Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North
Carolina, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan,
Nebraska, Iowa, and Ontario; red oak is the name in North Carolina,
Alabama, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Minnesota; black oak in Nebraska,
Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and Spanish oak in North Carolina.
The name is descriptive of the autumn leaves. Artists dispute among
themselves whether the leaves are scarlet, red, or crimson. In their
opinion a good deal of difference exists between these colors, rendering
it quite incorrect to give one color the name of another. As for the
artists, they are probably correct in their analysis of colors, but the
general public knows the tree as scarlet oak, and it will doubtless be
called by that name by most people who speak of the tree in the woods,
while those who refer to the wood after it is sawed will speak of it as
red oak.
The leaves of scarlet oak are rather persistent, and remain on the twigs
late in the season. The brilliancy of this tree is rendered doubly
conspicuous, when it is contrasted with the surrounding sombre, winter
colors.
In appearance the tree is striking for its delicacy of foliage and
twigs. The crown is always narrow and open, and in forest growth is
compressed. The height, in good specimens, is about one hundred feet,
but it often exceeds that size. In diameter it grows as large as four
feet. The mature bark is dark in color and broken into broad, smooth
ridges and plates, edged with red. It shows a reddish inner bark when
cut and this may be relied upon to identify the tree. The leaves are
four or five inches long; deeply sinused, three or four on a side; long,
bristle-toothed lobes, broad at the base; acorns bitter, mature in two
years; sessile, brown; cup closely drawn in at the edge.
Its range comprises the northeastern quarter of the United States.
Beginning in southern Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, it grows through
middle New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa to eastern Nebraska.
Southward it extends along the coast through Virginia and inland along
the mountains to South Carolina and Georgia. The growth is abundant over
most of the range, the favorite habitat being dry, gravelly uplands. It
seems to be most abundant along the northern part of the Atlantic coast
from Massachusetts to New Jersey, and is less common in the interior,
and on the prairies skirting the western margins of the eastern forests.
The average size of the tree is from seventy to eighty feet high and two
or three in diameter. In many regions it is much smaller, while no very
large trees have been reported.
The wood is heavy, strong, hard; the layers of annual growth are
strongly marked by several rows of large, open ducts; the summerwood is
dense and occupies half the yearly ring; the medullary rays are much
like those of red oak, though scarcely as broad. They run in straight
lines radially, and show well in quarter-sawing. The color of the wood
is light brown or red, the thin sapwood rather darker.
This wood is practically of the same weight as white oak; but it is
rated considerably stronger and stiffer. A number of writers have listed
scarlet oak low in fuel value. Theoretically, the fuel values of woods
are proportionate to their weights, except that resinous woods must be
compared with resinous, and non-resinous with non-resinous. In practice,
however, every fireman who feeds a furnace with wood knows that
different woods develop different degrees of heat, though they may weigh
the same. Results are modified by various circumstances and conditions,
and for that reason theory and practice are often far apart in
determining how much heat a given quantity of wood is good for.
It is difficult to procure exact information regarding the uses of
scarlet oak. It never goes to market under its own name. An examination
of wood-using reports from a dozen states within scarlet oak’s range
does not reveal a single mention of this wood for any purpose. It is
certain, nevertheless, that much goes to market and that it has many
important uses. It loses its identity and is bought and sold as red oak.
Under the name of that wood it is manufactured into furniture, finish,
agricultural implements, cars, boats, wagons and other vehicles, and
many other articles. One of the most important markets for scarlet oak
is in chair factories. Its grain is attractive enough to give it place
as outside material, and its strength fits it for frames and other parts
which must bear strain. Chair stock mills which clean up woodlots and
patches of forest where scarlet oak grows in mixture with other species
of oak, take all that comes, without being particular as to the exact
kind of oak. Slack coopers follow much the same course. A wood strong
enough to meet requirements, is generally acceptable. Scarlet oak is
usually considered unsuitable for tight cooperage, on account of the
large open pores of the wood, which permit leakage of liquids. It meets
considerable demand in the manufacture of boxes and crates, particularly
the latter.
