Part 18
NETLEAF OAK (_Quercus reticulata_) will never attract lumbermen in this country, but sometime they may send to the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico to procure it. In that region it is a tree large enough for lumber; but the portion of its range overlapping on the United States lies in southern Arizona and New Mexico among mountains from 7,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level. Conditions are unfavorable and the netleaf oak shows it by its stunted size and rough form. The wood is hard, heavy, dark brown in color, with lighter sapwood. The medullary rays are numerous and very broad. The tree seldom exceeds forty feet in height and one foot in diameter. The leaf is netted somewhat like that of the elm. The acorn is usually not more than half an inch in length.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN OAK (_Quercus undulata_) bears acorns which may be eaten like chestnuts, and not much more may be said for the tree in the way of usefulness to man, though it is the salvation of some of the small mammals of the bleak Texas and New Mexico hills where there is little to eat and few places for concealment from hawks and other enemies. The tree is also called scrub oak and shin oak. It grows in Colorado, New Mexico, western Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. At its best it rarely exceeds thirty feet high and a foot in diameter, and it often forms a jungle of shrubs through which the traveler must wade waist deep or go miles out of his way to pass round it. Its leaf is one of the smallest of the oaks, and is notched much like the chestnut leaf.
ALVORD OAK (_Quercus alvordiana_) is little known and will probably never be of much importance. It grows in the region of Tehachapi mountains, the northern border of the Mojave desert, in California, and was named for William Alvord of that state. The leaf is toothed, and the acorn smooth. No record has been found of any use of the wood, and when Sudworth compiled his book, “Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope,” he was unable to procure enough leaves, flowers, and fruit to enable him to give a botanical description. It may therefore be regarded as one of the scarcest oaks in the United States, which fact gives it a certain interest.
SADLER OAK (_Quercus sadleriana_) is one of the minor oaks of the Pacific coast, and is popularly and properly called scrub oak by those who encounter it on high, dry slopes of northern California and southern Oregon mountains, from 4,000 to 9,000 feet above the sea. It forms dense thickets, and passes for an evergreen. Its leaves remain on the branches only thirteen months. The leaves are toothed like those of chestnut. The acorns are matured in one season. The name Sadler oak was given it in honor of a Scottish botanist. Trees are too scarce and too small to have much value, except as a ground cover.
BREWER OAK (_Quercus breweri_) grows on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, from Kaweah river northward to Trinity mountains. It is often little more than a shrub, and its usefulness to man lies less in the quantity of wood it produces than in the protection the dense thickets, with their network of roots, afford steep hillsides. Gullying in time of heavy rain cannot take place where this oak’s matted masses of roots bind the soil. Sprouts rise freely from the roots, and thickets are reproduced in that way rather than from acorns, although in certain years crops of acorns are bountiful. The trunks are too small to make any kind of lumber, but are capable of supplying considerable quantities of fuel.
POST OAK
POST OAK
(_Quercus Minor_)
Post oak is the most common name for this tree but various sections of its range have given it their own names which probably have local significance. The following names are in use in the localities denoted: post oak in the eastern and Gulf states, Connecticut to Texas, and in Arkansas and West Virginia; box white oak in Rhode Island; iron oak in Delaware, Mississippi and Nebraska; chêne étoile in Quebec; overcup oak in Florida; white oak in Kentucky and Indiana; box oak and brash oak in Maryland.
Toward the northern portion of the range of this tree it is small, and in early times it was little used except for fence posts. Its durability fitted it for that use, and it is said the common name was due to that circumstance. The name iron oak was used by shipbuilders who sometimes bought small knees made of this wood. Baltimore oak was an early name which is not now in use. It was generally applied to white oak, but it included some post oak shipped from the Chesapeake bay region.
Post oak is botanically and commercially a white oak and is seldom distinguished from the true white oak, _Quercus alba_, in commerce. It is seen at its best in the uplands of the Mississippi basin and in the Gulf states west of the Mississippi, where it attains a considerable size. In the northeastern states and in Florida it is small, becoming shrubby in some localities, and more or less of local growth. Limestone uplands or dry, sandy or gravelly soils seem to offer the best conditions for its existence, where it grows in company with black jack, red and white oak, sassafras, dogwood, gums, and red cedar.
