WHITE PINE GROVES 245 



breeding. If they miss fertilization altogether 

 they fall off. It is commonly said that the pines 

 produce a crop of cones once in five or seven 

 years, which is true in part, just as the statement 

 that every seventh wave at sea is larger than any 

 of its preceding six is occasionally borne out by 

 the facts. I do not recall years in which the 

 pines have failed to put forth both staminate and 

 pistillate blossoms. Sometimes frost gets these 

 and they fail to reproduce. Sometimes a long 

 rain will prevent the pollen from being dissemin- 

 ated by the wind until its time is passed and again 

 there is a failure in cones. Only once in a while 

 is the season perfectly favorable, and then we get 

 that seventh wave in pine cones and the squirrels 

 rejoice that they can file their teeth and fill their 

 cheek pouches at the same time. The years when 

 there are no cones at all sending forth their seeds 

 in September are few indeed. This year the 

 harvest in my neighborhood has been an excellent 

 one. 



The fertilized bloom soon ceases to be a little 

 Christmas candle on the tree top, closes its tiny 

 scales over its growing seeds and becomes a little 

 green cone, still sitting upright on the upper 

 branch tip where it grew. By autumn it is an 