The size and quality of logs which a tree may furnish to a sawmill is no
measure of its full value. Scarlet oak is far better known as an
ornamental tree than for its wood. It has been planted in this country
and in Europe. Its brilliant foliage is greatly admired. No other oak
equals it, and it compares favorably with sugar maple, black gum, and
dogwood. It is an ornament to parks and private grounds, though the
brilliancy of its foliage is seldom exhibited to as good advantage in
cultivation as in the native forest where contrasts are more numerous,
and nature does its work unhindered by man. The scarlet oak is not a
rapid grower, and the form of the tree is not perfectly symmetrical. The
spring leaves are red, the summer foliage bright, rich green, the autumn
scarlet--a variety not equalled by many forest trees.
WILLOW OAK (_Quercus phellos_) is named for its leaves which look like
those of willow. There is a group of such oaks with leaves similar, and
they are known collectively as willow oaks. The one here described may
be considered typical of the group.
This oak is apt to present rather a surprising appearance to those who
have seen nothing but those oaks whose leaves are lobed or cleft. It
belongs to the red oaks. Like others of this division it has a tendency
to hybridize, several varieties being known. Willow oak is a denizen of
the southern Atlantic and southeastern states and favors rich, moist
soil, either on uplands or on bottoms, along the margins of streams or
swamps. It does not go inland as far as the foothills of the ranges and
is found most abundantly in the basin of the lower Mississippi.
Beginning in New York, the range extends southward into Florida, along
the Gulf states, touching Texas, up through Arkansas, touching Missouri
and Kentucky, down through western Tennessee and southern Georgia
rounding the southern end of the Appalachians.
Young trees have a slender delicate pendant appearance of twigs and
foliage more typical of the willow than of oak; but in time they become
more rugged, although the branching and foliage are always more delicate
than is usual with oaks. The tree attains a height of eighty feet and a
diameter up to four feet, but usually is about half of this. It is
clothed in a smooth, brown bark, ridged only in older trees. The leaves
are about five inches long and narrow in proportion, are of shiny,
leathery texture, dark above and pale below. The acorns are on short
stalks, solitary or in pairs, and ripen in two years, are short and
rounded and in shallow cups.
The weight of willow oak is approximately the same as white oak. It is
slightly stronger but less elastic. Its annual rings contain broad bands
of small open ducts parallel to the thin, dark, medullary rays. The wood
is reddish-brown in color, the thick sapwood darker brown. The fuel
value is rated the same as white oak, but the wood contains more ash.
Willow oak is much used in the South, but usually under the name red
oak. Lumbermen seldom speak of it as willow oak. The species is as
highly developed in Louisiana as anywhere else, and the uses found for
the wood in that state will probably be found for it wherever the tree
grows in commercial quantities. A report on the manufacture of wooden
commodities in Louisiana, published in 1912, listed the following uses
for willow oak: Agricultural implements, balustrades, bar tops,
bedsteads, bottoms for wagon beds, bridge approaches and floors, chairs,
church pews, cot frames, doors, floors, frames, interior finish,
molding, newel posts, pulpits, railing, screens, slack cooperage,
stairwork, store fixtures, wagon axles, and other vehicle parts.
These uses coincide nearly with those of red oak, and indicate the
important position occupied by willow oak in the country’s industries.
Those who handle the wood complain that its seasoning qualities are
poor, and that care is necessary to bring satisfactory results. It works
nicely and stands well after the seasoning is accomplished.
Willow oak grows rapidly. It is doubtful if any oak in this country
surpasses it. It wants damp, rich soil and a warm climate, to do its
best. Some of the bottom lands in the lower Mississippi valley have
produced splendid stands of willow oak, the trunks being tall and clear
of limbs, and the wood sound.
The willow oak is much planted for ornamental purposes in the southern
states. It manages to keep alive when planted as far north as
Massachusetts, but the grace of its form is not fully developed much
north of the Potomac river. It is a common street tree in the South, and
its airy foliage forms a pleasing contrast with the heavy, dark-green of
the magnolia.
