The sourwood tree at its best is fifty or sixty feet high and from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter. The bark of young trees is smooth, but on mature trunks it resembles the exceedingly rough bark of an old black gum. In fact, many people suppose this tree to be black gum, never having noticed the difference of leaf, fruit, and flower. The genus consists of a single species. The wood is heavy, hard, compact, and it takes good polish. The medullary rays are numerous, but thin, and they contribute little or nothing to the figure of the wood. The annual rings show little difference between springwood and summerwood, and consequently produce poor figure when the lumber is sawed tangentially.
The pores are many and small and are regularly distributed through the yearly ring. Heartwood is brown, tinged with red, the sapwood lighter.
The strength and elasticity of sourwood are moderate. The wood is made into sled runners in some of the mountain districts where it occurs, but no particular qualities fit it for that use. It is occasionally employed for machinery bearings. It has been reported for mallets and mauls, but since it is not very well suited for those articles, the conclusion is that those who so report it have confused it with black gum which it resembles in the living tree, but not much in the wood. Small handles are made of it, and it gives good service, provided great strength and stiffness are not required. Sourwood is not abundant anywhere, and seldom are more than a few trees found in a group.
TREE HUCKLEBERRY (_Vaccinium arboreum_) is the only tree form of twenty-five or thirty species of huckleberry in this country. The cranberry is one of the best known species. The range of tree huckleberry extends from North Carolina to Texas, and it reaches its largest size in the latter state where trunks thirty feet high and ten inches in diameter occur, but not in great abundance. The fruit which this tree bears has some resemblance to the common huckleberry, but is inferior in flavor, besides being dry and granular. It ripens in October and remains on the branches most of the winter. The fruit is about a quarter of an inch in diameter, dark and l.u.s.trous, and is a conspicuous and tempting bait for feathered inhabitants of swamp and forest. The bark of the roots is sometimes used for medicine, and that from the trunk for tanning, but it is too scarce to become important in the leather industry.
The tree is known in different parts of its range as farkleberry, sparkleberry, myrtle berry, bluet, and in North Carolina it is known as gooseberry. The wood is hard, heavy, and very compact; is liable to warp, twist, and check in drying; polishes with a fine, satiny finish. Medullary rays are numerous, broad, and conspicuous; wood light brown, tinged with red. Small articles are turned from it.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
OSAGE ORANGE
[Ill.u.s.tration: OSAGE ORANGE]
OSAGE ORANGE
(_Toxylon Pomiferum_)
Osage orange belongs to the mulberry family. There are fifty-four genera, three of which are found in the United States, the mulberries, the Osage orange, and the figs. Osage orange is known by several names, the princ.i.p.al one of which refers to the Osage Indians, who formerly lived in the region where the tree grows. It is called orange because the fruit, which is from two to five inches in diameter, looks like a green orange, but it is unfit for food. In its range most people call it bodark or bodock, that being a corruption of the name by which the French designated it, bois d"arc, which means bow wood. It was so called from the fact that Indians made bows of it when they could get nothing better. Its value as material for bows seems to be traditional and greatly overestimated. It is lower in elasticity than white oak and very much lower than hickory, and, theoretically, at least, it is not well suited for bows. The wood is known also as mock orange, bow-wood, Osage apple tree, yellow-wood, hedge, and hedge tree. The last name is given because many hedges have been made of it.
Osage orange has been planted in perhaps every state of the Union, and grows successfully in most of them. It is one of the most widely distributed of American forest trees, but its distribution has been chiefly artificial. It was found originally in a very restricted region, from which it was carried for hedge and ornamental planting far and wide. Its natural home, to which it was confined when first discovered, embraced little more than ten thousand square miles, and probably half of that small area produced no trees of commercial size. Its northern limit was near Atoka, Oklahoma, its southern a little south of Dallas, Texas; a range north and south of approximately one hundred miles. Its broadest extent east and west was along Red River, through Cooke, Grayson, Fanning, Lamar, and Red River counties, Texas, about 120 miles.
