responsible for the name gray elm among lumbermen and woodworkers of the
Lake States. American elm is a translation of its botanical name, and is
neither descriptive nor definitive, because there are other elms as
truly American as this one. White elm distinguishes its wood from the
redder wood of slippery elm, but it would often be difficult if not
impossible to identify the elms, or any one of them, by the color of the
wood alone. Some persons who call this elm white doubtless refer to the
color of the bark, as is the case with those who speak of it as gray
elm. It is known as water elm in several states, but that name is
applied indiscriminately to any elm that frequents river banks, as most
of them do in some part of their range. It is called rock elm when it is
found on stony uplands, and swamp elm on low wet ground. In some parts
of the Appalachian mountain ranges it is called astringent elm to
distinguish it from slippery elm.
White elm surpasses the others in extent of range. Its northern boundary
stretches from Newfoundland, across Canada to the eastern base of the
Rocky Mountains, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles. It runs south through
the Atlantic states to Florida, a distance of 1,200 miles or more. Its
southwestern limit is in Texas. The area thus bounded is about
2,500,000 square miles. A few other trees have ranges as large, but none
much exceed it. It covers so much of America, and is so important in
many parts of its range, that it is clearly the leading elm in this
country. It is entitled to first place among elms for other reasons.
It is not easy to give any sure features or characteristics by which the
layman may always distinguish this elm from others with which it is
associated; however, by carefully observing certain features, the
identity of white elm is generally easy to establish.
The leaves have teeth along the margins like beech and birch. They have
straight primary veins running from the midrib to the points of the
teeth. Before falling in autumn the leaves turn yellow. The foliage is
not very thick, and most of it is near the ends of the limbs. The bloom
comes early in the spring, ahead of the leaves, and the seeds are ripe
and ready for flight before the leaves are grown. Sometimes the seeds
are ripe almost before the leaves are out of the buds. The seeds are
oblong, and about the size of a small lentil. The wing entirely
surrounds the seed, and is about half an inch long. The flight of elm
seeds is an interesting phenomenon. The individual seeds are so small
that they are not easily seen as they sail away from the tall tree top
but when they go in swarms, in fitful puffs of wind, they are not hard
to see. It is chiefly by their fruits that they are known, that is, by
the multitudes of seedlings that appear a few weeks later. If one
seedling elm in a thousand should reach maturity, there would be little
besides elms in the whole country. They spring up by highways and
hedges, in gutters, fields, and even between cobbles and bricks of paved
streets; but in a few days they have crowded one another to death, or
have perished from other causes, and those which manage to live to
maturity do not much more than make up for old trees which perish from
natural causes.
The botanist Michaux pronounced the white elm “the most magnificent
vegetable of the temperate zone.” A number of trees are larger, though
this reaches great size. Sargent sets the limit of the tree at 120 feet
high and eleven feet in trunk diameter. That size is, of course,
unusual, but it has been surpassed at least in height. A tree in
Jefferson county, Pennsylvania, was 140 feet high, and although forest
grown, it had a spread of crown of seventy-six feet. It was sent to the
sawmill where it made 8,820 feet of lumber. That trunk was only five
feet in diameter.
Some of the finest forest grown elms in this country have been cut in
Michigan. Their trunks were as tall, straight, and shapely as yellow
poplars, and their crowns surpassed those of poplars. It was formerly
not unusual for sawlogs to be cut from elm limbs which branched from the
trunk fifty or more feet from the ground. The best of the forest grown
elm of this country has been cut; but it is still lumbered throughout
the whole eastern half of the United States.
The finest elms of this country, and doubtless the finest in the world,
are the planted trees in some of the New England villages. The largest
of them have been growing for two hundred years, and in many instances
they still show the vigor of youth. Trunks six or seven feet through are
not uncommon, but the glory of the trees is not alone in the trunks.
