THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 107 



" gives a diameter of more than fifteen feet ; so that it is easy 

 to conceive that the circumference of the bole, when entire, 

 should have exceeded fifty feet." " Considerable spoliations," 

 Dr. Neill further observes, " have evidently been committed 

 on the tree since 1769 ; large arms have been removed, and 

 masses of the trunk itself carried off by the country people, 

 with the view of forming ' quechs ' or drinking -cups, and 

 other relics, which visitors were in the habit of purchasing. 

 Happily, further depredations have been prevented by means 

 of an iron rail, which now surrounds the sacred spot ; and 

 this venerable Yew, which in all probability was a flourishing 

 tree at the commencement of the Christian era, may yet sur- 

 vive for centuries to come." 1 



But we must not forget the typical representatives of the 

 class of coniferous trees, the stately Pines and Firs ; several 

 species of which attain a great size, and especially an unex- 

 ampled height. Indeed, their mode of growth — their 

 straight, regularly tapering trunks, carried steadily upwards 

 by the continued prolongation of the leading shoot, as well as 

 the small lateral extension of their branches — is extremely 

 favorable to loftiness of stature, and to full development in the 

 midst of the forest. In such trees our own country abounds. 

 We need not dwell upon so familiar an object as our own 

 White Pine, which, like Saul, " from his shoulders upwards, 

 higher than any of the people," lifts its kingly form above its 

 forest brethren, to the altitude of from one hundred and fifty 

 to at least one hundred and eighty feet. 



" Not a prince, 

 In all that proud old world beyond the deep, 

 E'er wore his crown as loftily, as he 

 Wears his green coronal of leaves." 



The White Pine is, par excellence, a New England tree, 

 and has ever been identified with our commercial prosperity. 

 The colonists of Massachusetts Bay, at a very early period, 

 selected it as their cognizance, and when they first assumed 

 the rights of a free people, they stamped its image on their 

 coins. It does not seem to flourish on foreign soil ; as we 

 1 Jameson's " Edinb. Phil. Jour." (1833), xv. p. 343. 



