Part 19
ENGELMANN OAK (_Quercus engelmanni_) occupies a restricted range in southwestern California where it is generally spoken of as a desert tree; but its rate of growth appears to be much more rapid than is usual with trees in arid situations. It occupies a narrow belt in San Diego county and its range extends into Lower California. It forms about one-third of the stand in Palomar mountains, and is much scarcer in the Cuyamaca mountains. The tree seldom attains a height greater than forty or fifty feet, or a diameter more than twenty or thirty inches. The largest trees are of small value for lumber and in rare instances only, if at all, do they go to sawmills. The trunks fork and each branch forks, until a fairly large bole near the ground is divided among numerous limbs. The tree’s chief value is as fuel. It rates high as such. The leaves are bluish-green and are thick with sharp points on their margins. The leaves vary greatly in size, and are largest on young shoots. They remain a year on the tree, and are classed as evergreen. The acorns ripen in one year. This interesting species was named for Dr. George Engelmann, whose name is borne also by Engelmann spruce. The wood is among the heaviest of the oaks, exceeding white oak by more than twelve pounds per cubic foot. It is brittle and weak, and very dark brown. The green wood checks and warps badly in seasoning. The medullary rays are numerous and large, but are so irregularly dispersed that quarter-sawing promises no satisfactory results, even if logs of suitable size could be found. The annual rings are indistinct, owing to no clear line of separation between springwood and summerwood. Pores are numerous, diffuse, and some of them large. The species is entitled to recognition only because it is found in a region where forests are scarce and scrubby, and every trunk has value as fuel, if for nothing else. It affords a cover for hills which otherwise would be barren, and it frequently occurs in fairly dense thickets.
PACIFIC POST OAK
PACIFIC POST OAK
(_Quercus Garryana_)
David Douglas named this tree the Garry oak, in honor of Nicholas Garry of the Hudson Bay Company, who furnished valuable assistance to botanists and other explorers of early times in the northwestern parts of America. This tree is best developed in the neighborhood of Puget Sound, the present state of Washington, and at the period of explorations in that region by Douglas, who was a Scotchman, the country was a sort of “no man’s land.” It was claimed by both England and the United States, and Russia had cast covetous eyes on it as a southern extension of her Alaska holdings. England at that time put a good deal of dependence in the Hudson Bay Company to get possession of and to hold as much country as possible, and Garry’s help given to explorers was part of a well-laid plan to possess as much of the northwestern country as possible. Douglas doubtless had that in mind when he named the oak in honor of Garry. It was a witness and perpetual reminder that the Hudson Bay Company’s strong arms had been stretched in that direction.
The people in California and Oregon often speak of the tree simply as white oak, but it is sometimes called Oregon white oak, and more often Oregon oak without a qualifying word. When it is spoken of as western white oak, which frequently is the case, it is compared with the well-known eastern white oak. It bears more resemblance to the eastern post oak (_Quercus minor_) and for that reason it has been named Pacific post oak. The leaves and twigs, particularly when they are young, resemble post oak.
The northern limit of the tree’s range crosses southern British Columbia. It is found in the lower valley of Frazer river and on Vancouver island. It is the only oak tree of British Columbia. Its range extends southward to the Santa Cruz mountains in California, but near the southern limit of its range it is found chiefly in valleys near the coast. It is best developed in western Washington and Oregon. It occurs of good size on dry gravelly slopes of low hills; and it ascends the Cascade mountains to considerable elevations, but becomes stunted and shrubby. It is abundant in northwestern California.
The tree has a height from sixty to a hundred feet; sometimes it attains a diameter of three and one-half feet. It carries a broad and compact crown, especially when the tree is surrounded by young coniferous growth as is the case in its best habitat where natural pruning gets rid of the lower limbs and causes an outward and later a pendulous growth of the upper part. The limbs are strong and heavy as are the branches and twigs. The bark is a grayish-brown with shallow fissures, the broad ridges being sometimes broken across forming square plates which are covered with the grayish flakes or scales. The buds are long and acute, and are coated with a red fuzz. The leaves are from four to six inches long and are bilaterally developed, having seven or nine coarse round lobes; the sinuses being rounded or rather shallow. The color is a dark lustrous green and the texture leathery.
The acorn is rather large being about an inch and a quarter in length and usually about half as broad as long; has a shallow cup covered with pointed sometimes elongated scales.
This oak is one of the most important hardwoods of the far Northwest. It is often compared with the eastern white oak, but its physical properties fall below that species in some important particulars. The two woods weigh about the same, but the eastern species is stronger and more elastic, and is of better color and figure. All oaks season somewhat slowly, but the Pacific post oak is hardly up to the average. It is a common saying that it must remain two years on the sticks to fit it for the shop, but that time may be shortened in many instances. Checking must be carefully guarded against.
