AMERICAN WOODS. 89 



11. White fir (Abies amaUHs): Good-sized tree, often forming extensive mountain forests. Cascade Mountains 

 of Washington and Oregon. 



12. Red fir (Abies nobilis) (not to be confounded with Douglas fir; see No. 37): Large to very large tree, forming, 

 with J. amabilh, extensive forests on the slope of the mountains between 3,000 and 4,000 feet elevation. 

 Cascade Mountains of Oregon. 



13. Red fir (Abies magnified): Very large tree, forming forests about the base of Mount Shasta. Sierra Nevada 

 of California, from Mount Shasta southward. 



Hemlock.— Light to medium weight, soft, stiff but brittle, commonly crossgrained, rough and splintery; sap wood 

 and heartwood not well defined; the wood of a light, reddish-gray color, free from resin duets, moderately 

 durable, shrinks and warps considerably, wears rough, retains nails firmly. Used principally for dimension 

 stuff and timbers. Hemlocks are medium to large sized trees, commonly scattered among broad-leaved trees 

 and conifers, but often forming forests of almost pure growth. 



11. Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis): Medium-sized tree, furnishes almost all the hemlock of the Eastern market. 

 Maine to Wisconsin; also following the Alleghanies southward to Georgia and Alabama. 



15. Hemlock (Tsuga merlensiana): Large-sized tree, wood claimed to be heavier and harder than the Eastern 

 form and of superior quality. Washington to California and eastward to Montana. 



Larch or tamarack. — Wood like the best of hard pine, both in appearance, quality, and uses, and owing to its great 

 durability, somewhat preferred in shipbuilding, for telegraph poles, and railroad ties. In its structure it 

 resembles spruce. The larches are deciduous trees, occasionally covering considerable areas, but usually scat- 

 tered among other conifers. 



16. Tamarack (Larix laricina) (Hackmatack): Medium-sized tree, often covering swamps, in which case it is 

 smaller and of poor quality. Maine to Minnesota and southward to Pennsylvania. 



17. Tamarack (L. occidentalis) : Large-sized trees, scattered, locally abundant. Washington and Oregon to 

 Montana. 



Pine* — Very variable, very light and soft in ''soft" pine, such as white pine; of medium weight to heavy and quite 

 hard in "hard" pine, of which lougleaf or Georgia pine is the extreme form. Usually it is stiff, quite strong, of 

 even texture, and more or less resinous. The sapwood is yellowish white; the heartwood orange- brown. Pine 

 shrinks moderately, seasons rapidly, and without much injury; it works easily; is never too hard to nail (unlike 

 oak or hickory); it is mostly quite durable, and if well seasoned is not subject to the attacks of boring insects. 

 The heavier the wood, the darker, stronger, and harder it is, and the more it shrinks aud checks. Pino is used 

 more extensively than any other kind of wood. It is the principal wood in common carpentry, as well as in all 

 heavy construction, bridges, trestles, etc. It is also used in almost every other wood industry, for spars, masts, 

 planks, and timbers in shipbuilding, in car and wagon construction, in cooperage, for crates and boxes, in furni- 

 ture work, for toys and patterns, railway ties, water pipes, excelsior, etc. Pines are usually large trees with 

 few branches, the straight, cylindrical, useful stem forming by far the greatest part of the tree; they occur gre- 

 gariously, forming vast forests, a fact which greatly facilitates their exploitation. Of the many special terms 

 applied to pine as lumber, denoting sometimes differences in quality, the following deserve attention: 



"White pine/' "pumpkin pine," "soft pine/' in the Eastern markets, refer to the wood of the white pine 



(Pinus strobus), and on the Pacific coast to that of the sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana). 

 " Yellow pine" is applied in the trade to all the Southern lumber pines; in the Northeast it is also applied 



to the pitch pine (P. rigida) ; in the West it refers mostly to bull pine (P. pondcrosa). 

 " Yellow longleaf pine/' "Georgia pine," chiefly used in advertisement, refers to longleaf pine (P. palustris). 

 " Hard pine" is a common term in carpentry, and applies to everything except white pine. 

 "Pitch pine" includes all Southern pines and also the true pitch pine (P. rigida), but is mostly applied, 

 especially in foreign markets, to the wood of the longleaf pine (P. palustris). 

 For the great variety of confusing local names applied to the Southern pines in their homes, part of which have 

 been adopted in the markets of the Atlantic seaboard, see report of Chief of Division of Forestry for 1891, page 212, 

 etc., and also the list below: 

 a. Soft pines. 



18. White pine (Pinus strobus) : Large to very large size tree; for the last fifty years the most important timber 

 tree of the Union, furnishing the best quality of soft pine. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New England, 

 along the Alleghanies to Georgia. 



19. Sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana): Avery large tree, together with Abies concolor, forming extensive forests; 

 important lumber tree. Oregon and- California. 



20. White pine (Pinus monticola) : A large tree, at home in Montana, Idaho, and the Pacific States; most common 

 and locally used in northern Idaho. 



21. White pine (Pinus jiexilis) : A small tree, forming mountain forests of considerable extent and locally used; 

 eastern Rocky Mountain slopes; Montana to New Mexico. 



6. Hard pines. 



22. Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) (Georgia pine, yellow pine, long-straw pine, etc.): Large tree; forms exten- 

 sive forests, and furnishes the hardest and strongest pine lumber in the market. Coast region from North 

 Carolina to Texas. 



23. Bull pine (Pinus ponderosa) (yellow pine): Medium to very large sized tree, forming extensive forests in 

 Pacific and Rocky Mountain regions; furnishes most of the hard pine of the West; sapwood wide; w T ood 

 very variable. 



