Post oak

“ What he accomplishes the photographs show well enough,—the close, methodical studding of bark or wood of any kind with acorns, chiefly those of live-oaks, [Pg 216] over immense areas. The cultures, once started, are wrought upon continuously year by year, as material avails or the colony flourishes. Live-oaks themselves are the commonest hosts, together with the white, or post, oak, and the black oak of the southern counties. After these come sycamore and yellow pine or, more rarely, eucalyptus. ”

“ One may fancy the clouds themselves are plants, springing up in the sky-fields at the call of the sun, growing in beauty until they reach their prime, scattering rain and hail like berries and seeds, then wilting and dying.
The mountain live oak, common here and a thousand feet or so higher, is like the live oak of Florida, not only in general appearance, foliage, bark, and wide-branching habit, but in its tough, knotty, unwedgeable wood. ”

“ There is one objection to the beech which also lies against the white oak—it does not drop its leaves within the space of a few autumn days. The bleached foliage is falling all winter long, thus giving the ground near an untidy aspect. With some, the question of absolute neatness is paramount; with others, leaves are clean dirt, and their rustle in the wind does not cease to be music even after they have fallen. ”

“ It supports a great weight of thick limbs, irregular and crooked. Clear up to the knotted twigs, and tough brown leaves that often hang on all winter, the oak has a stubborn look. It dares the winter winds to do their worst. And it looks so old, so wise, such a scarred hero of a thousand fights. The old Norse sea kings and the brave English once worshiped the oak tree. It gave them ship timbers that could stand the strain of wind and waves. Many ancient peoples thought dryads, or wood spirits, lived in oak trees. ”

“ The sturdy oak, in fine weather, bends only its topmost branches to the light wind, and its leaves and twigs alone are troubled by the summer breeze; but when the gale lays low the trees of the forest and whirls the leaves about like ocean spray, then the oak is stirred to wild action; tosses its gnarled limbs in the air, and moves the very earth on which it stands. ”

“ The forester usually gets over these difficulties by planting beech, or silver fir, or some other species among the oaks, but in such a way that the oaks are never completely shaded by the other trees—that is to say, he keeps the trees at different ages, the beach, hornbeam, silver fir, spruce, etc., only being allowed to just close in the forest, leaving the leaf-crowns of the oaks to be fully exposed to the light above. ”

“ He tells, me they have ten species of oak; viz, white, black, red, spanish, turkey, chesnut, ground, water, barren, and live oak. The white, turkey, and chesnut are used for ship-timber; the acorn of the latter very superiour in size to any other. Red oak is chiefly used for pipe-staves, and exported to most parts of Europe, and the West Indies. Black oak is a dry wood, and easily splits; is chiefly used for the rails and fences of their enclosures. Ground oak is bushy, and seldom exceeds six feet in height ”

“ The oaks are more tenacious of their leaves than any other deciduous tree, though they are fairly early in showing autumn tints. Long after the reds of other trees of the wood are buried in the brown drifts that cover the roots from the too fierce frosts of winter the rich deep crimsons and red-browns of the oak remain. ”

“ The other species is the mountain live-oak, or goldcup oak (Quercus chrysolepis) , a sturdy mountaineer of a tree, growing mostly on the earthquake taluses and benches of the sunny north wall of the Valley. In tough, unwedgeable, knotty strength, it is the oak of oaks, a magnificent tree. ”

“ The growth of the oak, on the other hand, so gnarled and irregular, is quite equally characteristic; while the disposition of the buds soon reveals the fact that this very irregularity itself owes its origin in the last resort to a survival of the fittest among many abortive branches. For the oak tries, as it were, to grow symmetrically like a conifer; but frost and wind play such havoc with its delicate young shoots that it never succeeds in realizing its ideal, but grows habitually distorted against its will by external agencies. ”