Some of this oak is exceedingly tough, and when carefully sorted and prepared it is excellent material for heavy wagons; but the best comes from young and comparatively small trees. When they attain large size they are apt to become brash. The tree usually grows rapidly, and is not old in proportion to the size of its trunk. An examination of the wood shows broad bands of summerwood and narrow, very porous springwood. The medullary rays are broad and numerous, and ought to show well in quarter-sawed stock; but it does not appear that much quarter-sawing has been done.
Practically all of this species cut in the United States is credited to Oregon in the census of sawmill output in 1910. The cut was 2,887,000 feet, and was produced by fourteen sawmills, while in Washington only one mill reported any oak, and the quantity was only 4,000 feet. On the northwest Pacific coast it comes in competition with eastern oak and also with Siberian or Japanese oak.
Basket makers put this wood to considerable use. Young trees are selected on account of their toughness. The wood is either split in long, thin ribbons for basket weaving, or it is first made into veneer and then cut in ribbons of required width. The largest users are furniture makers, but boat yards find it convenient material and it takes the place of imported oak for frames, keels, ribs, sills, and interior finish. It is durable, and it may be depended upon for long service in any part of boat construction. Its toughness fits it for ax, hammer, and other handles. It is far inferior to hickory, but on the Pacific coast it can be had much cheaper. Its strength and durability make it one of the best western woods for insulator pins for telephone and telegraph lines. It is worked into saddle trees and stirrups.
The scarcity of woods on the Pacific coast suitable for tight cooperage gives this oak a rather important place, because barrels and casks made of it hold alcoholic liquors. Available statistics do not show the quantity of staves produced from this wood, but it is known to be used for staves in Oregon.
Much Pacific post oak is employed as rough lumber for various purposes. Railroads buy crossties, hewed or sawed from small trunks, and country bridges are occasionally floored with thick planks which wear well and offer great resistance to decay.
The quantity of this oak growing in the Northwest is not known. It falls far below some of the softwoods of the same region, and the area on which it is found in commercial amounts is not large. It is holding its ground fairly well. Trees bear full crops of acorns frequently, and if they fall on damp humus they germinate and grow. The seedlings imitate the eastern white oak, and send tap roots deep into the ground, and are then prepared for fortune or adversity. It happens, however, that trees which bear the most bountiful crops of acorns do not stand in forests where the ground is damp and humus abundant, but on more open ground on grass covered slopes. Acorns which fall on sod seldom germinate, and consequently few seedlings are to be seen in such situations. Open-grown trees are poorly suited for lumber, on account of many limbs low on the trunks, but they grow large amounts of cordwood.
CALIFORNIA SCRUB OAK (_Quercus dumosa_) has been a puzzle to botanists, and a hopeless enigma to laymen. Some would split the species into no fewer than three species and three varieties, basing distinctions on forms of leaves and acorns and other botanical differences; but Sudworth, after a prolonged study of this matter, recognized only one species and one variety, but admitted that “California scrub oak unquestionably varies more than all other oaks in the form and size of its leaves and acorns.” He thought it might possibly be equalled in that respect by _Quercus undulata_ of the Rocky Mountains. Some of the leaves of California scrub oak are three-fourths of an inch long and half an inch wide, while others may be four inches long. The edges of some leaves are as briery as the leaves of holly, others are comparatively smooth. The shapes and sizes of acorns vary as much as the leaves. Some are long and slender, others short and stocky. This peculiar oak is found only in California, but it shows a disposition to advance as far as possible into the sea, for it has gained a foothold on islands lying off the California coast, and it there finds its most acceptable habitat. It reaches its largest size in sheltered canyons on the islands, and attains a height of twenty or twenty-five feet, and a diameter of a foot or less. It is not large enough to win favor with lumbermen but in its scrubby form it is abundant in many localities. It is scattered over several thousand square miles, from nearly sea level up to 7,000 feet in the mountains of southern California. It is found scattered through the coast range and the Sierra Nevadas from Mendocino county to Lower California, 700 miles or more. It grows from sprouts and from acorns. The leaves adhere to the twigs thirteen months, and fall after the new crop has appeared. The wood is light brown, hard, and brittle. No use is made of it, except to a small extent for fuel. On the mountains it grows in thickets scarcely five feet high, but they cover the ground in dense jungles, and the roots go deep in the ground. The species is valuable chiefly for protection to steep slopes which would otherwise be without much growth of any kind. Being low on the ground, forest fires are particularly destructive to this oak; but its ability to send up sprouts repairs the damage to some extent.
