454 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the white shows the closest fibre lines, thinned, I should certainly take out the 

 swamp white more open and broader, red and then the black because of the 

 and post and burr oak smooth and light splendid note of red and orange that 

 with the fibre patterns far apart and this would also be the case with the 

 hardly distinguishable. In planing any black and pin oaks, to a lesser degree, 

 such wood along the grain one is bound they would receive preference in the 

 to cross the fibre ends on a long slant, order named. All three are offered by 

 leaving rows of what looks like pin- nurserymen at about a dollar each for 

 pricks but are the fibre ends crossing 8-ft. trees, well root-pruned, and the 

 the cut at a slant. The straighter the pin oak is the easiest of them to trans- 

 fibres the fewer of these patterns of plant. Their soil preferences are, for 

 fibre ends crossed by the plane from rich uplands and ridges, red and black 

 which we note that the oak sap fibres oaks ; rich, moist river bottoms, red and 

 vary in straightness from post oak to pin oaks ; low swampy soils and rich 

 white oak in a decreasing scale, clay base flat lands, inundated or 

 through this series of five first-year swampy in the spring, pin oak; dry 

 oaks. well-drained sand or limestone base 



We now take up the second branch soils, scarlet oak ; also clay base if not 

 of the oak clan, the second season too wet. For barren, sandy or rocky 

 oaks ripening their oaks the second ridges and hills the black jack and 

 year and have chosen five repre- scrub oaks are the principal repre- 

 sentatives out of the many the red, sentatives of the family, almost by pref- 

 black, pin, scarlet and black jack oaks, erence it would seem, for, while the 

 Except for the last, all of them are black jack will do well in company 

 characterized by a pointed-lobed leaf, with chestnut oaks and red oaks in rich, 

 often with the ribs extended like tiny rather dry uplands and hills border- 

 umbrella points to form a bristle at the ing river banks, the scrub or bear oak 

 tip of each projection. Two of them, must have a barren to grow in. Here 

 the scarlet and the pin oaks are favorite they put out their stubby club-shaped 

 nurserymen's oaks, for they color bril- leaves, scarlet and purple in the au- 

 liantly in the fall and their graceful tumn, and drop myriads of tiny acorns, 

 feathery foliage is a pleasure to the eye a small miniature or the white oak 

 all through the summer. Owing to the acorn, much prized by bears and wild 

 pin oak's preference for low, swampy hogs, red squirrels and wild turkeys, 

 soils, it does not get to bud until late in The blackjack goes right to a dull 

 the spring, usually about the fifth of brown in the autumn and comes down 

 May. soon after the first frosts. It has little 



The red and black oaks, while hand- value except for firewood, of which 

 some in summer because of their abun- it makes one of the best, as its logs 

 dant, glossy dark-green leaves, are not burn slowly with a small hot flame, 

 to be relied upon in the autumn, as the campers delight, 

 the red goes right to a dull brown and Commercially, pin oaks and red and 

 the leaves fall by the end of October, black oaks are salable as second-grade 

 while the black turns to a deep, dull, oak, used for interior trim. The wood 

 reddish-purple and then yellow-brown, works much easier under the saw and 

 which persist all winter from some of plane and the chisel than the white oak 

 the twigs, helping out the white oaks and grades, and is reddish in color with 

 the beeches to make the winter snow- deep abundant fibre pits. The branch- 

 scapes cheerful. As none of these lets of the pin oak are exceedingly hard 

 oaks are particularly valuable for their and tough, and its wp.od^was used by 

 wood, their ornamental considerations the early settlers for treenails in house 

 would weigh heavily when in doubt as building, whence its name pin oak, the 

 to which to take out and which to leave, nail or pin of the frontier dwelling 

 For instance, of a clump of scarlet, when iron was scarce. Looking at 

 black and red oaks that had to be the ends of the logs, there is a whole 

 would remain with the scarlet. As lot to be learnt in just studying the sec- 



