Author: Simon Bolivar Elliott

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 9781230275901

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... THE PINES From the earliest knowledge of American forests the several species of Pine have held first place iu the estimation of lumber manufacturers, dealers, woodworkers, consumers, and the general public. No other lumber-producing trees have played so important a part in the economic and industrial advancement of this country. Until recently there has been more pine lumber annually manufactured in the United States than of all other kinds combined; and even now, after our pine forests have been greatly reduced in area and productiveness, the amount manufactured in the United States in 1908 was forty-eight per cent of the total cut.1 All Pines are not alike valuable. Out of thirty-seven species indigenous to the United States not one half of that number can be deemed of sufficient importance to justify any attempt at cultivation. Really but few of them are of such economic character as to warrant it. They all belong to the botanical class known as "conifers," or cone-bearing trees, the cone being composed of a woody stem covered with scales that overlap each other, inclosing the seeds at the base of each scale, the fruit of all of them requiring two years to mature. Another distinctive feature is that their leaves are in the form of needles, clustered and held together by a sheath and are never shed at the end of the first year, -- sometimes not under three years, -- and hence are called "evergreens." In all but one species the leaves are in clusters in the sheath, ranging from two to five in each; the exception being the "Nut" or "Pinyon" Pine (Pinus monophylla) of the Pacific Slope, which has a single leaf. It is of no value as a timber tree. A correct distinction would place our commercial Pines 1 Forest Products of the United...