AMERICAN FOREST TREES 111 



will give, unless by weakening it and causing it to break, or by rendering 

 it less able to hold the staples of wire fences, or nails of plank and picket 

 fences. 



Post makers often prefer fire-killed timber. If a tree is found 

 with the sapwood consumed, as is not unusual, it is nearly always free 

 from fungous attack. The reason it stands through the fire which burns 

 the sapwood off, is that the heart is sound if it were not sound, the 

 whole tree would be consumed. 



The wood of the incense cedar is serviceable for many purposes. 

 The rejection of the sapwood by so many users is the most discouraging 

 feature. The heart, when free from fungus, is a fine, attractive material 

 that does not suffer in comparison with the other cedars, though it may 

 not equal some of them for particular purposes. Tests show it fit for 

 lead pencils, and recent purchases of large quantities have been made by 

 pencil makers. Clothes chests and wardrobes are manufactured from 

 this wood on the assumption that the odor will keep moths out of furs 

 and other clothing stored within. It has been used for cigar boxes, but 

 has not in all instances proven satisfactory. The odor of the wood is 

 objected to by some smokers. Another objection and a somewhat 

 peculiar one, has been filed against incense cedar as a cigar box material. 

 It is claimed that the boxes are attacked voraciously by rats which gnaw 

 the wood, to which they are doubtless attracted by the odor. 



Sawmills turn out incense cedar lumber which is worked into 

 frames for doors and windows, and doors are made of it, and also interior 

 finish. Shipments of inch boards are sold in New York and Boston, and 

 exports go to London, Paris, and Berlin. 



The long period during which incense cedar has been used and 

 wasted, has reduced the supply in most regions, but there is yet much in 

 the forest. It is never lumbered separately, but only in connection 

 with pine and fir; but post makers have always gone about picking trees 

 of this species and passing by the associated species. 



ALLIGATOR JUNIPER (Juniperus pachyphlcea) is so named from its 

 bark which is patterned like the skin of an alligator. It is called oak- 

 barked cedar in Arizona, mountain cedar in Texas, and checkered- 

 barked juniper in other places. Its range lies in southwestern Texas, 

 about Eagle pass and Limpia mountains, and westward on the desert 

 ranges of New Mexico and Arizona, south of the Colorado plateau, and 

 among the mountains of northern Arizona. Its range extends south- 

 ward into Mexico. It is one of the largest of the junipers, but only when 

 circumstances are wholly favorable. It is then sixty feet high, and four 

 or five feet in diametei ; but it is generally small and of poor form for 

 lumber, because of its habit of separating into forkes near the ground. 



