Henry H. Gibson

“ A person who will stand still in a Sierra forest in late summer, where firs abound, will presently hear the cones thumping the ground on all sides of him. If his eyes are good, and he looks carefully, he may see the squirrels, silhouetted against the sky on far-away tree tops, seeming so small in the distance that they look the size of mice; yet the Douglas squirrel is about the size of the eastern red squirrel. He does not always let the cones fall when he cuts their stems, but sometimes carries them down the long trunk to the ground, then goes back for another. ”

“ If let alone they grow rapidly, but trunks so produced are of little value for lumber, because too short and limby. In the forest the tree lifts its light crown high on a slender trunk to reach the sunshine, and such trunks supply the cherry lumber of commerce. Near the northern limit of its range it seems to abandon its demand for good soil and is content if it is supplied with light only. ”

“ It clings to the sides of desert gulches and canyons, ekes out a dreary life in depressions among desolate dunes and hills of sand and gravel, and spends its allotted period of years in solitude, growing either singly or in small groups where the full foliage at the best time of year is insufficient to offer much obstruction to the full glare of the sun from a cloudless sky. The small flowers have little beauty or sweetness, but what they have is wasted on the desert air. Wayfarers in the barren country use the wood for camp fires. ”

“ Beech is one of the truly beautiful trees of the forest. In the eyes of many, the beech is as much to be admired as the American elm or sugar maple. Certainly in spring when it is covered with its staminate blossoms, it is a splendid sight, and its perfect leaves are seldom spotted or eaten by insects. In winter, it is particularly interesting. Its beautiful bark then appears very bright. ”

“ The best known wood of the United States has never been burdened with a multitude of names, as many minor species have. It is commonly known as white pine in every region where it grows, and in many where the living tree is never seen, except when planted for ornament. The light color of the wood suggests the name. The bark and the foliage are of somber hue, though not as dark as hemlock and many of the pines. ”

“ South of the belt of severe frost, the old leaves frequently hang until the buds for the new crop are opening. The acorns are bitter, and even the southern pine hog passes them by until the pinch of famine edges up his appetite. ”

“ It grows fast while young, but later it devotes all its energies to the mere process of living, and its increase in size is slow, until at a period when most trees are still in early youth, it dies of old age, and the northern winds quickly whip away its limbs, leaving the barkless trunk to stand a few years longer. ”

“ The seed is the characteristic maple key, with a wing to carry it. The fruit—and by that term the seed with its attached wing is meant—is bright red, and a tree loaded with the vivid clusters is a beautiful spectacle. Two seeds are generally fast together, and they make surprising flights in that condition, passing with whirling motion through the air. Gravity spins them, but wind carries them forward, and the random of their flight depends on the strength of the wind, which happens to be blowing when they sever their connection with the tree. ”

“ The finest elms of this country, and doubtless the finest in the world, are the planted trees in some of the New England villages. The largest of them have been growing for two hundred years, and in many instances they still show the vigor of youth. Trunks six or seven feet through are not uncommon, but the glory of the trees is not alone in the trunks. Their spread and form of crown are magnificent. The largest are 150 feet across, and some of the splendid branches, rising in parabolic curves, are fully 100 feet long, from the junction with the tree to the tips of the twigs. ”

“ Oregon ash has been planted for shade and ornament in both this country and Europe. It grows rapidly and develops a symmetrical crown. The habit it has of coming into leaf late in the spring and throwing its foliage down early in autumn is held by some as a serious objection to it as an ornamental tree; but it has compensating habits. It is remarkably free from disease, and, though leaves come late and go early, while its foliage is on, it is healthy and vigorous. Reproduction is satisfactory in the tree’s wild state, and there is no danger that the species will disappear. ”

“ The intense green and the density of the crowns in summer make the trees conspicuous in any landscape where they occur, while their brilliant colors in autumn are the chief glory of the forest where they abound. ”

