78 USES OF COMMERCIAL WOODS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



kingdom. A few trees associate with it here and there in its range, 

 among them being mountain mahogany, California juniper, yucca, 

 and sometimes a straggling white fir and Jeffrey pine. 



It grows very slowly and can never be planted for the purpose of 

 growing timber. A hundred years would be necessary to produce a 

 fence post and 200 years for a railroad tie. Nothing larger than a 

 crosstie need ever be expected, though in exceptionally favorable cir- 

 cumstances a small, short saw log might be produced. The difficul- 

 ties which beset the seeds and the seedlings before the young pine 

 finds itself safely established in the sterile soil and inhospitable cli- 

 mate are apparent in the fact that scarcely one seed in ten thousand 

 possibly not one in a million becomes a tree. The seedling demands 

 shade to protect it from the scorching sun and withering winds, but 

 the parent trees, almost destitute as they are of foliage, afford hardly 

 the shade which a thin lattice work would give. The large trees are 

 so intolerant that they will endure no crowding, and a forest of these 

 trees casts only a pale, penumbrous shade, and in it the seedlings 

 must struggle for their lives, and the struggle ends in death for the 

 most of them. 



The tree has several names, but singleleaf pinon has been proposed 

 as best suited, since it is the only pine in this country with single 

 leaves. They are dispersed sparingty over the twig and are curved 

 to a form resembling the old-style shoemaker's sewing awl. It has 

 been described as the tree with awls for leaves. It is perhaps the 

 most fruitful tree in the world, in comparison with the resources and 

 material at its command. 



No estimate can be offered of the quantity of singleleaf pinon 

 timber. It is scattered over an area of 100,000 square miles, but pure 

 stands of considerable density are few. It can scarcely be measured 

 in the way other timbers are measured, for few of the trees will yield 

 a single short saw log of small size. The trunks are branched and 

 squat, like sprawling apple trees. They run to limbs, "^d the yield 

 of an acre or a tract would have to be computed as cordwood rather 

 than as saw logs or even crossties. The tree is sometimes called Fre- 

 mont's nut pine, gray pine, Nevada nut pine, and Mono mast pine. 



LOCAL USES. 



The uses of the wood of the singleleaf pinon are local. It is sel- 

 dom or never shipped out of the region where it grows, but in that 

 region it is of supreme importance. Without it the wheels of indus- 

 try would stop in many a remote locality where a few men are hold- 

 ing out against adverse circumstances in an effort to develop mining 

 claims, or small tracts of ranch, or farm land surrounded by inhos- 

 pitable wastes. 



