252 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



anywhere in New England today they would be 

 worth more than any other crop the centuries 

 could have raised for him. 



The youngest pine seedlings hide so securely 

 in the pasture grass and under the low bushes 

 that rarely does one notice them during the first 

 summer's growth. By the end of that time they 

 are singularly, to my mind, like fairy palm trees, 

 planted in the gardens where the little folk stroll 

 on midsummer nights. Their single stem and 

 the spreading whorl of leaves at the summit of it 

 are in about the same proportion as those of a 

 palmetto whose great leaves have been tossed and 

 shredded by the trade winds. That so tiny a 

 twig could become, in the passage of centuries 

 even, a 2OO-foot tree seems difficult to believe. 

 It looks no more likely than that the "ground- 

 pine" which is taller than the seedling and fully 

 as sturdy should some day be 200 feet tall. Yet 

 the ground-pine may grow from its creeping 

 rootstock for a thousand years in the shade of 

 one grove and never be over a foot tall. Thus 

 easily may we be deceived by small beginnings. 

 No palm ever rivalled a full-grown pine in height 

 and girth, yet a palm comes out of the ground 



