pale lenticels.
The leaves of the chinquapin oak are from five to seven inches long,
simple and alternate; they have a taper-pointed apex and blunt,
wedge-shaped or pointed base; are sharply toothed. When unfolding they
show bright bronze-green above, tinged with purple, and are covered
underneath with light silvery down; at maturity they become thick and
firm, showing greenish-yellow on the upper surface and silvery-white
below. The midrib is conspicuous and the veins extending outward to the
points of the teeth are well-defined. In autumn the leaves turn orange
and scarlet and are very showy. The leaves are narrow, hardly two inches
wide, and more nearly resemble those of the chestnut than do any other
oak leaves. In their broadest forms they are also similar to those of
the true chestnut oak, although the difference in the quality and color
of the bark, and of the leaves, would prevent either tree from being
mistaken for the other. They are crowded at the ends of the branches and
hang in such a manner as to show their under surfaces with every touch
of breeze. This characteristic gives the chinquapin oak a peculiar
effect of constantly shifting color which is one of its most attractive
features and which puts the observer in mind of the trembling aspen,
although the shading and coloring of the oak is much more striking.
This tree’s range extends from northern New York, along Lake Champlain
and the Hudson river westward through southern Ontario, and southward
into parts of Nebraska and Kansas; on its eastern boundary it extends as
far south as the District of Columbia and along the upper Potomac; the
growth west of the Alleghany mountains reaches into central Alabama and
Mississippi, through Arkansas and the northern portion of Louisiana to
the eastern part of Oklahoma and parts of Texas even to the canyons of
the Guadalupe mountains, in the extreme western part of that state. It
is a timber tree of much importance in Texas, and in 1910 manufacturers
reported the use of 1,152,000 feet in that state, largely for making
furniture and vegetable crates.
The chinquapin oak is named from the form of its leaf. Its acorn bears
no resemblance to the nut of chinquapin. Trees average smaller in size
than white oak, but when all circumstances are favorable they compare
well with any of the other oaks. In the lower Wabash valley, trees of
this species were found in the original forests 160 feet high and four
or five in diameter. When it grows in crowded stands it develops a tall,
symmetrical trunk, clear of limbs; but it is shorter in open growth. The
base is often much buttressed.
The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, stiff, and durable. In color the
heartwood is dark, the sapwood lighter. The springwood is narrow and
filled with large pores, the summerwood broad and dense. Medullary rays
are less numerous and scarcely as broad as in chestnut oak, which this
wood resembles. It checks badly in drying, both by kiln and in the open
air; but when properly seasoned it is an excellent wood for most
purposes for which white oak is used. It shows fewer figures when
quarter-sawed than white oak shows, but it is satisfactory for many
kinds of furniture, particularly when finished in mission style.
Railroads throughout the region where this species is found have laid
chinquapin oak ties in their tracks for many years and they give long
service, because they resist decay and are hard enough to stand the wear
of the rails. In early times in the Ohio valley it helped to fence many
a farm when the material for such fences was the old style fence rail,
eleven feet long, mauled from the straightest, clearest timber afforded
by the primeval forest. It had for companions many other oaks which were
abundant there, and it was on a par with the best of them. In the first
years of steamboating on the Ohio river, when the engines used wood for
fuel, they provided a market for many an old rail fence. The rails were
the best obtainable fuel, and the chinquapin oak rails in the heaps were
carefully looked for by the purchasers, because they were rated high in
fuel value. It is now known that chinquapin oak in combustion develops
considerably more heat than an equal quantity of white oak.
When southern Indiana and Illinois were furnishing coopers with their
best staves, chinquapin oak was ricked with white oak, and no barrel
maker ever complained. The pores in the wood seem large, but in old
timber which is largely heartwood, the pores become clogged by the
processes of nature, and the wood is made proof against leakage. That is
what gives white oak its superiority as stave timber. It has as many
pores as red oak, but upon close examination under a magnifying glass,
they are found to be plugged, while red oak’s pores are wide open. The
result is that red oak barrels leak through the wood; those made of
white oak do not. Chinquapin oak possesses the same properties, which
account for its reputation as stave material.
