A DAY IN A TAMARACK SWAMP. 181 



Marsh, a perfect tree. Great 'groves of them, each 

 tree so isolated from its fellows as not to shade too 

 densely the grass beneath; each with its branches 

 stopping short at a uniform height, ten to twelve feet 

 from the ground, form vast forest sheds which all 

 summer long furnish plentiful shade to those herds 

 of fat cattle which are the pride and wealth of the 

 owners of the land. 



Farther north the " Logan" runs through a flat, up- 

 land country where the bitter-nut or swamp hickory, 

 the beech with its smooth lichen-covered bole, and 

 immense numbers of gigantic bur-oaks, abound. At 

 intervals clumps of that handsome shrub, the black 

 alder or winter-berry were seen, its bright-red fruit 

 giving an exceeding vividness to the dense green of 

 the surrounding forest, which was as yet untouched 

 by that prince of painters, Jack Frost. 



Then the prairie with its characteristic flora once 

 more appeared; and finally, the tamarack swamps 

 about Kewanna, Fulton County, came into view and 

 my journey'by rail was at an end. 



The tamarack or black larch, Larix americana 

 Michx., is a tree, fifty to one hundred feet high, with 

 a straight trunk and slender horizontal branches. It 

 belongs to the great Pine family or Coniferce, so called 

 because the seeds of its members are borne without 

 other covering than the large flat 



scales which overlap one another to 

 Tamarack Tree. 



form that familiar object called a 

 cone. The large majority of the members of the 

 family, as the pines, cedars, etc., are evergreens; but 

 the leaves of the tamarack, which are thread-like, one 



