American Forestry 



VOL. XXII 



JULY, 1916 



No. 271 



The White Pine 



Identification and Characteristics 

 By Samuel B. Detwieer 



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THE white pine is the monarch of the eastern 

 forests, "in lordly right predominant o'er all." No 

 other tree has been so important to the commer- 

 cial development of America, and in beauty, stateliness, 

 and individuality of form it is rivalled but not surpassed. 

 When the Pilgrims landed on the cold and cheerless 

 Plymouth shore, the pine was the only green thing to 

 greet them, and it became their emblem on the historic 

 "pine tree shilling" and other coinage. As the forests 

 retreated before the axe, southeastern Maine became 

 renowned for its "pumpkin pine" and Maine is still called 

 in recognition of the white pine growth the Pine Tree 

 State. 



In the song and story of 

 the lumberjack and river 

 driver, white pine holds the 

 most honored place. The 

 history of the lumbering of 

 white pine until 1890 is 

 also practically the history 

 of the lumber industry in 

 America up to that time. 

 The first house built in 

 America of which there is 

 authentic record, was con- 

 structed of white pine. In 

 1890 white pine lumber 

 formed nearly one-third of 

 the yearly output of lum- 

 ber ; ten years later more 

 than one-fifth of the lum- 

 ber used in the United 

 States was still white pine, 

 but in recent years it has 

 constituted less than one- 

 tenth of the annual cut. 

 Although most of the mag- 

 nificent virgin white pines 

 have given their lives that 

 we might thrive, an abun- 

 dant second growth has 

 taken their place wherever 

 forest fires have been con- 

 trolled, and with proper 



SECOND GROWTH WHITE PINK 

 White pine is undoubtedly the most popular of all the forest trees for 

 planting. Millions of White pine seedlings are now growing 

 at nurseries and millions will be planted in the future. 



care this will provide a continuous though diminished 

 supply of this most typical American wood. 



White pine is native from Newfoundland and the 

 northern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to southern 

 Manitoba. It ranges southward through the region of 

 the Great Lakes to northern Illinois, northern and eastern 

 Ohio, Pennsylvania, and along the Allegheny Mountains 

 to northern Georgia. The most perfect development of 

 white pine was in New England, New York and Pennsyl- 

 vania. When this supply was exhausted the lumberman 

 moved on to Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. At 

 the present time, Minnesota produces more white pine 



lumber than any other 

 state, Minnesota and Wis- 

 consin together furnishing 

 about one-half of the an- 

 nual cut. 



White pine grows 

 straight as the masts for 

 which it has so well served, 

 sometimes to a height of 

 more than 200 feet. Thous- 

 ands of acres of blackened 

 stumps, many of them 4 

 to 5 feet across their tops, 

 are all that remain of once 

 splendid white pines. One 

 early writer states that in 

 1736 in Dunstable, N. H., 

 a white pine tree was cut 

 which had a diameter of 7 

 feet 8 inches. Another 

 New Hampshire tree felled 

 150 years ago measured 

 274 feet in height. One ac- 

 count mentions the white 

 pines found in New Eng- 

 land as being "frequently 

 (! feet in diameter and 250 

 feet in height." Most of 

 the trees of this species 

 that are cut by the lumber- 

 man of today are less than 

 3 feet in diameter and 125 

 387 



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