A SPRAY OF PINE. 45 



ing high carnival from fall to spring. The Norseman , 

 of the woods, lofty and aspiring, tree without bluster 

 or noise, that sifts the howling storm into a fine 

 spray of sound ; symmetrical tree, tapering, columnar, ' 

 shaped as in a lathe, the preordained mast of ships, 

 the mother of colossal timbers ; centralized, tower- 

 ing, patriarchal, coming down from the foreworld, 

 counting centuries in thy rings and outlasting empires 

 in thy decay. 



A little tall talk seems not amiss on such a sub- 

 ject. The American or white pine has been known 

 to grow to a height of two hundred and sixty feet, 

 slender and tapering as a rush, and equally available 

 for friction matches or the mast of a ship of the line. 

 It is potent upon the sea and upon the land, and lends 

 itself to become a standard for giants or a toy for 

 babes, with equal readiness. No other tree so widely 

 useful in the mechanic arts or so beneficent in the 

 economy of nature. House of refuge for the winter 

 birds and inn and hostelry for the spring and fall 

 emigrants. All the northern creatures are more or 

 less dependent upon the pine. Nature has made a 

 singular exception in the conformation of the beaks 

 of certain birds that they might the better feed upon 

 the seeds of its cones, as in the cross-bills. Then the 

 pine grosbeak and pine linnet are both nurslings of 

 this tree. Certain of the warblers, also, the natural- 

 ist seldom finds except amid its branches. 



The dominant races come from the region of the 

 pine. 



