The Hemlock 



ON well-drained slopes and on the edges of 

 valleys and ravines the hemlock grows. It is 

 a large tree, from two 

 to four feet in diameter, 

 and often seventy-five 

 feet in height. The 

 crown is somewhat open 

 at the base, its slender 

 branches tapering slowly 

 upward. Like the spruce, 

 it has single leaves. They 

 are dark yellow-green 

 above, a grayish-white 

 beneath, flat, and round- 

 ed at the end. The stems are very slender, the 

 whole leaf not over a half-inch long. 



The red-brown cones are about three quarters 

 of an inch long, and ripen in the autumn of the 

 first year. During the following winter the seeds 

 begin to leave the cone, and by late spring they 



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