22 Notes on some of our Native Plants. 



pine. It is agreed that it is the most stately tree of our for- 

 ests, rising in a straight cokmm to the height of even one hun- 

 dred and forty feet. Some have been known greatly to ex- 

 ceed this measurement ; the size, in length of trunk and girth, 

 seeming to depend on the soil in which it grows. There 

 seems indeed to be scarcely any other native tree of so much 

 importance, so wonderfully adapted to different soils, as is 

 this. I have seen it transplanted with perfect success on the 

 most arid sandy plains and hills, where scarcely any thing 

 seemed to compose the soil but sharp and minute angular 

 particles of quartz, the residuum of the granitic formations 

 about this section of the State. An analysis of such drifting 

 sands would, however, probably detect a considerable portion 

 of alkalis, with more or less woody or vegetable matter, accu- 

 mulating from the decay of those hardier grasses, which dare 

 to grow in company with the exquisite Polygonum articula- 

 tum, and a few such like plants. Then, again, vigorous 

 growths will suddenly spring up on our old ploughed fields, 

 when they have been disturbed by the plough after several 

 years of neglect of culture. On some such lands, this forest 

 growth becomes, by far, the most profitable crop the farmer 

 can raise, and repays all his care to protect it from injury. 

 In rocky pastures may be found clusters of these trees attain- 

 ing great size ; and in draining low and swampy spots, to 

 procure peat for fuel or to restore them to a more valuable 

 produce, such as the English grasses for hay, roots of this 

 species of pine, of immense size, are found deep beneath the 

 surface, intermingling themselves like some gigantic net-work, 

 and denoting a most luxuriant vegetation on spots which 

 must have been little more than quagmires, and at a period 

 before the memory of the earlier settlers. These roots indi- 

 cate scarcely any traces of decay, and present to the axe an 

 inner surface perfectly sound, and apparently imperishable. 

 In some portions of the country, where fuel is abundant, they 

 are set up on edge, or with the under surface facing the road 

 which bounds the fields enclosed, to make rude fences, in 

 which position they are said to last upwards of an hundred 

 years ; and where wood, as an article of fuel, is more scarce, 

 these roots are cut transversely into properly-sized portions, 

 split, stacked, and dried for use as an article of combustion. 



