A NATURALIST. 97 



wherever nature is, and under whatever form she 

 may present herself, enough is always proffered to 

 fix attention and produce pleasure, if we will conde- 

 scend to observe with carefulness. I soon found that 

 even a pine-forest was far from being devoid of in- 

 terest, and shall endeavour to prove this by stating 

 the result of various observations made during the 

 time I lived in this situation. 



The common pitch, or, as it is generally called, 

 Norway pine, grows from a seed, which is matured 

 in vast abundance in the large cones peculiar to the 

 pines. This seed is of a rather triangular shape, 

 thick and heavy at the part by which it grows from 

 the cone, and terminating in a broad membranous 

 fan or sail, which, when the seeds are shaken out by 

 the wind, enables them to sail obliquely through the 

 air to great distances. Should an old corn-field, or 

 other piece of ground, be thrown out of cultivation 

 for more than one season, it is sown with pine-seeds 

 by the winds, and the young pines shoot up as closely 

 and compactly as hemp. They continue to grow in 

 this manner until they become twelve or fifteen feet 

 high, until their roots begin to encroach on each 

 other, or until the stoutest and best rooted begin to 

 overtop so as entirely to shade the smaller. These 

 gradually begin to fail, and finally dry up and perish, 

 and a similar process is continued until the best trees 

 acquire room enough to grow without impediment. 

 Even when the young pines have attained to thirty 

 or forty feet in height, and are as thick as a man's 

 thigh, they stand so closely together that their lower 

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