The standing tree is apt to fall a victim to the agencies of decay. Hollow trunks, mere shells, are not uncommon. The entire heartwood is liable to fall away. The pioneers cut these hollow trees, and sawing them in lengths of about two feet, made beehives of them. They called them gums because they were cut from gum trees. Larger sizes, used in place of barrels, were also called gums, but these were usually made from sycamores. The black gum is not usually large. Individuals have been measured that were five feet in diameter and more than a hundred in height, but an average of sixty feet high and two in diameter is probably too much, except in the southern Appalachian mountains where the species attains its largest size. It is a tree which will always be easily recognized after it has been seen and identified once. Its general outline, particularly when leaves are off, is different from other trees associated with it. It might possibly be mistaken for persimmon unless looked at closely; but there are easily-recognized points of difference. Its branches are very small, slender, and short. Its bark is rougher than that of any other gum, and is much darker in color. It is the bark’s color that gives the tree its name. The leaves have smooth edges. In the fall they change to gorgeous red, and one of their peculiarities is that half a leaf may be red while the other half remains green. Toward the end of the season, the green disappears. The dark blue drupes ripen in October. They do not seem to be food for any living creature. Sawmills include black gum with tupelo in reporting lumber cut, and generally call both of them gum without distinction. The woods are quite different, and neither the standing tree nor the lumber of one need be mistaken for the other. The range of black gum is much more extensive than that of tupelo. Gum lumber cut north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers may be safely classed as black gum, though a little of both red and tupelo gum is found north of those streams. In the South, the species cannot be separated by regions, for all the gums grow from Texas to Virginia. The total annual output of black gum is not known, but some operators estimate it at about 20,000,000 feet a year, or nearly one-fourth as much as tupelo. The bulk of black gum lumber is used in the rough, for floors, sheathing, frames, and scaffolds; but a considerable portion is further manufactured. The amounts thus used annually have been ascertained for a few states, and furnish a basis for estimates for the whole country: Mississippi, 7,000 feet; Maryland, 85,000; Illinois, 120,000; Louisiana, 120,000; Missouri, 190,000; Texas, 360,000; Massachusetts, 475,000; Alabama, 486,000.