Part 15
Redwood cones are one inch or less in length. They ripen in one season. Seeds are quite small, and are equipped with wings. The bark is thick, but is much thinner than the bark of bigtrees, though it is in great ridges like the bark of that species. The habits of the two species, as to form of crown, are similar. Young redwoods, particularly if they grow in the open, develop symmetrical and conical crowns which they retain until the trunks are a foot or more in diameter. Lower limbs die and fall off after that, and old trees have crowns so small that it would seem impossible that they could supply the wood-building material for trunks so large. That the growth should be slow under such circumstances is to be expected. The ages of mature trees vary from 500 to 800 years, but an extreme age of 1,373 years is on record. The average is, therefore, considerably below that of bigtrees.
Redwoods grow as tall as bigtrees, but do not equal them in diameter of trunk, though trees twenty feet in diameter occur.
A noticeable feature of the forests is that, in a given stand, nearly all trees are of the same height, irrespective of size of trunk. The crowns go up to the light and when they reach the common level of others, and secure a share of light, they show no disposition to go higher. The doctrine which they silently put into practice is to live and let others live. That habit makes it possible for redwoods to grow in very dense stands, which they could not do if a few trees domineered over the others, and appropriated the light to themselves.
When old age overtakes the giant redwoods, they exhibit the first symptoms of weakened vitality by dying at the top. Most trees over five hundred years old are “stag-headed.” From that period they die slowly, but usually survive two or three hundred years after the visible signs of approaching death strike them.
Redwood has an advantage over nearly all other needle-leaf trees in that it propagates by both seeds and sprouts. Few softwoods send up sprouts from stumps or roots. Redwoods of large size are produced that way, and the stumps of very old trees send up many vigorous shoots. Sometimes a ring of large trees surrounds a depression in the ground where the parent tree grew, died, and decayed.
Sprouts are of course confined to the immediate proximity of the parent tree, but redwood seeds are scattered by the wind over vacant spaces. This results in dense stands where other conditions are favorable, but the species has never been able to establish itself far inland or high on mountains.
In 1880 the Federal census made a rough estimate of the available redwood, and placed it at 25,825,000,000 feet. More than twenty years later, with heavy cutting all the time, private estimates placed the remaining stand at over 50,000,000,000 feet. The second estimate was unquestionably nearer correct than the first. The stand of no important timber tree in this country is more easily estimated than redwood. The forests are compact, the trees large, the trunks similar in form, and the well-timbered area is comparatively small. Redwood has been called the most important timber tree of the Pacific coast. The title probably confers too much, though the tree’s importance is beyond question. The annual cut of Douglas fir is nearly ten times as large as of redwood, and the supply still in the forests is much greater than that of redwood. The cut of western yellow pine likewise exceeds the output of redwood, and the remaining supply is larger. The cut of western red cedar, including shingles, is about the same, and the remaining stand of cedar is very large. Western hemlock, too, exists in large quantity, and its importance as a source of timber supply may be equal to redwood.
Redwood is frequently referred to as one of the lightest in this country. Its weight per cubic foot, oven-dry, is 26.2 pounds. On the same basis, white pine is 24, southern white cedar 20.7, northern white cedar 19.7, and bigtree 18.2. There are woods in Florida lighter than any of these. Redwood is very soft, yet it dulls tools quickly. It is moderately strong, a little below white pine; it is brittle, again ranking below white pine; it splits and works easily and polishes well. Few, if any woods surpass this one in splitting properties. Boards twelve feet long and a foot wide may be rived from selected logs, and they present surfaces nearly as smooth as if cut with a saw. However, curly and wavy redwood is not uncommon, and that, too, splits well, but the surface is not smooth. The width of annual rings varies, usually wide in young timber and narrow in old. The bands of summerwood are narrow and clearly defined. The surface of redwood lumber absorbs water quickly, yet, for some reason, creosote and other preservatives can be forced into the wood only with the greatest difficulty. Fortunately, it is not necessary to treat this timber to prevent decay, for, in almost any position, it wears out before it rots. Shingles, and window and door frames of the old barracks buildings at Eureka, California, remained in place until fifty years of wind and driven sand wore them away. Railroads use the wood for ties until they wear out, not until they rot out. Farmers near some of the California railroads gather up the rejected worn ties by thousands and use them for fence posts. When redwood is employed as city paving blocks it is wear and not decay that puts them out of commission.
