CHAPTER I 



Introduction 



St. Bernard said: ''Trees and rocks will teach what thou canst 

 not hear from a master," and Tennyson has expressed the same 

 thought, of the mystery and romance of biology wedded to geology, 

 more sonorously in the following lines: 



There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 



O earth what changes hast thou seen ! 



There where the long street roars, hath been 

 The stillness of the central sea. 



The hills are shadows, and they flow 



From form to form and nothing stands; 



They melt like mists, the solid lands. 

 Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 



These two verses compress into cinema-like rapidity what went 

 on at a slow rate over a period of millions of years, and it is these 

 glimpses into the long ago that stimulate the student of geology 

 like new wine, and make him wonder why all the world does not 

 forsake the trivial affairs of life and spend their time in making 

 bricks for the temple of science and the master builder. 



The sketches which follow are an attempt to interest the general 

 public in the marvellous history of some of our trees. Although we, 

 as a nation, probably because of our seeming limitless natural 

 resources, have been somewhat slow in awakening to the necessity 

 of scientific forestry, there has always been a large pubHc interested 

 in our forest trees, as witness our numerous tree books. In none 

 of the latter, however, will the reader get any idea that the various 

 tree stocks are many thousands of years old, or that their abund- 

 ance and geographical distribution have not always been much as 

 we find them today. 



The selection of forms in the following pages may seem arbitrary 

 and many will look for some special favorite to find it omitted, 



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