jf AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



times very high, as much as 130,000 feet of logs growing on a single 

 ere. That quantity is not often equalled by any other forest tree, 

 though redwood and Douglas fir sometimes go considerably above it. 



The western white pine's needles grow in clusters of five and are 

 from one and a half to four inches long. The cones are from ten to 

 eighteen inches long. The seeds ripen the second year. Reproduction 

 is vigorous and the forest stands are holding their own. Trees about 

 one hundred and seventy-five feet high and eight feet in diameter are 

 met with, but the average size is one hundred feet high and from 

 two to three feet in diameter, or about the size of eastern white pine. 



The wood is useful and has been giving service since the settlement 

 of the country began, fifty or more years ago. Choice trunks were split 

 for shakes or shingles, but the wood is inferior in splitting qualities to 

 either eastern white pine or California sugar pine, because of more 

 knots. The western white pine does not prune itself early or well. Dead 

 limbs adhere to the trunk long after the sugar pine would shed them. In 

 split products, the western white pine's principal rival has been the 

 western red cedar. The pine has been much employed for mine umbers 

 in the region where it is abundant. Miners generally take the most 

 convenient wood for props, stulls, and lagging. A little higher use for 

 pine is found among the mines, where is it made into tanks, flumes, 

 sluice boxes, water pipes, riffle blocks, rockers, and guides for stamp 

 mills. However, the total quantity used by miners is comparatively 

 small. Much more goes to ranches for fences and buildings. It is serv- 

 iceable, and is shipped outside the immediate region of production and 

 is marketed in the plains states east of the Rocky Mountains, where it is 

 excellent fence material. 



A larger market is found in manufacturing centers farther east. 

 Western white pine is shipped to Chicago where it is manufactured into 

 doors, sash, and interior finish, in competition with all other woods in 

 that market. It is said to be of frequent occurrence that the very 

 pine which is shipped in its rough form out of the Rocky Mountain region 

 goes back finished as doors and sash. When the mountain regions 

 shall have better manufacturing facilities, this will not occur. In the 

 manufacture of window and hothouse sash, glass is more important 

 than wood, although each is useless without the other. The principal 

 glass factories are in the East, and it is sometimes desirable to ship 

 the wood to the glass factory, have the sash made there, and the glazing 

 done; and the finished sash, ready for use, may go back to the source 

 of the timber. 



The same operation is sometimes repeated for doors; but in recent 

 years the mountain region where this pine grows has been supplied 



