24 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



is taken, the specifications usually requiring 

 logs twenty-eight inches or over in diameter 

 at the small end. These logs are cut into 

 quartered oak veneer, one-fourth to one- 

 twentieth of an inch thick, for use upon cores 

 of inferior wood. Smaller and rougher tim- 

 ber is used for basket veneer. The strongest 

 and highest priced market and bushel baskets 

 are made of white oak. 



Small quantities of very strong, straight- 

 grained white oak are used for wagon spokes 

 and plow handles, and in the manufacture of 

 these short-bodied, open-grown and second- 

 growth trees are preferred. The material 

 used for chair stock is chiefly small-dimension 

 stuff, an inch or two square. A number 

 of the larger mills have put in special ma- 

 chinery and are now utilizing much of their 

 oak mill cull aud waste for this purpose. 

 Larger strips are cut into chair backs, and a 

 few mills are cutting fine quartered oak table 

 tops in short lengths. 



With the diminishing supply of white oak 

 timber, other and cheaper woods have, in 

 many cases, been .substituted for it. For 

 wagon stock, tool handles, and farm imple- 

 ments, red oak and chestnut oak are the prin- 

 cipal substitutes and are coming into wide- 

 spread use. Eed and black oak and red 

 gum have almost entirely replaced white oak 

 for slack barrel staves, and chestnut oak and 

 red gum for oil barrels; for furniture and 

 interior finish chestnut and red oak are in 

 many instances being extensively substituted. 



Probably the most important and extensive 

 substitution, however, has been that of yel- 

 low pine in flooring, ceiling and interior 

 finish, especially in the lower and poorer 

 grades. 



In Decatur, Ala., in the summer of 1904 

 the best grades of plain-sawed white oak 

 flooring and ceiling were quoted at from $48 

 to $50 per thousand feet, while yellow pine 

 finish of the same grades sold from $16 to 

 $18 a thousand feet. A number of large 

 southern planing mills now manufacture oak 

 finish only on special orders, and many have 

 given it up altogether. Under the excep- 

 tionally high prices of 1903 this substitution 

 of cheaper woods for white oak finish be- 

 came more general than in any previous year. 

 It caused in part the marked depression in 

 the hardwood market of 1904. The best 

 grades of longleaf pine flooring were quoted 

 on the New York market in June, 1905, at 

 from $21 to $44 per thousand feet, as com- 

 pared with from $39 to $88 for the corre- 

 sponding grades of plain and quarter-sawed 

 white oak. Thus the increasing tendency is 

 to limit the use of white oak finish to the 

 special or fancy trade. 



SiLviCAL Characteristics. 



Quality of soil and amount and uniformity 

 of moisture are the chief factors which de- 

 termine the local distribution of white oak. 

 Though a very widely distributed species, 

 it prefers broad, deep-soiled flats, coves and 

 gentle lower slopes and is here found in great- 

 est abundance. White oak seldom forms a pure 

 forest. In typical mixtures a proportion of 

 ten or fifteen per cent is usually sufiiciently 

 high for the forest to be called a ' ' white 

 oak" forest, unless there is a higher pro- 

 portion of some more valuable species like 

 yellow poplar or white pine. For its best 



development white oak requires a fresh, po- 

 rous, loamy or sandy-loam soil. The finest of 

 the southern Appalachian region grows in the 

 deep-soiled, broader valleys of West Vir- 

 ginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Constant 

 moisture, such as is found in the coves, favors 

 its abundant occurrence and thrifty develop- 

 ment, although well-formed trees are often 

 found on comparatively dry soil. Thorough 

 drainage, on the other hand, is essential in 

 all situations. 



White oak has a vigorous root system and 

 often establishes itself among the bowlders 

 and broken fragments of very rocky soils 

 if there is but a thin cover of earth and 

 humus to hold moisture and supply the roots 

 with nourishment. On such localities, how- 

 ever, the trees are invariably short-lived, 

 stunted and scrubby in form. Sandy soils, 

 on the other hand, are not favorable ; the 

 trees are scattered and of poor development. 



During the sapling and pole stages white 

 oak on good soils forms a large, thrifty stem, 

 with considerable taper. The side branches 

 are very persistent during the early life of 

 the tree, even under a fairly dense forest 

 cover. Mature stems frequently bear numer- 

 ous knobs and small irregularities, due to de- 

 fective pruning, while small sap branches are 

 very common on the trunks of large trees. 



The average size of mature trees varies 

 widely on different forest types in the same 

 locality. Below are given average dimen- 

 sions of virgin white oaks, twenty inches 

 and over in diameter, breasthigh, on the three 

 main types in the Cumberland mountains of 

 notheastern Tennessee and in the Tennessee 

 valley region : 



TREES OP CUMBEKLAXD MODNTAINS. 



