The Tamarack 



AMERICAN LARCH 

 William Prindle Alexander 



There are certain trees 

 that have such preverse 

 growth habits, — that do 

 things so contrary to the 

 best usage of their kinds, 

 — are so conspicuously 

 freakish in their seeming 

 unnaturalness, that we 

 deem it altogether right 

 to dub them eccentric, 

 To this category we un- 

 hesitatingly relegate the 

 larch. 



Here is a capricious 

 and wilful fellow in the 

 pleasant realm of Tree- 

 dom; it bears a cone, 

 has needle-like leaves, a 

 resinous wood and other 

 habits common to the 

 great family of Pine, and 

 then like the crow that 

 would be a peacock, it 

 becomes dissatisfied with 

 the ways of the noble 

 evergreens and affects 

 the habits of its betters, 

 the true deciduous trees, 

 and like them sheds its 

 leaves, come autumn and 

 cheerless weather. The 

 Larch is a handsome tree 

 if you know it in its 

 native wilds, it is] also 

 strong and strangely 

 brave; for it has taken the cold way northward till we find it 



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Tamarack m wmLcr. 



