24 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



group or hillside woulil die off iu this way, leaving the trunks standiiig 

 gaunt and lifeless throughout the woods. What few trees managed 

 to escape this fiist visitation generally succumbed sooner or later, 

 although many years might pass between the death of the main body 

 of timber and the killing of the last straggling trees. 



This destruction has now gone on so far that in the South outside 

 of the Appalachian mountains, the chestnut is a rare tre« and of no 

 importance to the lumberman. Even in the mountains themselves 

 there are many places where it is now rapidly disappearing. The 

 writer has recently seen thousands of acres along the eastern slopes 

 of the Blue Eidge where this condition is very painfully evident. 



The writers who first reported this strange dying off attributed it 

 to various causes such as ' ' worms, ' ' root rots or fire. Even today we 

 are still far from certain as to its underlying causes. Whatever they 

 may be the immediate causes are two, possibly three: fire and insects, 

 and possibly fungous diseases. 



Ever since the time of the Indians there have been forest fires, 

 but they were then generally so infrequent as to do little harm. With 

 the coming of the white man they became more numerous and severe. 

 The early settlers burned the woods to help clear the land for farms 

 and later under the fancied idea that it improved the grazing. The 

 practice of Ijurning over the woods every year still survives in many 

 portions of the South and is responsible for the destruction of millions 

 of feet of mature timber and young growth. 



The chestnut has been the worst sufferer. Other trees have a thicker 

 bark which helps to protect them from the heat of the fire or grow in 

 localities too damp for fires easily to burn. So despite its great 

 sprouting power the chestnut is constantly giving way before these 

 fires. Not only does the fire destroy the trees, it burns up the seeds 

 and so prevents others from growing up to take their places. 



A great portion of the chestnut trees are not directly killed by fire 

 but are so weakened that they form attractive breeding places for 

 hosts of insects which sooner or later kill thcni. Some of these insects 

 also attack and kill sound, healthy trees. The best known and most 

 deadly is the so-called two-lined chestnut borer. This insect is a 

 medium sized beetle and has two light colored stripes down its back. 

 The larva is a long thin whitish "worm" or grub, which bores between 

 the wood and the bark of the living trees. Since a great many gen- 

 erally attack the same tree they soon girdle and kill it. Trees found 

 dying in midsummer such as mentioned above are almost always found 

 to be attacked by this insect. 



Some experts have come to the conclusion that this insect together 

 with fire is the chief cause of the death of the chestnut in the South. 

 Others think that climatic changes or perhaps changes in soil condi- 

 tions have weakened the chestnut to such a degree that fire and insects 

 have been able to get the upper hand. Recently it has been claimed by 

 some that a root rot caused by a fungous disease is chiefly responsible. 

 But as yet no one has said the last word on the subject. 



Eegardless of the causes there is no way of escaping the fact that 

 in the North most people have given up hope of saving the chestnut; 

 and in the South it has died off over large sections and is now disap- 

 pearing in the choice hardwood forests of the southern Apjialachians, 

 where tl'e tree is at its best and is the most numerous and important 

 in the forest. At the present rate of cutting the supply of virgin 

 chestnut in that region will be exhausted in a generation or less. It 

 certainly looks as if we shall have to find some other wood to take 

 its place when the present crop is exhausted. This is more certain 

 to be the case if the blight does invade the South as it has done the 

 North and East. 



We need not, however, fear that the chestnut will become extinct 

 in our own time. But from all evidence it looks very much as if the 

 combination of blight, insects, fires and overcutting would make the 

 chestnut a rare and unimportant tree within a relatively few years — 

 although the suppression of forest fires and the exercise of greater 

 care for the future of the forest in lumbering would undoubtedly in- 

 crease the number of those years. 



How is the destruction of the chestnut going to affect the lumber- 

 man? The first effect will be that they will more and more be called 

 upon to dispose of large quantities of chestnut at once to prevent its 

 total loss when the blight or the insects begin to play sudden havoc 



with their choice holdings in the southern mountains. It is possible 

 that such a situation might overstock the markets. If this contingency 

 should threaten, it could best be avoided by action on the part of 

 lumbermen 's associations to boom chestnut, much as cypress and white 

 pine have been boomed. 



This would involve finding new uses for the wood, but from experi- 

 ments which have been made in Pennsylvania and elsewhere where the 

 blight has left much dead timber to be disposed of, it looks as if 

 these would be minor ones. 



After the boom caused by the necessity of cutting the chestnut 

 to prevent its loss is passed there will come a scarcity of the wood. 

 How will it be overcome? 



The chief use of chestnut lumber today is in the furniture manu- 

 facturing industry, where it is used chiefly as core stock for veneer 

 work. The furniture factories at High Point, North Carolina, and at 

 other places in the Piedmont region of that state use millions of feet 

 annually. The worm holes which are so prevalent in all but a smaU 

 portion of the timber are an advantage in veneer work since they hold 

 the glue used to fasten the veneer to the core. 



With the exhaustion of the mature chestnut in the South, the furni- 

 ture manufacturers will have exhausted the last virgin timber of the 

 species, and will face the problem of finding a substitute. Such second 

 growth as may be avjiilable will not be as desirable as that from the 

 original growth, since it will be in smaller dimensions and will lack 

 the worm holes. What woods will be used as substitutes remains to be 

 seen. The coffin manufacturer will be called upon to solve much the 

 same problem. 



Another large use for chestnut is in the manufacture of tannic acid. 

 There are a large number of plants scattered through the mountains 

 of the South, which are devoted to this industry. They will not feel 

 the pinch for material nearly so soon as the furniture men, since 

 there is at present an enormous supply of low-grade timber too poor 

 for lumber but suitable for acid manufacture. Moreover, dead wood 

 yields as much or more tannin than live and is easier to handle; 

 indeed some manufacturers prefer it. One or two plants in North 

 Carolina are being run largely on dead wood, killed by the attacks 

 of the two-lined borer. This industry could probably exist almost 

 on its present scale for several years after the death of the major 

 portion of the chestnut, by using only the dead trees and the young 

 sprouts. 



The telephone and tclegraj)h companies will have to find substitutes 

 for chestnut poles now so largely used in the East and South. There 

 nre other woods which make good poles, but none so abundant and 

 cheap, particularly for medium sized poles. It is the writer 's opinion, 

 that the problem will be solved, partly by the use of western woods, 

 partly by the substitution of other eastern woods, both of which classes 

 will be more and more subjected to preservative processes before be- 

 ing set, and j^artly by the use of steel poles of the hollow cylinder 

 or of the lattice variety, such as are now used on trolley lines in 

 cities or on high tension electric transmission lines elsewhere. 



In parts of the East chestnut has long been an important tie wood, 

 but the use of inferior woods which have been treated with preserva- 

 tives will probably make up for the loss of chestnut. 



Wc shall probably be obliged to depend on orchard-grown trees for 

 our nuts. Perhaps these trees will be hybrids obtained by crossing the 

 native chestnut with some of its more blight-resistant foreign relatives. 



L. P. B. 



Because of drouth conditions there is considerable fire danger in 

 the forests of the East this fall. 



Pennsylvania and New Jersey lead all other states in the quantity 

 of wood used for making tobacco pipes, and utilize apple wood, French 

 brier, ebony, birch, red gum, and olive wood. 



William Penn, in his Charter of Rights, provided that for every five 

 acres of forest cleared one acre should be left in woods. Foresters 

 today maintain that on an average one-fifth of every farm should be 

 in timber. 