EMORY OAK (_Quercus emoryi_) grows among the mountains of western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, attains a height from thirty to seventy feet, and a diameter from one to four. The largest size is found only in sheltered canyons, while on high mountains and in exposed situations the tree degenerates to a shrub. It always has a crop of leaves. The old do not fall until the new appear. In shape, the leaves somewhat resemble those of box elder. The acorns ripen from June to September, the exact time depending upon the tree’s situation. Trunks large enough for use are not scarce, but the wood is not of high class. Stair railing and balusters have been made of it in Texas, but the appearance is rather poor. The grain is coarse, the figure common, the color unsatisfactory. The heart is very dark, but the tones are not uniform, and flat surfaces, such as boards and panels, show streaks which are not sufficiently attractive to be taken for figure. Trunks are apt to be full of black knots which mar the appearance of the lumber. The medullary rays are numerous and broad, and in quarter-sawing, the size and arrangement of the “mirrors” are all that could be desired, but they have a decidedly pink color which does not contrast very well with the rest of the wood. The weight of this oak exceeds per cubic foot white oak, by more than ten pounds; but it has scarcely half the strength or half the elasticity of white oak. The springwood is filled with large pores, the summerwood with smaller ones. It rates high as fuel, and that is its chief value. Large quantities are cut for cordwood. Railroad ties are made of it, and more or less goes into mines as props and lagging. Stock ranches make fences, sheds, and corrals of this oak, and live stock eats the acorns. The human inhabitants likewise find the Emory oak acorn crop a source of food. Mexicans gather them in large quantities and sell what they can spare. The market for the acorns is found in towns in northwestern Mexico.
CHESTNUT OAK
CHESTNUT OAK
(_Quercus Prinus_)
This tree is known as rock oak in New York; as rock chestnut oak in Massachusetts and Rhode Island; as rock oak and rock chestnut oak in Pennsylvania and Delaware; as tanbark oak and swampy chestnut oak in North Carolina and as rock chestnut oak and mountain oak in Alabama.
There is a pretty general disposition to call this tree rock oak. The name refers to the hardness of the wood, and is not confined to this species. Other oaks are also given that name, and the adjective “rock” is applied to two or three species of elm which possess wood remarkable for its hardness. Cedar and pine are likewise in the class. In all of these classes “rock” is employed to denote hardness of wood. Iron as an adjective or ironwood as a noun is used in the same way for a number of trees. The name swampy chestnut oak as applied in some parts of the South to this tree, is hardly descriptive, for it is less a swamp tree than most of the oaks, though it does often grow along the banks of streams.
Its distribution ranges from the coast of southern Maine and the Blue Hills of eastern Massachusetts southward to Delaware and the District of Columbia; along the Appalachian mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama; westward to the shores of Lake Champlain and the valley of the Genesee river, New York; along the northern shores of Lake Erie and to central Kentucky and Tennessee. It is rare and local in New England and Ontario, but plentiful on the banks of the lower Hudson river and on the Appalachian mountains from southern New York to Alabama. It reaches its best development in the region from West Virginia to North Carolina, pretty high on the ridges flanking the mountain ranges.
Leaves are alternate, from five to nine inches long, with coarse teeth rounded at the top. At maturity, they are thick and firm, yellow-green and rather lustrous on the upper surface, paler and usually hairy beneath. In the autumn before falling, they turn a dull orange color or rusty-brown.
The flowers appear in May and are solitary or paired on short spurs. The fruit or acorn is solitary or in pairs, one or two and one-half inches long, very lustrous and of a bright chestnut-brown color. The acorn cup is thin, downy-lined and covered with small scales. The kernel is sweet and edible. The bark of the chestnut oak is thin, smooth, purplish-brown and often lustrous on young stems and small branches, becoming a thick, dark, reddish-brown, or nearly black on old trunks, and divided into broad rounded ridges, separating on the surface into small, closely appressed scales. The bark of the tree is so dark in color and so deeply furrowed that it has often been mistaken for one of the black oak group, although its wavy leaf margins and annual fruit clearly differentiate it from those species. The bark of the chestnut oak is thicker and rougher on old trunks than on any other oak.
The bark of chestnut oak has long been valuable for tanning. There is tannin in the bark of all oaks, and several of them contain it in paying quantities, but chestnut oak is more important to the leather industry than any other oak. In richness of tannin the tanbark oak of California occupies as high a place, but it is not supplying as much material as the eastern tree. Statistics showing the annual consumption of tanbark and tanning extracts in the United States, do not list the oaks separately, but it is well known that chestnut oak far surpasses all others in output. Hemlock bark is peeled in large quantities, but tanneries occasionally mix chestnut oak bark with it to lighten the deep red color imparted to leather when hemlock bark is the sole material employed.
