Part 7

The one-leaved nut pine seems to belong with the spruces and firs, and other single-leaved evergreens, but there are frequently two leaves in the bundle, and there is a little scaly sheath at the base. The grey-green leaves often hang on for ten or twelve years. The winged nuts are over half an inch long. The wood furnished fuel and charcoal to the smelters in the mining regions, and the Indians of Nevada and California harvest the nut crop.

Every autumn when we are going for chestnuts and hickory nuts in our Eastern woods, we may think of the Indian families who leave their homes in the lowlands, and climb the mountain slopes to gather their nuts which are their staff of life. If we should miss our nutting excursion, it would make no vital difference in our lives during the coming winter. Our nuts are not a serious part of the provisions of the household. But with the Indians, to miss the nut pine harvest, means to have no bread for the winter that is coming.

Mr. John Muir, who has often lived among these stunted upland forests, and seen the Indians gathering the nuts and using them later as food, tells us many interesting things. The trees of the one-leaved nut pine are low, like old apple trees, and full of cones. The Indians get long poles, and beat the cones off the trees, then roast them on hot stones, until the scales open. Then they shake out the nuts, and gather them in baskets and bags to carry home. These nuts are eaten raw or parched on hot stones. These are the easiest and simplest ways. But the best and most palatable form in which they are prepared costs much more time and labour. The nuts are parched, then ground or pounded into meal. This is stirred up with water, into a kind of mush, which is formed into cakes and baked. This is, in general, the way in which all pine nuts are made into bread.

The time of the nut harvest is, for the Indians, the merriest time of the year. If the crop is heavy, the spirits of the party are light. A single family, if it is fairly industrious, can gather fifty or sixty bushels of these rich, thin-shelled nuts in a single autumn month; and with this quantity to carry home, can go down the mountains, tired but happy, knowing that their bread for the winter, and plenty of it, is assured.

THE HARD PINES

The hard pines are a group of needle-leaved evergreens, whose leaf bundles contain two or three needles, as a rule. The wood is heavy, usually dark in colour, and saturated with a resinous, gummy sap. The common name, “pitch pine,” refers to the resinous wood; it is much harder to work with than that of soft pines. The most valuable hard pine forests grow in the Southern states. These are now the chief sources of pine lumber in the Eastern half of the continent. They furnish also quantities of turpentine, pitch, tar, and oil, products of the resinous sap which saturates the wood of these trees while they are growing.

One trait of the pitch pines is that they retain the leaf sheath. The soft pines shed the sheath as soon as the leaf bundle has attained its full length.

THE SOUTHERN PITCH PINES

The woodwork and floors of a great many houses of moderate cost are done to-day in Southern pine, sometimes called “yellow pine,” sometimes “curly pine.” The alternating bands of dark and light yellowish brown, often very much waved, give the wood an ornamental grain that is much admired. It is common and most desirable that this wood should not be stained nor painted, but given the “natural finish” which brings out the rich orange colour, and shows at their full value the wavy bands and intricate patterns that are the chief beauty of the wood. The arching timbers that support the roof of a church are often made of stiff timbers cut from Southern pines, and dressed only with a coat of oil, under which time deepens and enriches the wood’s natural colours.

THE LONGLEAF PINE

The longleaf pine is one of four hard pines whose lumber is not distinguished by ordinary carpenters, but is generally called “yellow pine.” “Georgia pine” ranks a little higher than the rest. That is the longleaf, which grows over a territory much greater than the state of Georgia. This is the chief source of turpentine, pitch, and tar, as well as one of the very best lumber trees of the pitch pine group. The most ornamental wood is that with the curliest grain, and the narrowest bands of alternating dark and light colour. It grows slowly in hard, sandy soils on the damp coast plains near the Gulf of Mexico.

We shall know this tree from all other pines by the length of its needles. They are twelve to eighteen inches long, flexible, dark green, shining, three in a bundle, enclosed at the base in long, pale, silvery sheaths. They remain on the tree but two years, therefore the tree top is bare except for thick tufts of these drooping leaves on the ends of the branches. If you have never seen these trees growing in their natural forest belt, that ranges from Virginia to Florida, and west to the Mississippi River, or in small scattered forest patches in Northern Alabama, Louisiana, or Texas, you may have seen branches or small trees shipped north to be used for Christmas decorations. In the waste land that the lumbermen have cut over, in the neighbourhood of these longleaf forests, men go in early December, and cut the little trees. Saplings two or three feet high bring good prices in the Northern markets, where holly branches, ropes of ground pine, sprigs of mistletoe, and leaves of Southern palms are sold. A little two-foot longleaf pine, standing erect, with all its long flexible leaves bending outward like a fountain of shining green, is handsomer than any palm of the same size.

