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This tree is designated as northern white cedar because there is also a southern white cedar, (Chamæcyparis thyoides) and the boundaries of their ranges approach pretty closely. The name occidentalis, meaning western, applied to the northern white cedar is employed by botanists to distinguish it from a similar cedar in Asia, which is called orientalis, or eastern.

The American species has several names, as is usual with trees which grow in different regions. It is called arborvitæ in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario. White cedar is a name often used in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario. In Maine, Vermont, and New York it is called cedar. In New York, and where cultivated in England, American arborvitæ is the name applied to it. The Indians in New York knew it as feather-leaf. In Delaware the name is abridged to vitæ.

The tree has been widely planted, and under the influence of cultivation it runs quickly into varieties, of which forty-five are listed by nurserymen. It is a northern species which follows the Appalachian mountains southward to North Carolina and Tennessee. It grows from New Brunswick to Manitoba, and is abundant in the Lake States.

The bark of arborvitæ is light brown, tinged with red on the branchlets; it is thin, and cracks into ridges with stringy, rough edges; the branchlets are very smooth.

In general appearance the tree is conical and compact, with short branches; it attains a height of from twenty-five to seventy feet, and a diameter of from one to three feet. It thrives best in low, swampy land, along the borders of streams.

The wood of arborvitæ is soft, brittle, light and weak; it is very inflammable. The fact that it is durable, even in contact with the soil, permits its use for railway ties, telegraph poles, posts, fencing, shingles and boats. However, the trunk is so shaped that it is seldom used for lumber, but oftener for poles and posts, the lower section being flattened into ties. A cubic foot of the seasoned wood weighs approximately nineteen pounds. The heartwood is light brown, becoming darker with exposure; the sapwood is thin and nearly white, with fine grain.

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. However, little good timber is produced by this species on rocky soils. Trees in such situations are short, crooked, and limby.

The wood of the northern white cedar possesses a peculiar toughness which is seen in its wearing qualities. A thin shaving, such as a carpenter’s plane makes, may be folded, laid on an anvil, and struck repeatedly with a hammer, without breaking. It is claimed for it that it will stand a severer test of that kind than any other American wood. Toughness and wearing qualities combined make it an admirable wood for planking and decking for small boats. Its exceptionally light weight is an additional factor as a boat building material. The Indians knew how to work it into frames for bark canoes. Its lightness appealed to them; but the ease with which they could work it with their primitive tools was more important. It is a characteristic of the wood to part readily along the rings of annual growth. The Indian was able to split canoe ribs with a stone maul, by pounding a cedar billet until it parted along the growth rings and was reduced to very thin slats.

The property of this cedar which appealed to the Indians is disliked by the sawmill man. It is hard to make thin lumber that will hang together. The tendency to part along the growth rings develops wind-shake while the tree is standing. About nine trees in ten are so defective from shake that little good lumber can be made from them. It is a common saying, which probably applies in certain localities only, that a thousand feet of white cedar must be sawed to get one hundred feet of good lumber.

It is good material for small cooperage such as buckets, pails, and tubs, and has been long used for that purpose in the northern states.

It was once laid in large quantities for paving blocks. Hundreds of miles of streets of northern cities were paved with round blocks sawed from trunks of trees from five to ten inches in diameter. They were not usually treated with chemicals to prevent decay, but they gave service ranging from six to twelve years. They are less used now than formerly. Southern yellow pine has largely taken the cedar’s place as paving material. Much northern cedar has been used in the manufacture of bored pipe for municipal waterworks, shops, salt works, paper mills, and other factories.

The early settlers of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania made a rheumatism ointment by bruising the leaves and molding them with lard. This is probably not made now, but pharmacists distill an oil from twigs and wood, and make a tincture of the leaves which they use in the manufacture of pulmonary and other medicines.

There is little likelihood that northern white cedar will ever cease to be a commercial wood in this country. It will become scarcer, but its manner of growth is the best guarantee that it will hold its place. It lives in swamps, and the land is not in demand for any other purpose.