“ The narrowleaf crab is found from Pennsylvania to Florida and westward to Tennessee and Louisiana. It thrives best in open spaces in the forest and is often found in glades and along the banks of streams in the North, while in the South it occurs in depressions in the pine barrens. The flowers are much like those of apple, very fragrant, and in color are white, pink, or rose. When in full bloom, the tree is a beautiful object, and its odor is carried long distances. The fruit is an apple in all respects except size and taste. ”

“ It now grows and thrives in the United States six hundred miles northeast of its natural range, where it endures the winters of eastern Massachusetts, blooms as bounteously as in its native haunts among the shaded streams of the Alleghany mountains. ”

“ The tree’s greatest enemy is fire. The cedar’s bark is thin, even when trunks are mature, and a moderate blaze often proves fatal to large trees; but small ones, with all their branches close to the ground, have no chance when the fire burns the litter among them. Some tree seeds germinate readily on soil bared by fire—such as lodgepole pine, wild red cherry, and paper birch—but the western red cedar’s do not, if the humus is sufficiently burned to lessen the soil’s capacity to retain moisture. ”

“ Another reason for more rapid decay of sapwood than heart is the fact that the pores of the heartwood are more or less filled with coloring matter deposited while the growth of the tree was in progress. The coloring matter, in many cases, acts as a preservative; it shuts the threads of fungus out. Sometimes the sapwood of a dead tree or a log is totally destroyed while the heart remains sound. This often happens with red cedar and sometimes with black walnut, yellow poplar, and cherry. Occasionally a tree’s bark is more resistant to decay than its wood. ”

“ No law of growth governs the width of yearly rings, but circumstances have much to do with it. When the tree’s increase in size is rapid, rings are broad. An uncrowded tree in good soil and climate grows much faster than if circumstances are adverse. Carolina poplar and black willow sometimes have rings nearly three-fourths of an inch broad, while in the white bark pine, which grows above the snow line in California, the rings may be so narrow as to be invisible to the naked eye.
There is no average width of yearly rings and no average age of trees. ”

“ The willow and the cottonwood [38] which grow in fertile valleys have the means of scattering their seeds miles away; but this bleak mountain tree must drop its seeds on the rocks beneath. In this instance, nature seems more interested in depositing the pine nuts where the hungry squirrels can get them, than in furnishing a planting place for the nuts themselves—therefore, tears off their wings before they leave the cone. The battle for existence begins before the seeds germinate, and the struggle never ceases. The tree, in parts of its range, survives a temperature sixty degrees below zero. ”

“ Among the ten thousand islands which fringe the coasts of south Florida, and also among the hummocks of the mainland, are rare trees whose wood is unsurpassed in hardness, fineness of texture, and beauty. These are not being used at all, or only as fuel to feed some fisherman’s or camper’s fire, or to make a smoke to drive away mosquitoes. The time will come when small and scarce woods will be sought, if they are valuable for any special purpose. ”

“ In situations exposed to great cold and drying winds, the bristlecone pine is a shrub, with little suggestion of a tree, further than its green foliage and small cones. The needles are in clusters of five. They cling to the twigs for ten or fifteen years. The seeds are scattered about the first of October, and the wind carries them hundreds of feet. They take root in soil so sterile that no humus is visible. Young trees and the small twigs of old ones present a peculiar appearance. The bark is chalky white, but when the trees are old the bark becomes red or brown. ”

“ The most apt comparison for that form of elm is the spray of a fountain. The upward jet of water corresponds to the trunk of the tree; the upward, outward, and downward curves of the spray represent the crown of the elm. Trees which take that form are grown in open ground where sunlight and air reach every side. Forest grown trees are less symmetrical, but even in dense woods, the elm frequently rises clear above the canopy of other trees, and develops the fountain form of crown. The new England street and park elms surpass those farther west only because they are older. ”

