THE WHITE PINE 



423 



by Lord Weymouth and shortly thereafter it was planted 

 in Germany. In 1794 a Hessian forester visited America. 

 He was impressed with the white pine, and took back with 

 him a supply of seed sufficient to reforest 15 acres of 

 woodland near Trippstadt, in Bavaria. The experiment 

 was a success, and in 1910, when the writer visited the 



A BIG WHITE PIXE 



Only a few of the mighty monarchs of the original forest remain 

 to tell of a former glory. 



trees, they were all thrifty in appearance and some of 

 them had attained a height of more than 100 feet, and a 

 diameter of 25 to 35 inches. 



These immigrant white pine trees began to bear fertile 

 seeds at the age of 25 years. In their prime they produced 

 a large quantity of select seed. All the seed produced 

 by these trees was collected and sowed in forest tree 

 nurseries for the purpose of reforestation. The most 

 interesting part of this commendable accomplishment is 

 the fact that some of the seedlings, raised from these 

 American white pine trees grown in Germany, were 

 brought back to America and used to reforest some of 

 our own devastated forest land. All this happened in 

 the early days of American forestry, before the forest tree 

 nurseries of the United States were developed far enough 

 to supply our own needs. 



An excellent stand of white pine is also found in the 

 Municipal Forest of Frankfort, located near Isenburg, in 



Germany. Two-year-old seedlings were planted in 1855, 

 and now the stand has 295 trees per acre averaging 85 

 feet in height and about 15 inches in diameter. This 

 is one of the most attractive stands of white pine in the 

 world. It is the pride of the forester in charge of the 

 City Forest, and is visited annually by thousands of tour- 

 ists and many foresters. In the Municipal Forest of 

 Heidelberg, white pine covers more than 140 acres. 

 There are at least 150,000 trees growing in this small 

 City Forest, and throughout continental Europe many 

 million trees have been planted. In fact, it has been 

 planted so extensively that it is now regarded as a natu- 

 ralized member of their forests. 



Many good things have been said about the white pine, 

 and I am wondering if we really know this excellent tree. 

 I am sure no other native forest tree is known more 

 widely or has a longer list of friends ; but kst there may 

 be one person among us who may not be acquainted with 

 this princely pine, its striking distinguishing character- 

 istics will be set forth. 



The white pine can be identified without much effort. 

 Most of its features are markedly distinctive from all 

 other forest trees. It is the only evergreen tree native to 

 eastern North America that has its soft, flexible, and 

 bluish-green needles arranged in clusters of five. If one 

 examines the needles of an eastern evergreen tree and 



SECTION OF WHITE PINE BEDS IN TREE NURSERY 

 AT CLEARFIELD, PENNSYLVANIA 



The nurseries operated by the Pennsylvania Department of For- 

 estry have been yielding annually as many as three million 

 white pine seedlings. 



finds that they occur in bundles of five and are surrounded 

 at the base with a thin paper-like wrapper the tree is 

 unquestionably white pine. 



But one should not be satisfied to identify any tree on 

 the basis of a single characteristic, however striking it 

 may be. A number of distinctive features should always 

 be used. 



Another helpful distinguishing characteristic is the ar- 

 rangement of the lateral branches. They appear in hori- 



