246 TREES 



The Indians, whose food supply was always precarious, 

 gathered branches and made a soft pulp of the inner bark, 

 scraped out in the growing season. This they baked, after 

 shaping it into huge cakes, in pit ovens built of stones, and 

 heated for hours by burning in them loads of fire- wood. 

 When the embers were burned out, the oven was cleaned 

 and the cakes put in. Later they were smoked with a 

 damp fire of moss, which preserved them indefinitely. 

 "Hard bread" of this type provisioned the Indian's canoe 

 on long trips. Inedible until boiled, it was a staple winter 

 food at home and on long expeditions, among various 

 tribes of the Northwest. 



The Red Pine 



P, resinosa. Ait. 



The red pine, also called the "Norway pine" for no par- 

 ticular reason, is something of an anomaly. Its wood is 

 soft like that of the white pine with which it grows, and 

 though resinosa means "full of resin," it is not so rich as 

 several other pitch pines. Its paired leaves and red bark 

 reveal its kinship with the Scotch pine, a European species, 

 very common in cultivation in America. 



Seemingly intermediate between soft and hard pines, 

 P. resinosa appeals to lumbermen and landscape gardeners 

 because it embodies the good points of both classes. No 

 handsomer species grows in the forests, from New Bruns- 

 wick to Minnesota and south into Pennsylvania. The 

 sturdy red trunk makes a bright color contrast with the 

 broad symmetrical pyramid of boughs clothed in abundant 

 foliage. The paired, needle-like leaves, dark green and 

 shining, are six inches in length. The flowers are abund- 



