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 pine. 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. 