The medullary rays of redwood are thin and very obscure, but numerous. Few woods show them to less advantage in quarter-sawing. The lack of luster in the surface of polished panels is well known. The wood’s beauty is in its sameness and richness of color. Except curly specimens and burls, the wood may be said to have no figure, though in planks cut tangentially, the contrast of spring and summerwood displays some figure in a modest way. It is possible to wash much of the coloring matter out of the wood, if it is first chipped fine. It washes from the surface by ordinary exposure to weather. Red rainwater runs from a roof of new redwood shingles, and weatherboarding, posts, and picket fences fade perceptibly in a few months. This coloring matter when washed out in large amounts in the process of paper making has been manufactured into fuel gas.
A complete list of the uses of redwood is not practicable, for this material goes into most of the large wood-using factories of this country, and much is exported--nearly 60,000,000 feet annually going to foreign countries. It has been much employed in California cities and towns for picket fences, and as posts for wire and plank fences. It is, next to western red cedar, the most important shingle wood of the Pacific coast. One western railroad alone had in its tracks 12,000,000 redwood ties at one time. Builders of tanks, flumes, and water pipes procure some of their best material, and large quantities of it, from redwood sawmills. Few woods are more universally found in furniture factories.
GOWEN CYPRESS (_Cupressus goveniana_) follows the California coast from Mendocino county, California, to San Diego, and ascends mountains to the height of 3,000 feet in some localities. At its best it is fifty feet high and two feet in diameter; but it extends as a shrub over many sandy tracts. Specimens no more than a foot high sometimes bear cones. The Gowen cypress sheds its leaves the third and fourth years. Cones are from one-half to one inch long, and each bears about 100 seeds. The wood is light, soft, weak, light brown in color, the thick sapwood nearly white. The medullary rays are numerous but obscure. The wood is used for posts and other ranch purposes. Woodpeckers attack the trunks, picking holes through the bark to suck the juice from the cambium layer beneath.
DWARF CYPRESS (_Cupressus pygmæa_) was formerly supposed to be a stunted form of Gowen cypress. The ranges of both lie in the same region, on the coast of California in Mendocino county. The average height of dwarf cypress is from ten to twenty feet, with trunk diameter from six to twelve inches; but in peat swamps and on sterile sands it may not exceed three or four feet in height. It bears abundant cones at that size, and sometimes a tree no more than a foot high has mature cones. They ripen the second year, but remain a long time on the branches. The trees thrive in the most forbidding places, and are sometimes the only occupants of bogs or sand dunes. The wood is necessarily of little value, because of the small size of trees. There seems to be no record of a dwarf cypress over sixty years of age; but it is believed that much older trees have fallen victims to fire.
HEMLOCK
HEMLOCK
(_Tsuga Canadensis_)
Seven hemlocks are known in the world, four of them in America. Two of these are in the East, two in the West. The eastern species are the Canadian and Carolinian. The former is _Tsuga canadensis_, the latter _Tsuga caroliniana_. The western species are, mountain hemlock (_Tsuga mertensiana_), and western hemlock (_Tsuga heterophylla_). The word _tsuga_ is Japanese and means hemlock.
The hemlock lumber in eastern markets is practically all from one species, which is known as hemlock in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Ontario. In Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina; in England it is called hemlock spruce; spruce tree in Pennsylvania and West Virginia; spruce pine in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia; to the New York Indians it was known as oh-neh-tah, which being interpreted means “greens on the stick.”
The range of hemlock extends east and west more than fifteen hundred miles, from Nova Scotia to western Wisconsin; south to Delaware and southern Michigan, and along the Appalachian mountains to northern Alabama and Georgia. The original quantity of timber was enormous, for large areas were covered with dense stands. The largest trees are found near the southern part of its range, among the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina; but the bulk of the timber has always been in the North. It thrives best in well drained soil, but it likes cool situations and often develops dense forests on northern slopes or in deep ravines; but it maintains a foothold on ridges, on the banks of streams, and around the borders of swamps.
The cones are very small, about a half inch in length, growing singly from the lower side of the branchlet. Their scales are rounded and thin, light brown in color. The seeds are winged and even when ripe the cones do not spread apart perceptibly. The seeds escape, however, slowly during the winter following their maturity. They are very small, and their wings distribute them a hundred feet or more. The seeds germinate best on leaf mold, but the seedling takes several years to thrust its roots deep into the mineral soil. During that time, growth is very slow. A seedling five years old may not exceed five inches in height; but when its roots have developed, growth is fairly rapid. The distribution of seeds is often facilitated by the activities of red squirrels, and perhaps other small mammals, which climb the trees in winter and tear the cones apart to get at the seeds. Many of the seeds are devoured, but more escape and fly away on the winter winds.
