'56 



FOREST TREES. 



hardwood trees, which seem ever pressing onward, take the tableland — 

 a Benjamin's portion — seeming ever bent on encroaching on the 

 pine limits, fulfilling their great mission, that of preparing for man a 

 more fertile soil, better suited for the operations of his hands and the 

 growth of the life-supporting cereals. The decomposition of the leaves, 

 bark, and woody fibre of the Oak, Basswood, Beech, Maple, Cherry, 

 and other deciduous trees, is in God's kind providence a source of 

 fertility, of the blessings of which man is ultimately the recipient. 

 Yet he that receives the gift is often unmindful of the way in which for 

 unnumbered ages it has been preparing for him, by agents appointed 

 for the work. These unconscious labourers have silently been fulfilling 

 the will of Him " who commandeth and it is done." 



A noble object is one of our stately forest Pines rising in one 

 uninterrupted column. The grander to the eye as it measures it, for 

 the very simplicity of its outline, and we repeat with the poet : — 



" Than a tree — a grander child earth bears not." 



Looking upwards, the eye follows its massy shaft rising in solitary 

 majesty — " fit mast for some high admiral ; " and such its probable 

 ■destiny if chancing to grow in the vicinity of lake or river shore it come 

 within the ken of some adventurous lumberman (your Jean Baptiste 

 has a specially keen eye for a good stick of timber), its fate is sealed. 



.Soon the lonely echoes of the forest are ringing with the blows of 

 the sturdy axeman on the devoted trunk — and many a vigorous blow is 

 struck before that forest giant inclines its dark-plumed head, and with a 

 rending crash, measures its length upon the groaning and trembling 

 ■earth. 



The height of one of these large Pines, varies from a hundred to a 

 hundred and fifty feet in height, and occasionally reaches a higher 

 altitude. A lumberman told me that he had cut nine saw-logs, each 

 measuring twelve feet in length, from one Pine, besides, leaving the butt 

 ■end in the ground, four feet high. 



Yet even a tree of this size sinks into insignificance when compared 

 with the giants of Oregon and California. The Wellingtonia gigantea 

 which reaches the enormous height of two hundred and fifty feet, three 

 hundred, and even nearly four hundred feet ; or the gigantic Araucarias 

 of the ancient world. 



The roots of the Pine do not strike so deeply into the ground as 

 might be supposed, but grow more horizontally, almost on the surface. 

 This one circumstance accounts for the Ircciucnt sight of upturned trees 

 of great size. The feathery heads of the Pine rise on an average fifty feet 

 above the tops of the tallest hardwood trees. In the rich and generous 



