Читать книгу American Forest Trees - Henry H. Gibson - Страница 19

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Early explorers who were not botanists mistook this tree for Norway spruce, and gave it the name which has since remained in nearly all parts of its range. It is called red pine also, and this name is strictly descriptive. The brown or red color of the bark is instantly noticed by one who sees the tree for the first time. In the Lake States it has been called hard pine for the purpose of distinguishing it from the softer white pine with which it is associated. In England they call it Canadian red pine, because the principal supply in England is imported from the Canadian provinces.

Its chief range lies in the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence river, which includes the Great Lakes and the rivers which flow into them. Newfoundland forms the eastern and Manitoba the western outposts of this species. It is found as far south as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, central Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It conforms pretty generally to the range of white pine but does not accompany that species southward along the Appalachian mountain ranges across West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Where it was left to compete in nature’s way with white pine, the contest was friendly, but white pine got the best of it. The two species grew in intermixture, but in most instances white pine had from five to twenty trees to Norway’s one. As a survivor under adversity, however, the Norway pine appears to surpass its great friendly rival, at least in the Lake States where the great pineries once flourished and have largely passed away. Solitary or small clumps of Norway pines are occasionally found where not a white pine, large or small, is in sight.

The forest appearance of Norway pine resembles the southern yellow pines. The stand is open, the trunks are clean and tall, the branches are at the top. The Norway’s leaves are in clusters of two, and are five or six inches long. They fall during the fourth or fifth year. Cones are two inches long, and when mature, closely resemble the color of the tree’s bark, that is, light chestnut brown. Exceptionally tall Norway pines may reach a height of 150 feet, but the average is seventy or eighty, with diameters of from two to four. Young trees are limby, but early in life the lower branches die and fall, leaving few protruding stubs or knots. It appears to be a characteristic that trunks are seldom quite straight. They do not have the plumb appearance of forest grown white pine and spruce.

The wood of Norway pine is medium light, its strength and stiffness about twenty-five per cent greater than white pine, and it is moderately soft. The annual rings are rather wide, indicating rapid growth. The bands of summerwood are narrow compared with the springwood, which gives a generally light color to the wood, though not as light as the wood of white pine. The resin passages are small and fairly numerous. The sapwood is thick, and the wood is not durable in contact with the soil.

Norway pine has always had a place of its own in the lumber trade, but large quantities have been marketed as white pine. If such had not been the case, Norway pine would have been much oftener heard of during the years when the Lake State pineries were sending their billions of feet of lumber to the markets of the world.

Because of the deposit of resinous materials in the wood, Norway pine stumps resist decay much better than white pine. In some of the early cuttings in Michigan, where only stumps remain to show how large the trees were and how thick they stood, the Norway stumps are much better preserved than the white pine. Using that fact as a basis of estimate, it may be shown that in many places the Norway pine constituted one-fifth or one-fourth of the original stand. The lumbermen cut clean, and statistics of that period do not show that the two pines were generally marketed separately. In recent years many of the Norway stumps have been pulled, and have been sold to wood-distillation plants where the rosin and turpentine are extracted.

At an early date Norway pine from Canada and northern New York was popular ship timber in this country and England. Slender, straight trunks were selected as masts, or were sawed for decking planks thirty or forty feet long. Shipbuilders insisted that planks be all heartwood, because when sapwood was exposed to rain and sun, it changed to a green color, due to the presence of fungus. The wood wears well as ship decking. The British navy was still using some Norway pine masts as late as 1875.

The scarcity of this timber has retired it from some of the places which it once filled, and the southern yellow pines have been substituted. It is still employed for many important purposes, the chief of which is car building, if statistics for the state of Illinois are a criterion for the whole country. In 1909 in that state 24,794,000 feet of it were used for all purposes, and 14,783,000 feet in car construction.

For many years Chicago has been the center of the Norway pine trade. It is landed there by lake steamers and by rail, and is distributed to ultimate consumers. The uses for the wood, as reported by Illinois manufacturers, follow: Baskets, boxes, boats, brackets, casing and frames for doors and windows, crating, derricks for well-boring machines, doors, elevators, fixtures for stores and offices, foot or running boards for tank cars, foundry flasks, freight cars, hand rails, insulation for refrigerator cars, ladders, picture moldings, roofing, sash, siding for cattle cars, sign boards and advertising signs, tanks, and windmill towers.