Diameter, 



Total Clear breast, 



Type. height, length. high. 



Feet. Feet. Inches. 



Cove land 9.5 44 25 



Slope land SO 35 24 



lUdge land 68 27 21 



TREES OP TENNESSEE VALLEY. 



Cove land 08 45 28 



Slope land 70 30 2.S 



Ridge laud 45 18 22 



Differences in depth of soil, moisture and 

 exposure have a marked effect upon the de- 

 velopment of white oak, especially upon its 

 total height and clear length, which fall off 

 very rapidly on the poorer sites. 



White oak is comparatively tolerant in 

 early life. Young reproduction will establish 

 itself under the shade of a high hardwood 

 canopy of considerable density if the ground 

 is clear; they are rarel.v found under low 

 clumps of saplings, rhododendron or other 

 shrubby undergrowth. In the sapling and 

 early pole stages, white oak requires at least 

 one-half or two-thirds of the full overhead 

 light for vigorous development. Its growth 

 under adverse conditions, however, while slow, 

 is very persistent, and its power of recovery 

 after the shade is removed is great. Many 

 trees which have come up under the crowns 

 of old timber and have attained in fifty years 

 a diameter of but two inches will, when the 

 mature stand is logged and they receive the 

 light, almost immediately begin to grow rap- 

 idly and vigorously. 



Young trees which have persisted as seed- 

 lings and saplings under the shade of an old 

 stand usually succumb to the adverse con- 

 ditions soon after the pole stage is reached. 

 In middle and late life white oak is distinctly 



intolerant, enduring but little direct over- 

 head shade. White oak is more tolerant 

 than red and chestnut oak, and, as a 

 rule outnumbers the two other species 

 in the younger age classes as well as in the 

 mature virgin forest. On poorer soils, how- 

 ever, and away from broad river valleys, the 

 black oaks tend to replace white oak in both 

 the mature stand and in the young growth 

 coming up beneath. The great advantage 

 white oak has over black oak is its persistence 

 of growth, ability to recover from suppres- 

 sion when shade is removed, longevity and in- 

 herent resistance of decay, insects and 

 fungus, to which black and red oaks are far 

 more susceptible. 



White oak is a poor self-pruner. Because 

 of its comparative tolerance in early life, 

 natural pruning is delayed, and occurs mainly 

 in the later pole stage and in middle life. 

 The lower limbs of the crowns are very per- 

 sistent, and when dead often remain on the 

 mature bole as sound, hard stubs, which are 

 shed with difiiculty. Except when heavily 

 shaded, white oak, in late life, nearly always 

 forms numerous small sap branches, which, 

 however, do not affect the quality of the 

 timber. 



Second Paper. 

 Susceptibility to Injury. 



In resistance to fire, insect attack, disease 

 and other injury, white oak is one of the 

 hardiest of southern Appalachian trees. Its 

 timber runs sounder and freer from damage 

 than that of almost any other important com- 

 mercial species of the region. 



As with all other trees of the southern 

 Appalachian forests, the greatest source of 

 injury to white oak is found in the frequent, 

 often periodical, fires which are so common in 

 southern woodlands. The effects of these 

 fires upon old white oak timber are seen in 

 stagheadedness, in many scarred and hollowed 

 butts, and the deadening and removal of the 

 bark and layer after layer of wood. In a 

 few cases this last process is continued until 

 the weakened trees are broken at the butt 

 by the wind, or are twisted off at the root 

 swellings. The actual death of mature white 

 oak from fire, however, is rare. It is killed 

 by spring and summer fires only, or by fires 

 that feed upon the slash left in logging, or 

 upon the trunks and limbs of other more 

 easily killed trees, like chestnut. Par more 

 destructive to mature timber than the actual 

 injury from fire are the attacks of insects 

 and fungi which invariably follow a burn. 

 The weakening of the tree through fire pre- 

 disposes it to disease and lowers its power of 

 resistance. Furthermore, the wounds at the 

 base of the tree readily catch the spores of 

 fungi, and the decay of the exposed wood 

 'juickly ensues. White oak is slow to heal 

 over wounds of this character, and even after 

 the scar is closed on the surface the decay 

 goes on within. The result is dote and hollow- 

 ness, which often extend up the trunk for 

 ten or fifteen feet, or unsound heartwood 

 from red rot, and black, flaky streaks. To 

 all of these injuries, due directly or indi- 

 rectly to fire, white oak, while often seriously 



