Pinus 1027 



The white pine is less gregarious than many other pines, and originally formed 

 an important component of the mixed deciduous forest of New England, New York, 

 and Pennsylvania, attaining its best development along water-courses, and reaching 

 its greatest size when growing in mixture with beech, maples, and birches, often 

 towering in such woods high above the general level of the other trees. It is often, 

 however, in the same regions associated with hemlock ; and in eastern Canada is 

 frequent in company with hemlock, spruce, and Thuya occidentalis. 



The pine forests, which cover large tracts of sandy soil in the Lake States, are 

 composed of varying mixtures of P. Strobus, P. resinosa, and P. Banksiana} On poor 

 dry sand the two latter species outgrow and supplant the former, while on moist deep 

 sand P. Strobus is the more vigorous. Its growth is much aided by the presence of 

 organic matter and loam in the sand, and on soil of this kind, pure woods of white 

 pine, sometimes several square miles in extent, occur. With an increase of loam in 

 the soil, deciduous trees make their appearance, and the forest becomes a varied 

 mixture of these trees and P. Strobus. On heavy clay soil, the white pine tends to 

 disappear, and a forest of only hardwoods results. 



On sandy soil in the eastern states, P. rigida is the companion of the white 

 pine, and in the southern states, P. echinata. 



This tree prefers a climate with considerable moisture in the air, as is 

 shown by its abundance in the region of the Great Lakes and towards the sea- 

 board. It withstands windy and cold exposures, but suffers from strong sea-breezes. 

 It excels all pines in its capacity for bearing shade in the early stage of its growth, 

 and reproduces itself naturally under oak, but not under beech or maples. It is long 

 in cleaning its stem, even where the young growth, as is often the case, forms dense 

 thickets. (A. H.) 



Though it is improbable that any such trees now exist, Sargent quotes various 

 old writers to show that in former times trees rivalling the giant pines of California 

 were found in New England. A tree, 7 ft. 8 in. in diameter at the butt, on the 

 Merrimac river ; and another, 6 ft. in diameter and 260 ft. high, in Lincoln, 2 N.H., 

 are mentioned as instances. But trees of 150 ft. high, 24 in. in diameter, are 

 now quite uncommon, and the largest actually measured in Pennsylvania by 

 Pinchot was 155 ft. high, 3^ ft. in diameter at 4} ft. from the ground, and 357 

 years old. 



Emerson tells us 8 that fifty years ago several trees at Blanford, which grew 



1 In the Cass Lake Forest Reserve, in Minnesota, which I visited in 1906, these three pines occur ; and .P. Strobus 

 invariably occupied the better soil where the sand contained a percentage of blackish mould. 



2 With regard to the gigantic heights given by early writers I am very sceptical, and Prof. W. A. Buckhout, of the 

 Pennsylvania State College, to whom I wrote for information, shares my doubts. The most authoritative statement is by Fox, 

 in U.S. Forestry Bull. No. 34, p. 8 (1902), who says : " there is a record of a white pine cut in Meredith, Delaware County, 

 New York, that measured 247 ft. in length as it lay on the ground." He adds : "Many New York lumbermen still living 

 recall giant white pines 7 ft. or more across the stump, and over 220 ft. in height." Fox does not state where the record 

 exists or its authority ; and Springer, in Forest Life and Forest Trees, 40 (New York, 1 85 1), says : "In Dr. Dwight's Travels, 

 there is an account of a tree in Lancaster, New Hampshire, which measured 264 ft. in length. I have worked in the forests 

 among the timber several years, have cut many hundreds of trees and seen many thousands, but have never found one 

 larger than the one I felled on a little stream which emptied into Jackson Lake in the eastern part of Maine. Its trunk was 

 6 ft. in diameter at 4 ft. from the ground. It was about 9 rods in length or 144 ft., about 65 ft. of which were free of limbs, 

 and retained its diameter remarkably well." The tree mentioned in Garden and Forest, 1894, p. 188, which grew in Wis- 

 consin, and was said to be 200 ft. high and 45 in. in diameter, is also exaggerated, I believe, as regards its height. (A. H. ) 



3 Woody Plants Massachusetts, i. 74 (1 87 5). 