Large quantities of chestnut oak timber have been destroyed to procure the bark. Fortunately, it is a practice not much indulged in at present, because the wood now has value, but it formerly had little. It was then abandoned in the forest after the bark was peeled and hauled away. The same practice obtained with hemlock years ago. Much chestnut oak is still cut primarily for the bark, but the logs are worth hauling to sawmills, unless in remote districts.
The chestnut oak is a vigorous tree and grows rapidly in dry soil, where it often forms a great part of the forest. It is not as large as the white oak or red oak, but is a splendid tree, its bole being very symmetrical and holding its size well. It grows usually to a height of from sixty to seventy feet and sometimes 100 feet, with a diameter of from two to five feet and occasionally as large as seven feet.
The form of the tree shows great variation, depending upon the situation in which it grows. Trees in open ground often divide into forks or large limbs, and the trunks are short and of poor form. Open-grown trees show a decided tendency to develop crooked boles, and unduly large branches. No such objection can be urged against it when it grows under forest conditions. Trunks are straight and are otherwise of good form.
The wood of chestnut oak differs little from that of white oak in weight, strength, and stiffness. It is hard, rather tough, durable in contact with the soil, and is darker in color than white oak. It has few large, open pores, and requires less filler in finishing than most oaks. There are many pores, however, and those in the springwood are arranged in bands. The summerwood is broad and distinct, usually constituting three-fourths of the annual ring. The medullary rays are as broad and numerous as in the best furniture oaks. They are regularly arranged, and spaces between them do not vary much in width. The wood quarter-saws well.
The wood has the fault of checking badly in seasoning, unless carefully attended to. In recent years, these difficulties have been largely overcome, both in air seasoning and in the drykiln.
Chestnut oak has a wide range of uses. It is classed as white oak in many markets, but few users buy it believing it to be true white oak. It is coming year by year to stand more on its own merits. Some sawmills which formerly piled it and sold it with other oaks, now keep it separate, and some factories which once took it only because it came mixed with other oaks, now buy it for special uses, and make high-class commodities of it. One of these is mission furniture, which has become fashionable in recent years. Chestnut oak possesses good fuming properties, and this constitutes much of its value as furniture material.
The wood is found in factories where general furniture is made. It is largely frame material for furniture though some of it is for outside finish. It is employed as frames in Maryland in the construction of canal boats, and the annual demand for that purpose is about a quarter of a million feet in that state.
One of the most important places for chestnut oak is in the shop which makes vehicles. It goes into sills for both heavy and light bodies, bolsters, and wagon bottoms. It has become a favorite wagon wood in England and in continental Europe, and there passes as white oak, though dealers well know that it is not the true white oak. There is no indication that demand for it will lessen, for it possesses many characters which fit it for vehicle making.
In Michigan more chestnut oak is reported by car builders than by any other class of manufacturers, though wagon makers buy it. Car shops use about 220,000 feet a year, and work it into hand cars, push cars, track-laying cars, and cattle guards.
The large remaining area of timber growth in which chestnut oak appears is the Appalachian range through eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, and the fact that it is comparatively plentiful in the forests of the Appalachian range will tend to bring it more and more into prominence as a factor in the making of wagons, cars, boats, staves, and furniture as the other oaks become scarcer.
The probable future of chestnut oak is an interesting problem for study. Few steps have yet been taken looking toward providing for generations to come. Chestnut oak has been left to take care of itself. The trees, produced in nature’s way, have been ample to supply all needs in the past, and they will be for the near future. Chestnut oak possesses some advantages over most of the other oaks. Large trees will grow on very poor soil, where most other oaks are little more than shrubs. Trees so grown are little more susceptible to disease than if produced in good soil, though they develop more slowly and are smaller. There are many poor flats and sterile ridges in the chestnut oak’s range, and they will produce timber of fairly good kind, if the chestnut oaks are permitted to have them. Nature gave this tree facilities for taking possession. Its acorns will grow without being buried. They do not depend on blue jays to carry them to sunny openings or squirrels to plant them; but they will sprout where they fall, whether on hard gravelly soil or dry leaves; and they at once set about getting the tap roots of the future trees into the ground. In many instances the chestnut oak’s acorns do not wait to fall from the tree before they sprout. Like the seed of the Florida mangrove, they are often ready to take root the day they touch the ground. The large acorn is stored with plantfood which sustains the growing germ for some time, and the ground must be very hard and exceedingly dry if a young chestnut oak is not soon firmly established, and good for two or three hundred years, if let alone.
The forester who may undertake to grow chestnut oaks must exercise great care in transplanting the seedlings, or the tap roots will be broken and the young trees will die. The best plan is to drop acorns on the ground where trees are expected to grow, and nature will do the rest, provided birds and beasts leave the acorns alone.
CHINQUAPIN OAK
CHINQUAPIN OAK
(_Quercus Acuminata_)