i6 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES. 



White Cedar or Arborvitae. 



Thuja occidctitalis — Linn. 

 The range of growth of white cedar or 

 arborvitsB, which is perhaps the commoner 

 name, is from New Brunswick to Lake Win- 

 nipeg and south to central Minnesota and 

 Michigan; through northern Illinois; along 

 the mountains of the eastern United States 

 to North Carolina and westward into eastern 

 Tennessee. 



It is called arborvitse in Maine, 

 Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode 

 Island, Connecticut, New York, 

 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela- 

 ware, Virginia, West Virginia, In- 

 diana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, 

 Minnesota, Ohio and Ontario. White 

 cedar is a name often used in 

 Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, 

 Ehode Island, Massachusetts, New 

 York, New Jersey, Virginia, North 

 Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Min- 

 nesota and Ontario. In Maine, Ver- 

 mont and New York it is called 

 cedar. In New York, and where 

 cultivated in England, American 

 arborvitse is the name applied to it. 

 The Indians were wont to call it 

 ' ' feather-leaf ' ' — in their language 

 oo-soo-ha-tah. In Delaware it is 

 called vitse, and in western litera- 

 ture, Atlantic red cedar. It is un- 

 fortunate that the name white cedar 

 is so commonly applied to the tree 

 — confusing it with species of the 

 genus Chamwcyparis, to which it 

 should belong exclusively. 



Two distinct species of the genus 

 Thuja are known to botanists, of 

 which two are native to China and 

 Japan. The Chinese species orien- 

 talis, which is exceedingly popular 

 and decorative, is used extensively 

 in the South. No less than forty- 

 five varieties of Thuja occidentalis 

 are distinguished in cultivation, and 

 the trees are particularly adapted 

 for use in formal gardens and for 

 hedges. 



This tree belongs to the pine 

 family. Its leaves are simple and 

 opposite; very blunt and scale-like, 

 growing closely together and over- 

 lapping upon the flat branchlets. 

 They are a bright green and aro- 

 matic — more so when bruised. The 

 flowers bloom in May; they are 

 monoecious, the staminate forming a globose 

 cluster of stamens, and the pistillate a red 

 cone of from eight to a dozen scales, with 

 ovules on the lower ones only. The cones 

 are small and of a yellowish-brown color; in 

 shape they are oval, and when ripe open to 

 the base. The seeds have thin, broad wings. 

 The bark of arborvitse is light brown, 

 tinged with red on the branchlets; it is thin, 

 and cracks into ridges with stringy, rough 



FIFTY-NINTH PAPER. 



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 arborvitse is soft, brittle, light 

 and weak; it is very inflammable. The fact 



TY 



PICAL FOREST GROWTH WHITE CEDAR, MI.SS 

 IvEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN. 



that it is durable, even in contact with the 

 soil, permits its use for railway ties, tele- 

 graph poles, posts, fencing, shingles and 

 boats. However, the trunk is so shaped that 

 it is seldom sawed for lumber, but oftener 

 for poles and posts, the lower section being 

 flattened into ties. A cubic foot of the sea- 

 soned wood weighs approximately nineteen 

 pounds. The heartwood is light brown, be- 

 coming darker with exposure; the sapwood is 



thin and nearly white; it has rather a fine 

 grain and compact structure. 



Lounsberry says : ' ' This very formal and 

 prim-appearing tree has for a long time been 

 extensively planted. In fact it was probably 

 the first North American tree to be known 

 in Europe and has been cultivated in Paris 

 since before the middle of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. It forms an excellent hedge. When 

 under the gardener's care it is very 

 prone to vary and produce new va- 

 rieties, but it can hardly be said to 

 become more beautiful than when 

 in its wild state. The extremes of 

 climate afiieet it very little. In 

 America it becomes smaller and 

 grows less abundantly as it reaches 

 the limits of its southern range. 

 Northward it covers large areas of 

 swamp land, and the forests that it 

 forms are almost impenetrable. As 

 of all coniferous trees, its fruit is 

 interesting. The tiny cones remain 

 on the branches over the winter to 

 greet the new growth in the spring- 

 time. This is an act of pure cour- 

 tesy on their part, as during the 

 preceding autumn they have finished 

 their own work and ripened and 

 scattered their seeds. The Indians 

 had many uses for the fragrant, 

 yellowish-brown wood of the tree. 

 They separated its thick layer of 

 sapwood, as they could do with 

 ease, and with it strengthened their 

 canoes. They also used parts of it 

 in the making of their baskets. 

 Fluids of medicinal value are 

 yielded by the tree, and they have 

 some local popularity for the cur- 

 ing of warts. The fresh young 

 branches are used to make brooms." 

 The most prolific growth of white 

 cedar is in the swampy sections of 

 northern Wisconsin, northern Min- 

 nesota, the upper peninsula of 

 Michigan, the northern portion of 

 the lower peninsula of Michigan, 

 and eastward across the Dominion 

 of Canada. 



In value cedar stumpage ranks as 

 high as any of the northern woods. 

 The hundreds of thousands of tele- 

 graph, telephone and street railway 

 poles in use in the West and middle 

 .VU- West are very largely the product 



of the cedar swamps of the North. 

 Cedar constitutes a very large proportion of 

 the fence posts of the entire region of the 

 country west of Buffalo and Pittsburg to the 

 mountain regions of the West. The same 

 swamps are also the source of supply of 

 thousands of the railway ties used in north- 

 ern roads, and the product of white cedar 

 shingles is second only to that of the red 

 cedar shingles of the Pacific coast. 



The halftone engraving with which this 



