The Pines 



low tree, pendulous and discouraged looking, with grey-green 

 leaves, that are yellowish as they first appear, stubby, i to 3 

 'nches long, in clusters of twos. This is the tree of the Jersey 

 pine barrens the tree that clothes these waste places and gets 

 little credit for it. 



Peter Kalm observed that cattle, in the heat of the day, 

 choose the shade of this tree rather than of any other, though its 

 foliage be much thicker. He judges that this strange choice 

 arises "from the gratefulness of the fragrance" of this tree. 

 Another author comments on the delightful fragrance exhaled by 

 the exuding balsam of the despised Jersey pine. The oppor- 

 tunity to point a moral here is almost irresistible. But I stay my 

 pointer. The range of P. l^irginiana is wide; from Long Island to 

 Georgia and Alabama, and west to Indiana, where it rises to the 

 height of 100 feet Its average height is one-third of this maxi- 

 mum limit, with a trunk diameter rarely over 18 inches. 



The wood has been locally used for making tar, and for 

 pump logs, water pipes, for fencing and fuel. It is not an 

 economic tree, unless considered so in its work of covering 

 quickly large areas of sterile soils in the Eastern States. 



The Grey or Scrub Pine (P. divaricata, Sudw.) is an out- 

 cast, strangely spurned and superstitiously feared in many places 

 where it grows. It ventures farther north than any other pine. 

 From the northern tier of states it ranges into the cold of frigid 

 regions, following the Mackenzie River even to the Arctic circle. 

 It grows only on barren ground rocky slopes and in cold, 

 boggy stretches. In Michigan it dips down to the southern 

 point of the lake, scattering over the sand dunes, and clothing 

 the barren stretches of the lower peninsula, which are known as 

 the "Jack Pine Plains." The grey-green leaves, scant, stubby, 

 in twos, and the crouching, sprawling habit of the tree, which 

 wears its old cones for a dozen years or more all tend to preju- 

 dice the casual observer against this pine. Only the thoughtful 

 will consider what the desert and the cold North would be with- 

 out it. North of Lake Superior it rises to the stature of a tree, 

 reaching 70 feet in height, and spreading along the valley of the 

 Mackenzie River, the only pine, it forms forests of considerable 

 area, an immeasurable boon to the scant population of that 

 region. The wood makes fuel and lumber, frames for the 

 Indian's canoe, posts and railroad ties. 



5' 



