Tupelo trees attain a height from seventy to a hundred feet, and a diameter of two to four feet above the swelled base. The general appearance of the bark suggests both yellow poplar and red gum. Trees have a habit of forking near the tops. The leaves are five or seven inches long, sometimes with smooth margins, and often with a few sharp points. Flowers appear in March and April, and fruit ripens early in Autumn. It is a dark purple, tough-skinned drupe, about an inch long.
The wood weighs 32.37 pounds per cubic foot. It is soft, and has about three-fourths the strength and little more than half the stiffness of white oak. It is not well suited to places where strength and rigidity are required. The fibers are interwoven, making the wood difficult to split. The heart is brown, often nearly white; the sapwood is very thick; and the annual rings are not clearly defined, because of the similarity between the springwood and summerwood. The pores are small but numerous, and are scattered evenly through the whole annual ring.
The wood of roots differs from that of the trunk more than is usual with hardwoods. It is very light, and has been long employed in the South as a subst.i.tute for cork as floats for fish nets.
Tupelo is often logged with cypress. The two trees grow in close a.s.sociation in deep swamps. The b.u.t.t cuts of tupelo are so heavy that they float deep, or even go to the bottom. It was formerly customary, and still is to some extent, to girdle trees whose trunks were to be floated to the mills. In the course of one season the standing trees dry sufficiently for the logs to float. At other times, trees are cut green, the logs are skidded and allowed to dry some months before they are rafted or floated to the mills. The sapwood is liable to decay, even in the brief period while the logs are on the skids. The wood may be protected against decay to some extent by smearing the ends of the logs with tar or some other substance which prevents the spores of decay-producing fungus from entering.
The seasoning of tupelo was formerly a problem exceedingly vexatious to the lumberman. The wood is full of water, and warping was one of the troubles which was constantly encountered. Finally experience gained the mastery, and seasoning troubles are fewer now. Shrinkage of four or five per cent is not unusual in pa.s.sing lumber from the green to dry state.
Tupelo is like hickory in one respect--factories use more wood than the sawmills cut. The shops and manufacturing plants of ten states use as much tupelo as is cut by all the sawmills in the United States. These states are Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas. The reason for factory use exceeding the sawmill cut is that much reaches factories, in the form of veneer, which does not pa.s.s through a sawmill. The lumber output of most of the timber trees of this country is from one-third to one-half greater than the factory use. The difference represents the rough lumber used, and which never goes to a factory.
Tupelo lately entered the general market, but the yearly demand now exceeds 100,000,000 feet. Its uses range from boxes and cheap handles to interior finish and material for musical instruments. It is particularly liked for containers for berries and small fruits, on their way to market. Its whiteness and clean appearance fit it for that use.
Higher grades of shipping boxes are also made. Wholesale grocers order largely of this wood for spice, coffee, and tea boxes. These commodities are exacting in their requirements because their odor, which is often regarded as the criterion of their value, must not be impaired. A wood with an odor of its own is immediately ruled out. Cigar box makers use tupelo, sometimes as thin lumber for the whole box, but usually as backing over which to lay a thin veneer of Spanish cedar. Plug tobacco boxes are also made of tupelo.
In Illinois and Michigan tupelo is listed among woods manufactured into pianos, organs, mandolins, and guitars. In Maryland they make scows and barges of it. In Arkansas and Louisiana it is worked into excelsior and slack cooperage stock. It is a favorite wood in Mississippi for pumplogs and broom handles. Its leading reported use in Texas is for porch columns. In Missouri it is manufactured into laundry appliances, such as washboards, clothes racks, and ironing boards. In nearly all manufacturing centers of the country it is made into furniture and interior finish. It is frequently subst.i.tuted for yellow poplar in panels, not only in furniture and cabinet work, but in carriage bodies.
The supply of tupelo in southern forests is fairly large, and will meet demand for some years, but it is a tree of slow growth, and when present stands are cut, a new supply will probably never come.
