Pine log

“ An old pine log is often in the same condition, and if the camper can find any wood of this kind he should take some to camp so that he will not need to hunt about for a suitable wood for starting a fire. In the north where there is little pine timber such kindling is scarce; but nature has provided an excellent substitute in white-birch bark. The loose bark hanging to the tree trunks contains an oil which causes it to light readily from the match and burn with a bright flame and a hissing noise. ”

“ So that the more knotted and gnarled a log of mahogany is, the better. It makes the more beautiful wood. But in pine, it is not beauty, but facility of working, which is the great object. So [Pg 75] they always want to get pine as smooth and straight-grained as possible. So that one of these trees that grow detached, in the fields, would not be of much value for lumber. It has so many branches, that the boards made from it would be full of knots."
"That is the reason, I suppose," said Marco, "why they don't cut them down, and make them into boards."
"Perhaps it is," replied Forester. ”

“ Entering among the thickets, I find the soil strewn with old leaves of preceding seasons, through which may be seen a black or dark mould; the roots of trees stretch frequently across the path; often a moss-grown brown log lies athwart, and when you set your foot down, it sinks into the decaying substance,—into the heart of oak or pine. ”

“ Early in the morning, the whole party starts up to explore the Bright Angel River, with the special purpose of seeking timber, from which to make oars. A couple of miles above, we find a large pine log, which has been floated down from the plateau, probably from an altitude of more than 6,000 feet, but not many miles back. ”

“ The first or primeval growth is pine. That is most valuable. After the pines are cut, spruce and hemlock spring up and grow.
Most of the men who live in the vicinity of the lake region work in the woods in the winter. They camp in tents and log huts near the tracts where they are felling trees. All day long, day after day, week after week, they chop down such trees as are large enough to cut, lop off the branches and haul the logs to the nearest water. This work is done in winter because the logs are more easily managed over snow and ice. ”

“ The young tree increases rapidly in size until it is from six to ten inches in diameter, and the yearly rings are wide. The rate of growth then decreases and during the rest of its life the rings are narrow. This feature is often of assistance in identifying southern yellow pine logs or large timbers which contain the heart and also the sap. Wide rings near the heart, followed by narrow ones, and a thick sapwood are pretty good evidence that the timber—if a southern yellow pine—is shortleaf pine. ”

“ Southeastern and southern U.S.—Under bark of pine logs and stumps; in sweet-gum logs and stumps; moderately numerous under bark of dead shortleaf pines; under bark of longleaf-pine stumps; under signs on red oak and longleaf pines; in dead oak. In Texas, under bark of pine stumps (Hebard, 1917) .
North Carolina.—All stages under loose bark of dead pines, both prostrate and upright, and stumps. "It seems to prefer the space under the bark to be rather damp" (Brimley, 1908) . Under bark of dead pine trees (Rehn and Hebard, 1910) . ”

“ The path is carpeted with moss that feels like a sponge beneath your feet. The greenish-grey tint of the lichen clinging to the trees is most effective when it stands in the shadows a little removed from the pathway. The larch, the pine, and the birch lift their proud heads above the spruce-trees, the white of the pine glimmering like silver in the sunlight. If the stillness of the woods is broken at all, it is by the thud of the woodman’s axe, the sound of falling water, or the weird, haunting note of the woodpecker. ”

“ It is thrilling business to bring those giant Pines down. The ground trembles under the stroke, while the reverberating echo of its fall, as it rings through mountains and valleys, may, on a still morning, be heard six or eight miles. Before felling the Pine, small trees are cut for bed-pieces, the Pine-tree falling across them transversely, to prevent it from becoming too deeply imbedded in the snow. ”

“ Many varieties of the red, yellow, and pitch pine, intermingled with the graceful larch, the picturesque beech and maple, birch, elm, oak, and numerous other tribes of forest timber, grow down close to the water’s side, spreading in stately grandeur over the broad plains, or stretching proudly up to the summits of the mountains that descend precipitously to the river. In summer the bright and cheerful green of the forests is exceedingly beautiful and refreshing to the eye, the dark pines alone forming a sombre contrast to the vivid freshness of the deciduous trees ”

“ Great logs cross our track, and we dare not look aloft, for fear of seeing increased danger. A creeper runs up the trunk of a large tree, and out on a limb, descends to another large tree, and turns itself round the butt as if done by hand; then it wound its way up to perform the same effort again, while the branches or roots were all pulling like so many braces, until the limb was broken from the tree. As it drops to the ground, there is a thick moss ready to grasp it, and the log is soon covered out of sight and rots. ”

“ Nothing can be more cheerful in scenery than the occasional groups of Pines which have come up spontaneously on the bald hills near our coast, elsewhere a dreary waste of gray rocks, stunted shrubbery, and prostrate Juniper. In the forest the White Pine constitutes the very sanctuary of Nature, its tall pillars extending into the clouds, and its broad canopy of foliage mixing with the vapors that descend in the storm. ”

“ Logs are rolled into the upper end, the descent or dip often being very steep; the log passes on with lightning-like velocity, quite burying itself in the snow and leaves below. From the roughness of the surfaces, the friction is very great, causing the bark and smoke to fly plentifully.
At other times, when the descent is more gradual and not too steep, and when there is not a sufficient quantity to pay the expense of a sluice-way, we fell a large tree, sometimes the Hemlock, trim out the top, and cut the largest limbs off a foot, more or less, from the trunk. ”

“ Up from the sea the scrub pine climbs, ascending the Coast Ranges and western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, changing its habit to a tree twenty to thirty feet tall with thick branches and dark red-brown bark, checked into oblong plates. Gummy exudations of this pitch pine make it peculiarly liable to running fires. Thousands of acres are destroyed every summer, but they seize the land again and soon cover it with the young growth. This happens because the burned trees drop their cones, which open and set free the seeds which have never lost their vitality. ”

