CLOTHED WITH VEGETATION. 65 



The oaks and birches and beeches and hickories and 

 chestnuts and many other trees with juicy leaves could 

 flourish here, because the summers were so hot and moist 

 that a large growth was made each season, before the bit- 

 ing frosts could nip off the leaves. Too little moisture or 

 long periods of drought cannot be endured by these trees. 

 On the Pacific Coast, where the average temperature is 

 much milder, these trees get far outstripped by the cone- 

 bearing trees, because the summers or growing periods are 

 so dry. These drumlins of ours, furthermore, are able to 

 hold moisture on account of their clay, so that trees may 

 flourish evenly throughout the summer. The great bright- 

 ness of our summer days favors the growth of all our de- 

 ciduous or falling-leaf trees, because it shines through the 

 heaviest shade that the evergreen trees can make. In the 

 British Isles where the fogs are thick, and so many days of 

 summer are dark, nature, unaided by man, was never able to 

 nourish so many varieties of deciduous trees as we have here. 



Our pine trees and spruce and hemlock and other coni- 

 fers do not grow so large as the pines of Georgia or the 

 spruce of Canada, but that gives all the better chance for 

 the hard-wood trees. 



The fact is that nature has been very impartial here to 

 the different families of trees, giving such a mixture of 

 sunshine and showers, of heat and cold, of rocks and sand 

 and clay, that at least seven different varieties of cone-bear- 

 ing trees and over fifty of the other kind have flourished. 

 Not in vain was this richness of variety, because it afforded 

 wood for many different industries in this community before 

 the railroads and other means of transportation brought the 

 woods of many distant forests to the needs of every town. 



The oaks made good ship timbers, the pines good masts 

 and good boards. The hickories made springy, tough axe 

 handles and oxbows and chairs. The chestnuts and elms 

 were good for cart making and other common uses. The 

 little ash and birch trees were split for barrel hoops in the 