The popularity of these pine shoots is growing, and those who cut them seem not to realise that they are killing the forests of the future. Trees grow from seeds which fall in the territory cleared by the lumbermen. If these little trees that Nature plants are cut as fast as they show themselves above the forest floor, how are the longleaf pine forests to be restored? It is a great problem, for a great part of the natural wealth of the South is in these lumber tracts, now being cleared at a terrific rate of speed, and the land left practically worthless when stripped.

The cones of the longleaf pine are narrow and tapering. The scales are thick, and each bears a small spine. The leaves are the distinguishing trait, and the tall, slender trunk crowned by a long open head of short, twisted branches.

THE SHORTLEAF PINE

The shortleaf pine ranks second only to the longleaf among the forest pines of the South. It is the common “yellow pine,” and “North Carolina pine” that is commonly sold from lumber yards in the North and Middle West. Its wood is almost as beautiful in the natural finish. Its leaves are short in comparison with those of the longleaf, and scarcely longer than any pines of the North. They are found in clusters of twos and threes, and they have the dark blue-green colour of the white pine, lightened by the silvery sheaths at the bases of the clusters. The leaves are soft and flexible, slender, and sharp-pointed. They vary from three to five inches in length. The cones are two to three inches long, and half as broad; the thickened scales have small spines. It takes two years to bring cones to maturity, and the old ones hang on several years. In this they differ from our Northern pitch pine.

Forests of this timber pine are scattered from Connecticut to Florida, and west to Illinois, Kansas, and Texas. They are being slaughtered by lumbermen as fast as those of the longleaf. The young trees are tapped for turpentine. In the South and East, these forests are practically gone. The lumber mills are busy in the great tracts west of the Mississippi, and below the Arkansas River, in the forests of shortleaf pine, which until recently were untouched, and too far from the markets to be profitably cut.

The shortleaf pine will reforest the old areas, and spread over a widening territory, if only it is given a chance. One hundred years is enough time to restore a forest,—to grow a crop of these trees. Young ones spring from the roots of old trees, a habit not at all common among pines. Let us hope that before the Southwestern forests are gone, new ones east of the Mississippi River will take their places, so that the shortleaf shall not disappear from the lumber markets as the white pine of the Northeastern states has done.

THE CUBAN PINE

The Cuban pine or swamp pine of the South, with stout green leaves eight to twelve inches long, in twos and threes, is not confused with the longleaf nor the shortleaf, for its leaves are intermediate in length between the two. This beautiful pine grows in forests that skirt swampy coast land. Its leaves are carried two years, so the trees have dense, luxuriant crowns of green, and are more beautiful as a part of the landscape than any other forest pine of the South. The wood of the Cuban pine is not distinguished in the lumber trade, as it is much the same in quality and appearance as longleaf pine.

THE LOBLOLLY PINE

The fourth of the yellow pines of the South is the loblolly or old field pine, whose lumber is saturated with pitch. The trees grow in marshy regions along the coast, and for the most part occupy land that is sterile and worthless. These tide water pine forests follow the swamps from New Jersey around to Texas. In early days this was the building pine of the South. The virgin forests are gone, and the new generation is inferior in quality, because the trees are not allowed to attain their full growth. Though rich in resin, there is little flow of turpentine from these trees, but the wood catches fire easily, and is one of the best of fuels.

We shall know this pine by its pale green, twisted leaves, always in bundles of three, six to ten inches long, enclosed at the base in sheaths that are not shed. The cones are three to five inches long, with ridged scales set with prickles. This tree bears a great crop of cones yearly, and its seeds are remarkable for their vitality. So are the seedlings, which grow on land so wet or so poor that few other trees compete with them. The first ten years in the life of a seedling pine is a period of tremendous growth. Fire rarely sweeps these young forests, for the trees are well protected by the marshy character of the land in which they grow. Left for a century or two, these trees produce masts for the largest vessels, equal in quality to the finest in the world.

THE NORTHERN PITCH PINES

We have nothing in the Northeastern states that compares in importance with the pitch pine of Southern forests, but we have pitch pines which everybody knows. The first is the gnarled and picturesque pitch pine that grows on worthless land, and thrives in patches along the sea coast, where other evergreens are unsuccessful. The rough, rigid branches which spring from the short trunks of these trees carry a burden of blackening cones which give them a very untidy look when the trees are small. When they reach fifty or seventy-five feet in height, a certain nobility and picturesqueness of expression challenge our admiration, and the clusters of cones are not at all objectionable; indeed they heighten the tree’s beauty.

