Norway pine has always had a place of its own in the lumber trade, but
large quantities have been marketed as white pine. If such had not been
the case, Norway pine would have been much oftener heard of during the
years when the Lake State pineries were sending their billions of feet
of lumber to the markets of the world.
Because of the deposit of resinous materials in the wood, Norway pine
stumps resist decay much better than white pine. In some of the early
cuttings in Michigan, where only stumps remain to show how large the
trees were and how thick they stood, the Norway stumps are much better
preserved than the white pine. Using that fact as a basis of estimate,
it may be shown that in many places the Norway pine constituted
one-fifth or one-fourth of the original stand. The lumbermen cut clean,
and statistics of that period do not show that the two pines were
generally marketed separately. In recent years many of the Norway stumps
have been pulled, and have been sold to wood-distillation plants where
the rosin and turpentine are extracted.
At an early date Norway pine from Canada and northern New York was
popular ship timber in this country and England. Slender, straight
trunks were selected as masts, or were sawed for decking planks thirty
or forty feet long. Shipbuilders insisted that planks be all heartwood,
because when sapwood was exposed to rain and sun, it changed to a green
color, due to the presence of fungus. The wood wears well as ship
decking. The British navy was still using some Norway pine masts as late
as 1875.
The scarcity of this timber has retired it from some of the places which
it once filled, and the southern yellow pines have been substituted. It
is still employed for many important purposes, the chief of which is car
building, if statistics for the state of Illinois are a criterion for
the whole country. In 1909 in that state 24,794,000 feet of it were used
for all purposes, and 14,783,000 feet in car construction.
For many years Chicago has been the center of the Norway pine trade. It
is landed there by lake steamers and by rail, and is distributed to
ultimate consumers. The uses for the wood, as reported by Illinois
manufacturers, follow: Baskets, boxes, boats, brackets, casing and
frames for doors and windows, crating, derricks for well-boring
machines, doors, elevators, fixtures for stores and offices, foot or
running boards for tank cars, foundry flasks, freight cars, hand rails,
insulation for refrigerator cars, ladders, picture moldings, roofing,
sash, siding for cattle cars, sign boards and advertising signs, tanks,
and windmill towers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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