S4 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



a corresponding diameter. It reaches its best development in northern Mexico and 

 what is found of it in the United States is the species' extreme northern extension, in 

 Arizona and New Mexico at altitudes usually above 6,000 feet. It supplies fuel in 

 districts where firewood is otherwise scarce, and it has a small place as ranch timber. 

 The wood is heavy, of slow growth, the summerwood thin and dense. The resin 

 passages are few and small; color, light, clear yellow, the sapwood nearly white. If 

 the tree stood in regions well-forested with commercial species, it would possess little 

 or no value ; but where wood is scarce, it has considerable value. The hardshell nuts 

 resemble those of the gray pine, but are considered more valuable for food. They are 

 not of much importance in the United States, but in Mexico where the trees are more 

 abundant and the population denser, the nuts are bought and sold in large quantities. 

 Its leaves are in dusters of three, sometimes two. They are one inch or more in 

 length, and fall the third and fourth years. Cones are seldom over two inches in 

 length. The species is not extending its range, but seems to be holding the ground it 

 already has. It bears abundance of seeds, but not one in ten thousand germinates 

 and becomes a mature tree. 



