The Pines 



Leaves in threes, rigid, stout, 3 to s inches long, dark yellow- 

 green; sheaths becoming black, persistent. Floivers monoe- 

 cious; staminate short, densely clustered at base of season's 

 shoot; pistillate lateral, in clusters, rosy tinged, oval, short 

 stalked. Frtiiis biennial, i to 3^ inches long, ovate, scales 

 with sharp, recurving beaks. Preferred habitat, sandy uplands 

 and cold swamps. Distribution, New Brunswick to Georgia; 

 west to Ontario and Kentucky. Uses : Fuel and charcoal mak- 

 ing. Reforesting worthless land. Sparingly used as lumber. 



The pitch pine carries picturesqueness to extremes, and be- 

 comes in old age grotesque, even absolutely ugly. It has the 

 look of a tree that has been hounded by untoward circum- 

 stances. In youth the tree has a rounded, symmetrical head, 

 formed of successive whorls of branches. In its subsequent 

 struggles symmetry is lost, and the contorted limbs, tufted with 

 scant, sickly-looking foliage, and studded with the squat, black, 

 prickly cones of many years, reach out with an expression of 

 mute appeal that tempts one to cut the tree down and end its 

 suflerings. If it is cut, however, it sends up suckers from the 

 roots, a strange habit among the pines; and its winged seeds 

 spread the species over barren and shifting sand dunes, and 

 otherwise hopelessly treeless areas. This work is so well done 

 on the island of Nantucket and the desert soil of Cape Cod, even 

 those areas which are washed by the spring tides, that the pitch 

 pines have earned the regard of men. The inferior lumber is 

 forgiven. 



Pitch pines are rich in resin; the knots especially accummu- 

 late it, and "pine knots" and " candlewood " are useful and 

 familiar household words in the regions where this pine grows. 

 Kindling wood and torches for midnight coon hunts are never 

 lacking. The " pitchie kinde of substance" which makes hand- 

 ling of these sticks unpleasant business for tidy folks, gums the 

 saws and makes trouble in the mills. Sills and beams of houses 

 were formerly got of pitch-pine logs, but now other kinds are 

 preferred, and these trees go into charcoal and fuel. The turpen- 

 tine gatherer, too, has left these trees to seek the richer pineries 

 of the South and West. There is small excuse for the pitch pine to 

 stay on, were it not for the one thing it does better than any 

 other it makes glad the wilderness and the solitary place. 



The Knob-Cone Pine (P. attenuata, Lemm.) is another 



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