Some Osage orange of commercial size grew outside the area thus delimited, but no large amount. Much of that region, particularly south of Red River, was prairie, without timber of any kind; but scattered here and there were belts, strips, thickets, and clumps of Osage orange mixed with other species. On the very best of its range, and before disturbed by white men, this wood seldom formed pure stands of as much as 100 acres in one body, and since the country"s settlement, the stands have become smaller or have been entirely cleared to make farms. All accounts agree that the Osage orange reaches its highest development on the fertile lands along Boggy and Blue rivers in Oklahoma, though fine bodies of it once grew south of the Red River in Texas, and much is still cut there though the choicest long ago disappeared. Few trees are less exacting in soil, yet when it can make choice it chooses the best.
In its natural habitat it holds its place in the black, fertile flats and valleys, and is seldom found on sandy soil. It is not a swamp tree, though it is uninjured by occasional floods. The tracts where it grows are sometimes called "bodark swamps," though marshy in wet weather only.
The tree attains a height of fifty or sixty feet when at its best, but specimens that tall are unusual. Trunks are occasionally two or three feet in diameter, but that size is very rare. At the present time probably ten trees under a foot in diameter are cut for every one over that size.
Rough and unshapely as Osage trees are, they have been more closely utilized than most timbers. Fence posts are the largest item. The board measure equivalent of the annual cut of posts has been placed at 18,400,000. The posts are shipped to surrounding states, in addition to fencing nearly 40,000 square miles of northern Texas and southern Oklahoma. Houseblocks const.i.tute another important use. These are short posts set under the corners of buildings in place of stone foundations.
The annual demand for this kind of material amounts to about 1,000,000 board feet. An equal amount goes into bridge piling. The princ.i.p.al demand comes from highway commissioners. Telephone poles take a considerable quant.i.ty, and insulator pins more.
One of the most important uses of Osage orange is found in the manufacture of wagon wheels, though the total quant.i.ty so used is smaller than that demanded for fence posts.
About 10,000 or 12,000 wagons with Osage orange felloes or rims are manufactured annually in the United States. That use of the wood is not new. It began in a small way soon after the settlement of the region. At first the work was hand-done by local blacksmiths and wheelwrights. They found the wood objectionable, from the workman"s standpoint, on account of its extreme hardness and the difficulty of cutting it. That objection is still urged against it though machines have taken the place of the hand tools of former times. Saws and bits are quickly dulled, and the cost of grinding, repair, and replacement increases the operator"s expense much above ordinary mill outlay for such purposes. On that account many prefer to work the wood green. It is then softer, and cuts more smoothly. If seasoned before it is pa.s.sed through the machines it is liable to "pull." That term is used to indicate a rough-breaking of the fibres by the impact of knives. The readiness with which the wood splits calls for extraordinary care in boring it, and many felloes are spoiled in finishing them to receive the tenoned ends of spokes.
A number of commodities are made of Osage orange but in quant.i.ties so small that the total wood used does not const.i.tute a serious drain upon the supply. Police clubs are occasionally made as a by-product of the rim mill. Some years ago at the Texas state fair at Dallas, a piano was exhibited, all visible wood being Osage orange, handsomely polished. The rich color of this wood distinguishes it from all other American species. When oiled it retains the yellow color, but unoiled wood fades on long exposure. Clock cases of Osage have been manufactured locally, and gun stocks made of it are much admired, though the wood"s weight is an argument against it for gun stocks. Canes split from straight-grained blocks, and shaved and polished by hand, are occasionally met with, but none manufactured by machinery have been reported. Sawmills in the Osage orange region use the wood as rollers for carriages and off-bearing tables. Rustic rockers and benches of the wood, with the bark or without it, figure to a small extent in local trade. It has been tried experimentally for parquetry floors, with satisfactory results. Sections of streets have been paved with Osage orange blocks. The wood wears well and is nearly proof against decay, but no considerable demand for such blocks appears ever to have existed. Railroads which were built through the region years ago cut Osage for ties and culvert timber, but no such use is now reported. The demand for the wood for tobacco pipes is increasing, more than 100,000 blocks for such pipes having been sold during a single year.
Osage orange weighs 48.21 pounds per cubic foot. It is twenty-eight per cent stronger than white oak, but is not quite as stiff, is very brittle, and under heavy impact, will crumble. For that reason, Osage wagon felloes will not stand rocky roads. The bark is sometimes used for tanning, and the wood for dyeing.