The needle-like leaves of pitch pines are always in threes, rigid, stout, and three to five inches long, dark yellow-green, the bundles in black sheaths that are never shed. The cones require two years to ripen. They are from one to three inches long, pointed, with sharp backward-pointed beaks. The wood of this tree is used for fuel, and locally for lumber, but it does not interest the lumbermen. The wood is not good enough, and the trees are too small and scattered. The tree does a good work by growing on worthless land, and near the sea coast. Its picturesqueness is becoming to be more appreciated by landscape gardeners who are bringing it into cultivation.

The handsomest of our pitch pines is the red pine, whose dark green leaves are six inches long, and cluster in twos upon the twigs. The bark, the wood, and the bud scales are all red. The cones are from one to three inches long, with thickened scales which have no spines. The tree grows into a broad pyramid, branched to the ground, with stout twigs, and luxuriant foliage. The symmetry and vigour of growth makes this red pine a handsomer tree than the ragged, discouraged-looking pitch pines. It is well for the landscape that its wood is very disappointing. So many beautiful groves are allowed to reach great age, and size, where white pines would have fallen to a lumberman’s axe.

The home that has a beautiful red pine within sight of its windows, or a double row of these trees serving as a wind-break to ward off the storms of winter, is truly well planted. Without one or more of these trees, there is a decided lack. Any nurseryman can furnish handsome young red pines, so no one need hesitate to plant this native tree.

The Jersey pine is a twisted, low tree, with dark, discouraged-looking branches, covered with grey-green leaves that have a sickly yellowish tinge when the new shoots appear in spring. The leaves are always in twos, and they range from one to three inches long. The small cones are dark red, oval, with thickened scales spiny-tipped. These trees cover waste land where there is a meagre living for any tree. What wonder that they look stunted? Their chief merit is that they clothe the desert places, and furnish wood for fuel and fences, and thus save the great lumber pines for higher uses.

THE CEDARS, WHITE AND RED

Beside the needle-leaved evergreens just described, there are some trees we all know, that bear cones, and are evergreens, but their leaves are strangely different from those of pines, spruces, firs, and hemlocks. One of these is the familiar arbor vitæ, a conical tree, with flat leaf spray. Looking closely, one can make out the tiny, scale-like leaves, arranged in opposite pairs, clasping the wiry stems, and covering them completely. These stems are flat, so that one pair of leaves has a sharp keel on the middle. The next pair is spread out flat. The keeled pair covers the edge of the stem. The flat pair covers the broader surface. These pairs alternate through the length of the stem, and an aromatic resin seals them close.

The cones of the arbor vitæ are small, and they have few scales, compared with the cones of the needle-leaved evergreens. Each year a crop is borne, with two seeds under each scale. Few of us see the little red cone flowers in May, nor the pellets of yellow on other twigs, which are the pollen flowers. We watch the hedge clipper at work, trimming the thick green fronds that make a solid wall of green. Look carefully hereafter for the flowers and the ripe cones, in the proper season for each.

The white cedar grows, a fine, conical evergreen tree, in the coast states, from Maine to Mississippi. It loves best the deep swamps, but grows well in wet, sandy soil farther inland. Here we see again the flat spray of minute, pointed, and keeled leaves, but the cones are different. These are pale grey, and globular; the few scales are thick and horny, and curiously sculptured, each with a beak projecting from the centre.

The foliage mass is a peculiar blue-green, and the bark, thin, and rusty red, parts into strings and shreds.

Lumbermen call this tree a cedar. So they do the arbor vitæ. The wood of each is pale-coloured, and notable for its durability when exposed to weather and water. Fence posts of white cedar, and cedar pails, shingles, and the like, have a great reputation for durability.

The peculiarity of a red cedar is its fruit. Instead of a cone, a blue, juicy, sweet berry follows the blossoming of this tree. The foliage, too, is erratic. Minute leaves of the scale form, discovered in the other cedars, are found here on most twigs. They are still smaller, and the twigs are much smaller. But on new shoots, and often on a whole branch, the leaves are needle-like, one-half to three-quarters of an inch long, and spreading as the leaves of a spruce. The mass of the foliage is blue-green; these new ones are yellow-green. Among the branches hang these surprising berries!

The truth is that the scales of the cone thicken, and become soft when ripe. They grow together, and the berry is, therefore, a cone, but much changed in its development from the cone on which the fruits of other evergreen trees are patterned.

We all know a red cedar tree by its tall, slim shape. The birds eat the berries, and scatter the seeds far and wide. The trees come up in irregular clumps in pastures and fence-rows, and in rough, uncultivated land. They are pretty widely distributed in the eastern half of the United States.

The true name for this tree is juniper. That is the name by which all its related species are known. Red cedar is the lumberman’s name for its wood, and this name, though not right, will probably stick to it always.

