Trent Preszler

And France controlled the Pyrenees and other nations basically blocked off their access to large trees in Europe.

So the British came to America initially in search of large white pine trees to cut down to make masts for the Royal Navy ships.

And of course, that led to conflicts with not just indigenous peoples that were here, but British colonists here who were trying to make their own living cutting lumber and shipping it back to Europe.

But the Brits wanted them to be cutting whole tree masts, whole tree trunks to use for masts.

There were many disagreements where the crown sent around these royal surveyors in the woods to chop hatchet marks in trees to indicate that they belonged to the crown because they were over two feet wide.

And so colonists protested by cutting down every tree that was 23 inches wide.

And so you often see in a lot of pre-revolutionary homes the wide pine plank flooring that's 23 inches wide.

Because if it was 24 inches, it would technically be the property of the crown.

Yes.

So as a class of trees, evergreens are the most valuable plants on earth.

So we use them for lumber, for building supplies, and...

The fascinating thing for me about them and part of what interested me in writing this book was the connection between their extreme utilitarian value and their spiritual and sacred value to society.

I've racked my brain.

I can't think of anything that occupies or straddles those two categories, maybe like the Thanksgiving turkey.

I'm not entirely sure, but we cut down enormous volumes of evergreens to build

houses to make into, to mill into lumber, two by fours, construction timbers, shingles.

And now increasingly, we're using evergreens for composite wood products, things like plywood or medium density fiberboard, things that are used for, let's say, IKEA furniture.

Evergreens have this fascinating cellular structure.

They're lignocellulose.

It's a long scientific story.