TREES WITH A PERSONALITY 23 



a siren. Delicately white or slightly brown skin 

 enables it to stand out in strong contrast to its more 

 sombre neighbours. The paper or canoe-birch is 

 a tall damsel who stands high and free above her 

 less aspiring comrades, discarding her lower 

 branches as she goes. Birches often show a maid- 

 enly timidity about dwelling in the deep woods. 

 They prefer the edges of the forest or the larger 

 open spaces. Yet some varieties have acquired 

 hardy "new woman" qualities which make them 

 strong and adaptable and even carry them to alti- 

 tudes so high that only the pines are their com- 

 panions. 



Who does not love the righteous, up-standing 

 pine the puritan among trees? Its rigid tenacity 

 of life among the most extreme hardships of cold 

 and gale arouses all our admiration. Yet it can 

 endure southern heat and drought quite as bravely. 

 With all its frontier austerity the pine has its softer 

 sides. It is the ^Eolian harp of the forest. Its 

 mysterious and awe-inspiring music forever floats 

 upon the breeze. It is the home of wild doves and 

 wood pigeons. Its strange and fascinating per- 

 fume mounts heavenward at all times. 



Ruskin describes the pine most exquisitely: "It 

 is trained to need nothing and to endure every- 

 thing. It is reservedly whole, self-contained, de- 