“ Its trunk does not average quite as large as the pines, yet larger than most of the cedars; but in height it equals the best of its associates, and in symmetrical form, and beauty of color of foliage, it must be acknowledged superior. The dark intensity of its green crown when thrown against the blue summer skies of the Sierras forms a picture which probably no tree in the world can surpass and few can equal. Its cones suffer from the depredations of the ever-hungry Douglas squirrel which is too impatient to wait for nature’s slow process to ripen and scatter the seeds ”

“ The northern white cedar varies greatly in size and shape, depending on the soil, climate, and situation. Though it is usually associated with swamps in the North, it adapts itself to quite different situations. It grows in narrow, rocky ravines, on stony ridges, and it clings to the faces of cliffs, or hangs on their summits as tenaciously as the western juniper of the Sierra Nevada mountains. ”

“ Holly varies in size from small straggling bushes to well-formed trees fifty or sixty feet high and two or three in diameter. The principal value of holly is not in its wood, but in its leaves and berries. Some persons suppose that holly leaves never fall. That is true of no tree that attains any considerable age. An examination of a holly thicket, or a single tree, in the spring of the year will reveal a fair sprinkling of dead leaves on the ground, though none may be missed from the branches. Those that fall are three years old, and they come down in the spring. ”

“ It is good for nearly anything for which any wood is used. It is not the best for everything, but does well for most. Hickory is more resilient, ironwood is stronger, locust more durable, white pine warps and checks less; but white oak has so many good qualities in a fair degree that it can afford to fall below the highest in some, and still rank above competitors on general averages. It ranks high in shipbuilding, general construction, furniture manufacturing, finish and fixtures, the making of agricultural implements, car building, vehicle stock, cooperage, and many more. ”

“ In some instances, where the soil is fertile and climate favorable, the yellow oak produces a large, clear trunk, with sound wood, of good color, and equal to that of red oak; but the reverse is often the case—trunks are small and rough, wood hard and brittle, color not satisfactory, and strength not up to standard. Sometimes first class yellow oak passes without question as good red oak in the finish and furniture business, but that is not its usual course. Well developed wood is heavy, hard, strong, bright brown, tinged with red, with thin, lighter colored sapwood. ”

“ Next to the yellow poplar, the cucumber tree is the most important species of the magnolia family, at least as a source of lumber. As an ornamental tree it may not equal some of the others, particularly certain of the southern species which are evergreen and produce large, showy flowers.
The cucumber tree receives its name from its fruit, which looks like a cucumber when seen at a distance, but it is far from being one. Its intense bitter makes it safe from the attacks of birds and beasts. So far as known, it is not eaten, tasted, or touched by any living creature—except man. ”

“ When seeds are fully ripe, they drop away from the parent fruit—the cucumber—but the fall of each seed is arrested by a small thread which suspends it from one to three inches below the fruit. There the seeds hang, swinging and dangling in the wind. What part the threads play in the economy of nature is not apparent, unless their purpose is to expose the seeds to a chance of becoming entangled with the wings, feet, or feathers of flying birds, whereby they may be carried away and dropped in suitable places for growing. ”

“ Perhaps the finest examples of beech growth in the United States occur in the higher altitudes of the lower Appalachian range in eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina, where trees are frequently encountered, showing a bole of perfectly symmetrical form, of from three to more than four feet in diameter, and of a sheer height of seventy feet before a limb is encountered. The wood which grows in this section is nearly as hard as that of the North, but that growing on lower levels in the South is of a much softer texture and lighter color, the heart being pinkish rather than reddish-brown. ”

“ It is not apt to whirl through the air with a gliding motion like a maple seed. Consequently, ash seeds are not great travelers. They are dispersed with economy, however, for all do not come down at once, but many hang on the tree for months, and a few go with every strong wind, thus getting themselves scattered in every direction. Their power of germination is low, and only about forty per cent of seeds are fertile. This is due to the fact that pistillate and staminate flowers do not grow on the same tree, and fertilization is imperfect. ”