Their spread and form of crown are magnificent. The largest are 150 feet
across, and some of the splendid branches, rising in parabolic curves,
are fully 100 feet long, from the junction with the tree to the tips of
the twigs. The most apt comparison for that form of elm is the spray of
a fountain. The upward jet of water corresponds to the trunk of the
tree; the upward, outward, and downward curves of the spray represent
the crown of the elm. Trees which take that form are grown in open
ground where sunlight and air reach every side. Forest grown trees are
less symmetrical, but even in dense woods, the elm frequently rises
clear above the canopy of other trees, and develops the fountain form of
crown. The new England street and park elms surpass those farther west
only because they are older. The splendid trunks and crowns are the work
of centuries.
[Illustration]
CORK ELM
[Illustration: CORK ELM]
CORK ELM
(_Ulmus Racemosa_)
This tree is called cork elm in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan,
Iowa, and Ohio; rock elm in Rhode Island, Kentucky, West Virginia,
Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska; hickory elm in
Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana; white elm in Ontario; Thomas elm
in Tennessee; northern cork-barked elm in Tennessee; corkbark elm, New
York; northern cork elm, Vermont; wahoo, Ohio; cliff elm in Wisconsin.
Cork elm is the natural name. It is a descriptive term which a stranger
would be apt to apply on seeing the tree for the first time. The bark of
the branches, after it has attained an age of three or four years,
becomes rough by the growth of ridges and protuberances. This feature is
sometimes so prominent that it at once attracts attention, particularly
when the branches are bare of leaves; hence the name cork elm.
Lumbermen insist on naming the tree rock elm. They refer to the hardness
of the wood, or they may have in mind the dry, stony situations where
tough, strong elm grows. The latter is often the case, because the name
is applied also to slippery elm and white elm if they grow on stony
ground. A wide-spread opinion prevails that wood which grows among rocks
is harder, tougher, stronger, and more durable than that produced by
deep, fertile soil. It is possible to cite much evidence to support that
view, and the case might be considered proved, but for the fact that an
equal, or greater amount of evidence, in every way as trustworthy, may
be cited on the other side. The strongest hickory, ash, and oak do not
come from stony land. It sometimes happens that a species with tough,
strong wood, is found on rocks, but it is not tough because it is there,
but in spite of being there.
The name cliff elm which this tree bears in Wisconsin is but another
form of the name rock elm, and clearly has reference to the situation
where the tree grows in that part of the country. Hickory elm, on the
other hand, a name applied to this tree much farther south, is a
recognition of the wood’s toughness.
In some particulars it does not fall much below hickory in toughness,
but is not as strong, elastic, or capable of as smooth polish. The
latter property is one of the recommendations of hickory when used for
handles. It is very smooth to the touch; cork elm is less so. In the
northern woods, elm ax handles are in use, and some axmen prefer them
to hickory. Such is probably the case when the best cork elm and a
medium or poor quality of hickory are in competition.
The fibers of cork elm are interlaced, rendering the splitting of the
wood difficult. For uses in which that is a desirable property, it is
preferable to hickory. It is better for hubs for large wagons, and that
is a very important use for this elm.
The wood of all the elms is ring-porous; that is, the springwood, or
inner part of the annual ring, consists of one or more rows of large
ducts. The summerwood contains pores in large numbers, but they are
small, and are usually arranged in short curved lines. The medullary
rays are not prominent in the wood of any of the elms, and
quarter-sawing adds no beauty to the lumber. The wood is practically
without figure, on account of either annual rings or medullary rays; but
it may be stained, polished, and made very attractive. That is done
oftener with white elm than with any other.
The strength of cork elm created demand for it in boat building at an
early day. The tree is and always was scarce in the vicinity of the
Atlantic sea board, and the earliest boat builders seem not to have been
acquainted with the wood. It was most abundant in the forests of
Michigan, though it extended westward to Nebraska. It was plentiful in
the province of Ontario, and the timbers from that region acquainted
English shipbuilders with the merits of the wood. They sent contractors
into Michigan to buy cork elm, long before the other hardwoods of that
region had attracted the attention of the outside world. The most
convenient supplies of cork elm on the Lower Michigan peninsula thus
passed through Canada to ship yards on the other side of the sea. The
wood is reputed to be more durable than any of the other elms.
