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AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



favorable situations it may be sixty feet high and two in diameter. On high 

 itains it is generally not more than thirty feet high and ten inches in diameter. 

 It is of remarkably slow growth, and comparatively small trees may be 200 or 300 

 years old. The wood is moderately light, is soft, weak, brittle. Resin passages are 

 few and very small. The wood is satiny and susceptible of a good polish, and would 

 be valuable if abundant. The seeds are winged and the wind scatters them widely, 

 but most of them are lost on barren rocks or drifts of eternal snow. The untoward 

 circumstances under which the tree must live prevent generous reproduction. It 

 holds its own but can gain no new foothold on the bleak and barren heights which 

 form its environment. The dark green of its foliage makes the belts of foxtail pines 

 conspicuous where they grow above the timber line of nearly all other trees. Its 

 range is confined to a few of the highest mountains of California, particularly about 

 (but not on) Mt. Shasta and among the clusters of peaks about the sources of Kings 

 and Kern rivers. Those who travel and camp among the highest mountains of 

 California are often indebted to foxtail pine for their fuel. Near the upper limit of its 

 range it frequently dies at the top, and stands stripped of bark for many years. The 

 dead wood, which frequently is not higher above the ground than a man's head, is 

 broken away by campers for fuel, and it is often the only resource. 



