THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



13 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES. 



Seuoud Paper. 



White Oak.* 



Quercus Alia — ^Linn. 



This tree is of the beech family. The top, 

 even in forest growth, is broad with spread- 

 ing branches. In height it usually ranges 

 from si.xty to 100 feet and from two to six 

 feet in diameter. Its range is from southern 

 Maine to southwestern Quebec, through cen- 

 tral and southern Ontario, and the 

 lower peninsula of Michigan, south- 

 ern Wisconsin and southern Minne- 

 sota to southeastern Nebraska, 

 and eastern Kansas, and south to 

 northern Florida and Texas. De- 

 pending on latitude, it blooms in 

 May or June. 



This wood is generally known 

 throughout America as white oak 

 and gains its name from the color 

 of its bark. In Arkansas it is 

 sometimes referred to as stave oak, 

 and in the English market it is often 

 called Baltimore oak. 



The highest quality of white oak 

 growth in America has been largely 

 exhausted. The best portion of this 

 king of American hardwoods had its 

 habitation in Oiiio, Indiana, south- 

 ern Michigan, southern Wisconsin 

 and in the portions of Illinois other 

 than the prairie country. Only 

 minor patches of it stiU remain, but 

 these in the aggregate make up the 

 basic quantity of the highest quality 

 of Americain white oak that goes to 

 supply the vast demands of the 

 American and foreign trade. 



The more recently developed white 

 oak sections of Kentucky and Ten- 

 nessee show a large quantity of very 

 high-class white oak, but none that 

 in the aggregate equals the pristine 

 glory of the Indiana product. The 

 white oak of the south in many in- 

 stances is a very excellent timber, 

 still it does not equal in physical 

 characteristics the old-time white 

 oak of the north. 



It is strictly an American wood — 

 a wood that grows only in the Unit- 

 ed States and Canada — and save 

 that, small range of Austrian oak 

 which remains standing and which 

 is reputed to be of very fine quality, 

 it is in both home and foreign mar- 

 kets the hardwood of the highest 

 quality growing in abundance in the known 

 world. 



The physical characteristics of th? wooti 

 are ? recorded dry weight of from fort-- 

 to forty-nine and a quarter pounds 

 to the cubic foot. The bark is grayish white 

 in color and somewhat fissured. The tree 

 bears a sweet, ovicular, oblong acorn in 

 rough shallow cups. The leaves have round 

 lobes or projections. The heart wood is a 



light brown and the sap wood is lighter in 

 color. Annual layers are well marked and 

 the medullary rays are broad and prominent. 

 When the wood is quarter-sawed — which is 

 a prevalent method of manufacture — the 

 "flashes" are most beautifnl and pronounced, 

 but vary in size, apparently according to the 

 age and especially in the range of growth. 

 In structural qualities the wood is tough. 



of the 



rDID SPECIMEN OF WHITK OAK GROWTH IN 

 ELL COUNTY. WEST VIltCINLV. 



strong, heavy, hard, liable to check unless 

 seasoned slowly and with care ; durable in 

 contact with the soil and receives and main- 

 tains a high polish. Its breaking strength 

 is very high. The oak rarely shows a com- 

 prehensive forest growth, but it grows much 

 more compactly than does poplar, with which 

 wood it is often interspersed. 



Probably the finest range of white oak 

 still remaining in this country, and approxi- 



mately original growth of the middle west, is 

 in West Virginia. The splendid specimen of 

 a white oak herewith pictured was photo- 

 graphed by the writer in McDowell county. 

 West Virginia, in 1904. This tree had a 

 girth of nearly fifteen feet, breast-high. 

 Of interest will also be found the illus- 

 tration of the leaves, bloom and acorns 

 white oak. The picture of the 

 magnificent trainload nf wliite 

 oak logs which represants one 

 of the finest collections of white 

 oak timber of late years, was owned 

 by the Henry Malay Lumber Com- 

 pany of Cincinnati, and the timber 

 grew in Indiana. The second pic- 

 ture of white oak logs which shows 

 specimens from the growth along 

 the Trinity river in Liberty and 

 San Jacinto counties, Texas, was 

 photogi-aphed at the mill of the 

 Ranger Hardwood Export Com- 

 pany, on the Trinity river, at Big 

 Creek, Tex. 



Wliite oak is employed largely 

 in ship-building construction, coop- 

 erage, furniture-making, railway 

 ties, etc. The bark is rich in tannic 

 acid. The wood is permeated with 

 gallic acid which causes a peculiar 

 taste and odor. This acid attacks 

 iron and the solutions stain the 

 wood. Experiments, however, indi- 

 cate that iron fastenings attached 

 to oak are shortly protected by an 

 insoluble scale of resulting salt, and 

 although the wood becomes dark- 

 ened, it remains practically unin- 

 jured. The la teiJju Ut oaken vessels 

 are iron {as^fflc, but no better 

 ship was ever built than the Ameri- 

 can sailing; vessels which were 

 constructed; of this wood a century 

 ago. ' :, ~ 



To the ancients the oak tree was 



an object of love and reverence and 



to it was attributed mystic powers 



to foretell coming events. The 



oldest oracle of the Greeks ■ wstS 



that of Jupiter at Dodona in 



Epirus. It was believed that two 



black doves flew from Thebes in 



Egypt and one alighted in an oak 



tree at Dodona and in a human 



voice proclaimed that an oracle ot 



.lupiter should there be established. 



The other dove carried a similar 



message to the temple of Ammon in the 



Lybian oasis. The oracles were set up 



and the priests in the temples interpreted the 



responses that were conveyed to them by the 



motion of the trees in the wind. 



The lover in Tennyson's idyll of "The 



*Anthoi-iHes mmtPtl in the foregolus articles 

 nre "The Tlnihnrs of roniinei-cp," "A Guide to the 

 T^.pps." "Prin''in,Tl Sporips of Wfort" anil "Check 

 List of Forest Ti-pps nf Hie rnitpfl States." 