[Illustration]
TURKEY OAK
[Illustration: TURKEY OAK]
TURKEY OAK
(_Quercus Catesbæi_)
The claim that this tree is called turkey oak because turkeys feed on
the acorns, is not well founded. In common with nearly all members of
the black oak group, to which this species belongs, the acorns of turkey
oak are bitter, and unless animals are pressed by hunger they do not eat
them. It is evident that the shape of the leaves gives this tree its
name. They bear considerable resemblance to the foot of a turkey. There
is at least enough similitude to suggest the name, and it is not
inappropriate. Many people now use the term without thinking of its
origin, and if asked their opinion say that fondness of turkeys for the
acorns led to the name.
The tree has other names in different regions. In North Carolina, South
Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida it is known as scrub oak. The name
fits it well in certain places, for when it grows on poor soil and in
adversity, it degenerates into a low, straggling thicket, frequently not
trees at all, but shrubs. It is called black jack in South Carolina but
the name belongs to another species (_Quercus marilandica_). In the same
state it is known as barren scrub oak, because it is very small and is
found on poor lands popularly known as barrens. Some call it forked-leaf
black jack, but the name is usually shorter, and forked-leaf, or
forked-leaf oak, is a name well understood among lumbermen, and the
people generally over much of the tree’s range. Some of the leaves show
clearly-defined three forks, the middle one longer than the others; but
in other leaves, often from the same tree, the forks are not so
regularly outlined. This tree, like many other oaks, exhibits
considerable variation in the forms of leaves.
There is nothing peculiar in the form and appearance of the acorns. They
average about one inch long and three-quarters of an inch wide, and sit
in shallow cups. They mature the second year. The bark of old trees is
black near the ground, rather rough, and an inch or more thick.
It is difficult to name an average size for turkey oak. The largest
trunks are three or four feet in diameter and eighty feet high, but the
trees cut for sawlogs are only fifty or sixty feet high and two in
diameter, in most of the regions. As previously stated, much of the
stand is stunted and some of it is only brush. All sizes are found, from
large, first rate trunks down to shrubs. Large trees which grow in
forests, prune themselves well and their trunks compare favorably with
red oaks.
The tree’s range has its northeastern limit in North Carolina, and
extends to Peace Creek, Florida. It is found westward to Louisiana where
fair-sized timber grows, but in small quantities. It is usually
considered that its best development is in South Carolina and Georgia,
but good trees are likely to be found in any part of its range. It is
distinctly a tree of the South. It was named by Michaux, the well-known
French botanist who visited the southern states early in the nineteenth
century, and he named it in honor of Mark Catesby who explored the
region much earlier and wrote concerning its trees and other natural
history.
Turkey oak is one of the little-known trees of the South, as far as
lumbermen are concerned. They know it well enough in the woods, but not
at sawmills. When cut into logs it ceases to be turkey oak and becomes
red oak, and under that name it goes to the lumber yard, and later to
market. Users of red oak lumber do not object to the occasional piece of
turkey oak mixed with it--if they ever find it out, which few of them
do. Nevertheless, the consensus of opinion among sawmill men is that
turkey oak ought to rate below red oak.
Tests of the wood to determine its character and qualities do not
justify so low an estimate of turkey oak. Sargent found it stronger and
more elastic than white oak, while a little lighter in weight. It is
nearly equal to white oak in fuel value. It is hard, compact, and the
rings of annual growth are marked by several rows of large, open ducts.
The medullary rays are broad and conspicuous. The color is light brown,
tinged with red, the sapwood somewhat lighter.
A special investigation of the uses of turkey oak in one of the southern
states brought out the fact that it meets requirements well and fills a
place in several wood-using industries in that region. Vehicle makers
find it satisfactory in a number of places. It is made into bottoms of
wagon beds, felloes, bolsters, axles, hubs, hounds, tongues, spokes,
standards, sandboards, and reaches. These constitute nearly all parts of
heavy vehicles. The wood is made into telegraph brackets, but apparently
not in large quantities. Car builders employ it for frames and floors.
It is made into ordinary matched flooring and goes in with other oaks.