As with white pine, Norway pine has passed the period of greatest production, though much still goes to market every year and will long continue to do so. The land which lumbermen denuded in the Lake States, particularly Michigan and Wisconsin, years ago, did not reclothe itself with Norway seedlings. That would have taken place in most instances but for fires which ran periodically through the slashings until all seedlings were destroyed. In many places there are now few seedlings and few large trees to bear seeds, and consequently the pine forest in such places is a thing of the past. The outlook is better in other localities.

The Norway pine is much planted for ornament, and is rated one of the handsomest of northern park trees.

Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida). The name pitch pine is locally applied to almost every species of hard, resinous pine in this country. The Pinus rigida has other names than pitch pine. In Delaware it is called longleaved pine, since its needles are longer than the scrub pine’s with which it is associated. For the same reason it is known in some localities as longschat pine. In Massachusetts it is called hard pine, in Pennsylvania yellow pine, in North Carolina and eastern Tennessee black pine, and black Norway pine in New York. The botanical name is translated “rigid pine,” but the rigid refers to the leaves, not the wood. Its range covers New England, New York, Pennsylvania, southern Canada, eastern Ohio, and southward along the mountains to northern Georgia. It has three leaves in a cluster, from three to five inches long, and they fall the second year. Cones range in length from one to three inches, and they hang on the branches ten or twelve years. The wood is medium light, moderately strong, but low in stiffness. It is soft and brittle. The annual rings are wide, the summerwood broad, distinct, and very resinous. Medullary rays are few but prominent; color, light brown or red, the thick sapwood yellow or often nearly white. The difference in the hardness between springwood and summerwood renders it difficult to work, and causes uneven wear when used as flooring. It is fairly durable in contact with the soil.

The tree attains a height of from forty to eighty feet and a diameter of three. This pine is not found in extensive forests, but in scattered patches, nearly always on poor soil where other trees will not crowd it. Light and air are necessary to its existence. If it receives these, it will fight successfully against adversities which would be fatal to many other species. In resistance to forest fires, it is a salamander among trees. That is primarily due to its thick bark, but it is favored also by the situations in which it is generally found—open woods, and on soil so poor that ground litter is thin. It is a useful wood for many purposes, and wherever it is found in sufficient quantity, it goes to market, but under its own name only in restricted localities. Its resinous knots were once used in place of candles in frontier homes. Tar made locally from its rich wood was the pioneer wagoner’s axle grease, and the ever-present tar bucket and tar paddle swung from the rear axle. Torches made by tying splinters in bundles answered for lanterns in night travel. It was the best pine for floors in some localities. It is probably used more for boxes than for anything else at present. In 1909 Massachusetts box makers bought 600,000 feet, and a little more went to Maryland box factories. Its poor holding power on spikes limits its employment as railroad ties and in shipbuilding. Carpenters and furniture makers object to the numerous knots. Country blacksmiths who repair and make wagons as a side line, find it suitable for wagon beds. It is much used as fuel where it is convenient.

Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana), called del mar pine and Soledad pine, is an interesting tree from the fact that its range is so restricted that the actual number of trees could be easily known to one who would take the trouble to count them. A rather large quantity formerly occupied a small area in San Diego county, California, but woodchoppers who did not appreciate the fact that they were exterminating a species of pine from the face of the earth, cut nearly all of the trees for fuel. Its range covered only a few square miles, and fortunately part of that was included in the city limits of San Diego. An ordinance was passed prohibiting the cutting of a Torrey pine under heavy penalty, and the tree was thus saved. A hundred and fifty miles off the San Diego coast a few Torrey pines grow on the islands of Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, and owing to their isolated situation they bid fair to escape the cordwood cutter for years to come. Those who have seen this tree on its native hills have admired the gameness of its battle for existence against the elements. Standing in the full sweep of the ocean winds, its strong, short branches scarcely move, and all the agitation is in the thick tufts of needles which cling to the ends of the branches. Trees exposed to the seawinds are stunted, and are generally less than a foot in diameter and thirty feet high; but those which are so fortunate as to occupy sheltered valleys are three or four times that size. The needles are five in a cluster. The cones persist on the branches three or four years. The wood is light, soft, moderately strong, very brittle; the rings of yearly growth are broad, and the yellow bands of summerwood occupy nearly half. The sapwood is very thick and is nearly white.