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The accompanying illustrations gives a graphic picture of the physical properties of a tree. There are three primary parts to a tree: the roots, the trunk, and the crown. The roots extract from the soil the water and mineral salts needed by the tree in its growth. They also store up the food manufactured by the leaves, and hold the tree firmly in place. The trunk is the main body of the tree from which lumber is manufactured. Each year a new layer of wood is added to the trunk of the tree. These layers produce the "grain" and "figure" of the wood. The crown embraces the branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit. Water and sunshine give life to the tree and are limiting factors in its growth. It is not our purpose to go into a great deal of detail with regard to tree growth since this is a specialized study. The illustration is included to give a general picture of the physical make-up of a tree and to form a basis for the study which follows of the beauty and usefulness of many kinds of woods found in the United States. Illustration Pg. 7 American Woods Bibliography Shelley E. Schoonover (American Woods) 1951 (Watling & Co. ) Santa Monica, CA

The Tree The Eastern White Pine, the king of all trees east of the Mississippi, and upon which the lumber industry of the United States was founded, is a stately tree growing to a height of 100 to 150 feet and occasionally over 200 feet, and 3 to 6 feet in diameter. It has a straight trunk gradually tapering its full length with comparatively light straight limbs, and forming a rather open irregular top. The dark gray bark is deeply furrowed in long ridges. The needles are a bluish green 3 to 5 inches long, and are borne in bundles of five. The slender cones are from 5 to 10 inches long, usually curved and mature at the end of the second season. The white pines are very susceptible to the White Pine Blister Rust disease and large expenditures are made annually to combat the disease by destroying the alternate host, the wild currant and gooseberry bushes. Stands of this wonderful tree are gradually being depleted. From 1875 to 1895 sale of White Pine lumber made countless millionaires in the Lake States and New England. In 1873 a boom of White Pine logs containing 600 logs averaging 42 feet long and 4 feet in diameter. A million board feet of lumber, was taken from Muskegon, Michigan, to Chicago. Few of the larger specimens of this tree remain. In 1945 in Wisconsin a White Pine was found 140 ft high, with trunk circumference of 16 1/2 feet and containing 8,000 board feet of lumber. The tree was estimated to be about 400 years old. Common Names In Use Eastern White Pine (trade) Apple Pine Balsam Pin (N.C.) Canadian White Pine (trade) Cork Pine (Mich.) Minnesota White Pine (trade) Northern Pine (S.C. and trade) Pumpkin Pine (Mich. and trade) Sapling Pine Soft Cork White Pine (trade) Soft Minnesota White Pine (trade) Soft Pine (Pa.) Soft White Pine (trade) Spruce Pine (Tenn.) Weymouth Pine (Mass., S.C.) Wisconsin White Pine (trade) White Pine (Me., N.H., Vt., Mass., R.I., Conn., N.Y., N.J., Pa., Del., Va., W. Va., N.C., Ga., Ind., Ill., Wis., Mich., Ohio, Ontario, Nebr.) Eastern White Pine cone Eastern White Pine tree bark Growth Range The natural growth range of Eastern White Pine is from Newfoundland to Lake Winnipeg in the province of Manitoba, Canada, southward through eastern Minnesota to the south eastern section of Iowa; eastward through Wisconsin and Michigan with scattered stands in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio; from Maine southward through the New England states, and the Appalachians along the Allegheny Mountains as far south as northern Georgia. The Wood The heartwood of Eastern White Pine is a very light creamy brown or tan slightly tinged with red, turning somewhat darker after exposure to the air. The sapwood is usually narrow to medium wide and a creamy white or pale yellowish color. The texture is fine and very uniform, straight even grained, nonporous, soft, not stiff, with little or no figure. It seasons well with very little warping and is relatively free from resin. It is the carpenter’s delight as it is very easily worked,glued, carved and finished. It takes and holds paint well, nails easily but is only average in ability to hold screws and nails. Does not split easily in nailing. Stays in place when well seasoned. Uses The Eastern White Pine has long been famed for pattern making because of its clear uniform straight grain and soft fine texture. It has a very wide variety of uses from matches, sash, doors, general construction, signs, interior trim, shade and map rollers, caskets, wooden-ware and novelties, toys, dairy and poultry supplies, boxes, cabinet making, boot and shoe findings, conduits, dairy, poultry and apiary supplies and hundreds of other uses. Bibliography Shelley E. Schoonover (American Woods) 1951 (Watling & Co. ) Santa Monica, CA

