with little apparent reason. It is called possum oak and duck oak, but
these names are neither descriptive nor definitive. Punk oak is another
name. It may refer to a decayed condition of the wood, but this tree is
no more affected by decay than others of the same region. In Texas it is
sometimes known as spotted oak. It thrives in wet situations though not
actually in swamps. It prefers margins of ponds, banks of rivers, and
low swales where the ground water is just below the surface, but it is
not confined to such situations. It does well, within its range,
wherever willow oak flourishes, but willow oak has a wider range. The
leaves take on various forms, and they change shape as they increase in
size. Some have smooth margins, others are lobed. Some are wedge-shaped,
others coffin-shaped. Their typical form, if it may be said of them that
they have a typical form, is narrow at the stem end and wide at the
other. To this is usually added rudimentary lobes, which are sometimes
nearly as well developed as in any other oak. Their typical form is like
the leaf of the black jack oak; but they are not half as large, and are
thin and delicate, while the black jack’s leaf is thick and leathery.
The range of water oak begins in Delaware and follows the Atlantic
coastal plain south to central Florida, and through the Gulf States to
Texas. It grows as far north as Kentucky and Missouri. It keeps clear of
the Appalachian mountain region, and other hilly districts. It is
plentiful in some parts of its range, and trunks three feet in diameter
and long enough for two or three logs are not unusual, yet large numbers
of water oaks may be seen in the South which are not fit for sawlogs
because they stand in open ground and are limby down to ten feet of the
ground. Many have been planted for shade trees in streets and in parks,
and are justly admired. They grow rapidly and are extremely graceful.
Their leaves are deciduous, but adhere to the branches most of the year.
South of the belt of severe frost, the old leaves frequently hang until
the buds for the new crop are opening. The acorns are bitter, and even
the southern pine hog passes them by until the pinch of famine edges up
his appetite.
Water oak possesses value as a source of lumber, but it belongs with the
large class of oaks which lose their names and their identity when they
pass the threshold of the sawmill. They come out red oak. Only in rare
instances is water oak called by its own name in the factory and lumber
yard. Wagon makers employ it for bolsters, axles, spokes, tongues,
sandboards, hounds, felloes and reaches. Entire dump carts, except the
iron, are constructed of this wood. Furniture manufacturers use it as
frame material, but seldom as the outside visible parts, though no
reason for not doing so is offered. Objection is made to its seasoning
qualities, but the same objection applies to most red oaks. A
considerable amount of water oak is cut in the South into thick planks
for bridge floors. It is strong and hard, and satisfactorily resists
decay in that place; though, in common with the black oaks generally, it
is liable to decay when exposed to dampness. The wood weighs a little
less than white oak, and is not quite as strong or as stiff. It is
porous, but the pores are small, except one or two rows in the
springwood. The medullary rays are thin and not numerous, but they are
conspicuous, and the wood may be successfully quarter-sawed. The lumber
has the appearance of red oak, though the reddish color is not so
pronounced.
BARTRAM OAK (_Quercus heterophylla_). This interesting but
commercially unimportant oak was named by Michaux from a single tree
found in a field belonging to John Bartram near Philadelphia more
than a century ago. A few trees have since been found in widely
scattered districts as far south as North Carolina and as far west
as Texas. Botanists believe it is a hybrid, one parent being the
willow oak (_Quercus phellos_) and the other yellow oak (_Quercus
velutina_). It is probable that here may be witnessed the origin of
a tree species. The leaves seem to be a compromise between the
deeply cut foliage of yellow oak and the entire leaf of willow oak.
The new species is so scarce that few people have ever seen it.
[Illustration]
RED GUM
[Illustration: RED GUM]
RED GUM
(_Liquidambar Styraciflua_)
This tree does not belong to the same group as black gum and tupelo,
which are in the dogwood family, while red gum is of the witch hazel
family. If a tree is to be judged and named by its character, red gum is
more entitled to the name “gum” than any other tree of this country,
because it exudes a yellow resin from wounds in the bark. The botanical
name recognizes that fact. Storax is procured from a closely related
tree is Asia, and has been known in commerce for many centuries. The
other popular names of red gum are sweet gum, liquid-amber gum, gum
tree, alligator wood, bilsted, starleaved gum, and satin walnut.
