THE EASTERN HEMLOCK. 15 



fourth among veneer-producing species, with an annual consumption 

 of 207,000 board feet of logs. Most of the hemlock veneer is made in 

 New York, while Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, and the 

 Lake States contribute small amounts. It is employed chiefly in the 

 manufacture of shipping packages of various kinds, laminated or built- 

 up lumber, etc. 



Because of heart defect (knots, shake, and decay) hemlock cores 

 left after veneer production are of little value for anything but fuel. 



STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE TREE. 



During youth, hemlock is the most graceful and beautiful of 

 eastern conifers. Though young trees in dense shade are usually 

 flattened and unsymmetrical, saplings which receive enough light will 

 develop a straight, slender, tapering stem, and a sharply conical, 

 symmetrical crown. The terminal shoots and branch tips lack the 

 rigidity common to pine, spruce, and fir, and the crown is formed of 

 slender, horizontal branches with graceful sprays of branchlets and 

 twigs. The branches are rather uniformly distributed over the 

 stem, though not in regular whorls, as in white pme. The "leader," 

 or terminal shoot, droops in a direction away from the prevailing 

 wind. 



Full-grown hemlocks have very straight, symmetrical, undivided 

 trunks. The taper is greater than that of white or red pine, or, in 

 fact, of most of its common associates, and is due to the remarkable 

 persistence of live branches along the stem. The crown is very long 

 and dense and of a conical shape. In mature trees it commonly covers 

 the upper two-thirds of the stem, and may be 60 or 70 feet long by 30 

 or 40 in total spread. It is formed of slender, horizontal, or somewhat 

 drooping limbs, which clothe the tree densely and evenly on all sides. 

 When the growth is vigorous and the side shade very dense, the limbs 

 of mature trees are killed to a height of 50 or even 60 feet above the 

 ground, but the dead limbs are retained tenaciously, so that even 

 under these conditions an actual clear length of 30 feet is uncommon 

 except in very old trees (PI. I). The mature trunks usually bear 

 numerous small, sound, dead stubs almost to the ground, and good- 

 sized limbs at 20 or 25 feet from the ground. 



When full grown, hemlock varies in total height from about 100 

 feet, in good soil in the western part of its range, to over 160 feet in 

 mountainous portions of West Virginia, North Carolina, and Ten- 

 nessee. Diameters at breastheight of 3 or 4 feet are now exceptional, 

 though trees 5 and even 6 feet in diameter have been measured. One 

 tree cut near Hermon, N. Y., measured 115 feet in height, 5 feet in 

 diameter, and contained 5,562 board feet. 1 Trees yielding 10,000 



i From the "Paper World," Jan. 4, 1902. 