It is used as a general furniture wood, both as outside material, and
inside frames. It may be quarter-sawed to advantage. It is employed also
as interior finish, which demands lumber of practically the same grades
as go into furniture. Mantels of this wood compare favorably with those
of red oak. Chair makers cut stock from turkey oak. It is not abundant
anywhere, otherwise it would be of much importance.
The forests of the United States contain so many valuable oaks that a
scarce and geographically restricted species like turkey oak cannot be
expected to attract much attention in the future. Nevertheless, it is a
strong, interesting tree. It takes advantage of every opportunity to
develop. When an acorn germinates in good soil, and receives sufficient
light and moisture, it produces a merchantable tree; but in poor soil
and under unfavorable circumstances it becomes a stunted bush only.
Woodlots of turkey oak planted in fertile land would probably do as well
as most of the southern red oaks under like conditions. The tree is not
apt to get justice, because of the prejudice against it.
CALIFORNIA BLACK OAK (_Quercus californica_) ranges from central Oregon
southward through the coast region of California nearly to the Mexican
boundary. It occurs also on the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas in
California. It is not found on the plains or near the sea, but occurs on
mountain slopes, low summits, elevated valleys, and in canyons. In the
North, it ranges from 1,500 to 3,000 feet and in the South it ascends to
9,000 feet. This far western oak bears more resemblance to the yellow
oak (_Quercus velutina_) of the East than to any other. Trees have been
reported 100 feet high and four in diameter, but they are scarce.
Seventy-five feet high and two or three feet in diameter are usual
dimensions of mature timber. The trees are inclined to be angular in the
outlines of their crowns. The leaves fall in autumn, but the acorns
persist two years. They sit deep in their rough cups. The trunk is
habitually crooked. It leans out of plumb, and lacks the nicely balanced
poise which adds to the attractiveness of some oaks. The large boles are
usually hollow, dead at the tops, or otherwise defective. That condition
is apparently due to old age. Trees stand long after they pass maturity
and start on their decline. They die by inches, and not infrequently
they decay and crumble by piecemeal both at the bottom and at the top.
At best the trunk of this oak is of poor form for saw timber. It divides
into large limbs ten or twenty feet from the ground. It is of slow
growth, and it reaches old age--possibly as much as 350 years in extreme
cases. The wood is very porous, but the pores are not in rows. The
medullary rays are thin and distinct. It is not known that any
quarter-sawing has been attempted, and it would hardly be profitable.
The wood is pale red, exceedingly brittle, firm, light for oak, and it
has a distinct odor of tannin with which both the wood and the bark are
heavily charged. The principal uses to which this oak is put in
California and Oregon are as fuel and ranch timbers, the latter being of
the simplest and roughest sort. Its fuel value is high, compared with
other woods of the region. Some use was made of the bark for tanning
purposes years ago on the Pacific slope, but it does not appear to go to
market now.
BLUE JACK OAK (_Quercus brevifolia_) bears several names, upland
willow oak, to distinguish it from other willow oaks which grow in
swamps, sand jack, referring to the land on which it grows,
high-ground willow oak, turkey oak, shin oak and cinnamon oak. No
reason is known for the last name which is not used outside of
Florida. The tree grows in a narrow strip along the coast from North
Carolina to Texas, crossing northern Florida. The blue jack oak
sometimes attains a height of fifty feet and a diameter of twenty
inches; but that is its best. It is usually fifteen or twenty feet
high and a few inches in diameter. The leaves are from two to five
inches long and quite narrow, closely resembling those of willow.
The acorns are abundant, but small. The tree is of so little value
that it does not interest the lumberman. It occupies waste land, and
may produce a little fuel without crowding more valuable trees, but
is in every way inferior to the black jack oak (_Quercus
marilandica_), which overlaps its range a little, but is a northern
species. The wood of blue jack oak is hard, strong, light brown in
color, with darker-colored sapwood.