The last name originated in England where it was desirable to avoid the
name gum when applied to the wood of this tree. Though botanically it is
about as distantly related to walnut as any tree can be, the figure of
the wood often suggests walnut. The name sweet gum refers to the
pleasant odor of the resin which is sometimes used in France, and
probably elsewhere, to perfume gloves. Alligator wood is descriptive of
warty excrescences on the bark of some trees, but they are not common to
all. Starleaved gum relates to the leaf. It is a lopsided star--a six
point star with one point missing.
This tree’s range in the United States extends from Connecticut to Texas
and as far northwest of the Alleghanies as Missouri and Illinois. It
reaches its greatest size in the lower Mississippi valley in rich bottom
land which is subject to repeated inundation. It is not, however, as
purely a swamp tree as tupelo and cypress. It grows well on land which
is never inundated, but it needs plenty of moisture. The largest
specimens exceed a height of 120 feet and a diameter of four; but logs
from eighteen inches to three feet are the usual sizes. The tree’s range
extends southward through Mexico into Central America.
The rise of red gum lumber into prominence forms an interesting chapter
in the industry. It was formerly considered so difficult to season that
few mills cared to deal with it, but that difficulty has been largely
overcome. In the past, gum, having no market value, was left standing
after logging; or, where the land was cleared for farming, was girdled
and allowed to rot, and then felled and burned. Not only were the trees
a total loss to the farmer, but, from their great size and the labor
required to handle them, they were so serious an obstruction as often to
preclude the clearing of valuable land. Now that there is a market for
the timber, it is profitable to cut gum with other hardwoods, and land
can be cleared more cheaply. This increase in the value of gum timber
will be of great benefit to the South in many ways.
Throughout its entire life red gum is intolerant of shade. As a rule
seedlings appear only in clearings or in open spots in the forest. It is
seldom that an overtopped tree is found, for the gum dies quickly if
suppressed, and is consequently nearly always a dominant or intermediate
tree. In a hardwood bottom forest, the timber trees are all of nearly
the same age over considerable areas, and there is little young growth
to be found in the older stands. The reason for this is the intolerance
of most of the swamp species.
Red gum reproduces both by seed and by sprouts, fairly abundantly every
year, but about once in three years there is a heavy production. In the
Mississippi valley the abandoned fields on which young stands of red gum
have sprung up are, for the most part, being rapidly cleared again. The
second growth here is considered of little worth in comparison with the
value of the land for agricultural purposes.
A large amount of red gum growing in the South can be economically
transported from the forests to the mills only by means of the streams,
owing to the expense of putting in railroads solely for handling the
timber. Green red gum, however, is so heavy that it scarcely floats and,
to overcome this difficulty, various methods of driving out the sap
before the logs are thrown into the river have been tried. One method is
to girdle the trees and leave them standing a year. That partly seasons
them, but does not give time for the sapwood to decay. The logs from
such trees float readily, and the swamps and streams are utilized to
carry the logs to the mills.
Some years ago that method of seasoning red gum was extensively
advertised in England by contractors who sold paving blocks of this
wood. It was claimed that the common defects of red gum were thus
overcome. Large sales of paving material were made, particularly in
London, and red gum was popular for a time, but it finally lost its hold
as a paving wood in competition with certain Australian woods. The
theory that by girdling a tree and allowing it to die, the amount of
heartwood will be increased has been abandoned. In selecting trees for
cutting, those with doty tops, rotten stumps, and heavy bark,
indications of an old tree which contains a very small proportion of
sapwood, are now chosen. These are found mainly in the drier localities.
In low, wet places the trees have more sapwood and are smaller. The
heartwood forms while the tree is living, not after it dies.
