EVERGREEN TREES AND SHRUBS. 517 



fine masses of verdure, its deep shadows, or the wing-like expan- 

 sion of its massive lower branches. The vertical growth on the 

 left which shows like a distinct small tree behind it is really a 

 sprout, issuing from a great horizontal limb forty feet from the 

 trunk like a perfectly formed distinct tree, and twenty-five feet in 

 height ! In an open field near the Delaware water gap in Pennsyl- 

 vania is a white pine but fifty feet high, with an oblate top like a 

 park oak, its branches radiating at about fifteen feet from the 

 ground, and covering a space nearly seventy feet in diameter, and 

 forming a head of softly-rounded masses of foliage as dense as 

 those of the sugar maple. 



A pine tree recendy cut in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, had 

 its trunk sawed into nine logs, whose united lengths were one 

 hundred and thirty-six feet ; the smallest log being eleven inches in 

 diameter at the top ! Allowing four feet for the height of the stump, 

 this would make one hundred and forty feet in height of heavy 

 timber in the trunk. The branching above this part of the trunk 

 must have made the tree from one hundred and sixty to one hun- 

 dred and eighty feet in height as it stood. Imagine a tree with 

 such inherent vigor expanding in an open park, and it does not 

 seem unreasonable to believe that it might attain dimensions not 

 inferior to the historic grandeur of the cedars of Lebanon. 



Though the white pine attains such colossal height, and occa- 

 sionally great breadth, it is not so far unsuited to the requirements 

 of small grounds as might be inferred. It is a manageable tree. 

 When its main stem attains a height of from twelve to twenty feet 

 it can be cut back, to make a more spreading tree. Its foliage is 

 much more massive, and the lights and shadows bolder and more 

 varied when thus treated. If it is desired to strengthen the spread- 

 ing branches decidedly, it may be necessary to cut out two or three 

 years' growth of the " leader," so that one of the side branches will 

 not turn up too readily to make itself a leader. If it is necessary 

 to keep the tree within a moderate compass, it can be safely pruned 

 of half its growth every year — say in June or July — and the rich 

 density of its foliage will be increased by the process. This 

 pruning should be done with some irregularity; — cutting-in some 

 branches deeper than others, to prevent the formation of a smoothly 



