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Pines — Part 1

This is the lumberman's pine, a tree whose limbs die so young that there are practically no big knots in the lumber. He cuts clear, beautiful boards out of such a tree, and there is very little waste. Or he squares the trunk for a big bridge timber whose value and strength would be greatly lessened by large knots.

The great pine forests of lower Canada and the Northern States seemed inexhaustible to the early settlers. New York and Pennsylvania had pineries that promised a lumber supply for generations to come. But alas! for human foresight. The avarice of lumber companies and the blindness of politicians have squandered the heritage of the people. The virgin forests are gone except in areas too scattered and small to tempt the lumbermen. Second growth covers some of the territory that was stripped, but it will be hundreds of years before another such crop can come to maturity. The wanton wastefulness in the original slaughter of the pines is the greatest pity of it all. Forest fires, once started, eagerly fed on the "slash" the loggers left behind, and devoured untold acres of virgin woods.

The soft, white, resinous wood of P. Strobus is remarkably easy to work. It was used in all kinds of construction--from masts of ships to matches--it was shipped over the country for house building, for furniture, fencing and the like. Now its scarcity has led to the substitution of other woods, notably the hard pines of the Southern States.

The white pine has considerable vigour, reseeding lumbered areas, where poplars or other short-lived trees come in and furnish shade for the young seedlings. Careful forestry will restore pines to many tracts too broken for agricultural use. In fact, work to this end is being carried on to a considerable extent in the Northeastern and Middle States. Much of this work is under the direction of the Bureau of Forestry. White pine is one of the most profitable timber crops to plant at the present time.

Horticulturally considered, P. Strobus is one of the best of the pines. It is quick growing, symmetrical, and handsome in its early years; later it becomes more irregular, but full of character, and beautiful in clean limbs and the plume-like tufts of blue-green leaves. The tree is picturesque, even in decrepit age, towering in stately dignity over the heads of neighbour trees, adding distinction to all sylvan scenery A white pine grown in the open has a broad crown that often keeps its lower branches, and these are borne to the ground by their own weight. Such a tree is a joy the whole year through to all tree lovers, including people and birds and squirrels.

The Arizona White Pine (P. strobiformis,) Engelm., is scattered scantly over gravelly ridges and on canon sides in the southern part of New Mexico and Arizona, and on into Mexico. Its pale-green leaves and glaucous, downy branchlets blend it with the semi-arid landscape. Its scarcity and the inaccessibility of its habitat and range defend this tree from the lumberman, though it occasionally reaches the height of 80 feet or more, and a trunk diameter of 2 feet.

Mountain Pine, Silver Pine (Pinus monticola,) D. Don.--A spreading, pyramidal tree with stout trunk and slender, pendulous branches. Bark light grey and thin, becoming checked into square plates, with purplish scales and cinnamon-red under bark. Wood light brown or red, soft, fine grained, easily split, weak. Buds pointed, scaly, large, hoary, clustered, terminal. Leaves 1 1/2 to 4 inches long, thick, stiff, blue-green with pale bloom. Flowers similar to those of P. Strobus. Fruit biennial, cones slender, 10 to 18 inches long; scales thin, broad, tipped with abrupt beak; seeds winged. Preferred habitat, sub-alpine valleys of streams. Distribution, Vancouver Island and southern British Columbia to northern Idaho and Montana, and south into California. Elevations 7,000 to 10,000 feet. Uses: Not equal to P. Strobus in cultivation. Locally used for lumber in Idaho and Montana.

The mountain white pine is the Western counterpart of P. Strobus, which it resembles in general appearance and in the qualities of its wood. Its foliage is denser and its cones nearly twice as large as those of our Eastern white pine, with a beak on each scale that the latter species lacks.

It is unusual, even in the Sierras, to find a tree of gigantic size climbing mountains. This one at the elevation of 10,000 feet shows specimens 6 to 8 feet in diameter and 90 feet high, apparently "growing nobler in form and size the colder and balder the mountains about it." The tree companions of this pine crouch at its feet; whatever they may be at lower levels, here they are dwarfs, and only the white pine keeps its noble proportions unmindful of the blasting winds and cold.