How the Tree Grows 49 



because it grows at the end of the tree's stem. 

 While the other shoots at the side are helping 

 the tree to grow one way, this one is helping it 

 to grow tall. If this shoot, or its bud on the end, 

 is frozen, or dried up or broken off, another near 

 it takes its place, and the tree grows steadily 

 taller. 



While the age of a tree is shown by rings in the 

 wood, there is an even easier way to tell the age 

 of pines like these. It is not necessary to cut them 

 down. A glance at their branches will tell you just 

 how old they are. Each year new shoots have 

 come out around the tree in a circle or "whorl" 

 of branches. There are twenty of these whorls 

 on the young tree at which we have just been 

 looking, so we may know that it is just twenty 

 years old. Perhaps a little more, for the side 

 , shoots of the first few years may have been lost 

 as the tree grew upward. Now it is at least 

 twenty feet tall. 



Year by year the tree's crown is being built 

 up, as buds grow into shoots with their leaves 

 and flowers, the shoots into twigs, and the twigs 

 into branches. 



STORY OF THE FOREST - 4 