The rapidity with which red gum has come into use in this country and
elsewhere is the best evidence of the wood’s real value. Its range of
uses extends from the most common articles, such as boxes and crates, to
those of highest class, like furniture and interior finish. It is only
moderately strong and stiff, and is not a competitor of hickory, ash,
maple, and oak in vehicle manufacturing and other lines where strength
or elasticity is demanded; but in nearly all other classes of wood uses,
red gum has made itself a place. It has pushed to the front in spite of
prejudice. As soon as the difficulties of seasoning were mastered, its
victory was won. Its annual use in Michigan, the home and center of
hardwood supply, exceeds 20,000,000 feet in manufactured articles,
exclusive of what is employed in rough form. In Illinois, the most
extensive wood-manufacturing state in the Union, red gum stands second
in amount among the hardwoods, the only one above it being white oak. In
Kentucky, only white oak and hickory are more important among the
factory woods, while in Arkansas, where the annual amount of this wood
in factories exceeds 100,000,000 feet, it heads the list of hardwoods.
As a veneer material, it is demanded in four times the quantity of any
other species. The veneer is nearly all rotary cut, and it goes into
cheap and expensive commodities, from berry crates to pianos.
The wood weighs 36.83 pounds per cubic foot. It is straight-grained, the
medullary rays are numerous but not prominent, the pores diffuse but
small, and the summerwood forms only a narrow band, like a line. The
annual rings do not produce much figure, but wood has another kind of
figure, the kind that characterizes English and Circassian walnuts,
smoky, cloudy, shaded series of rings, independent of the growth rings.
They have no definite width or constant color, but the color is usually
deeper than the body of the wood. This figure is one of the most prized
properties of red gum. It is that which makes the wood the closest known
imitator of Circassian walnut.
All red gum is not figured, and that which is figured may be worked in a
way to conceal or make little use of the figure. It shows best in rotary
cut veneer and tangentially sawed lumber. Various woods are imitated
with red gum. It is stained or painted to look like oak, cherry,
mahogany, and even maple.
Some trees have thin sapwood, and others are all sapwood. This
peculiarity sometimes leads to misunderstandings in lumber transactions.
A buyer specifies red gum, expecting to get red heartwood, but the
seller delivers lumber cut from the red gum tree, though light colored
sapwood may predominate. Properly speaking, the name is applied to the
tree as a whole and does not refer to any particular color of wood in
the tree. The term “red” is said to have referred originally to the
color of autumn leaves, and not to the wood.
The fruit of red gum is a bur, midway in appearance and size between the
sycamore ball and the chestnut bur. It hangs on the tree until late in
winter. The resin which exudes from wounds in the bark is of much
commercial importance and is shipped from New Orleans and Mexican ports.
Near the northern limit of the species’ range the trees yield little
resin, but it is abundant farther south. In the southern states it is
used locally as chewing gum. It is known commercially as copalm balm.
WITCH HAZEL (_Hamamelis virginiana_) is a cousin to red gum, but
there is small resemblance. It is known as winter bloom, snapping
hazel, and spotted alder. Its range extends from Nova Scotia to
Nebraska, Texas, and Florida. It reaches its largest size among the
southern Appalachian mountains where the extreme height is sometimes
forty feet, with a diameter of eighteen inches; but few people have
ever seen a witch hazel that large. It is usually fifteen or twenty
feet high and three or four inches in diameter. The wood is much
like that of red gum, being diffuse-porous with obscure medullary
rays, and a thin line of summerwood. It is of little commercial use;
in fact, no report has been found that a single foot of it has ever
been used for any purpose. Yet it is a most interesting little tree.
It blooms in the fall, sometimes as late as the middle of November.
Its rusty summer foliage turns yellow in autumn, and as the leaves
begin to fall, the tree bursts into delicately-scented golden
flowers, the most visible part of each consisting of four petals
which float out like streamers. At the same time that flowers are
scenting the air, the seeds are discharging. A full year is required
to ripen them; and when dry, cold weather comes, the contraction of
their envelopes shoots them with sufficient force to send them
fifteen or twenty feet. They depend on neither wings, birds, nor
squirrels to scatter them. The origin of the name witch hazel is
disputed; but the person who examines the open-topped button which
holds the black seeds, and notes the fantastic resemblance to a
weasen face, will feel satisfied that he can guess the origin of the
name. The tree’s bark is used for medicine, in extracts and gargles.