Hemlock leaves are narrow and about half an inch long. Examined closely, particularly with a magnifying glass, rows of white dots extend from end to end on the under side. Small as these white points are separately, when seen in the aggregate they change the color of the whole crown of the tree. This is illustrated by looking at a hemlock from a distance--the upper sides of the leaves on the drooping twigs being then visible and the tree’s aspect dark green. Approach the tree, and look up from its base--the under side of the leaves being then visible--and the dark color changes to a light silvery tint. The whiteness is due to the white spots on the leaves. The spots are stomata (mouths), and are parts of the chemical laboratory which carries on the tree’s living processes. All tree leaves have stomata, but all are not arranged in the same way and are not visible alike. Few trees have them as prominent as the hemlocks.
Hemlock attains a height from sixty to 100 feet and a diameter from two to four. When it grows in the open, it is one of the handsomest and most symmetrical evergreens of any country. Its dark, dense foliage will permit scarcely any sunlight to filter through. When forest-grown, it loses its lower limbs. In the forester’s language, they are “shaded off,” and long, smooth trunks are developed; but the stubs from which the branches fall remain buried deep inside the smoothest bole, and the saws will find them when the logs are converted into lumber.
Reference has been made to hemlock’s slow growth during the seedling’s first four or five years. That takes place in the dense shade of the hemlock forest. If the seed falls on open ground, in full sunlight, the chance is that it will not germinate; but if it does, the seedling is doomed to an early death. It cannot endure strong light. This fact is of great importance, for it means the end of hemlock forests. When a stand is cut and the sunshine reaches the ground, no seedlings bring on a new forest. White pine seeds grow in open ground, in old fields, in burnt woods, wherever they reach soil, but hemlock must scatter its seeds in cool, deep shade or they will do little good. Strong, vigorous, and healthy as hemlock trees are, they are killed more easily than almost any other. Cut a few trees from the center of a mature hemlock clump, and the chance is that several trees next to the open space thus made will die. The unusual light proves too much for their roots which had always been cool and damp; but when young hemlocks are protected until they get a start, they thrive nicely in the open.
The wood of hemlock is light, soft, not strong, brittle, coarse and crooked grained, difficult to work, liable to windshake, splinters badly, not durable. The summerwood of the annual ring is conspicuous; and the thin medullary rays are numerous. The color of hemlock heartwood is light brown, tinged with red, often nearly white. The sapwood is darker. Lumbermen recognize two varieties, red and white, but botanists do not recognize them.
The physical characters of hemlock are nearly all unfavorable, yet it has become a useful and widely used wood. It is largely manufactured into coarse lumber and used for outside work--railway ties, joists, rafters, sheathing, plank walks, laths, etc. It is rarely used for inside finishing, owing to its brittle and splintery character. Clean boards made into panels or similar work and finished in the natural color often present a very handsome appearance, owing to the peculiar pinkish tint of the wood, ripening and improving with age.
With the growing scarcity of white and Norway pine, hemlock has become the natural substitute for these woods for many purposes. It has never been conceded that hemlock possesses the intrinsic merit of either of the northern pines for structural purposes, but it has proven a suitable substitute for a variety of uses, notably for framing and sheathing of medium priced structures.
In 1910 hemlock lumber was cut in twenty-one states, the total output exceeding 2,500,000,000 feet. Only four species or groups of species exceeded it in amount. They were southern yellow pines, Douglas fir, the oaks, and white pine. The principal cut of hemlock lumber was in the following states in the order named: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Maine, Vermont, Virginia, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Ten other states produced smaller amounts.
Hemlock possesses remarkable holding power on nails and spikes, and that is one reason for its large use for railroad ties. It does not easily split, and there is no likelihood that spikes will work loose; but the wood decays quickly in damp situations, and unless given preservative treatment, hemlock ties do not last long. They are pretty soft anyway, and where traffic is heavy, rails cut them badly.
Manufacturers of boxes and crates use much hemlock. The annual use for that purpose in Massachusetts is about 27,000,000 feet, in Michigan practically the same quantity, in Illinois 34,000,000, and varying quantities in many other states. Michigan converts nearly 100,000,000 feet a year into flooring and other planing mill products, and Wisconsin and other hemlock states follow it in lesser amounts. The wood is employed by car builders, slack coopers, manufacturers of refrigerators, silos, and farm implements; but the largest demand comes from those who use the rough lumber.