SOUR TUPELO (_Nyssa ogeche_) appears to be the only member of the gum group whose fruit is of any value to man, and it is not very important. The large, dull red drupes ripen in July and August, and sometimes hang on the trees until late fall, allowing ample time for gathering them. They are very sour, for which reason the tree is called sour gum. The fruit is put through a pickling process which renders it palatable and it is not an infrequent article on southern pantry shelves. The range of the tree is confined to the region near the coast from the southern border of South Carolina, through the Ogeechee river valley in Georgia, to northern and western Florida.
The botanical name refers to the river along whose course the trees are most abundant. Local names are gopher plum, Ogeechee lime, and wild lime. The tree is sixty or seventy feet high, one or two in diameter, and is often divided in several stems. Its wood is lightest of the gums, weighing only 28.75 pounds per cubic foot. It is diffuse-porous, and the springwood is scarcely distinguishable from the summerwood. The annual rings of growth are indistinct, and the medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous. The wood is weak, soft, tough, and white, and little difference is apparent between heart and sapwood. The flowers are rich in honey and are valuable to bee keepers. It appears that no reports exist of the use of this wood for any purpose. It is not abundant anywhere.
WATER GUM (_Nyssa biflora_) is a member of the gum group, and is of small importance. Trees above thirty feet high are unusual, and the trunk is of poor form, owing to its greatly enlarged base. This gum is found on the margins of small ponds in the pine barrens from North Carolina to the Gulf coast. The leaves turn purple and red in the fall, and are then conspicuous objects. The fruit is a blue drupe about a third of an inch long. The wood is light, tough, and difficult to split.
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BLACK WALNUT
[Ill.u.s.tration: BLACK WALNUT]
BLACK WALNUT
(_Juglans Nigra_)
This tree has few names. It is called walnut, black walnut, and walnut-tree. The color of the wood and bark is responsible for the word black in the name, though some people use the adjective to distinguish the tree from b.u.t.ternut which is often known as white walnut. The natural range of black walnut covers 600,000 or 700,000 square miles, and it has been extended by planting. Its northern limit stretches from New York to Minnesota, its southern from Florida to Texas. It is difficult to say where the species found its highest development in the primeval forests, for very large trees were reported in New York, among the southern Appalachian mountains, in the Ohio valley, and beyond the Mississippi in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas. The wood cut in Ohio and Indiana has been of greater commercial importance than that from any other portion of its range, but that has been due, in part, to the fact that it came into market before the best of the forest growth had been destroyed in those states, and instead of burning it or mauling it into rails, as eastern farmers did in early times, the farmers of the Ohio valley sold their walnut. Early in the history of black walnut lumbering, Indiana and Ohio came to the front as the most important sources of supply, and they still hold that position, notwithstanding the original forests of those states were supposed to be nearly exhausted long ago. The states cutting most black walnut in 1910, in the order named, were Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Iowa.
During the period from 1860 to 1880 black walnut was in much demand for furniture, and the largest yearly cut was 125,000,000 feet. It was during that period of twenty years that operators pushed into all of the out-of-the-way places in search of the timber. Logs were hauled on wagons long distances to bring them out of remote valleys and slopes where no timber buyer had ever gone before. The walnut buyers made such a thorough canvas of the country that it was generally supposed no merchantable tree from Kansas to Virginia would escape. Many a dooryard giant whose wide branches had shaded the family roof for generations, fell before the ax of the contractor who was willing to pay fifty dollars for a single trunk, though it might be twenty miles from the nearest railroad or navigable stream. In spite of the thoroughness of the search, many a walnut tree was spared. Logs have been going to market ever since, and still they go. They will continue to go for years, generations, and centuries; for walnut trees grow with rapidity.
