American Forest Trees Part 26

Red gum reproduces both by seed and by sprouts, fairly abundantly every year, but about once in three years there is a heavy production. In the Mississippi valley the abandoned fields on which young stands of red gum have sprung up are, for the most part, being rapidly cleared again. The second growth here is considered of little worth in comparison with the value of the land for agricultural purposes.

A large amount of red gum growing in the South can be economically transported from the forests to the mills only by means of the streams, owing to the expense of putting in railroads solely for handling the timber. Green red gum, however, is so heavy that it scarcely floats and, to overcome this difficulty, various methods of driving out the sap before the logs are thrown into the river have been tried. One method is to girdle the trees and leave them standing a year. That partly seasons them, but does not give time for the sapwood to decay. The logs from such trees float readily, and the swamps and streams are utilized to carry the logs to the mills.

Some years ago that method of seasoning red gum was extensively advertised in England by contractors who sold paving blocks of this wood. It was claimed that the common defects of red gum were thus overcome. Large sales of paving material were made, particularly in London, and red gum was popular for a time, but it finally lost its hold as a paving wood in compet.i.tion with certain Australian woods. The theory that by girdling a tree and allowing it to die, the amount of heartwood will be increased has been abandoned. In selecting trees for cutting, those with doty tops, rotten stumps, and heavy bark, indications of an old tree which contains a very small proportion of sapwood, are now chosen. These are found mainly in the drier localities.

In low, wet places the trees have more sapwood and are smaller. The heartwood forms while the tree is living, not after it dies.

The rapidity with which red gum has come into use in this country and elsewhere is the best evidence of the wood's real value. Its range of uses extends from the most common articles, such as boxes and crates, to those of highest cla.s.s, like furniture and interior finish. It is only moderately strong and stiff, and is not a compet.i.tor of hickory, ash, maple, and oak in vehicle manufacturing and other lines where strength or elasticity is demanded; but in nearly all other cla.s.ses of wood uses, red gum has made itself a place. It has pushed to the front in spite of prejudice. As soon as the difficulties of seasoning were mastered, its victory was won. Its annual use in Michigan, the home and center of hardwood supply, exceeds 20,000,000 feet in manufactured articles, exclusive of what is employed in rough form. In Illinois, the most extensive wood-manufacturing state in the Union, red gum stands second in amount among the hardwoods, the only one above it being white oak. In Kentucky, only white oak and hickory are more important among the factory woods, while in Arkansas, where the annual amount of this wood in factories exceeds 100,000,000 feet, it heads the list of hardwoods.

As a veneer material, it is demanded in four times the quant.i.ty of any other species. The veneer is nearly all rotary cut, and it goes into cheap and expensive commodities, from berry crates to pianos.

The wood weighs 36.83 pounds per cubic foot. It is straight-grained, the medullary rays are numerous but not prominent, the pores diffuse but small, and the summerwood forms only a narrow band, like a line. The annual rings do not produce much figure, but wood has another kind of figure, the kind that characterizes English and Circa.s.sian walnuts, smoky, cloudy, shaded series of rings, independent of the growth rings.

They have no definite width or constant color, but the color is usually deeper than the body of the wood. This figure is one of the most prized properties of red gum. It is that which makes the wood the closest known imitator of Circa.s.sian walnut.

All red gum is not figured, and that which is figured may be worked in a way to conceal or make little use of the figure. It shows best in rotary cut veneer and tangentially sawed lumber. Various woods are imitated with red gum. It is stained or painted to look like oak, cherry, mahogany, and even maple.

Some trees have thin sapwood, and others are all sapwood. This peculiarity sometimes leads to misunderstandings in lumber transactions.

A buyer specifies red gum, expecting to get red heartwood, but the seller delivers lumber cut from the red gum tree, though light colored sapwood may predominate. Properly speaking, the name is applied to the tree as a whole and does not refer to any particular color of wood in the tree. The term "red" is said to have referred originally to the color of autumn leaves, and not to the wood.

