Home woods 33 



ceivable tree that happens to fit in at first, to- make a show 

 of size. And this is but one of the many important things 

 we have to think of, if our planting is to be true and 

 beautiful and lasting. 



The beauty of the Pine-stem. A mistake running 

 through the whole of our planting, doing infinite harm 

 from an artistic and even a cultural point of view, and 

 as difficult to eradicate as Twitch or Bishopsweed, is the 

 common one of planting every precious tree we have as 

 an isolated specimen on the grass. I have seen a Monte- 

 rey Pine, a tree about seventy years old and in fine health, 

 but instead of the stem, such as a Pine should show, 

 its huge branches were massed close to the ground and 

 one could scarcely get under it, thus offering an immense 

 target for rain, or wind, or wind-carried sleet. It grew 

 in grass as usual, and that it throve in the climate of the 

 district was clear from its healthy foliage ; but the timber 

 was very much less than it would have been if the tree 

 had been planted rightly, for, instead of being (as in 

 a forest Pine) massed in the stem, it was wasted in twenty 

 great arms. In this way of planting, trees Hke the Scotch 

 Fir, the Cedar of Lebanon, and the Monterey Pine 

 grow too much to branches, not losing their lower hmbs 

 but pushing them out until they become the enemies of 

 the main stem, whence it is we have so many trees 

 thrown down by storms, as well as other evil results 

 from the practice. 



Other Pines, like the Columbian Fir {Abies nobilis), 

 never assume this bushy habit but go up like arrows, 

 their lower branches getting weaker as the tree grows 

 higher; massed together, as in nature, the trees lose 

 their lower branches quicker. When the bare stem is 

 seen, many who have not seen the trees in their native 



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