Hemlock bark is the most important tanning material in this country. It has long been used by leather makers who generally mix it with some other bark or extract because leather tanned with hemlock alone has a redder color than is desired.
Large areas of hemlock forests have been cut for the bark alone. Formerly the wood was of so little value that it was cheaper to leave it in the forest than to take it out. The peelers worked in early summer, cutting trees and removing the bark in four-foot lengths, which was measured by the cord, though often sold by weight. Care was taken that the bark be removed from the slashings before the dry weather of autumn, for fire was to be expected then, and anything combustible in the woods at that time was likely to be lost. The tracts on which bark peelers worked were called “slashings,” and they were fire traps of the worst kind with their tangled masses of tops and branches.
Large quantities of hemlock bark are still peeled every summer, but the practice is less destructive than formerly. The trunks are worth taking out, and when the fire comes late in the season it consumes little valuable hemlock. A permanent decline in the annual production of this wood has not yet begun, but it must soon set in, for the demand cannot be indefinitely met.
WESTERN HEMLOCK
WESTERN HEMLOCK
(_Tsuga Heterophylla_)
When this wood began to go to market, its promoters found difficulties in securing a trial for it in eastern states, because of its name. The eastern hemlock was known to be a substantial wood, but a rough one with many faults linked with its virtues. It was naturally supposed that the western hemlock had all the faults of its eastern relative with possibly some of the good qualities left out; and there was general hesitancy to put the new comer to a trial. That caused a movement among western lumbermen to sell their hemlock under some other name. They were confident the wood had only to be given a trial and it would win its way, after which the name would make little difference. Accordingly, it was started to market under the name of Alaska pine, although Alaska has no pine large enough for good lumber. Other lumbermen thought it advisable to choose a name less likely to excite suspicion, and they called it Washington pine. Others designated it as spruce, and still others as fir. It was more likely to pass for fir than for pine or spruce.
The lumber is now generally known as western hemlock, but in California some call it hemlock spruce or California hemlock spruce. In Idaho, Washington, and Oregon the name hemlock usually suffices; while western hemlock spruce, and western hemlock fir, and Prince Albert’s fir are names used in speaking of lumber and of the tree in the forest.
Western hemlock’s range extends north and south a thousand miles, from southern Alaska to California south of San Francisco. It grows from the Pacific coast eastward to Montana, five hundred miles or more. It ascends to altitudes of 6,000 feet, but it is not at its best on high mountains, but in the warm, damp region near the coast in Washington and Oregon. Trees 200 feet high and eight or ten in diameter are found, but the average size is much less.
The leaves of western hemlock are dark green and very lustrous above. The flowers are yellow and purple. Cones are one inch or less in length, and the small seeds are equipped with wings which carry them some distance from the base of the parent tree. The seeds will germinate and develop a root system without touching mineral soil. Their ability to do so assists them greatly in maintaining the tree’s position in the damp climate where this hemlock reaches its best development. The ground in the forest, with all objects that lie upon it, is often covered with wet moss a foot or more thick. The seeds of most trees would inevitably perish if they fell upon such a bed of moss; but the seeds of western hemlock germinate, and the rootlets strike through the moss until they reach the soil beneath, and seedling trees are soon growing vigorously. Seeds often germinate in the moss on logs and stumps, but the roots strike for the ground, and generally reach it. In this habit the western hemlock resembles the yellow birch of the East whose seeds seem to germinate best on mossy logs and stumps.
Western hemlock has one of the bad habits of its eastern relative: it does not prune itself very well, even in dense forests, and the lumber is apt to be knotty, but the knots are usually sound, though dark in color.
The wood of western hemlock is moderately light, but twenty per cent heavier than eastern hemlock; stronger than the wood of other American hemlocks, and nearly twenty-five per cent stronger than the eastern commercial species, and nearly fifty per cent stiffer. It is tough and hard, but has little of the flinty texture of other hemlocks. Its color is pale brown, tinged with yellow, the thin sapwood nearly white. It is fairly durable in contact with the soil. Its growth is usually rapid, and trees live to a great age. Some of the largest are said to reach 800 years. The summerwood often constitutes half of the yearly ring, and is dark yellow. The medullary rays are numerous and rather prominent. When cut radially, the appearance, size, and arrangement of the exposed medullary rays suggest those of sugar maple when exposed in the same way.