THE HEMLOCKS 



THERE are three species of Hemlocks indigenous to the 

 United States, which have had, and, to a certain extent, 

 still have, an economic value as timber trees. Two of them 

 known as Eastern Hemlock are scattered over a large 

 portion of the country east of the Mississippi River, and 

 the home of the other is west of the Continental Divide, 

 where it is confined mainly to the states of Washington, 

 Oregon, and California. The technical appellation for the 

 species is Tsuga, which is the Japanese name for Hemlock ; 

 and just why such a strange and barbarous word from a 

 far-away country should have been selected for a tree so 

 widely spread over our continent is hard to determine. The 

 Indian name, Oh-neh-tah (" Greens on the Stick "), is no 

 less civilized and quite as euphonious ; but the foreign 

 technical monstrosity has " come to stay." 



In general characteristics the Hemlocks much resemble 

 the Spruces, taking on a pyramidal form without special- 

 ized branches, with short leaves and pendant but small 

 cones. Their limbs do not, however, spring out from the 

 stem in whorls, as do most of the conifers, but grow at 

 irregular intervals from each other. Their leaves remain 

 on the branches from three to six or seven years. All have 

 straight, slightly tapering stems which are covered with 

 rough, hard, and somewhat rigid bark of a reddish cinna- 

 mon color when broken, and which contains much tannin. 

 This last feature has made the tree of much more commer- 

 cial importance in the East than it would have been for its 

 lumber alone, and large quantities were cut there in former 

 days for the bark only, the wood being left to rot on the 

 ground or be consumed in forest fires, which were rather 

 encouraged than otherwise. No other tree of moment has 

 bark so highly charged with tannin, not even the Chestnut 



