WHAT TO PLANT. 57 



ter to the necessities or the conveniences of life. 

 So extensive and so multiform has been its use, 

 that in those parts of the country where it has 

 abounded, it has been almost the one tree known 

 and used. And so desirable is it, on account of 

 its peculiar qualities, that it has been carried in 

 great quantities far beyond the regions of its 

 native growth. 



The proper home of this tree is in cool lati- 

 tudes or on the high hills. At the settlement of 

 this country a belt of this timber stretched from 

 New Brunswick on the east to the Mississippi 

 River, and along the Alleghany Mountains as 

 far south as Georgia. Maine has been known as 

 the Pine-Tree State, on account of the almost 

 exclusive prevalence there of this tree and the 

 kindred spruce. The value of the white pine 

 is shown, and its adaptability to many uses, 

 when we find that, owing to the demand for it, 

 the forests of Maine have been virtually swept 

 away by the lumberman's axe, enough only be- 

 ing left for home consumption, while the inter- 

 vening region has been nearly cleared, and ten 

 years more, at the present rate of consumption, 

 threaten to leave nothing valuable of the great 



