The Pine Family 119 



are usually more or less curved. They consist of woody scales 

 closely overlapping each other, the exposed tip of each being 

 much thickened. Each scale, in mature cones, covers a naked 

 seed which is furnished with a somewhat broad wing. 



The pines are widely distributed throughout the world in 

 the rich soil of river valleys, on sandy and barren plains and 

 exposed mountain slopes. As the young trees do not stand 

 shade well, the hardwoods almost always crowd them out of the 

 more favored locations, so that the pine forests of the present 

 are generally found in sandy or mountainous regions where 

 their competitors do not thrive. The more southern parts of 

 eastern Canada formerly supported extensive pine forests, 

 while the mountains of the west are still largely clothed by these 

 splendid trees. 



"The tremendous unity of the pine absorbs and moulds the life 

 of a race. The pine shadows rest upon a nation. The northern 

 peoples, century after century, lived under one or other of the two 

 great powers of the pine and the sea, both infinite. They dwelt 

 amidst the forests as they wandered on the waves, and saw no end 

 nor any other horizon. Still the dark green trees, or the dark 

 green waters jagged the dawn with their fringe or their foam. And 

 whatever elements of imagination, or of warrior strength, or of 

 domestic justice were brought down by the Norwegian or the Goth 

 against the dissoluteness or degradation of the south of Europe were 

 taught them under the green roofs and wild penetralia of the pine.'* 



RUSKIN : Modern Painters. 



WHITE PINES 

 Trees with soft white wood and five leaves in the fascicle. 



i. WHITE PINE. Pinus Strobus. Linnaeus. 



This is a large tree, often 250 feet high, with soft white wood, 



easily worked and much sought for by the lumberman. It is 



the most valuable timber tree of eastern North America and for 



a long time was practically the only source of building timber, 



