The Pines 



young leaves enclosed in their subtending scales, before these 

 crowded scales fall. 



Of late a new and profitable industry has sprung up in the 

 wake of lumbering. Stumps are cut into small sticks for kindling 

 wood, and sold in small bundles. These sticks are rich in resin, 

 and bring good prices. Roots, branches and other waste pieces 

 are gathered and converted into tar or into charcoal. The profits 

 that come from gathering up the fragments after the lumbermen 

 and turpentine distillers give one an idea of what enormous 

 values are being squandered by wantonness and ignorance. The 

 South is rich in natural resources, but its noblest patrimony, the 

 pine forests, seems doomed soon to be spent. 



The Big-Cone Pine {P. Coulteri, D. Don.) is chiefly remark- 

 able for the size and weight of its cones, which are the heaviest 

 of all the fruits of the pines. They hang like old-fashioned 

 "sugar loaves" on the stout branches, which carry them with 

 apparent ease, though they reach 15 to 20 inches long, and 

 weigh 5 to 8 pounds. The scales are so thickened as to stand 

 out from the central axis; the stout, curved beak and the thick 

 part which it surmounts remind one strongly of the head of an 

 eagle. /The seeds, which reach ^ inch in length, not counting 

 the thmwing, are rich in oil and sugar. \ They are gathered for 

 food by the Indians in southern Californra. 



The leaves of this pine match the cones. They are stout 

 and stiff, with saw-tooth edges, dark blue-green, and 6 to 16 

 inches long. The sheaths at the bases of the leaves are an inch 

 or more long, and persistent. They are tufted on the twigs and 

 are not shed for three or four years. This fact gives the tree a 

 luxuriant crown, and though it does not grow over medium 

 height, it is always a striking and picturesque figure on the 

 western slopes of the California coast mountains. 



The wood is indifferent in quality, and the tree is cut only 

 for fuel. It is planted for its great golden-brown cones. In 

 Europe it makes rapid growth, and fruiting trees of good size are 

 not uncommon in France and Germany. 



Pitch Pine {P. rigida, Mill.) — A gnarled, irregular tree 50 

 to 75 feet high, with short trunk and rigid, rough branches. 

 Bark thick, broken into plates by deep, irregular fissures; scales 

 thin; bark red or purple. Wood light red, soft, durable, brittle, 

 coarse. Buds \ \Q \ inch long, reddish, with fringed scales. 



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