The future for chinquapin oak is not quite as promising as that of
chestnut oak. The former’s choice growing place is on rich soil and in
damp situations. These happen to be what the farmer wants, and he will
not leave the chinquapin oak alone to grow in nature’s method, nor will
he plant its acorns in places where the trees will interfere with his
cornfields and meadows. Consequently, the tree is apt to receive scant
consideration after the original forests have disappeared; while its
poor cousin, the chestnut oak, will be left to make its way on sterile
ridges, and may even receive some help from the forester and woodlot
owner.
VALLEY OAK (_Quercus lobata_) is often considered to be the largest
hardwood of the Pacific coast. Trunk diameters of ten feet have been
recorded, and heights more than 100; but such measurements belong
only to rare and extraordinary individuals. The average size of the
tree is less than half of that. The most famous tree of this species
is the Sir Joseph Hooker oak, near Chico, California, though it is
not the largest. It is seven feet in diameter and 100 high. It was
named by the botanist Asa Gray in 1877. This species is commonly
called California white oak, which name would be unobjectionable if
it were the only white oak in California. A more distinctive name is
weeping oak, which refers to the appearance of the outer branches.
It is called swamp oak, but without good reason, though the ground
on which it grows is often swampy during the rainy season. The name
valley oak is specially appropriate, since its favorite habitat is
in the broad valleys of central California. Its range does not go
outside that state, neither does the tree grow very high on the
mountains. Its range begins in the upper Sacramento valley and
extends to Tejon, south of Lake Tulare, a distance north and south
of about five hundred miles, while east and west the tree is found
from the Sierra foothills to the sea, 150 or 200 miles. Its
characteristic growth is in scattered stands. It does not form
forests in the ordinary sense. Two or three large trees to the acre
are an average, and often many acres are wholly missed. The form of
trees, and the wide spaces between them, resemble an old apple
orchard, though few apple trees live to attain the dimensions of the
valley oak of ordinary size. The best stands were originally in the
Santa Clara valley and in the central part of the San Joaquin valley
in the salt grass region north of Lake Tulare in Kings and Fresno
counties. Most of the largest trees were cut long ago.
The leaves are lobed like white oak (_Quercus alba_) but are
smaller, seldom more than four inches long and two wide. The acorns
are uncommonly long, some of them being two and a half inches, sharp
pointed, with shallow cups. The wood of this oak is brash and breaks
easily. It is far below good eastern oak in strength and elasticity.
It weighs 46.17 pounds per cubic foot. The tree grows rapidly, and
its wide, clearly defined annual rings are largely dense summerwood.
The springwood is perforated with large pores. The color of the wood
is light brown, the sapwood lighter. Except as fuel, the uses found
for valley oak hardly come up to what might be expected of a tree so
large. It is not difficult, or at least was not difficult once, to
cut logs sixteen feet long and from three to five in diameter. Such
logs ought to make good lumber. The medullary rays indicate that the
wood can be quarter-sawed to advantage; yet there is no account that
any serious attempt was ever made to convert the valley oak into
lumber. The wood has some objectionable properties, but it has
escaped the sawmill chiefly because hardwood mills have never been
numerous in California, and they have been especially few in the
regions where the best valley oaks grow. The tree has been a great
source of fuel. It usually divides twenty or thirty feet from the
ground into large, wide-spreading branches, tempting to the
woodchopper. In central California, twenty or thirty years ago, it
was not unusual to haul this cordwood twenty-five miles to market.
Stockmen employed posts and rails split from valley oak to enclose
corrals and pens on the open plains for holding cattle, sheep, and
horses. The acorns are edible, and were formerly an article of food
for Indians who gathered them in considerable quantities in the fall
and stored them for winter in large baskets which were secured high
in the forks of trees to be out of reach of all ordinary marauders.