The fruit of red gum is a bur, midway in appearance and size between the sycamore ball and the chestnut bur. It hangs on the tree until late in winter. The resin which exudes from wounds in the bark is of much commercial importance and is s.h.i.+pped from New Orleans and Mexican ports.

Near the northern limit of the species' range the trees yield little resin, but it is abundant farther south. In the southern states it is used locally as chewing gum. It is known commercially as copalm balm.

WITCH HAZEL (_Hamamelis virginiana_) is a cousin to red gum, but there is small resemblance. It is known as winter bloom, snapping hazel, and spotted alder. Its range extends from Nova Scotia to Nebraska, Texas, and Florida. It reaches its largest size among the southern Appalachian mountains where the extreme height is sometimes forty feet, with a diameter of eighteen inches; but few people have ever seen a witch hazel that large. It is usually fifteen or twenty feet high and three or four inches in diameter. The wood is much like that of red gum, being diffuse-porous with obscure medullary rays, and a thin line of summerwood. It is of little commercial use; in fact, no report has been found that a single foot of it has ever been used for any purpose. Yet it is a most interesting little tree.

It blooms in the fall, sometimes as late as the middle of November.

Its rusty summer foliage turns yellow in autumn, and as the leaves begin to fall, the tree bursts into delicately-scented golden flowers, the most visible part of each consisting of four petals which float out like streamers. At the same time that flowers are scenting the air, the seeds are discharging. A full year is required to ripen them; and when dry, cold weather comes, the contraction of their envelopes shoots them with sufficient force to send them fifteen or twenty feet. They depend on neither wings, birds, nor squirrels to scatter them. The origin of the name witch hazel is disputed; but the person who examines the open-topped b.u.t.ton which holds the black seeds, and notes the fantastic resemblance to a weasen face, will feel satisfied that he can guess the origin of the name. The tree's bark is used for medicine, in extracts and gargles.

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BLACK GUM

[Ill.u.s.tration: BLACK GUM]

BLACK GUM

(_Nyssa Sylvatica_)

Black gum grows from the Kennebec river in Maine to Tampa bay, Florida; westward to southern Ontario and southern Michigan; Southward through Missouri, as far as the Brazos river in Texas. The names by which it is known in different regions are black gum, sour gum, tupelo, pepperidge, wild pear tree, gum, and yellow gum.

The leaves of black gum are simple and alternate; not serrate. They are attached by very short petioles, which are fuzzy when young; they are a rich, brilliant green above and lighter below; rather thick, with prominent midrib. As early as the latter part of August the leaves commence to turn a gorgeous red. The flowers are greenish and inconspicuous, growing in thick cl.u.s.ters, the staminate ones small and plentiful, the pistillate ones larger. They bloom in April, May or June.

The fruit of black gum is a drupe about one and a half inches long; inside of it is a rough, oval pit; the pulp is acrid until mellowed by frost.

The bad name given to black gum by early settlers of this country has stayed with it, though the faults found with it then, should hold no longer. The pioneers were nearly all clearers of farms. They went into the woods with ax, maul, mattock, wedges and gluts, and made fields and fenced them. The fencing was as important as the clearing, for the woods were alive with hogs, cattle, and horses, and the crop was safe nowhere except behind an eight-rail staked and ridered fence. The farmer mauled the rails from timber which he cut in the clearing, and there it was that he and black gum got acquainted. The oak, chestnut, walnut, cherry, yellow poplar, and red cedar were split into rails and built into fences; but black gum never made a fence rail. No combination of maul, wedge, glut, determination, and elbow grease ever split a black gum log within the borders of the American continent. An iron wedge, driven to its head in the end of a rail cut, will not open a crack large enough to insert the point of a pocket knife. In fact, it is as easy to split the log crosswise as endwise. Consequently, the early farmers heaped their anathemas and maranathas on black gum and pa.s.sed it by.