[Illustration]
SPANISH OAK
[Illustration: SPANISH OAK]
SPANISH OAK
(_Quercus Digitata_)
One of the first difficulties in an attempt to clear up the
misunderstandings regarding Spanish oak is to confine the name to the
species to which it belongs. That is no easy task, because the name has
been applied to numerous oaks in various parts of the country, and
without any apparent reason. Some of these bear little resemblance to
Spanish oak and grow almost wholly outside its range. It is not a case
of mistaking one for the other, for there is no mistake. Some speak of
the common red oak as Spanish oak, others bestow that name on yellow
oak, others on black jack oak, or scarlet oak, or any one of several
others. It appears, however, that the name is not applied to any member
of the white oak group.
It is said that Spanish oak and Norway pine were named by the same
process. Each got its name because it was supposed to be similar to a
species in the old country--the pine like an evergreen of north Europe,
and the oak like a broadleaf tree of Spain. It was learned later that
both the American species were different from those of Europe which they
resembled.
The peculiar drooping foliage of Spanish oak gives the tree a character
which impresses a person who sees the full-leafed crown for the first
time. The leaves are six or seven inches long and four or five wide.
Their forms vary within wide limits, and their shapes change from week
to week while growing. Some have no lobes or sinuses, others have them
in rudimentary form only, while in still others they are well developed.
The tree is often called red oak, particularly by lumbermen who cut it
and send it to market with red oak. In Louisiana it is known as Spanish
water oak, there being much resemblance between it and water oak
(_Quercus nigra_) with which it is associated. Its range covers more
than 200,000 square miles, beginning at the north in New Jersey and
following down the coast regions to central Florida. It extends westward
into Texas to the valley of the Brazos river; northward to Missouri and
southern Indiana and Illinois. It does not grow far inland from the
coast in the north Atlantic states, but further south it is common on
the coast plain between the sea and the base of the mountains. It is
often found on dry sand hills in that region. The largest Spanish oaks
on record grew in the lower Ohio valley, particularly along the Wabash
river. It is usually of medium size and large trunks are seldom seen.
The average height is seventy or eighty feet, diameter two or three. In
the open, the crown is broad and low, but in forests the trunk prunes
itself fairly well, and makes good saw timber, as far as form and size
are concerned. The acorns ripen in two years, and are bitter. The bark
is rich in tannin, but tanneries do not use much of it.
The tree is not generally abundant. Some large areas within its range
have little, and thick stands are unusual anywhere. It is one of the
oaks which lumbermen neither reject nor seek. They cut it in course of
operations, and saw it and sell it under the common name, red oak.
The wood is heavy, very hard, and strong. It is reputed to decay more
rapidly than most oaks, and it checks badly in seasoning. The annual
rings of growth are broad, and the springwood is marked by several rows
of large open pores. The medullary rays are few but conspicuous; color
light red, the sapwood lighter. The wood weighs about three pounds less
than white oak per cubic foot, and its fuel value is less.
It is not easy to compile an account of the uses of Spanish oak by the
various industries of this country, for the reason that other oaks pass
by its name and it is known by names which should not be applied to it.
It is shown, however, where special studies of its utilization have been
made that it is a useful wood for many purposes. It is a useful
furniture material, and though statistics do not give separate figures
for it, evidently the total quantity consumed yearly runs into many
millions of feet. It is much employed in the manufacture of tables,
chiefly for frames, but occasionally as the outside material. It may be
quarter-sawed, if good logs are selected. The chair factories in North
Carolina use about 44,000,000 feet of oak yearly, and Spanish oak
supplies a rather large share of the material. It is employed as
interior finish in that state, and also for mission furniture, brackets
for telegraph and telephone poles, refrigerators, and kitchen safes.
Slack coopers and manufacturers of boxes and crates find the wood
suitable for their wares; but its open pores stand in the way of its use
for tight cooperage.
Similar uses of the wood occur in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and
it may be assumed that they occur also in all other portions of Spanish
oak’s range. It goes to wagon shops in Texas where it is substituted for
red oak. It is employed also in the manufacture of rice hullers and
cotton gins. Lumbermen in northern Louisiana use log trucks with axles,
felloes, and other heavy parts of Spanish oak, and it is frequently
preferred for stone wagons.