It is generally understood that the country’s supply of cork elm is
running short, but there are no statistics which show how much is left
or how much has been cut. It is doubtful if the original forests,
including the whole country, had one tree of cork elm to twenty of white
elm. The average size of cork elm is sixty feet high and two in
diameter. The trunks are well shaped, if forest grown. They develop
small crowns in proportion to the size of trunks; and the crowns are
less graceful than those of white elm--lacking the long, sweeping curves
of the latter. The general contour of the tree has been compared to
white oak.
Cork elm grows well when planted on the Pacific coast, in environments
quite different from its native habitat. In the forest it increases in
size slowly; when planted it makes much better headway. It has a
disagreeable habit of sprouting which puts it out of favor as a park
tree.
The wood of the different elms is largely used for manufacturing
purposes. They are sometimes kept separate, but generally not. The
particular place where cork elm is preferred is in the manufacture of
vehicles and boats, but it is by no means confined to those commodities.
The state of Michigan alone sends 50,000,000 feet of elm a year to its
factories to be converted into articles of general utility. Furniture
makers take over 2,000,000 feet of it, though elm is not classed as a
furniture wood. In certain places it is superior to almost every other
wood. No matter how discolored it becomes by weathering and the
accumulation of foreign substances, a vigorous application of soap,
water, and a scrubbing brush will whiten it. It is liked in certain
parts of refrigerators which need constant scrubbing. Elm to the extent
of 8,000,000 feet goes into refrigerators in Michigan alone.
The strength and toughness of elm make it suitable for frames of tables.
When thus used, it is generally out of sight, but not infrequently it is
made into table legs as well as frames. Statistics show that more than a
million feet are manufactured yearly into handles in Michigan alone. All
three of the northern elms--white, cork, and slippery--are listed in the
handle industry.
Many millions of feet of elm are yearly converted into automobile
stock--3,000,000 in Michigan. Horse-drawn vehicles take more. The most
common place for it is the hub, but it serves also as shafts, poles,
reaches, and even as spokes for wagons of the largest size.
The important place in the slack cooperage industry held by elm is well
known. It is a flour barrel wood, but is employed for barrels of many
other kinds. It stands high as veneer, not the kind of which the visible
parts of furniture are made, but the invisible interior, built up of
veneer sheets glued together. A similar kind of veneer forms the boxes
or frames of trunks--the part to be covered by metal, leather, or cloth.
The slats which strengthen the outside of trunks are frequently of elm.
This wood is not in favor for one important purpose, hardwood
distillation. It has escaped pretty generally also from being employed
as a farm material, on account of its poor lasting qualities. Some
slippery elm was mauled into fence rails in the pioneer days of Ohio,
Indiana, and southern Michigan, but that was only because it was
plentiful and convenient. Cork elm probably never made a fence rail,
because it is so unwedgeable that no rail splitter would have anything
to do with it. At the best, it is but a temporary makeshift as fence
posts, but by applying creosote and other preservative treatments to
lessen decay, it measures up with most other post woods.
The elms are not indispensable woods in this country, but their
exhaustion, should it ever come, will leave many places hard to fill. As
far as known, no woodlots of any species of elm have been planted in
this country, and there is little prospect that any will be planted,
because the slow growth of the trees discourages foresters. A century
or two is a long look ahead.
However, the exhaustion of no species of the elms in this country need
be expected soon. The most apparent peril lies ahead of cork elm,
because it never was abundant, and demand, which has been large for a
long time, is still strong. The species is scattered over more than
200,000 square miles, and a long time must elapse before the last cork
elm finds its way to the sawmill. The situation of white elm is more
promising. It may be among the last trees of the American forests to
take its final departure. Its wide range and its bounteous seed crops
insure a supply, though not necessarily a large one, for a long time.
The greatest peril to elms, as well as to many other forest trees, is
that, when weakened by depletion, some disease will attack them and
destroy the remnants. Experience in New England and elsewhere has shown
that elm has no great resisting power when a strong attack is made upon
it.