RED MULBERRY (_Morus rubra_) is frequently spoken of simply as mulberry, and is sometimes called black mulberry. The full grown fruit is red, but turns black or very dark purple when ripe. The berry is composed of a compact and adhering cl.u.s.ter of drupes, each drupe about one thirty-second of an inch long. What seems to be a single berry is really an aggregation of very small fruits, each resembling a tiny cherry. The mulberry is naturally a forest tree, but it is permitted to grow about the margins of fields, and is often planted in door yards for its fruit and its shade. It is looked upon by many as a tame species.
Two mulberries grow naturally in this country. The red species ranges from Ma.s.sachusetts west to Kansas, and south to Texas and Florida. Its best growth is found in the lower Ohio valley and the southern foot hills of the Appalachian mountains. The largest trees are seventy feet high and three or four in diameter. If this tree were abundant the wood"s place in furniture and finish would be important. The heartwood is dark, of good figure, and fairly strong.
It takes a fine polish, and resembles black walnut, though usually of a little lighter shade. Its largest use is as fence posts. It is durable in contact with the soil. The effect when made into furniture, finish, and various kinds of turnery, is pleasing. Farm tools, particularly scythe snaths, are made of it, and it has been reported for slack cooperage and boat building, but such uses are apparently infrequent. The wood is evidently sold under some other name, or without a name, for the total sawmill output in the United States is given in government statistics at only 1,000 feet, which is probably not one per cent of the cut.
MEXICAN MULBERRY (_Morus celtidifolia_) ranges from southern Texas to Arizona. Trees are seldom more than thirty feet high and one in diameter. The berry is about half an inch long, black, and made up of a hundred or more very small drupes. It is edible, but its taste is insipid. The wood is heavy and is of dark orange or dark brown color. It is suitable for small turnery and other articles, but no reports of uses for it have been found. The tree is occasionally planted for its fruit by Mexicans, but Americans care little for it.
Two foreign mulberries have been extensively planted in this country, and in some localities they are running wild and are mistaken for native species. One is the white mulberry (_Morus alba_), a native of China; the other is the paper mulberry (_Broussonetia papyrifera_) a different genus, but of the same family. It is a native of j.a.pan, and has been naturalized in some of the southern states. Nine varieties of the white mulberry have been distinguished in cultivation.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
PERSIMMON
[Ill.u.s.tration: PERSIMMON]
PERSIMMON
(_Diospyros Virginiana_)
Persimmon belongs to the ebony family, and the family has contributed to the civilization of the human race since very early times. Some of the oldest furniture in existence, that which was found hidden in the ruins of ancient Egypt, is ebony, and there is evidence among the old records in the land of the Nile that the Egyptians made voyages southward through the Red sea and brought back cargoes of ebony from Punt, a region in eastern Africa. The name ebony is believed to be derived from a Hebrew word, probably brought to Palestine by some of Solomon"s captains who traded along the south coast of Asia or the east coast of Africa about the time of the building of the first temple. The botanical name for the genus (_diospyros_) is made up of two words meaning "Jupiter"s wheat"--supposed to be a reference to the value of persimmons as food. The name, however, is not as old as the Hebrew word, nor is the Hebrew as old as the references to ebony in the records of Egypt. A piece of the old furniture--not less than 4,000 years old--is still in existence. It probably matches in age the cedar of Lebanon coffins in the oldest Egyptian tombs.
The ebony family consists of five genera, one of which is persimmon (_diospyros_). This genus consists of 160 species, only two of them in the United States. Thus the persimmon trees of this country are a very small part of the family to which they belong, but they are a highly respectable part of it. The word persimmon is of Indian origin, and was used by the tribes near the Atlantic coast. The original spelling was "pessimin," and that was probably about the p.r.o.nunciation given it by the aborigines.
It has never been called by many names. It is known as date plum in New Jersey and Tennessee, and as possumwood in Florida. The avidity with which opossums feed on the fruit is responsible for the name.
The range of persimmon extends from Connecticut to Florida, and westward to Iowa, Missouri, and Texas. It reaches its largest size in the South.
