i8 PINES 



disposition still in its efforts at growth ; and when 

 we say this we must bear in mind that naturalists 

 tell us that the more intelligent animals take longer 

 to grow up than the less intelligent — that, for example, 

 while civilized man takes twenty years, uncivilized 

 men take only fourteen ; or, again, that while an 

 orang-outang takes twelve years to mature, the lesser- 

 developed Japanese ape accomplishes his destiny of 

 a full growth in four years ; last on the list comes 

 the rat, who becomes full grown in a year. Whether 

 this habit of slow growth has any application in the 

 case of trees, and is a sign of a higher culture, as it 

 is in the animals, we hazard no opinion ; we cite it 

 in a pari ratione (by similar reasoning) sense, with 

 the remark added that it is generally conceded that 

 slow-growing trees make the best timber, and the 

 wood of Cembra has always been in much demand 

 and put to many uses by the inhabitants of the 

 country it comes from. We may add to its qualities 

 of adaptability that it transplants, probably on 

 account of these sluggish tendencies, with more ease 

 than most of its kind. 



Their average height as a group, however you 

 reckon it, would have to be underwritten at con- 

 siderably less than half the height of the trees of the 

 previous group. In thus estimating them we leave 

 out the P. Koraiensis, as it is so far an unknown 

 quantity among us : it has not yet had time to declare 

 its intentions as to the stature it aims at attaining 

 here. 



On the other hand, among the Strobi in this cal- 

 culation we include its little misfit relation and 

 squab of the family, the P. Parviflora, which pulls 

 their average down badly. 



These are but a few jogtrot observations upon 

 some of their characteristics, and we confess that 

 they shed but a dim light upon their identification, 



