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AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



southward in the United States, from Maine to Minnesota, and reaches northern 

 Indiana and Illinois. It grows almost far enough north in the valley of Mackenzie 

 river to catch the rays of the midnight sun. It must necessarily adapt itself to cir- 

 cumstances. When these are favorable, it develops a trunk up to two feet in 

 diameter and seventy feet tall; but in adversity, it degenerates into a many- branched 

 *hrub a few feet high. The average tree in the United States is thirty or forty feet 

 tall, and a foot or more in diameter. Its name is intended as a term of contempt, 

 which it does not deserve. Others call it scrub pine which is little better. Its other 

 names are more respectful, Prince's pine in Ontario, black pine in Wisconsin and 

 Minnesota, cypress in Quebec and the Hudson Bay country, Sir Joseph Banks' pine 

 in England, and juniper in some parts of Canada. "Chek pine" is frequently given in 

 its list of names, but the name is said to have originated in an attempt of a German 

 botanist to pronounce "Jack pine" in dictating to a stenographer. The tree straggles 

 over landscapes which otherwise would be treeless. It is often a ragged and uncouth 

 specimen of the vegetable kingdom, but that is when it is at its worst. At its best, 

 as it may be seen where cared for in some of the Michigan cemeteries, it is as hand- 

 some a tree as anyone could desire. The characteristic thinness and delicacy of its 

 foliage distinguish it at once from its associates. The peculiar green of its soft, short 

 needles wins admiration. The wood is light, soft, not strong; annual rings are moder- 

 ately wide, and are largely composed of springwood. The thin bands of summer-wood 

 are resinous, and the small resin ducts are few. The thick sapwood is nearly white, 

 the heart wood brown or orange. It is not durable. 



Jack pine can never be an important timber tree, because too small; but a 

 considerable amount is used for bed slats, nail kegs, plastering lath, barrel headings, 

 boxes, mine props, pulpwood, and fuel. Aside from its use as lumber and small 

 manufactured products, it has a value for other purposes. It can maintain its 

 existence in waste sands ; and its usefulness is apparent in fixing drifting dunes along 

 some of the exposed shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. It lives on dry 

 sand and sends its roots several feet to water; or, under circumstances entirely 

 different, it thrives in swamps where the watertable is little below the surface of the 

 ground. It fights a brave battle against adversities while it lasts, but it does not 

 live long. Sixty years is old age for this tree. It grows fast while young, but later 

 it devotes all its energies to the mere process of living, and its increase in size is slow, 

 until at a period when most trees are still in early youth, it dies of old age, and the 

 northern winds quickly whip away its limbs, leaving the barkless trunk to stand a few 

 years longer. 