It is of vigorous growth, spreading by means of seeds, and also by roots. The latter is the most common method where the ground is open.
Such situations as old, abandoned fields invite the spread of persimmons. Roots ramify under the ground, and sprouts spring up, often producing thickets of an acre or more. Trees do not generally reach large size if they grow in that way, but their crowded condition does not make them fruitless as can be attested to by many a boy who penetrates the persimmon thickets by means of devious paths that wind with many a labyrinthic turn which takes in all that is worth finding.
The variation in the quality of persimmons is greater than that of most wild fruits. Nature usually sets a standard and sticks closely to it, but the rule is not adhered to in the case of persimmons. Some are twice as large as others; some are never fit to eat, no matter how severely or how often they are frosted; others require at least one fierce frost to soften their austerity; but some may be eaten with relish without the ameliorating influence of frost.
The austerity of a green persimmon is due to tannin. It is supposed that cultivation might remove some of this objectionable quality, but no great success has thus far attended efforts in that direction. j.a.panese persimmons, which are of a different species, are cultivated with success in California.
The sizes of persimmon trees vary according to soil, climate, and situation. They average rather small, but occasionally reach a height of 100 feet and a diameter of nearly two. Mature trunks are usually little over twelve inches in diameter, and many never reach that size.
The dry wood weighs 49.28 pounds per cubic foot, which is about the weight of hickory. It is hard, strong, compact, and is susceptible of a high polish. The yearly rings are marked by one or more bands of open ducts, and scattered ducts occur in the rest of the wood. The medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous; color of heartwood dark brown, often nearly black; the sapwood is light brown, and frequently contains darker spots.
The value of persimmon depends largely upon the proportion of sapwood to heartwood. That was the case formerly more than it is now; for until recent years the heartwood of persimmon was generally thrown away, and the sapwood only was wanted; but demand for the heart has recently increased. There is much difference in the proportion of heartwood to sapwood in different trees. It does not seem to be a matter of size, nor wholly of age. Small trunks sometimes have more heart than large ones. A tree a hundred years old may have heartwood scarcely larger than a lead pencil, and occasionally there is none. In other instances the heart is comparatively large.
Persimmon has never been a wood of many uses, as hickory and oak have been. In early times it was considered valuable almost wholly on account of its fruit, and that had no commercial value, as it was seldom offered for sale in the market. In the language of the southern negroes who fully appreciated the fruit, it was "something good to run at"--meaning that the ripe persimmons were gathered and eaten from the trees while they lasted, but that few were preserved.
It is recorded that the "small wheel" of the pioneer cabins was occasionally made of persimmon wood. The wheel so designated was the machine on which wool and flax were spun by the people in their homes.
Spinning wheels were of two kinds, one large, with the operator walking to and fro, the other small, with the operator sitting. It was the small wheel which was sometimes made of persimmon. There is no apparent reason why it should have been made of that wood in preference to any one of a dozen others.
The demand for persimmon in a serious way began with its use as shuttles in textile factories. Weavers had made shuttles of it for home use on hand looms for many years before the demand came from power looms where the shuttles were thrown to and fro by machinery. Up to some thirty years ago, shuttles for factories were generally made of Turkish boxwood, but the supply fell short and the advance in price caused a search for subst.i.tutes. Two satisfactory shuttlewoods were found in this country, persimmon and dogwood. The demand came not only from textile mills in America but from those of Europe. The manufacture of shuttle blocks became an industry of considerable importance.
Persimmon wood is suitable for shuttles because it wears smooth, is hard, strong, tough, and of proper weight. Most woods that have been tried for this article fail on account of splintering, splitting, quickly wearing out, or wearing rough. The shuttle is not regarded as satisfactory unless it stands 1,000 hours of actual work. Some woods which are satisfactory for many other purposes will not last an hour as a shuttle.
The manufacture of shuttles, after the square has been roughed out, requires twenty-two operations. Probably more shuttlewood comes from Arkansas than from any other section, though a dozen or more states contribute persimmon. The total sawmill cut of this wood in the United States is about 2,500,000 feet, but this does not include that which never pa.s.ses through a sawmill.