The trunk"s value increases with age. The dark colored heartwood only is merchantable, and young trees have little heartwood. The thick, white sap const.i.tutes most of the trunk until long after the tree has reached small sawlog size. Then the transformation to the dark, valuable heartwood goes on with fair rapidity, and the outer sh.e.l.l of sapwood becomes thinner as the heart increases, and in time a trunk is produced which is fit for good logs. Value comes only with age. The quarter or half a century which has pa.s.sed since the country was so diligently ransacked for merchantable walnut, has been sufficient to develop many a tree which was then rejected by the purchasers. Many a tree now a foot in diameter had scarcely sprouted then. In a region of 700,000 square miles, walnut trees do not need to grow very close together to produce a yearly cut of 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 feet.
Black walnut is valuable for its color, figure, and the fine polish it takes. It is stronger than white oak, weight for weight, but it is eight pounds lighter per cubic foot. The figure of the wood is due wholly to the annual rings, as its medullary rays are invisible to the naked eye.
The wood is very porous, and the pores are diffused in all parts of the annual rings, except in the thin, pencil-like mark representing the outward boundary of the summerwood. When sapwood changes to heartwood, some of the pores disappear, but those which remain are abundantly sufficient to absorb any stains or fillers which the wood finisher may wish to apply.
The annual sawmill cut of black walnut in the United States is from 35,000,000 to 40,000,000 feet, but much goes to foreign countries in the log, and a considerable quant.i.ty goes to veneer mills--about 2,500,000 feet a year--and a quant.i.ty finds its way to various factories where it is worked up without any statistical record being made of it.
Black walnut is never used as rough lumber. It all goes to factories of some kind to be converted into finished commodities. It is not possible to say where it all goes, for statistics of manufacture are fragmentary in this country. It may be of interest to know that demand for walnut by factories in the following states was 11,641,137 feet in 1910: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Ma.s.sachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas. The wood served so many purposes that a list of them would be monotonous. In Illinois the largest users are the sewing machine and the musical instrument industries; in Michigan the makers of automobiles and of musical instruments; in Kentucky the manufacturers of coffins, furniture, and musical instruments; in Ma.s.sachusetts, the makers of furniture and of firearms. These uses probably afford a fairly accurate index for the whole country. During the Civil war the largest demand for walnut came from gunstock makers. Doubtless the largest use from 1865 to 1885 was for furniture.
Much of the best black walnut is exported. The logs are flattened on the four sides to make them fit better in ships and cars, and also to be rid of most of the sapwood which is valueless. The ends are painted with red lead or some other substance to lessen liability to check. Sometimes export walnut is sawed in thick planks.
Large quant.i.ties of old-time walnut furniture have been resurrected in recent years from granary and garret where it was stored long ago to have it out of the way. Some of the old beds, lounges, cupboards, and chairs were of heavy, solid walnut, the kind not made now. Some of it has been furbished, re-upholstered, and set among the heirlooms; other pieces have been sold to furniture makers who saw the solid wood in veneers, and use it again.
The search for old walnut did not stop with dragging antique furniture from cubbyholes and attics, but two-inch lumber has been pulled from floors of old barns, and mills. Many old fence rails were made into gun stocks during the Civil war. Later, walnut stumps were pulled from field and wayside, and went to veneer mills. Some finely figured wood comes from stumps where roots and trunk join.
An occasional walnut tree develops a large burl which is valued for its figured wood. Sometimes the burl is the form of a door k.n.o.b, with the tree trunk growing through the center. The burl sometimes has a diameter three or four times as great as the trunk. The origin of such burls is supposed to be a ma.s.s of buds which fail to break through the bark.
Black walnut has a compound leaf from one to two feet long, with from fifteen to twenty-three leaflets, each about three inches long and an inch or two wide. The nuts ripen in the fall, and are valuable. They are borne chiefly by trees growing in open ground; forest trees do not bear until old, and then only a few nuts. The walnuts which germinate are usually those buried by squirrels, and forgotten.
Within the past twenty or thirty years plantations have been made in states of the Middle West. Many young planted trees have been cut for fence posts, with disappointing results. It was known that old walnut is durable, and it was supposed young trunks would be, when used for posts; but young trees are nearly all sapwood which rots quickly.
