THE FOKESTS 201 



long, growing in stiff clusters among the needles, 

 without making any striking effect, except while 

 very young, when they are of a vivid crimson color, 

 and the whole tree appears to be dotted with bril 

 liant flowers. The sterile cones are still more 

 showy, on account of their great abundance, often 

 giving a reddish-yellow tinge to the whole mass of 

 the foliage, and filling the air with pollen. 



No other pine on the range is so regularly planted 

 as this one. Moraine forests sweep along the sides 

 of the high, rocky valleys for miles without inter 

 ruption ; still, strictly speaking, they are not dense, 

 for flecks of sunshine and flowers find their way 

 into the darkest places, where the trees grow tallest 

 and thickest. Tall, nutritious grasses are specially 

 abundant beneath them, growing over all the 

 ground, in sunshine and shade, over extensive areas 

 like a farmer's crop, and serving as pasture for the 

 multitude of sheep that are driven from the arid 

 plains every summer as soon as the snow is melted. 



The Two-leaved Pine, more than any other, is 

 subject to destruction by fire. The thin bark is 

 streaked and sprinkled with resin, as though it had 

 been showered down upon it like rain, so that even 

 the green trees catch fire readily, and during strong 

 winds whole forests are destroyed, the flames leap 

 ing from tree to tree, forming one continuous belt 

 of roaring fire that goes surging and racing onward 

 above the bending woods, like the grass-fires of a 

 prairie. During the calm, dry season of Indian 

 summer, the fire creeps quietly along the ground, 

 feeding on the dry needles and burs ; then, arriving 

 at the foot of a tree, the resiny bark is ignited, and 



