62 USES OF COMMERCIAL WOODS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



reported as one. The tree has a number of names by which it is 

 known in different localities, among them bull pine, big pine, long- 

 leaved pine, red pine, pitch pine, heavy w r ooded pine, western pitch 

 pine, heavy pine, foothills yellow pine, Sierra brown bark pine, Mon- 

 tana black pine, and California white pine. Some of these names are 

 also applied to entirely different pines. Occupying as it does a range 

 so extensive, with climates and soils differing, the western yellow pine 

 does not present the same appearance and the same characteristics 

 everywhere. 



The enormous total supply of western yellow pine is not the only 

 factor in its importance. It is practically the only timber in ex- 

 tensive regions, where its value can scarcely be overestimated. Next 

 to incense cedar and the big tree, it is the most prolific seed bearer 

 of the western conifers, and its seeds are sufficiently light to insure 

 their wide distribution. This is one of the factors which gives the 

 species its power to reproduce in the face of obstacles which stunt or 

 kill some of the trees associated with it. The species is gaining 

 ground within its range. It takes possession of vacant areas which 

 have been bared by lumbering, fire, or other cause, and is usually 

 able to hold its ground. In some cases it crowds out and kills the 

 more stately sugar pine, because the latter succumbs more readily if 

 its supply of light is seriously interfered with. It resists fire better 

 than most of the forest trees with which it is associated, and this 

 gives it a decided advantage. On the other hand, it suffers from 

 insect enemies more than its associates, and in some localities this is a 

 serious drawback. A beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosw) sometimes 

 destroys large stands. An estimate made in 1903 placed the beetle- 

 killed timber in the Black Hills, S. Dak., at 600 million feet. 

 That was twenty times the amount of this species cut in South 

 Dakota in 1908. The enormous numbers of these beetles may be 

 judged from the fact that 10,000 have been found in a single tree 8 

 inches in diameter, while a tree 30 inches in diameter has been esti- 

 mated to contain 200,000. 



The wood of the beetle-killed timber turns blue, owing to the 

 presence of a fungus that enters through the holes made by the 

 beetles. The bluing commences in the immediate vicinity of the 

 holes and spreads rapidly through the w r ood, which is not damaged 

 immediately, except that its color is objectionable, but decay is liable 

 to follow the bluing. This pine occasionally suffers from the attacks 

 of two other beetles, and much of the stand in small areas is killed. 

 These are the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus monticolce) and 

 the western pine beetle (Dendroctonus "bremcomis) . A fungus called 

 red rot sometimes does considerable damage to standing timber. 