“ Though geologically young, the oak family is one of the most important, furnishing timber of superior strength and durability for bridge-building, ship-building, and other construction work. Tanning has depended largely upon oak bark. As fuel, all oak trees are valuable.
Fifty species of oak are native to North American forests. Twice as many grow east of the Rocky Mountains as west of the Great Divide. No species naturally passes this barrier. The temperate zone species extend southward into tropical regions, by keeping to high altitudes. ”

“ The motto of the natural oak is festina lente, mindful of the proverb, "early maturity means early decay." It is well known that oak, slowly and naturally grown on poor soil, is far more durable than that which is run up artificially or produced on rich land. The branches of oaks rarely cross or damage each other by friction, like those of the beech, they are obstinate and will sooner break in a gale, than give way. Where an oak and a beech grow side by side, close together, the oak suffers more than the beech, from the dense shade of the latter ”

“ Although, as I have already said, there are eight different kinds of oak-trees growing in our valley and mountains, two of these kinds, the live-oaks and the white oaks, are by far the most common and numerous. As one stands upon the mountain tops or foothills and looks down and over the broad valley, all still and drowsy under the warm afternoon sun, it seems as if you were looking at a single great orchard with the trees in it in close-set regular lines and plots in some places, and irregularly scattered and farther apart in other places. ”

“ The oak grows faster than the beech or spruce, for instance, while young, and so keeps its head easily above the others for a time. Very often the oak is cultivated pure at first, and then, when the oaks are becoming too crowded and he has to thin them, the forester puts in the silver fir or beech, which prevents the light coming in to the lower parts of the young oak-trees, and consequently prevents the development of lower branches, which would give the spreading, squat habit he wishes to prevent. ”

“ The only pine forests where oaks are not intermixed are either in land so sandy that oaks cannot be made to grow on them at all, or so far north that they are beyond their northern limit. In the Green Mountains and in the New England forests, in the pine forests in Pennsylvania, in the Adirondacks, in Wisconsin and Michigan—except in sand—I have found oaks mixed with the pines and spruces. In northwestern Minnesota and in northern Dakota the oaks are near their northern limit, but even there the burr oak drags on a bare existence among the pines and spruces. ”

“ The extraordinary strength in the great, horizontal branches, their breadth and lateral sweep, and the rugged boldness of the trunk have long associated the oak with all that stands for strength, duration, and unswerving vitality. An oak never seems out of place; no matter whether we find it growing in unbroken forests, on a country estate, in a little garden, or by the roadside, it always harmonizes with its surroundings and adds to the composition of the landscape. ”

“ It is in the mean time the propagation of these large spreading oaks, which is especially recommended for the excellency of the timber, and that his Majesties forests were well and plentifully stor’d with them; because they require room, and space to amplifie and expand themselves, and would therefore be planted at more remote distances, and free from all encumbrances: And this upon consideration how slowly a full-grown oak mounts upwards, and how speedily they spread, and dilate themselves to all quarters, by dressing and due culture ”

“ There are various other modes of growing oak in forests, but, whatever the system employed, the following facts have to be borne in mind and provided for: The oak is a tree that requires a soil of great depth, and sufficiently open to allow of the free penetration of air and water to the subsoil; consequently many soils, otherwise rich enough, are unsuited for the culture of this tree. Again, young seedlings and plants are apt to suffer from frost unless they are protected by suitable mixtures of other plants ”

“ The red oak is a lofty, wide-spreading tree of great beauty. “No other oak,” Emerson says, “flourishes so readily in every situation, no other is of so rapid growth, no other surpasses it in beauty of foliage and of trunk; no oak attains, in this climate, to more magnificent dimensions; no tree, except the white oak, gives us so noble an idea of strength.”
It is perhaps, of all the black oak group, the easiest to distinguish in winter on account of the smooth spaces between the fissures of the bark on its trunk, and its pointed buds, which are much less downy than those of the black oak. ”