“ The immersion of logs in water also improves the quality of the lumber, as the action of the water upon the sap prevents to some degree the tendency to decay, and also facilitates the seasoning of the manufactured product. If the log is left in the water until it becomes water-logged, it will sink, and while it is not injured for many purposes, the wood loses some of the strength which it is supposed to have. In many localities, the salvage of sunken logs has become an industry. ”

“ Even as decades pass its limbs still remain numerous and though there is abundant wood in the half century old pasture pine it is of little use for lumber, for the limbs, young and old, have filled its trunk with knots. Where our present day trees have seeded in thickly and uniformly over considerable space it is different. Then as the trees grow old they grow taller, each struggling to outdo its neighbors and get more light and air. Lower limbs decay in time and in the progress of forty or fifty years we get a "second growth" pine which is fairly limbless for a height of forty or fifty feet. ”

“ There are times when the hardiest woodman dares not enter the pine woods; when some unusually severe gale sweeping over them bends their strong but slender stems like willow wands, or catches the wide-spreading branches of the loftier trees with a force that fairly wrenches them out by the roots, which creeping along on the surface of the soil, present no very powerful resistance. ”

“ It would be a match for "Dame Nature" to locate a handsome Pine-tree beyond the grasp of the logmen. Where the Eastern hunter pursues the mountain goat, the logger would pursue the stately Pine. We have seen them in the deep ravine, on the abrupt hill-top, and far up the rugged mountain side, or peering down from some lofty cliff upon the insignificant animal at its base who is contemplating its sacrifice; a few minutes, and the crash of its giddy plunge is heard, "and swells along the echoing crag," causing the earth to tremble under the stroke of its massive trunk ”

“ The pine forest had yielded to knolls of hardwood separated by swamp-holes of blackthorn. Here he left his pack and pushed ahead in light marching order. About eight miles above the first dam, and eighteen from the bend of the river, he ran into a “slashing” of the year before. The decapitated stumps were already beginning to turn brown with weather, the tangle of tops and limbs was partially concealed by poplar growths and wild raspberry vines. Parenthetically, it may be remarked that the promptitude with which these growths succeed the cutting of the pine is an inexplicable marvel. ”

“ But that species which is preëminently successful in bringing back the forest to a burned-over area is the lodge-pole pine. It produces seeds each year and commonly hoards them for many years. Its seeds are light, winged, and easily carried by the wind. As they are frequently released by fire, they are sown at the most opportune time, scattered in profusion, and, in windy weather, transported long distances. ”

“ The ground was rising from the creek swamp into pine land, grown with pines of all sizes, from bushy shrubs to immense trunks rising arrow-straight and without a branch to the feathery, palmlike crest a hundred feet from the earth. Nearly every pine of more than eight inches in diameter had a great slash of bark chipped from one side, showing the bare wood smeared and frosted with drops of gum, oozing, dripping, or crystallized into solid white or bluish masses, looking livid and diseased. ”

“ The logging operations in some parts of the Black Forest are unique. On the steep slopes the large logs, scaling from 600 to 1,000 board feet, are let down to the roads by means of a long rope one end of which is wound a few times around a near-by standing tree and then fastened to the large end of the log, by a strong ringed spike. ”

“ Thousands were cut and rolled into the water, or on the ice, and perhaps a much larger number were so near the landing as to require merely to be dragged out, thus avoiding the labor of loading, in which case, from the massive size of the trees, it was necessary to cut them into short logs. Such opportunities, however, for lumber have gone by, and the greater portion has now to be hauled from a considerable distance. A greater scarcity is too evidently at hand, though, were every Pine-tree sound and good, no end to the quantity might yet be thought of ”

“ In this neighborhood, where oaks and pines are about equally dispersed, if you look through the thickest pine wood, even the seemingly unmixed pitch-pine ones, you will commonly detect many little oaks, birches, and other hard woods, sprung from seeds carried into the thicket by squirrels and other animals, and also blown thither, but which are over-shadowed and choked by the pines. The denser the evergreen wood, the more likely it is to be well planted with these seeds, because the planters incline to resort with their forage to the closest covert. ”

“ In sheltered lake-hollows, on beds of alluvium, this pine varies so far from the common form that frequently it could be taken for a distinct species, growing in damp sods like grasses from forty to eighty feet high, bending all together to the breeze and whirling in eddying gusts more lively than any other tree in the woods. I frequently found specimens fifty feet high less than five inches in diameter. Being so slender and at the same time clad with leafy boughs, it is often bent and weighed down to the ground when laden with soft snow ”

“ White pine (Pinus strobus) grows in the north, central, and eastern United States and was formerly the important tree of North America. It emphasized the forest industries of Maine and of Michigan, and methods connected with harvesting it have influenced logging practices in many fields. It was long the only softwood seriously considered by Northern lumbermen. Thirty per cent of the sawn timber and lumber used in this country in 1899 was drawn from this species. [73] White pine is diminishing so rapidly as to be already practically unobtainable in many places. ”

“ For these acorns grew on oak-trees, and we find them driven into the bark of pines and spruces.
This it is which gives our specimen its particular interest. While oaks and pines may be intermingled, though they naturally prefer different soils and situations, and in the Rocky Mountains the pine-belt lies above the oak region, spruce and oak trees do not grow in the same soil. The spruce-belt stands higher up than the pine. As these nuts are stored in the bark of a spruce-tree, we have clear evidence that the bird must have carried them some distance. ”