The baskets were made rain proof by roofing and wrapping them with
grass. When the time came for eating the acorns, they were prepared
for use by hulling them and then pounding them into meal in stone
mortars. The hulling was done with the teeth, and was the work of
squaws. The custom of eating the acorns has largely ceased with the
passing of the wild Indians from their former camping places; but
the stone mortars by hundreds remain in the vicinity of former
stands of valley oak.
This splendid tree is highly ornamental, but it has not been
planted, and perhaps it will not become popular. Nature seems to
have confined it to a certain climate, and it is not known that it
will thrive outside of it. It will certainly disappear from many of
the valleys where the largest trees once grew. The land is being
taken for fields and vineyards, and the oaks are removed. Some will
remain in canyons and rough places where the land is not wanted, and
one of the finest species of the United States will cease to pass
entirely from earth. The largest of these oaks have a spread of
branches covering more than one-third of an acre.
[Illustration]
LIVE OAK
[Illustration: LIVE OAK]
LIVE OAK
(_Quercus Virginiana_)
The history of this live oak is a reversal of the history of almost
every other important forest tree of the United States. It seems to be
the lone exception to the rule that the use of a certain wood never
decreases until forced by scarcity. There was a time when hardly any
wood in this country was in greater demand than this, and now there is
hardly one in less demand. The decline has not been the result of
scarcity, for there has never been a time when plenty was not in sight.
A few years ago, several fine live oaks were cut in making street
changes in New Orleans, and a number of sound logs, over three feet in
diameter, were rolled aside, and it was publicly announced that anyone
who would take them away could have them. No one took them. It is
doubtful if that could happen with timber of any other kind.
The situation was different 120 years ago. At that time live oak was in
such demand that the government, soon after the adoption of the
constitution, became anxious lest enough could not be had to meet the
requirements of the navy department. The keels of the first war vessels
built by this government were about to be laid, and the most necessary
material for their construction was live oak. The vessels were to be of
wood, of course; and their strength and reliability depended upon the
size and quality of the heavy braces used in the lower framework. These
braces were called knees and were crooked at right angles. They were
hewed in solid pieces, and the largest weighed nearly 1,000 pounds. No
other wood was as suitable as live oak, which is very strong, and it
grows knees in the form desired. The crooks produced by the junction of
large roots with the base of the trunk were selected, and shipbuilders
with saws, broadaxes, and adzes cut them in the desired sizes and
shapes.
When the building of the first ships of the navy was undertaken, the
alarm was sounded that live oak was scarce, and that speculators were
buying it to sell to European governments. Congress appropriated large
sums of money and bought islands and other lands along the south
Atlantic and Gulf coast, where the best live oak grew. In Louisiana
alone the government bought 37,000 live oak trees, as well as large
numbers in Florida and Georgia. In some instances the land on which the
trees stood was bought.
Ship carpenters were sent from New England to hew knees for the first
vessels of the navy. The story of the troubles and triumphs of the
contractors and knee cutters is an interesting one, but too long for
even a summary here; suffice it that in due time the vessels were
finished. The history of those vessels is almost a history of the early
United States navy. Among their first duties when they put to sea was to
fight French warships, when this country was about to get into trouble
with Napoleon. They then fought the pirates of North Africa, and there
one of the ships was burned by its own men to prevent its falling into
the hands of the enemy. “Old Ironsides,” another of the live oak
vessels, fought fourteen ships, one at a time, during the war of 1812,
and whipped them all. Another of the vessels was less fortunate. It was
lost in battle, in which its commander, Lawrence, was killed, whose last
words have become historic: “Don’t give up the ship.” Another came down
to the Civil war and was sunk in Chesapeake bay.