Red cedar chests and closets are believed to be moth-proof. The aromatic resin in the wood is supposed to be distasteful to the insects which are the pests of housekeepers. To put furs and woollen blankets and clothing into these chests does not always prevent their being moth-eaten. This many people have learned by sorrowful experience. We know the fragrance of this wood in pencils. Thousands of trees are cut every year to supply pencil factories. With the scarcity of these trees, other woods are being substituted. But who will be quite satisfied, or be persuaded that cedar pencils are not the best?

TWO CONIFERS NOT EVERGREEN

Two cone-bearing trees have the astonishing habit of letting go their leaves in the fall, and thus setting themselves apart from the evergreens, to which they are otherwise closely related. Their cones are like those of pines and spruces. Their leaves are needle-like, and their flowers are the cone flowers like the rest. Although they stand bare in winter time, their fruits declare their kinships with the evergreen. Their forms also suggest this kinship, for each is a spire-like shaft, from which short branches stand out horizontally like those of the pointed firs and spruces.

THE LARCHES

In the Northern states, and Canada, long stretches of cold marsh land are covered with solid growths of tamarack, our American larch tree. In summer the branches are covered with long, drooping twigs, each set with many blunt side spurs, from which a tuft of soft, needle-like leaves forms a green rosette or pompom. The end twigs have needle leaves scattered their whole length, after the fashion of the spruces. Purplish cone flowers, and yellow staminate cones appear in spring, and in autumn among the leaves that are turning yellow a crop of cones is ripening. They stand erect and solitary on the twigs between the rosettes of leaves.

In winter the long, flexible twigs are bare except for these cones. The little knobs along the twigs are the stubs which bore leaves. In the spring new leaves come out, pale lettuce green, feathery, transforming the tree top into a thing of beauty.

This larch tree of ours is more sparsely branched than the larch of Europe. It looks ragged and unhappy when planted on our lawns. It is at its best in the cold North, where it grows in dense crowds, and the tall trunks are stripped free from limbs well towards the tops. These straight shafts are cut for telegraph poles, railroad ties, and posts. The heavy, resinous wood lasts a long time in the ground.

The larches planted for shade and ornament are of the European species, which thrives in any soil. It has a denser head of branches, and much more luxuriant crown of foliage than our native species. It is a beautiful feathery pyramid of green, distinctly different from other trees. In Europe large forests are grown on the mountain sides, and from these the tallest masts for vessels are obtained. The heavy, resinous wood does not easily take fire as do the pitch pines. The old wooden battle ships were faced with larch wood because of this, and because larch wood is so durable in contact with water. Indeed it has the reputation of outlasting oak, and the wood of all other conifers.

In the woods of the far Northwest, and inland to Montana, the Western larch is one of the mighty forest trees. Six feet in diameter, and 200 feet in height are not uncommon dimensions among these giant larches. These trees are of slow growth, and they stand with their roots in water or in wet soil, though on the mountain side. This is an important lumber tree with wood that has all the good qualities of its family. In Europe the tree is planted for forests, and as an ornamental tree. We cannot grow it in the Eastern United States. It is worth a journey across the continent to see it growing, one of the most magnificent trees in the world.

THE BALD CYPRESS

Travellers in the South pass forests of dark pines, and along the edges of swamps the pines often give way to solid stretches of trees with pale grey trunks, and lettuce green foliage, whose lightness contrasts strangely and beautifully with the solid bank of dark green that roofs the forests of pines. A closer look at these strange trees, which often stand knee-deep in water, is not so easy. At certain seasons of the year, however, these swamps are dry enough so that one may walk dry-shod among them, and so learn to know the bald cypress of the South, one of the most beautiful and interesting of native American trees.

This is the second of the cone-bearing trees which is not an evergreen. The leaves on the new shoots are two-ranked, soft and pale sage green in colour. The stems that bear these plumy leaves bear also scattered single blades. Among them are older twigs, tipped with cones, and bearing branchlets with scale-like leaves scarcely spreading at the tips. These are much smaller than the leaves arranged in two ranks, forming feather-like, leafy branchlets. It is these which are shed, branchlets, and all, in the autumn, and fresh in spring renew the feathery grace of the long, narrow tree top.

The most surprising thing about the bald cypress is the flaring base of the trunk, and the root system which seems too large for the tall but usually narrow top. Knees of cypress rising out of the water from the main roots, are distinguished from stumps by their smooth, conical tops. The base of a great tree often spreads into wide flying buttresses, each hollowed on the inside, but serving with the others to support the hollow-trunked tree. Many a giant of great age stands thus on stilts whose submerged ends are the gnarled roots of the tree. From these rise many smooth, knobbed knees above the surface of the water in the rainy season. By some foresters, humps on the roots are supposed to be necessary to the proper breathing of the roots, submerged under water so large a part of the year. The question of what causes these growths, and of what use they are, is not fully determined.