CHAPTER XXIV 

 THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES PINE 



What didst thou sing of, thou melodious sprite? 



Pine forests, with smooth russet carpets spread, 

 Where e'en at noonday dimly fades the light, 



Through gloomy blue-green branches overhead. 



Frances Anne Kemble 



THE glory of the Berkshires is in its 

 mountains and its trees. Standing 

 on any one of the many peaks in 

 autumn you are impressed with the vast 

 wealth of color stretching for miles about 

 you, and realize that every variety of tree 

 peculiar to the Great Northern Forest is 

 growing there before your eyes. You recall 

 passing elm after elm, huge and towering, 

 in Great Barrington, Stockbridge and Lenox, 

 and, passing along the winding roads, among 

 the valleys and around the lakes, you dis- 

 cover new and unfamiliar shapes and colors 

 where distant species have been brought in 

 to add to the already beautiful picture. 

 Why ask for historic trees in this land where 