Nevertheless, the tree had its virtues even in the eyes of the rail-splitters; for, though it was unwedgeable, it helped along the fence rail industry in a very substantial way by furnis.h.i.+ng the material of which mauls were made. It drove the wedges and gluts which opened other timbers. About the only maul that would beat out more rails than one of black gum was that made of a chestnut oak knot. The oak beetle's only advantage over gum was that it was harder and wore longer. So involved and interlaced are the fibers of black gum, that they cross one another not only at right angles, but at every conceivable angle. This can be seen in examining very thin pieces with a magnifying gla.s.s.

The wood is not hard, but is moderately strong, and stiff. It has been compared with hickory, but it is so inferior in almost every essential that no comparison is justified.

Black gum weighs 39.61 pounds per cubic foot. It is very porous, but the pores are too small to be seen by the naked eye, and are diffused through the wood and form no distinct lines or groups. The summerwood is a thin dark line, not prominent enough to clearly delimit the yearly rings of growth. The medullary rays are numerous, but very thin. In quarter-sawed wood they produce a l.u.s.ter, but the individual rays are practically invisible. The wood is not durable in contact with the soil.

The standing tree is apt to fall a victim to the agencies of decay.

Hollow trunks, mere sh.e.l.ls, are not uncommon. The entire heartwood is liable to fall away. The pioneers cut these hollow trees, and sawing them in lengths of about two feet, made beehives of them. They called them gums because they were cut from gum trees. Larger sizes, used in place of barrels, were also called gums, but these were usually made from sycamores. The black gum is not usually large. Individuals have been measured that were five feet in diameter and more than a hundred in height, but an average of sixty feet high and two in diameter is probably too much, except in the southern Appalachian mountains where the species attains its largest size.

It is a tree which will always be easily recognized after it has been seen and identified once. Its general outline, particularly when leaves are off, is different from other trees a.s.sociated with it. It might possibly be mistaken for persimmon unless looked at closely; but there are easily-recognized points of difference. Its branches are very small, slender, and short. Its bark is rougher than that of any other gum, and is much darker in color. It is the bark's color that gives the tree its name. The leaves have smooth edges. In the fall they change to gorgeous red, and one of their peculiarities is that half a leaf may be red while the other half remains green. Toward the end of the season, the green disappears. The dark blue drupes ripen in October. They do not seem to be food for any living creature.

Sawmills include black gum with tupelo in reporting lumber cut, and generally call both of them gum without distinction. The woods are quite different, and neither the standing tree nor the lumber of one need be mistaken for the other. The range of black gum is much more extensive than that of tupelo. Gum lumber cut north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers may be safely cla.s.sed as black gum, though a little of both red and tupelo gum is found north of those streams. In the South, the species cannot be separated by regions, for all the gums grow from Texas to Virginia. The total annual output of black gum is not known, but some operators estimate it at about 20,000,000 feet a year, or nearly one-fourth as much as tupelo.

The bulk of black gum lumber is used in the rough, for floors, sheathing, frames, and scaffolds; but a considerable portion is further manufactured. The amounts thus used annually have been ascertained for a few states, and furnish a basis for estimates for the whole country: Mississippi, 7,000 feet; Maryland, 85,000; Illinois, 120,000; Louisiana, 120,000; Missouri, 190,000; Texas, 360,000; Ma.s.sachusetts, 475,000; Alabama, 486,000.

The uses are general, except that the wood is not employed where attractive figure is required, for black gum is as plain as cottonwood.

It is not displeasing in its plainness, for the surface finishes nicely with a soft gloss which, except that it lacks figure, suggests the sap of red gum. It is specially useful in situations where noncleavability is required. Black gum mallets for stone masons and woodworkers are in the market. Mine rollers require a much larger amount. The entire 85,000 feet reported in Maryland was made into such rollers. They furnish the bearing for the rope that hauls the car up the incline out of the coal pit. Its toughness qualifies it for wagon hubs, but it is sometimes objected to because its softness causes the mortises to wear larger where the spokes are inserted, and the wheel does not stand as well as when the hubs are of good oak. Early farmers and lumbermen preferred black gum for ox yokes, and some are still seen where oxen are used; but many other woods are as strong and equally as serviceable for yokes.

