314 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



to rot in the woods, or to feed fires and make them more destructive. 

 The bark peelers do their principal work in the California redwood 

 region, because there the oak is at its best. Economic conditions make 

 the salvage of the trunks impossible. The bark can be hauled to market, 

 but the wood is unsalable at living prices, after the long haul. It has, 

 therefore, been usually abandoned, and becomes a total loss. It cannot 

 even be sold for fuel, because the country within reach of it is thinly 

 settled, and wood is plentiful on every side. 



Large oaks are felled, because the bark can not be stripped from 

 the trunks in any other way, and small trees are not spared. The 

 peelers often do not take the trouble to cut them down, but strip off the 

 bark as high as a man can reach, and leave them standing. A future 

 tree is thus destroyed for the sake of a strip of bark a few feet long. 

 Such trees live a year or two, sometimes several years, before yielding 

 to the inevitable. Usually, as a last expiring effort, they bear an 

 abnormally large crop of acorns. That performance, in the language of 

 the bark peelers, is "the last kick." A tanbark slashing, when the 

 peelers are ready to abandon it, is a sorry spectacle. The barkless and 

 sun-cracked trunks strew the ground, the tops and limbs are piled in 

 windrows, the small peeled trees stand dying, and the last ricks of bark 

 have been sledded down the tote roads, marking the close of operations in 

 that district. A few months later, when fire runs through, the end of 

 the tanbark oak on that tract is accomplished. 



Within recent years commendable efforts have been made to use 

 the wood as well as the bark. One of the first steps in that direction 

 was to overcome the prejudice against the wood. It was long considered 

 to be valueless. That belief was founded on the single fact that this oak 

 is difficult to season. Few woods hi this country check as badly as this, 

 when it is left exposed to sun and wind after the bark has been removed. 

 It checks both radially and along the annual rings. The medullary 

 rays are broad and extend much of the distance from the center to the 

 outside. These are natural lines of cleavage when the log begins to 

 season and the internal stresses develop. It must be admitted that the 

 prospect of making anything out of timber of that character is discourag- 

 ing; but it has been accomplished, and tanbark oak is now a material of 

 considerable value. 



The wood has about the strength and stiffness of white oak, while 

 it is four pounds lighter per cubic foot. The structure is similar to that 

 of California live oak, but the pores of tanbark oak are smaller. They 

 run in rows from center to circumference. The medullary rays are 

 broad enough to show well in quarter-sawing, but the wood's appearance 

 when so worked is not wholly satisfactory. The exposed flat surfaces 



