FOREST TREES. i6i 



and sandy, or rocky. This tree is generally spoken of, but quite 

 wrongly, as the Norway Pine. 



Hemlock Spruce — Abies Canadensis, (Michx). 



" The groves are God's own temple."— ^«o«. 



" Spring-dressed in tenderest green, — 



There the young Hemlock spreads its fan-like sprays, 

 To court the balmy breeze that scarcely lifts 

 The lofty Pines that tower aliove it." 



One of the loveliest and most graceful of our forest trees, is a 

 young Hemlock. As great a contrast does that elegant sapling, with its 

 gay, tender green feathery sprays, bear in its beauty of form and colour to 

 the parent tree, with its rugged stiff and unsightly trunk and ragged top, 

 as the young child in its youthful grace and vigour bears to the old and 

 wrinkled grandsire. The foliage of the young Hemlock in the months 

 of June and July, when the Spring shoots have been perfected, is espe- 

 cially beautiful ; the tender vivid green of the young shoots, at the end 

 ot the flat bending branches of the previous year, appears more lively 

 and refreshing to the eye in contrast to the older, dark, glossy, more 

 sombre foliage, which they serve to brighten and adorn. The Hemlock 

 does not reach the lofty height of the White Pine, though in some 

 situations it becomes a giant in size, wuth massive trunk and thick, 

 bushy head ; the bark is deeply rifted, dark on the outside, but of a 

 ■deep brick-red within ; the branches are flat, the small, oval, soft cones 

 appear later in the summer on the ends of the shoots of the previous 

 season. The timber of the Hemlock is very durable, tough, and some- 

 what stringy, loose-grained, but is said to resist wet ; it is used for 

 granary flooring, rail-ties and some other purposes in out-door work. 

 The bark is used largely in tanning. The backwood settlers stack 

 the Hemlock bark while clearing the forest land and carry it in during 

 the sleighing season to the tanneries, receiving a certain value per cord? 

 in money or store goods ; formerly the payment was chiefly made in 

 leather, when every man was his own shoemaker, but times have 

 changed since those early, more primitive days, and the wives and 

 children would now disdain to wear the home-made boots and shoes, that 

 were manufactured out of coarsely-dressed leather by the industrious 

 father of the family, in the long winter evenings, as he worked by the 

 light of the blazing log-fire with his rude tools and wooden pegs. 



The old shanty life is a thing of the past ; the carding and spinning, 

 the rattle of the looms, even the knitting needles are not now so 

 constantly seen in the hands of the wives and daughters as formerly. 

 Railroads and steamboats, schools, and increase of population, have 

 ivrought great changes in the lives and habits of the people. Villages 