[Illustration]
BLACK GUM
[Illustration: BLACK GUM]
BLACK GUM
(_Nyssa Sylvatica_)
Black gum grows from the Kennebec river in Maine to Tampa bay, Florida;
westward to southern Ontario and southern Michigan; Southward through
Missouri, as far as the Brazos river in Texas. The names by which it is
known in different regions are black gum, sour gum, tupelo, pepperidge,
wild pear tree, gum, and yellow gum.
The leaves of black gum are simple and alternate; not serrate. They are
attached by very short petioles, which are fuzzy when young; they are a
rich, brilliant green above and lighter below; rather thick, with
prominent midrib. As early as the latter part of August the leaves
commence to turn a gorgeous red. The flowers are greenish and
inconspicuous, growing in thick clusters, the staminate ones small and
plentiful, the pistillate ones larger. They bloom in April, May or June.
The fruit of black gum is a drupe about one and a half inches long;
inside of it is a rough, oval pit; the pulp is acrid until mellowed by
frost.
The bad name given to black gum by early settlers of this country has
stayed with it, though the faults found with it then, should hold no
longer. The pioneers were nearly all clearers of farms. They went into
the woods with ax, maul, mattock, wedges and gluts, and made fields and
fenced them. The fencing was as important as the clearing, for the woods
were alive with hogs, cattle, and horses, and the crop was safe nowhere
except behind an eight-rail staked and ridered fence. The farmer mauled
the rails from timber which he cut in the clearing, and there it was
that he and black gum got acquainted. The oak, chestnut, walnut, cherry,
yellow poplar, and red cedar were split into rails and built into
fences; but black gum never made a fence rail. No combination of maul,
wedge, glut, determination, and elbow grease ever split a black gum log
within the borders of the American continent. An iron wedge, driven to
its head in the end of a rail cut, will not open a crack large enough to
insert the point of a pocket knife. In fact, it is as easy to split the
log crosswise as endwise. Consequently, the early farmers heaped their
anathemas and maranathas on black gum and passed it by.
Nevertheless, the tree had its virtues even in the eyes of the
rail-splitters; for, though it was unwedgeable, it helped along the
fence rail industry in a very substantial way by furnishing the material
of which mauls were made. It drove the wedges and gluts which opened
other timbers. About the only maul that would beat out more rails than
one of black gum was that made of a chestnut oak knot. The oak beetle’s
only advantage over gum was that it was harder and wore longer. So
involved and interlaced are the fibers of black gum, that they cross one
another not only at right angles, but at every conceivable angle. This
can be seen in examining very thin pieces with a magnifying glass.
The wood is not hard, but is moderately strong, and stiff. It has been
compared with hickory, but it is so inferior in almost every essential
that no comparison is justified.
Black gum weighs 39.61 pounds per cubic foot. It is very porous, but the
pores are too small to be seen by the naked eye, and are diffused
through the wood and form no distinct lines or groups. The summerwood is
a thin dark line, not prominent enough to clearly delimit the yearly
rings of growth. The medullary rays are numerous, but very thin. In
quarter-sawed wood they produce a luster, but the individual rays are
practically invisible. The wood is not durable in contact with the soil.
The standing tree is apt to fall a victim to the agencies of decay.
Hollow trunks, mere shells, are not uncommon. The entire heartwood is
liable to fall away. The pioneers cut these hollow trees, and sawing
them in lengths of about two feet, made beehives of them. They called
them gums because they were cut from gum trees. Larger sizes, used in
place of barrels, were also called gums, but these were usually made
from sycamores. The black gum is not usually large. Individuals have
been measured that were five feet in diameter and more than a hundred in
height, but an average of sixty feet high and two in diameter is
probably too much, except in the southern Appalachian mountains where
the species attains its largest size.
It is a tree which will always be easily recognized after it has been
seen and identified once. Its general outline, particularly when leaves
are off, is different from other trees associated with it. It might
possibly be mistaken for persimmon unless looked at closely; but there
are easily-recognized points of difference. Its branches are very small,
slender, and short. Its bark is rougher than that of any other gum, and
is much darker in color. It is the bark’s color that gives the tree its
name. The leaves have smooth edges. In the fall they change to gorgeous
red, and one of their peculiarities is that half a leaf may be red while
the other half remains green. Toward the end of the season, the green
disappears. The dark blue drupes ripen in October. They do not seem to
be food for any living creature.