The Tree The Black Walnut tree is one of the best known and most valuable of all forest trees native to the United States. It is of value not only because of its beautiful and highly prized wood but for its delicious nuts used in foods such as candy, bread, cakes, and ice cream. It is strictly an American tree, growing naturally nowhere else. It has been proposed frequently as our national tree and has been known for generations as the “tree of the gods and kings.” In 1945 a Black Walnut tree in Kentucky was sold alive for $1,500 and was cut up into veneers worth $35,000. The stumps of some large trees have been sold at fabulous prices for use as veneers. Black Walnut is usually a well-shaped tree of moderately rapid growth for a hardwood, and attains large size. It is not uncommon to find walnut trees 100 feet tall and three feet in diameter. The tree requires deep, rich, moist, but well drained soils. The bark is dark and rather deeply grooved. The leaves are one to two feet long, and have 15 to 23 narrow, sharply-toothed, slender-pointed leaflets. The nuts, which are one and one-eighth to one and one-half inches in diameter, have a very hard deeply grooved shell encased in a ball-like hull, from one and one-half to two inches in diameter, consisting of a black, thick pulp having a mottled, light green covering. The nuts within the pulp must be removed with care as the pulp stains everything it touches and is difficult to remove before it is thoroughly dried. A yellow dye is made from the bark, and husks of the nuts. Black Walnut Foliage and Nuts Black Walnut Tree Bark Common Names in Use Black Walnut (N.H., Vt., Mass. R.I., Conn., N.Y., N.J., Del., Pa., Va., W.Va., N.C., Tenn., Ga., Fla., Ala., Miss., Tex., La., Ark., Ky., Mo., Ind., Ill., Kans., Nebr., Iowa, Mich., Ohio, S.Dak., Minn., Ontario) American Black Walnut (trade) American Walnut (trade) Dent-soo-kwa-no-ne "Round Nut" (N.Y. Indians) Gun-Wood (trade) Walnut (N.Y., Del., W.Va., Fla., Ky., Tenn., Mo., Ohio, Ind., Iowa) Walnut-tree (Pa., S.C.) Growth Range The natural growth range of Black Walnut extends from Massachusetts to southern Ontario and central Nebraska southward throughout the eastern half of the United States, excepting the Atlantic coastal plain south of Virginia, the Gulf coast region, and the lower Mississippi Valley. It attains its best growth in the central portion of this range in deep, rich, moist and well-drained soils. The Wood The Black Walnut heartwood varies somewhat from light to dark chocolate brown with frequent alternate light and almost black stripes which produce very beautiful figured effects. The narrow sapwood is nearly white with a narrow shading into the darker heartwood and gradually turns darker upon exposure. This wood is hard, strong, works well with tools and is one of the most desirable and useful of all American woods. The darker the wood the more valuable it is, and for this reason it is a quite frequent practice to stain or steam the sapwood to match the heartwood. Also, the stain is sometimes forced through the entire board to produce the more valuable deep dark brown color. The crotches, burls and stumps produce exceptional figured and mottled designs and are very valuable for high quality veneers. The knots, crooks, irregular growth and curly or wavy grain, especially near the knots, produce handsome figures. In the burls of old mature trees the bird’s-eye effect on a glossy jet black to lighter shades of brown is frequently found. The wood finishes to a pleasing velvety sheen, glues satisfactorily, and polishes exceptionally well with all types of paint, stain, wax or other finishingmaterials. It holds its shape, and after being seasoned, shrinks or swells very little. Black Walnut Curly and Fiddle Back Figure Uses Black Walnut is superior to all other woods for gun stocks because it keeps its shape, is comparatively light in weight, and absorbs recoil the best of all woods. The most important use of the lumber and of the beautiful figured veneers is in furniture, radio and television cabinets, sewing machines, wooden novelties and general mill-work. It is an especially desirable wood to work with all kinds of tools, and is a favorite wood in all Home Work Shops and Manual Training Schools. Walnut wood is so valuable that it is mainly cut into veneers. It is No.1 on the wood list of every woodworking shop. Bibliography Shelley E. Schoonover (American Woods) 1951 (Watling & Co. ) Santa Monica, CA

The Hardwoods are commonly known as Broadleaf trees because of their broad netted-vein leaves. The botanical name for these plants is Dicotyledon. They are usually deciduous. Generally they grow in Temperate Zones and at comparatively low elevations. Our native forest hardwoods comprise 17 maples and boxelders, 7 birches, 61 oaks, 18 hickories, 19 ashes, 6 elms, 15 cottonwoods and poplars, 22 willows, 14 wild cherries, 11 wild plums, 10 wild apples, 178 hawthorns, 6 hackberries, 5 gums, 9 magnolias and 297 other miscellaneous species, including such trees as the mulberries, holly, locusts, persimmon, dogwood and walnuts. In addition, a large number of exotic trees, mostly hardwoods, have been introduced into the United States. They were brought in principally for ornamental and landscape planting, but many of them have escaped cultivation and have become well established in the forests, woodlots and along streams in the different sections of our country. This is true, for example, of the Chinaberry, Ailanthus, Tamarisk, Mimosa, and many others. The wood produced from hardwood trees may be either hard or soft in texture; the hardness or softness of the wood does not necessarily place it in the softwood or hardwood classification. The wood of some hardwood trees, such as Basswood and Boxelder, is very much softer in texture than the wood of most softwood or coniferous trees. Included in this volume is a representative list of hardwoods, selected because of their commercial importance, diversity of color and characteristics of grain, texture and figure. Bibliography Shelley E. Schoonover (American Woods) 1951 (Watling & Co. ) Santa Monica, CA

Usually a tree has two names, the common or local name and the “real name,” or scientific or botanical name, in Latin, generally used by botanists and others having a more technical interest. The generic name is used to include a group of closely related species. For example, “Pinus,” the classical Latin name for the pine tree group, includes all the species (kinds) of true pines. The secondary Latin name signifies the particular species of that tree group, as “Pinus strobus,” the scientific or botanical name for White Pine (now called Eastern White Pine). The name of the scientist who discovered and named the particular species is sometimes indicated after the botanical name, as “Pinus strobus Linnaeus.” The use of a common name for a tree quite frequently results in much confusion because of the lack of universal agreement as to what should be the proper common name of a given tree. Some trees have from 10 to 25 different common names for the same species, depending upon the locality in which the tree is found. For example, Pinus ponderosa, which covers a wide range in the western half of North America, is the scientific name for Ponderosa or Western Yellow Pine, the common names usually accepted, but it also is called Bull Pine, Black Jack and many other common names in various parts of its range. In the United States Forest Service both common and scientific names of trees are passed upon by a special committee named by the Chief Forester. However, this committee collaborates in this work with the various colleges of the country in which the science of forestry is taught. In this book both the common and scientific names approved in the latest “Check List” of this special committee are given. Bibliography Shelley E. Schoonover (American Woods) 1951 (Watling & Co. ) Santa Monica, CA