Rollers of this wood for gla.s.s factories are common. It is made into hatters' blocks where a wood is wanted which, when thoroughly seasoned, will hold its shape. It is less popular for this purpose than yellow poplar. One of the best places for black gum is in the manufacture of bored water pipe. The wood's interlaced fiber prevents splitting under the internal stress due to hydrostatic pressure. The sh.e.l.l of such pipes can be thinner than with most woods. A drawback is found in the non-durable qualities of black gum. However, the internal pressure of water keeps the wood thoroughly saturated, and prolongs its life when used as pipes.

The makers of firearms employ black gum as gunstocks and pistol grips.

The wood is stained to make it darker. It is cut by the rotary process into cheap veneer and is made into baskets and berry crates. Less trouble with the veneer, on account of breaking, is experienced than might be expected of a wood so cross-grained. It is sawed into thin lumber for boxes for s.h.i.+pping coffee and other groceries. It is a subst.i.tute for cottonwood and yellow poplar in the manufacture of certain lines of woodenware, notably, ironing boards, rolling pins, potato mashers, and chopping bowls. It is made into interior finish for houses; and furniture manufacturers find many places where it is a serviceable material. Musical instrument makers employ it, particularly as trusses for pianos, and in frames of pipe organs. In Louisiana it is converted into excelsior, and in Mississippi into broom handles, and parts of agricultural implements, particularly hoppers and seedboxes.

All gums are hard to season, and this one is no exception. It checks badly, but the checks are usually very small.

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TUPELO

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TUPELO

(_Nyssa Aquatica_)

Tupelo is said to be an Indian name. White men have applied it to three species of gum, all of the same genus, namely, black gum (_Nyssa sylvatica_), sour tupelo (_Nyssa ogeche_), and tupelo (_Nyssa aquatica_). Probably, the name tupelo applies as well to one as to the other, for it is said to refer to the drupe-like fruit; but custom confines the name to the species now under consideration. It is largest of the three species, most abundant, and most important. Sour gum is heard in Arkansas and Missouri, swamp tupelo in South Carolina and Louisiana, cotton gum in the two Carolinas and Florida, wild olive tree in Louisiana, and olive tree in Mississippi.

The range of tupelo extends from Virginia along the coast to Florida, northward in the Mississippi valley to southern Illinois, and westward to Arkansas and Texas. It prefers swamps and attains largest size in low ground which is subject to frequent overflow. The tree will stand in several feet of water the greater part of the year without injury. It is closely a.s.sociated with cypress, the planer tree, and other species which grow in deep swamps.

Tupelo has not figured much in tree literature outside the books of botanists. Travelers and local writers have paid it little attention. It has not been remarkable for anything in the past, and has escaped observation to a large extent because it grows in swamps and along bayous, remote from the usual routes of travel. Its flowers attracted no attention, its fruit was worthless, and the early settlers did not put themselves to trouble to procure the wood for any purpose. That was the situation from the early settlement of the country where this species is found up to a very recent period when economic conditions began to bring tupelo into notice.

It first attracted attention in the markets as a subst.i.tute for yellow poplar. That was brought about by an attempt to pa.s.s it as poplar. The growing scarcity of that wood in the region about Chesapeake bay led to the trial of tupelo. It was sold as bay poplar, and the purchaser was left to infer that it was poplar cut in the region tributary to Chesapeake bay. Probably few buyers were deceived, but they found the wood a fair subst.i.tute for the yellow poplar which they had been purchasing in the Baltimore and Norfolk markets. It is known as bay poplar yet in many localities. It goes to England as such. One of its most important uses in that country is as casing for electric wire fittings. It has, however, many other important uses in England and on the continent. It is claimed that it may be stained to imitate Circa.s.sian walnut in the manufacture of furniture. This is possible, but most probably tupelo has been confused with red gum which is a well-known subst.i.tute for Circa.s.sian walnut.