“ The live oak (quercus virens) is likewise found in great abundance. [52] It is said to grow only on the highlands ; in this respect differing from the live oak of Florida. It has a diameter of three or four feet, and an altitude of sixty or seventy. For solidity, strength, and durability, judging from specimens in my possession, I deem it equal to any in the world. This invaluable timber extends northward beyond the 40th parallel.
But the most lordly species of oak here found is the white oak, {q. navalis.) It abounds on the river banks, and covers the low hills on the prairies. ”

“ An ancient oak is struggling for breath in the strangle-hold of the ivy; woody nightshade, honeysuckle, and other climbers trail over and smother any bush or shrub in their way. For yards the young reeds are already bruised and broken, for the weight of hundreds of roosting starlings has exceeded their power of endurance. ”

“ There are many difficulties, however, in cultivating pure oak woods, and the custom of mixing other trees is a common one, for the young oaks need much light; and yet, if each plant has the space given it necessary to allow of this light, it grows into a short and spreading tree instead of rising up into a tall, straight one. ”

“ The fifty kinds of oak trees that are native to America are about evenly divided on the two sides of the Rocky Mountains. No Western [34] oaks are found in the Eastern states, and none of our Eastern kinds grows wild on the other side of the mountains. The backbone of the continent is a bar that neither group has been able to pass.
To know fifty different kinds of oaks by sight, so as to call each one by its right name, is not an easy task; and yet it is not so difficult as it at first might seem. To begin with, any tree we meet, which bears acorns, we at once recognise as an oak. ”

“ Of the more than 20 species of commercially important Eastern oak, white oak is truly outstanding. From the earliest days it provided a valuable source of timber for houses, ships, and furniture. Strength, durability, and beauty are the words for white oak. Its uses range from barrels and bridges to flooring and fine cabinets.
22 Exploring the World of Trees
In every National Forest there are places where visitors can see and learn more about America’s trees—the firs, pines, poplars, maples, and oaks already briefly described, and others of the forest’s 175 commercially important species. ”

“ Northern red oak leaves have shallow sinuses and a dull-green upper surface with little or no pubescence in the vein axils on the underside. Shumard oak leaves have a glossier surface, shallow to deep sinuses that are usually wider than the adjacent lobes, and definite hairiness at the vein axils. The sinuses of scarlet oak are also usually wider than their adjacent lobes, which are usually toothed. ”

“ Such woods are called “ring porous,” and the oaks are best examples. In other species the pores are scattered through all parts of the ring in about the same proportion, and such woods are called “diffuse porous,” as the birches. Softwoods have no pores proper, and are classed “non-porous.”
Medullary Rays—A smoothly-cut cross section of almost any oak, but particularly white oak and red oak, exhibits to the unaided eye narrow, light-colored lines radiating from the center of the tree toward the bark like spokes of a wheel. ”

“ The live oak with its small oval leaves, without a cleft in the plain margins, looks like anything but an oak to the Northerner who walks along a street planted with this evergreen in Richmond or New Orleans. It is not especially good for street use, though often chosen. It develops a broad, rounded dome, by the lengthening of the irregular limbs in a horizontal direction. The trunk becomes massive and buttressed to support the burden. ”

“ They show no cunning in choosing their oak-tree, for they will roost night after night on some low branch overhanging a road. They seem naturally to prefer oaks to beeches for a lodging. Unlike most trees, oaks throw out their branches horizontally, but beeches' branches tend to rise vertically. ”

“ Well, down in the wood yonder there's enough dead white oak, standing or on the ground, to make three thousand, nine-foot posts, and one seasoned white oak will outlast two cedars, and it is twice as strong. ”

“ The 'broad-leaved' oak (scrub oak) [14] comes second as to straightness of growth and length of timber to be got from it, but for use in building it is the worst next after the sea-bark oak, and it is even poor wood for burning and making charcoal, as is also that of the sea-bark oak, and next after this kind it is the most worm-eaten. For the sea-bark oak has a thick trunk, but it is generally spongy and hollow when it is thick; wherefore it is useless for building. Moreover it rots very quickly, for the tree contains much moisture and that is why it also becomes ”