86 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



furniture, finish, boxes, and boats. The wood has several names, 

 though larch is the most common. It is otherwise known as tamarack 

 and hackmatack, which names are oftener applied to the eastern tree; 

 red American larch, western tamarack, and great western larch. 



Some of the annual cut of lumber credited to western larch does 

 not belong to it. Lumbermen have confused names and mixed figures 

 by applying this tree's name to noble fir, which is a different tree. If 

 the fir lumber listed as larch were given its proper name, it would result 

 in lowering the output of larch as shown in statistical figures. In 

 spite of this, however, larch lumber fills an important place in the trade 

 of the northern Rocky Mountain region. 



There is little doubt that it will fill a much more important place in 

 the future, for a beginning has scarcely been made in marketing this 

 timber. The available supply is large, but exact figures are not avail- 

 able. Some stands are dense and extensive, and the trees are of large 

 size and fine form. It is not supposed, however, that there will be much 

 after the present stand has been cut, because a second crop from trees 

 of so slow growth will be far in the future. Sudworth says that larch 

 trees eighteen or twenty inches in diameter are from 250 to 300 years 

 old, and that the ordinary age of these trees in the forests of the North west 

 is from 300 to 500 years ; while larger trees are 600 or 700. Much remains 

 to be learned concerning the ages of these trees in different situations and 

 in different parts of its range. It is apparent, however, that when a 

 period covering two or three centuries is required to produce a sawlog 

 of only moderate size, timber owners will not look forward with much 

 eagerness to a second growth forest of western larch. 



The value of the wood of western larch has been the subject of much 

 controversy. In the tables compiled for the federal census of 1880, 

 under direction of Charles S. Sargent, its strength and elasticity were 

 shown to be remarkably high. The figures indicate that it is about 

 thirty-nine per cent stronger than white oak and fifty-one per cent 

 stiffer. This places it a little above longleaf pine in strength and nearly 

 equal to it in stiffness or elasticity. Engineers have expressed doubts 

 as to the correctness of Sargent's figures. They believe them too high. 

 The samples tested by Sargent were six in number, four of them col- 

 lected in Washington and two in Montana. 



The wood of western larch is heavier than longleaf pine, and 

 approximately of the same weight as white oak. It is among the heaviest, 

 if not actually the heaviest, of softwoods of the United States. Sargent 

 thus described the physical properties of the wood: "Heavy, exceedingly 

 hard and strong, rather coarse grained, compact, satiny, susceptible 

 of a fine polish, very durable in contact with the soil; bands of small 