[Illustration]
SLIPPERY ELM
[Illustration: SLIPPERY ELM]
SLIPPERY ELM
(_Ulmus Pubescens_)
This tree is known as slippery elm in every state where it grows, thirty
or more; but in some localities it has other names also. It is doubtful
if any person who is acquainted with the tree would fail to recognize it
by the name slippery elm, though some who are acquainted with the lumber
only might not know it by that name. Those who call it red elm have in
mind the color of the heartwood which is of deeper red than the wood of
any other elm, or they may refer to the tawny pubescence on the young
shoots in winter. The botanical name describes that characteristic.
In the North, the slippery elm is sometimes known as moose elm. It
furnishes forage in winter for the moose and other herbivorous animals
when ground plants are covered with snow. The moose is able to eat
branches as thick as a man’s thumb. The principal food element in the
twigs is the mucilaginous inner bark. It is this which gives the tree
its name slippery elm. The value of the bark as a food has been
questioned. It is agreeable to the taste of both man and beast, but it
is claimed that a human being will starve to death on it, though it will
prolong life several days. The lower animals, however, seem able to
derive more benefit from eating the bark. An incident of the War of 1812
appears to prove this. The army under General Harrison, operating in the
vicinity of Lake Erie, kept the horses of the expedition alive by
feeding them on slippery elm bark, stripped from the trees and chopped
in small bits.
The inner bark has long been used for medicinal purposes. It is now
ground fine and is kept for sale in drug stores, but formerly it was a
household remedy which most families in the country provided and kept in
store along with catnip, mandrake, sage, dogwood blossoms, and other
rural remedies which were depended upon to rout diseases in the days
when physicians were few. The slippery elm bark was peeled from the tree
in long strips, the rough outer layers were shaved off, leaving the
mucilaginous inner layer. That was from an eighth to a quarter of an
inch thick. It was dried and put away for use. When needed it was
pounded to a pulp, moistened with water, and applied as a poultice, if
an external remedy was wanted. If a medicine was needed, a decoction was
drunk as tea. There is no question that the remedy often produced good
results when no doctor was within reach. A well-known medical writer
said three-quarters of a century ago that the slippery elm tree was
worth its weight in gold.
The range of slippery elm extends from the lower St. Lawrence river
through Canada to North Dakota. It is found in Texas as far west as the
San Antonio river, and its western limit is generally from 200 to 300
miles west of the Mississippi river. Its range extends south nearly to
the Gulf of Mexico. It is not this tree’s habit to grow in thick stands,
but it occurs singly or in small groups on the banks of streams or on
rich hillsides.
The average size is scarcely half that of white elm. Few trees exceed a
height of seventy feet and a diameter of two. It grows rapidly at first,
but does not live to old age. The crown lacks the symmetry and beauty so
conspicuous in white elm. The limbs follow no law of regularity, but
leave the trunk at haphazard. The fruit is mature before the leaves are
half grown. The seeds have more wing area than those of white elm; and,
like those of white elm, the wing surrounds the flat seed on all its
edges. The leaves are rough to the touch, and when crumpled in the hand,
the crunching sensation is unpleasant.
Next to white elm, slippery elm appears to be more abundant than any
other member of the group; but statistics do not give the basis for
close estimates. The factories of Michigan use 3,700,000 feet of
slippery elm a year, and 44,000,000 of white elm. The proportion of
slippery to white is larger in the factories of Illinois.
The uses are the same as for other elms. The wood is rated more durable
than the others, but it is not in much demand for outdoor work where
resistance to decay is an important consideration. It is sometimes set
for fence posts, but the results are scarcely satisfactory, particularly
for round posts which are largely sapwood. Posts sawed from the
heartwood of large trees would do better. The deeper red of the
heartwood gives it an advantage over the other elms for furniture and
finish where natural colors are shown; but this is not important because
no elm’s natural color stands for much in the estimation of users of
fine woods. The more common use of slippery elm is for boxes and
cooperage. Next to red gum, it is employed in larger quantities for
cooperage in Illinois than any other wood.
The supply is rapidly decreasing. The cut for lumber is the chief drain,
but a not inconsiderable one is the peeling of trees for bark. This goes
on all over the species’ range and much of it is done by boys with
knives and hatchets. It is often hard to find slippery elms within miles
of a town, because all have succumbed to bark hunters.
