RED PINE 167 



the United States. Before its great destruction by the 

 lumberman's axe and succeeding fires, it ranged along our 

 northern borders from Maine to western Minnesota, and 

 south to southern Pennsylvania, southern Michigan, south- 

 ern and central Wisconsin, and southern and northwest- 

 ern Minnesota. Its natural habitat is essentially a northern 

 one, but it is more than probable that it will thrive on the 

 mountain ranges from Pennsylvania to northern Georgia 

 and Alabama. It was not generally found in pure stands, 

 but the late Professor Samuel B. Green, of the University 

 of Minnesota, recently wrote me that he had seen tracts of 

 it near Cass Lake, Minnesota, that must have carried fully 

 fifty thousand or more board feet to the acre. East of the 

 states bordering on Lakes Superior and Michigan it is 

 much scattered, sometimes mixed with White, Pitch, and 

 Yellow Pine, Chestnut, and Oak, and in northern Pennsyl- 

 vania, frequently standing solitary and alone on a bleak, 

 exposed ridge, far apart from its kindred or other species 

 of trees. There is a fine virgin grove of this tree standing 

 on the Normal School grounds at Marquette, Michigan, as 

 shown opposite page 6, illustrating its characteristics of 

 growth where it is largely in the open. It will grow in bleak, 

 exposed situations where the soil is too poor and dry for 

 White Pine. Dry ridges, steep declivities, mountain-tops, 

 and dry sandy plains are its chosen home, although it will 

 grow on almost any soil not too wet, as is evidenced where 

 it is grown as an ornamental tree, wherein it is far superior 

 to nearly all other Pines. Its willingness to adapt itself to 

 varied conditions adds much to its value. 



In early life it assumes a decidedly tapering form of crown, 

 much like the Spruces and Firs, but if at all crowded it will 

 drop its lower limbs and shoot upward with a tall, slim, 

 slightly tapering stem, clean of limbs for full half its height, 

 with its lowest limbs still dying if lacking light. None of 

 its limbs are specialized or of great length. When placed 

 with White Pine, in soil and situation suited to that tree, 

 it will equal it in growth for the first thirty or forty years 