Sawmills include black gum with tupelo in reporting lumber cut, and
generally call both of them gum without distinction. The woods are quite
different, and neither the standing tree nor the lumber of one need be
mistaken for the other. The range of black gum is much more extensive
than that of tupelo. Gum lumber cut north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers
may be safely classed as black gum, though a little of both red and
tupelo gum is found north of those streams. In the South, the species
cannot be separated by regions, for all the gums grow from Texas to
Virginia. The total annual output of black gum is not known, but some
operators estimate it at about 20,000,000 feet a year, or nearly
one-fourth as much as tupelo.
The bulk of black gum lumber is used in the rough, for floors,
sheathing, frames, and scaffolds; but a considerable portion is further
manufactured. The amounts thus used annually have been ascertained for a
few states, and furnish a basis for estimates for the whole country:
Mississippi, 7,000 feet; Maryland, 85,000; Illinois, 120,000; Louisiana,
120,000; Missouri, 190,000; Texas, 360,000; Massachusetts, 475,000;
Alabama, 486,000.
The uses are general, except that the wood is not employed where
attractive figure is required, for black gum is as plain as cottonwood.
It is not displeasing in its plainness, for the surface finishes nicely
with a soft gloss which, except that it lacks figure, suggests the sap
of red gum. It is specially useful in situations where noncleavability
is required. Black gum mallets for stone masons and woodworkers are in
the market. Mine rollers require a much larger amount. The entire 85,000
feet reported in Maryland was made into such rollers. They furnish the
bearing for the rope that hauls the car up the incline out of the coal
pit. Its toughness qualifies it for wagon hubs, but it is sometimes
objected to because its softness causes the mortises to wear larger
where the spokes are inserted, and the wheel does not stand as well as
when the hubs are of good oak. Early farmers and lumbermen preferred
black gum for ox yokes, and some are still seen where oxen are used; but
many other woods are as strong and equally as serviceable for yokes.
Rollers of this wood for glass factories are common. It is made into
hatters’ blocks where a wood is wanted which, when thoroughly seasoned,
will hold its shape. It is less popular for this purpose than yellow
poplar. One of the best places for black gum is in the manufacture of
bored water pipe. The wood’s interlaced fiber prevents splitting under
the internal stress due to hydrostatic pressure. The shell of such pipes
can be thinner than with most woods. A drawback is found in the
non-durable qualities of black gum. However, the internal pressure of
water keeps the wood thoroughly saturated, and prolongs its life when
used as pipes.
The makers of firearms employ black gum as gunstocks and pistol grips.
The wood is stained to make it darker. It is cut by the rotary process
into cheap veneer and is made into baskets and berry crates. Less
trouble with the veneer, on account of breaking, is experienced than
might be expected of a wood so cross-grained. It is sawed into thin
lumber for boxes for shipping coffee and other groceries. It is a
substitute for cottonwood and yellow poplar in the manufacture of
certain lines of woodenware, notably, ironing boards, rolling pins,
potato mashers, and chopping bowls. It is made into interior finish for
houses; and furniture manufacturers find many places where it is a
serviceable material. Musical instrument makers employ it, particularly
as trusses for pianos, and in frames of pipe organs. In Louisiana it is
converted into excelsior, and in Mississippi into broom handles, and
parts of agricultural implements, particularly hoppers and seedboxes.
All gums are hard to season, and this one is no exception. It checks
badly, but the checks are usually very small.
[Illustration]
TUPELO
[Illustration: TUPELO]
TUPELO
(_Nyssa Aquatica_)
Tupelo is said to be an Indian name. White men have applied it to three
species of gum, all of the same genus, namely, black gum (_Nyssa
sylvatica_), sour tupelo (_Nyssa ogeche_), and tupelo (_Nyssa
aquatica_). Probably, the name tupelo applies as well to one as to the
other, for it is said to refer to the drupe-like fruit; but custom
confines the name to the species now under consideration. It is largest
of the three species, most abundant, and most important. Sour gum is
heard in Arkansas and Missouri, swamp tupelo in South Carolina and
Louisiana, cotton gum in the two Carolinas and Florida, wild olive tree
in Louisiana, and olive tree in Mississippi.