GETTING AC^AINTED WITH THE TREES 



pines and hemlocks is to love them for the 

 refreshment there is in their living presence, 

 rather than to consider them merely for the 

 timber value. But the point of view dififers 

 immensely with one's occupation. I remember 

 finding in the depths of an Alleghany forest 

 a comparatively rare native orchid, then new 

 to me — the round -leaved or orbicular habe- 

 naria. While I was gloating over it with my 

 camera a gray-haired native of the neighbor- 

 hood joined me, and, to my surprise, assisted 

 in the gloating — he, too, loved the woods and 

 the plants. Coming a little later to a group 

 of magnificent hemlocks, with great, clean, 

 towering trunks reaching up a hundred feet 

 through the soft maples and yellow birches 

 and beeches which seemed dwarfed by these 

 veterans, I exclaimed in admiration. "Yes," 

 he said, "them's mighty fine hemlocks. I 

 calc'late thet one to the left would bark 

 near five dollars' wuth !" On the rare plant 

 we had joined in esthetic appreciation, but 

 the hemlock was to the old lumberman but 

 a source of tan -bark. 



This search for tannin, by the way, is 



54 