The range of growth of post oak extends from New Brunswick south through the Atlantic states into Florida; west through the Gulf states and throughout the Mississippi river system, growing west brokenly to Montana. It is the common oak of central Texas but in the North it is rather scarce, becoming more plentiful in the lower Appalachians.
The broad, dense, round-topped crown of the post oak with its peculiar foliage make it very noticeable in the woods, even to the casual observer. Its dark green looks almost black at a distance. The tree has an average height of sixty or eighty feet and is about two feet in diameter, but in exceptional cases it reaches one hundred feet in height and has a diameter of three feet. It has a moderately thick, dark brown bark with a reddish tinge and deep fissures, the broad ridges being covered with thin scales. On the branches it becomes much thinner, and lighter in color, the branchlets being unfissured and glabrous in the second year, although fuzzy at first. They are rather heavy and rounded and terminate in short round buds with conspicuous scales. A noticeable feature of the tree is the peculiar branching. The limbs are heavy and crooked, separating often, with wide angles, forming knees which when big enough, have a commercial value.
When the tree is in foliage the tufted appearance of the leaves grouped on the ends of the twigs gives it a distinctive look. They bear some resemblance to a star, and for that reason some botanists have named the species _stellata_. The leaves are five or seven inches long usually, but in some cases, especially on young specimens, they are ten or more inches long. They are dark, shiny-green and on a short petiole, the veins and midrib being heavy and conspicuous. The identification of these leaves is easy as they are heavy in texture, are bilaterally developed with a large, obtuse lobe on each side about in the middle, giving them a maltese cross effect. They are very persistent, staying on the tree until the new leaves push them off in the spring.
The form of post oak is not ideal from the lumberman’s viewpoint. The tree does not prune itself well. Straggling limbs adhere to the trunk and prevent the clean bole which often makes white oak so attractive.
The wood weighs 52.14 pounds per cubic foot. The name iron oak referred to the weight as well as the strength of the wood. It is rather difficult to season, and is inclined to check badly. The medullary rays are broad and numerous, and checking is apt to develop along the rays. The summerwood occupies about half of the annual ring, and is dense and dark colored. Large pores are abundant in the springwood, and smaller ones in the summerwood.
Formerly this tree was known in some sections as turkey oak, though the name is no longer heard, but is now applied to another oak in the South. The acorns are small enough to be eaten by turkeys, and when those game birds were wild in the woods they frequented parts of the forests where post oaks grew, and hunters knew where to find them. The uses of post oak for building and manufacturing purposes are the same as for white oak as far as they go, but post oak is not so extensively employed.
The earliest railroads in America were built in the region where post oak of excellent quality grew, and it saw service from the first as crossties, and car and bridge timbers. It is still used for those purposes. Its other important uses are as furniture material, both as solid stock and veneer; interior finish and fixtures for offices, banks, and stores; musical instruments, including frames, braces, and veneers; baskets, crates, and shipping boxes; vehicles, particularly tongues, axles, and hounds of heavy wagons; flooring, stair work, balusters.
Post oak will do well on land too gravelly and thin to sustain good white oak growth. To that extent the two species are not competitors for ground, and post oak is assured a place in future woodlots, but it cannot be expected ever to equal white oak in commercial importance, while as an ornamental tree it is not usually favored because the shape of its crown is not altogether pleasing. Its very dark foliage, however, is admired by many and gives the tree an individuality.
SWAMP WHITE OAK (_Quercus platanoides_). This tree’s botanical name means “broadleaf oak,” and that is a good description as far as it goes, but it does not apply solely to this species. The characteristic which fixes it best in the minds of most people is its preference for low, wet soil. Its two common names are swamp oak and swamp white oak, yet it is not really a swamp tree, such as the northern white cedar, southern white cedar, cypress, and tupelo are. It does not associate with any of those trees. It prefers river banks, and does not object to a good deal of water about its roots, though it grows nicely in situations out of reach of all overflow, and often side by side with silver maple, hickory, ash, and several other oaks. The leaf resembles that of chestnut oak, and the bark is somewhat like chestnut oak, but the wood passes in market for white oak, and is a good substitute for it, though the resemblance is not so close that one need be mistaken for the other. The tree averages about seventy feet high with a diameter of two feet, but much larger trunks are common. The famous “Wadsworth oak,” which stood on the bank of the Genesee river in western New York, about a mile from the village of Geneseo, was a swamp white oak. It had a trunk diameter of nine feet, but it was not tall in proportion. It met its overthrow by the undermining of the river bank in time of flood. That is a common fate for this tree, because of its preference for river banks. Its range is from Maine to Wisconsin and Iowa. It follows the mountains to northern Georgia; and west of the Mississippi it grows as far south as Arkansas. The species is best developed in western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and along the southern shores of Lakes Erie and Michigan.