CEDAR ELM (_Ulmus crassifolia_) appears to bear this name because it
is often found associated with red cedars on the dry limestone hills
of Texas. There is little in the form and appearance of the tree to
suggest the tall, tapering conical crown of cedar. There is still
less in the wood. In some parts of Texas the species is called red
elm, on account of the color of the wood, while in Arkansas, which
is near the northern boundary of its range, it is locally known as
basket elm, because basket makers find desirable qualities in its
wood. It is a species of rather limited range, but it is abundant in
certain regions. It is found as far east as Sunflower river,
Mississippi, north into Arkansas, west to Pecos river, Texas, and
south into Mexico. It is confined to three states, this side the Rio
Grande. Trees on dry hills are inclined to be shrubby, but in damp
valleys where soil is fertile, specimens attain a height of eighty
feet and a diameter of three, but the average is not nearly so
large. The leaves are small but numerous. The flowering habits of
this elm are somewhat erratic. The usual time for bloom to appear is
August, and a month or six weeks afterwards the small seeds are
ready for flight; but occasionally, as if not satisfied with its
first effort, the tree blooms again in October, and ripens a second
crop late in the fall. The seeds are poorly supplied with wings,
which are reduced to narrow margins surrounding the seed. It does
not appear, however, that the species is in any way handicapped in
securing reproduction. The small shoots are equipped with flat,
corky keels, similar to but much smaller than those of the wing elm.
This tree is important for the lumber it produces. It is the common
and most abundant elm of Texas, and it is found in a large part of
that state. The wood is the weakest of the elms, and is likewise
quite brittle; but in the region where it is most abundant it
compares favorably with any other. The best is cut from the largest
trees, which grow in valleys where moisture is abundant. The growth
found on the dry hills is of poor quality, and is worth little, even
for fuel. The highest development in Texas, and also the highest in
the species’ range, is in the valleys of Trinity and Guadalupe
rivers. In Texas this wood is employed in furniture factories as
inside frames, to be covered by other woods, but it is not employed
as outside parts of furniture, unless in very cheap kinds. It is
suitable for drain boards and floors of refrigerators where it is
wet much of the time. Under such circumstances it is more easily
kept clean than most other woods. It whitens with repeated
scrubbings. One of its most common uses in Texas is for wagon hubs.
Some wheelwrights pronounce it next to the best native wood for that
purpose, the first place being accorded Osage orange. The tree is
often planted for shade along the streets of Texas towns, and
develops thick crowns and satisfactory forms.
RED ELM (_Ulmus serotina_) is a lately discovered member of the elm
family. It so closely resembles the cork elm that it was supposed to
be of the same species, and the close scrutiny of a botanist was
required to discover that it was a separate species. Sargent
observed the flowers opening in September while those of cork elm
appear in early spring. The seeds ripen in November, while cork
elm’s are ripe early in the summer. The tree was named red elm, the
wood being reddish-brown. That name is widely applied to slippery
elm, but it is improbable that much confusion will result. The red
elm’s range is quite restricted and in that area the slippery elm is
not important. Red elm occurs on limestone hills and river banks
from central Kentucky to northern Georgia and Alabama. It attains a
height of fifty or sixty feet and a diameter of two or three. The
leaves are from two to four inches in length, and one or two wide,
with margins toothed like the other elms. The midrib is yellow, and
in the autumn the leaves change to an orange yellow before falling.
Branches which are two or three years old develop corky wings, two
or three in number.
It is not known that mechanical tests of the wood have been made in
a regular way to determine its physical properties, but superficial
examination indicates that it is hard, tough, and strong, apparently
about the same as cork elm. Special lists of uses for this wood have
not been compiled for the reason that lumbermen and operators of
sawmills have never distinguished it from other elms of the region.
Since it has never been left standing in districts where other elms
are cut, it is evident that it has been regularly put to use for
vehicles, agricultural implements, boxes, crates, and slack
cooperage, because such articles have been manufactured in the
region. The red elm has been occasionally planted as a shade tree
along streets of towns in northern Georgia and Alabama.
[Illustration]
PLANERTREE
[Illustration: PLANERTREE]
PLANERTREE
(_Planera Aquatica_)