The invention of iron vessels ended the demand for live oak knees. The
government held its land where this timber grew for a long time, but
finally disposed of most of it. Part of that owned in Florida was
recently incorporated in one of the National Forests of that state.
Live oak is a tree of striking appearance. It prefers the open, and when
of large size its spread of branches often is twice the height of the
tree. Its trunk is short, but massy, and of enormous strength; otherwise
it could not sustain the great weight of its heavy branches. Some of the
largest limbs are nearly two feet in diameter where they leave the
trunk, and are fifty feet long, and some are seventy-five feet in
length. Probably the only tree in this country with a wider spread of
branches is the valley oak of California. The live oak’s trunk is too
short for more than one sawlog, and that of moderate length. The largest
specimens may be seventy feet high and six or seven feet in diameter,
and yet not good for a sixteen-foot log. The enormous roots are of no
use now. When land is cleared of this oak, the stumps are left to rot.
The range of live oak extends 4,000 miles or more northeast and
southwest. It begins on the coast of Virginia and ends in Central
America. It is found in Lower California and in Cuba. In southern United
States it sticks pretty closely to the coastal plains, though large
trees grow 200 or 300 feet above tide level. In Texas it is inclined to
rise higher on the mountains, but live oak in Texas seldom measures up
to that which grows further east. In southern Texas, where the land is
poor and dry, live oak degenerates into a shrub. Trees only a foot high
sometimes bear acorns. In all its range in this country, it is known by
but one English name, given it because it is evergreen. The leaves
remain on the tree about thirteen months, following the habit of a
number of other oaks. When new leaves appear, the old ones get out of
the way.
The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, and tough. In strength and
stiffness it rates higher than white oak, and it is twelve pounds a
cubic foot heavier. The sapwood is light in color, the heartwood brown,
sometimes quite dark. The pores in the sapwood are open, but many of
them are closed in heartwood. The annual rings are moderately well
defined. The large pores are in the springwood, and those of the
summerwood are smaller, but numerous. The medullary rays are numerous
and dark. Measured radially, they are shorter than those of many other
oaks. They show well in quarter-sawed lumber, but are arranged
peculiarly, and do not form large groups of figures; but the wood
presents a rather flecked or wavy appearance. The general tone is dark
brown and very rich. It takes a smooth polish. When the wood is worked
into spindles and small articles, and brightly polished, its appearance
suggests dark polished granite, but the similitude is not sustained
under close examination. Grills composed of small spindles and
scrollwork are strikingly beautiful if displayed in light which does the
wood justice. Composite panels are manufactured by joining narrow strips
edge to edge. Selected pieces of dressed live oak suggest Circassian
walnut, but would not pass as an imitation on close inspection. It may
be stated generally that live oak is far from being a dead, flat wood,
but is capable of being worked for various effects. Its value as a
cabinet material has not been appreciated in the past, nor have its
possibilities been suspected. It dropped out of notice when shipbuilders
dispensed with it, and people seem to have taken for granted that it had
no value for anything else. The form of the trunks makes possible the
cutting of short stock only; but there is abundance of it. It fringes a
thousand miles of coast. Many a trunk, short though it is, will cut
easily a thousand feet of lumber. Working the large roots in veneer has
not been undertaken, but good judges of veneers, who know what the
stumps and roots contain, have expressed the opinion that a field is
there awaiting development.
Published reports of the uses of woods of various states seldom mention
live oak. In Texas some of it is employed in the manufacture of parquet
flooring. It is dark and contrasts with the blocks or strips of maple or
some other light wood. It is turned in the lathe for newel posts for
stairs, and contributes to other parts of stair work. In Louisiana it is
occasionally found in shops where vehicles are made. It meets
requirements as axles for heavy wagons. Stone masons’ mauls are made of
live oak knots. They stand nearly as much pounding as lignum-vitæ. More
live oak is cut for fuel than for all other purposes. It develops much
heat, but a large quantity of ashes remains.