Trees do not clear themselves of branches on their lower trunks very early in life, and lumber more or less knotty results. It is possible, however, to cut a fairly large proportion of clear boards. The wood is of about the same weight as white oak, and is hard, strong, and tough. Its color is light brown, and the thin sapwood is hardly distinguishable from the heart. The medullary rays are as large as those of white oak, but are few. For that reason, swamp white oak does not give very satisfactory results when quarter-sawed. The bright patches are too scarce. Neither does it show as many of these rays as chestnut oak. The wood is very porous, but the large pores are confined to the springwood, while the broad bands of summerwood are dense. The contrast between the two parts of annual rings forms a strong, but not particularly handsome figure when the lumber is sawed tangentially--that is, from the side of the log. The wood finisher can improve this oak’s natural appearance by employing fillers and stains to lighten shades or deepen tints. The uses of this oak are numerous. It is excellent fuel, and is rather low in ash; it is weaker and more brittle than white oak; but it is quite satisfactory for railroad ties, car building, house finish, furniture, some parts of heavy vehicles, certain kinds of cooperage, and for farm implements.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN BLUE OAK (_Quercus oblongifolia_) is named from the blue color of its foliage, though what little lumber is cut from it, is bought and sold as white oak. It is of little importance, yet in the almost timberless mountains of western Texas it supplies some of the urgent wants of a scattered population. It bears willow-like leaves one or two inches long, and less than an inch wide; but on vigorous shoots they are larger. The acorns are very small. Trees seldom exceed thirty feet in height, and a diameter of twenty inches; and often the trunk is divided near the ground in three or four stout, crooked forks. Ordinarily, it is an impossible tree to lumber, but sometimes a few logs find their way to sawmills and a little passable lumber is produced. The wood weighs 58 pounds per cubic foot. It is strong, but when it breaks, it snaps short. The heartwood is darker than in most oaks, and the sapwood is brown. The tree is useful for fuel. Charcoal for local blacksmith shops is manufactured from the wood. It is abundant on many of the sterile slopes and mesas of New Mexico and Arizona, but usually in the form of brush about the heads of canyons.
COW OAK
COW OAK
(_Quercus Michauxii_)
This oak’s acorns are remarkably free from the bitterness due to tannin and are therefore pleasant to the taste. Herbivorous animals eat them when they are to be had, and the eagerness with which cattle gather them in the fall is doubtless the reason for calling the tree cow oak. Hogs and sheep are as eager hunters for the acorns as cattle are, and the half-wild swine in the southern forests become marketable during the two months of the acorn season. Children know the excellency of the cow oak acorns, and gather them in large quantities during the early weeks of autumn in the South. The tree is widely known as basket oak, and the name refers to a prevailing use for the wood in early times, and a rather common use yet. Long before anyone had made a study of the structure of this wood, it was learned that it splits nicely into long, slender bands, and these were employed by basket weavers for all sorts of wares in that line. Tens of thousands of baskets were in use before the war in the southern cottonfields, and they have not gone out of use there yet. It is safe to say that millions of dollars worth of cotton has been picked and “toted” in baskets made of this oak. It was natural, therefore, that the name basket oak should be given it. Large, coarse baskets are still made of splits of this wood, and china and other merchandise are packed in them; while baskets of finer pattern and workmanship are doing service about the farms and homes of thousands of people.
When the structure of wood became a subject of study among dendrologists, the secret of the cow oak’s adaptability to basket making was discovered. The annual rings of growth are broad, and the bands of springwood and summerwood are distinct. The springwood is so perforated with large pores that it contains comparatively little real wood substance. The early basket maker did not notice that but he found by experimenting that the wood split along the rings of growth into fine ribbons. The splitting occurs along the springwood. Ribbons may be pulled off as thin as the rings of annual growth, that is, from an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch thick. These are the “splits” of which baskets are made. When subjected to rough usage, such as being dragged and hauled about cornfields and cotton plantations, such a basket will outlast two or three of willow.