Forest grown walnut trees vary in size from a diameter of two feet and a height of fifty, to a diameter of six or more and a height of 100 or 120. Trunks which grow in the shade are tall, clear, and symmetrical; those in the open are shorter, with more taper.
PALE-LEAF HICKORY (_Hicoria villosa_) is a small tree but large enough to be useful wherever it exists in sufficient quant.i.ty. The largest specimens attain a height of fifty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches. The tree bears nuts when very small, and the kernel is sweet. The bark of this hickory is rough but not s.h.a.ggy. The range extends from New Jersey to Florida and west to Missouri and Texas. It is most abundant in the lower Appalachian ranges. The wood possesses the common characteristics of the hickories, and it is cut with them wherever it is found, but is seldom or never reported separately in lumber operations.
SMALL PIGNUT HICKORY (_Hicoria odorata_) is considered a species by some botanists while others regard it as a variety. It is called small pignut in Maryland, and occasionally little s.h.a.gbark. This last name refers to the roughness of the bark which resembles the bark of elm. The range of the tree extends from Ma.s.sachusetts to Missouri and south to the Ohio and the Potomac rivers. The wood differs little from that of pignut hickory, and the uses are the same. No distinction is made between them at the shop and factory.
This tree is by some botanists believed to be a hybrid between s.h.a.gbark and pignut. It is sometimes called false s.h.a.gbark. The nut is edible.
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b.u.t.tERNUT
[Ill.u.s.tration: b.u.t.tERNUT]
b.u.t.tERNUT
(_Juglans Cinerea_)
This tree is known as b.u.t.ternut or as white walnut in all parts of its range. b.u.t.ternut is in reference to the oily kernel of the nuts, and white walnut is the name given by those who would distinguish the tree from black walnut. Persons acquainted with one of the species in its native woods are usually sure to be acquainted with the other, for their ranges are practically co-extensive, except that black walnut extends farther southwest, b.u.t.ternut farther northeast. b.u.t.ternut grows from New Brunswick to South Dakota, from Delaware to Arkansas, and along the Appalachian highlands to northern Georgia and Alabama.
b.u.t.ternut resembles black walnut in a good many ways and differs from it in several. They are very closely related botanically--as closely as are brothers in the same household. Black walnut is larger, stronger, better known, and has always dominated and eclipsed the other in usefulness and public esteem; yet b.u.t.ternut is a tree both useful and interesting. No person acquainted with both would ever mistake one for the other, winter or summer. Botanists tell how to distinguish b.u.t.ternut from black walnut by noting minor differences. The person who is not a botanist needs no such help. He knows them at sight, and there is no possibility of mistaking them.
b.u.t.ternut in the forest may attain a height of eighty or 100 feet, and a diameter of three, but few persons ever see a specimen of that size, and never in open ground. In shade, the b.u.t.ternut does its best to get its crown up to light and sunshine, but it is weak. It often gives up the struggle and remains in the shade of trees which overtop it. In that situation its crown is small, thin, and appears to rest lightly in the form of a small bunch of yellowish-green leaves on the top of a tall, spindling bole, which is seldom straight, but is made up of slight, undulating curves. The pale, yellowish tinge of the bark suggests a plant deprived of sunshine.
When b.u.t.ternut grows in open ground where light falls upon its crown and on all sides, it a.s.sumes a different form and presents another figure.
The trunk is nearly as short as that of an apple tree. It divides in large branches and limbs, and these spread wide; leaves are healthy, yet the crown of a b.u.t.ternut always looks thin compared with that of the black walnut. Tests show that b.u.t.ternut wood, when thoroughly dry, is somewhat stiffer than black walnut; but it is light and weak. It is about two-thirds as heavy and two-thirds as strong as black walnut. The growing tree betrays the wood"s weakness. Large limbs snap in storms.
Trees become lopsided, and a symmetrical, well-proportioned b.u.t.ternut crown is an exception. The broken branches leave openings for the entrance of decay, and b.u.t.ternuts nearly always die of disease rather than of old age.