I. 2. THE HEMLOCK. 79 



cated with green, fleshy scales, within each of which are two 

 raised points, making an opening downwards to a cavity con- 

 taining the rudiments of the future seed. Without, is a small, 

 jagged, thin scale. 



The cones are elliptical and pointed, of a light brown color, 

 three-quarters of an inch long, and three-eighths broad, set upon 

 the extremities of the smallest branches, and pendent on a short 

 footstalk larger than the branchlet, of which it is the end. 

 They consist of about twenty-five to thirty-five entire scales, 

 rounded at the edge, the central ones protecting each two small 

 seeds, which are furnished with wings in size and shape not 

 unlike those of a common fly. The cones are mature in the 

 autumn, and shed their seeds then and during the winter. 



The hemlock is said by Pursh to extend to the most northern 

 regions in Canada, and was found by Mr. Menzies in North- 

 west America ; it is found in every part of this State, on almost 

 every variety of soil. It flourishes in the ruins of granitic rocks, 

 on the sides of hills exposed to the violence of the storms. As 

 it bears priming to almost any degree, without suffering injury, 

 it is well suited to form screens for the protection of more ten- 

 der trees and plants, or for concealing disagreeable objects. 

 By being planted in double or triple rows, it may, in a few 

 years, be made to assume the appearance of an impenetrable, 

 evergreen wall, — really impenetrable to the wind and to domes- 

 tic animals. A hedge of this kind, seven or eight feet high, on 

 a bleak, barren plain exposed to the northwest winds, gave 

 Dr. Greene of Mansfield a warm, sunny, sheltered spot for the 

 cultivation of delicate annual plants. When I saw it, the an- 

 nuals, several of which were rare exotics, were beautiful, but 

 the hemlock screen was much more so. 



The hemlock is at first of slow growth, and the delicate 

 drooping plant looks, for two or three years, as if the sun or the 

 wind would inevitably destroy it. Unprotected and single, it 

 should never be exposed to their influence. In three or four 

 years it lifts up its head, and at last grows, in favorable situa- 

 tions, with great rapidity. Several trees at the Botanic Garden, 

 which, in 1841, had been thirty-one years planted, showed, on 

 careful measurement, an average growth of fourteen inches 