The tree is sometimes called swamp white oak, and swamp chestnut oak. It bears some resemblance to the swamp white oak (_Quercus platanoides_) and some people believe that both are of one species, but of slightly different forms. It is not surprising that there should be a conflict of names and confusion in identification. The leaf resembles that of the chestnut oak, and to that fact is due the belief which some hold that the chief difference between the trees is that the chestnut oak (_Quercus prinus_) grows on dry land and cow oak in damp situations. Botanists make a clear distinction between cow oak and all other species, though it closely resembles some of them in several particulars.
From the northern limits of its growth in Delaware, where it is not of any considerable size, it extends south through the Atlantic states and into Florida, west in the Gulf states to the Trinity river in Texas, and up the Mississippi valley, including in its range Arkansas, eastern Missouri, southern Indiana and Illinois and western Kentucky and Tennessee. It is distinctly of the South and may be considered the best southern representative of the white oak group. It does best in swampy localities where it is found in company with water hickory, sweet magnolia, planer tree, water oak, willow oak, red maple, and red and black gum.
In general appearance the tree gives the impression of massiveness and strength, offset by the delicate, silvery effect of the bark and the lining of the foliage. The usual height is sixty or eighty feet, but it often exceeds a hundred feet, the bole attaining a diameter of as high as seven feet and showing three log lengths clear. The characteristic light gray, scaly, white oak bark covers trunk and heavy limbs, which rise at narrow angles, forming a rounded head and dividing into stout branches and twigs. The winter buds are not characteristic of white oak, being long and pointed rather than rounded. They are about a half inch in length, scaly, with red hairs and usually in threes on the ends of the twigs. The general texture of the leaves is thick and heavy, their upper surfaces being dark, lustrous green and the lower white and covered with hairs. They are from five to seven inches long with petioles an inch in length and of the general outline of the chestnut leaf. Their rich crimson color is conspicuous in the fall after turning.
The wood of cow oak is hard, heavy, very tough, strong, and durable. The heartwood is light brown, the sapwood darker colored. It weighs 50.10 pounds per cubic foot, and is not quite up to white oak in strength and elasticity. In quarter-sawing it does not equal white oak, because the medullary rays, though broad, are not regularly distributed, and the surface of the quarter-sawed board has a splotchy appearance, and it is not as easy to match figures as with white oak.
Cow oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the South. Its uses are much the same as those for white oak farther north. The custom of calling it white oak when it goes to market renders the collection of statistics of uses difficult. Sawmills seldom or never list cow oak in making reports of cut. Factories which further manufacture lumber, after it leaves the mill, sometimes distinguish between cow oak and other oaks. It has been found suitable material in the South for canthook handles where it takes the place of hickory which is more expensive. It is reported for that use in considerable quantity in Louisiana. The handles are subjected to great strain and violent shocks. The billets are split to the proper size, because if they are sawed they are liable to contain cross grain which is a fatal defect. The wood is cut in dimensions for chair stock and furniture, the better grades usually going to furniture factories. Defective logs, short lengths, and odds and ends may be worked into chair stock which contains a large proportion of small pieces. The making of large plantation baskets of this wood is still a fairly large business in Louisiana and Mississippi. Braided bottoms of cheap chairs are of the same workmanship as baskets.
Vehicle makers in the South are large users of this wood. It is employed in heavy wagons chiefly, and is worked into many parts, including axles, bolsters, felloes, hubs, hounds, tongues, reaches, spokes, and bedbottoms.
This tree is classed as white oak by coopers who accept it as stave material. The amount used is much less than of the true white oak, but the exact quantity taken yearly by barrel makers is not known because statistics do not list the different white oaks separately. Cow oak rives well when a trunk is found clear of knots. The trees are usually smaller and less perfect than true white oak in the North.
Railroads accept crossties of this species and they give as long service as white oak, are as hard, and hold spikes as well. The wood is accepted by car shops for use in repairs and in new work. Trunks are split or sawed into fence posts and are used in probably larger numbers than any other southern oak.
This tree’s future seems fairly well assured. It will further decline in available supply, because it is cut faster than it is growing. That is the status of all the timber oaks of this country. This one has advantage over some of the others in that it occupies wet land which will not soon be in demand for agricultural purposes, and young growth will be left to develop.