One-Seed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) is also called naked-seed juniper. Its range lies in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Arizona. It attains its greatest development in the bottoms of canyons in northern Arizona. It is a scrawny desert tree which lives in adversity but holds its ground for centuries, if fire does not cut its career short. Its growth is too scattered to attract lumbermen, and the form of its trunk is uninviting. It may reach a height of forty or fifty feet, and a diameter of three, but that is above the average in the best of its range. The desert Indians make the most of one-seed juniper. They weave its stringy bark into sleeping mats, rough blankets, and saddle girts. They make cords and ropes of it for use where great strength is not required, such as leashes for leading dogs, strands with which to tie bundles on the backs of their squaws, and cords for fastening their wigwam poles together. They likewise weave the bark into pokes and pouches for storing and carrying their dried meat and mesquite beans. The juniper berries are an article of diet and commerce with the Indians, who mix them with divers ingredients, pulp them in stone mortars, and bake them in cakes which become the greatest delicacy on their bill of fare. White men, when driven to it by starvation, have sustained life by making food of the berries. A small quantity of one-seed juniper reaches woodworkers in Texas. The lumber is short and rough. The numerous knots are generally much darker than the body of the wood. That is not necessarily a defect, for in making clothes chests, the striking contrast in color between the knots, and the other wood gives the article a peculiar and attractive appearance. The trunks are sharply buttressed and deeply creased. Sometimes the folds of bark within the creases almost reach the center of the tree. The sapwood is thin, the heartwood irregular in color. Some is darker than the heartwood of southern red cedar, other is clouded and mottled, pale yellow, cream-colored, the shade of slate, or streaked with various tints. The wood can be economically worked only as small pieces. It takes a soft and pleasing finish. It is a lathe wood and shows to best advantage as balusters, ornaments, grill spindles and small posts, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, balls, and lodge gavels. It has been made into small game boards with fine effect, and it is an excellent material for small picture frames. Furniture makers put it to use in several ways, and it has been recommended for small musical instruments where the variegated colors can be displayed to excellent advantage. At the best it can never be more than a minor species, because it is difficult of access in the remote deserts, and it is not abundant.

Mountain Juniper (Juniperus sabinoides) is a Texas tree, occupying a range southward and westward of the Colorado river. It has several local names, rock cedar being a favorite. This name is due to the tree’s habit of growing on rocky ridges and among ledges where soil is scarce. It is called juniper cedar, and juniper. Under the most favorable circumstances the tree may attain a height of 100 feet and a diameter of two, but it nearly always grows where conditions are adverse, and its size and form change to conform to circumstances. It is often small and ragged. Its lead-colored bark is apt to attract attention on account of its woeful appearance, hanging in strings and tatters which persistently cling to the trunk in spite of whipping winds. When the tree is cut for fuel, or for any other purpose, the ragged bark is occasionally pulled off and is tied in bales or bundles to be sold for kindling. When the mountain juniper is taken from its native wilds and planted where environments are different, it sometimes assumes fantastic forms. It has been planted for ornament on the low, flat coast in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, and though it lives and grows, it often takes on a peculiar appearance. The trunks resemble twisted and interwoven bundles of lead-colored vines, buttressed, fluted, and gnarled. The branches lose their upright position, and hang in careless abandon, with drooping festoons. In winter the wind whips most of the foliage from them. The leaves become brittle and may be easily brushed from the twigs by a stroke of the hand. Some of the planted trees have trunks so deeply creased as to be divided in two separate stems. This very nearly happens with some of the wild trees among the western mountains. The sapwood of mountain juniper is very thin. The average tree cannot be profitably cut into lumber of the usual dimensions because of the odd-shaped and irregular trunk. It lends itself more economically to the manufacture of articles made up of small pieces. Some of the wood is extremely beautiful, having the color and figure of French walnut; but there is great difference in the figure and color, and the wood of one tree is not a sure guide to what another may be. Boards a foot wide, or even less, may show several figures and colors. Some pieces suggest variegated marble; others are like plain red cedar; some are light red in color, others have a tinge of blue. It varies greatly in hardness, even in the same tree. Part of it may be soft and brittle enough for lead pencils; another part may be hard and tough. Clothes chests have been made of it, of most peculiar appearance—resembling crazy quilts of subdued colors. Sometimes the heartwood and the sapwood are inextricably mixed, both being found in all parts of the trunk from the heart out. On the whole, the tree can never have much importance as a source of lumber, but it is a most interesting member of the cedar group.