The live oak is the most highly valued ornamental tree of the South,
though it has seldom been planted. Nature placed these oaks where they
are growing. Many an old southern homestead sits well back in groves of
live oak. Parks and plazas in towns have them, and would not part with
them on any terms. Tallahassee, Florida, is almost buried under live
oaks which in earlier years sheltered the wigwams of an Indian town.
Villages near the coasts of both the Gulf and the Atlantic in several
southern states have their venerable trees large enough for half the
people to find shade beneath the branches at one time. Many fine stands
have been cut in recent years to make room for corn, cane, and rice.
Many persons associate the live oak with Spanish moss which festoons its
branches in the Gulf region. The moss is no part of the tree, and
apparently draws no substance from it, though it may smother the leaves
by accumulation, or break the branches by its weight. Strictly speaking,
the beard-like growth is not moss at all, but a sort of pine apple
(_Dendropogon usenoides_) which simply hangs on the limbs and draws its
sustenance from water and air. It is found on other trees, besides live
oak, and dealers in Louisiana alone sell half a million dollars worth of
it a year to upholsterers in all the principal countries of the world.
[Illustration]
RED OAK
[Illustration: RED OAK]
RED OAK[4]
(_Quercus Rubra_)
[4] Red oak belongs to the black oak group. Other species usually
listed as black oaks are Pin oak (_Quercus palustris_), Georgia oak
(_Quercus georgiana_), Texan red oak (_Quercus texana_), Scarlet oak
(_Quercus coccinea_), Yellow oak (_Quercus velutina_), California
black oak (_Quercus californica_), Turkey oak (_Quercus catesbæi_),
Spanish oak (_Quercus digitata_), Black Jack oak (_Quercus
marilandica_), Water oak (_Quercus nigra_), Willow oak (_Quercus
phellos_), Laurel oak (_Quercus laurifolia_), Blue Jack oak
(_Quercus brevifolia_), Shingle oak (_Quercus imbricaria_),
Whiteleaf oak (_Quercus hypoleuca_), Highland oak (_Quercus
wislizeni_), Myrtle oak (_Quercus myrtifolia_), California live oak
(_Quercus agrifolia_--sometimes classed with white oaks), Canyon
live oak (_Quercus chrysolepis_), an evergreen oak with no English
name, (_Quercus tomentella_), Price oak (_Quercus pricei_), Morehus
oak (_Quercus morehus_), Tanbark oak (_Quercus densiflora_), Barren
oak (_Quercus pumila_).
When a lumberman speaks of red oak he may mean any one of a good many
kinds of trees, but when a botanist or forester uses that name he means
one particular species and no other. For that reason there is much
uncertainty as to what species is in the lumberman’s mind when he speaks
of red oak. It means more to him than a single species, depending to a
considerable extent upon the part of the country where he is doing
business. If he is in the Gulf states, and has in mind a tree which
grows there, he does not refer to the tree known to botanists as red
oak. He may mean the Texan or southern red oak (_Quercus texana_), or
the willow oak (_Quercus phellos_), or the yellow oak (_Quercus
velutina_), or any one of several others which grow in that region; but
the typical red oak does not grow farther south than the mountains of
northern Georgia; and any one who is cutting oak south or southwest of
there, is cutting other than the true red oak. That does not imply that
he is handling something inferior, for very fine oak grows there; but in
an effort to separate the commercial black oaks into respective species,
it is necessary to define them by metes and bounds of ranges as well as
to describe them by characteristics of leaves, acorns, and wood. The
time will probably never come in this country when the sawmill man will
pile each species of oak separately in his yard, and sell separately;
but the tendency is in that direction. The twenty-five or more black
oaks in this country all have some characteristics in common; but they
are by no means all valuable alike, or all useful for the same purposes.
For that reason, the demands of trade require, and will require more and
more as higher utilization is reached, that certain kinds of red oak or
black oak be sold separately.