I. 1. THE WHITE PINE. 03 



autumn, they are mature, when they are from four to six inches 

 long. 



The male flowers are in brown cones, 3-8ths of an inch long 

 by 1-Sth broad, on short stalks, surrounded by scales, occupy- 

 ing, to the number of twenty or more, half an inch of the base 

 of some of the new shoots on the extremities of the lower 

 branches. The pollen is contained in numerous, anther-like 

 double sacks, opening on each side from top to bottom. 



The geographical range of the white pine is from the Sas- 

 katchewan, in about 54° north, to Georgia, where it is found 

 only on the ridges of the Alleghany Mountains ; and from Nova 

 Scotia to the Rocky Mountains ; and beyond, from the sources 

 of the Columbia to Mount Hood. It occurs in every part of 

 New England ; growing in every variety of soil, but flourishing 

 best in a deep, moist soil of loamy sand. 



The white pines receive different names, according to their 

 mode of growth and the appearance of the wood. When grow- 

 ing densely in deep and damp old forests, with only a few 

 branches near the top, the slowly-grown wood is perfectly clear 

 and soft, destitute of resin, and almost without sap-wood, and 

 has a yellowish color, like the flesh of the pumpkin. It is then 

 called pumpkin pine. Standing nearly by itself, or surrounded 

 by deciduous trees, especially on the boundaries between high 

 lands and swamps, it grows rapidly, is usually full of knots 

 and resin, has much sap-wood, and thence receives the name of 

 sapling pine. Bull sapling resembles the pumpkin pine in all 

 respects save the color of the wood, which is a clear white. 

 These names are little used, except in Maine, and by persons 

 who import wood from that State. 



The roots of the white pine are almost incorruptible. In 

 clearing up new lands, where the trees have been felled or 

 blown down, the stumps with the roots are often taken up and 

 used to make a fence by setting the under surface of the roots, 

 to form the outside, towards the road. Fences so made, exhibit, 

 after a hundred years, few signs of decay. 



The branches, taken from the tree when they are beginning 

 to die, form somewhat durable stakes ; while the trunks of small 

 trees used in this way decay very rapidly. 



