In the “ Ramble ”—Fourth Excursion 
is more luxuriant and effective. Unfortunately neither 
the Scotch nor the Austrian pines thrive very well in 
these grounds, and the former in many cases are so lean 
and scraggly that it is a wonder they are tolerated. 
Something should be done, and done quickly, for a 
poor tree is worse than none. The European yew 
(Zaxus baccata) is in much the same evil plight, and 
not one of the many specimens I have seen is a credit 
to the place. 
It sometimes seems as if nature had put before us a 
number of almost identical forms just to pique our curi- 
osity and tempt investigation, to find out exactly what 
she means by each of them. And as soon as we put in 
the entering wedge of inquiry, how those similar forms 
instantly begin to separate, till they stand apart in such 
clear distinctiveness that we wonder we could ever have 
been so stupid as to fail to see their individualities. 
And when we hear a liberally educated man make a 
random allusion to pines and spruces, that shows that 
he could not, for the life of him, tell them apart, we 
only smile commiseratingly and say to ourselves, ‘‘ Poor 
man, you can see, readily enough, the difference of 
Greek and Latin roots, and how cam you be so blind as 
not to know a pine from a hemlock ?’’ 
It is singular that the evergreen species which we 
perhaps regard most indifferently, seldom planting it for 
ornament, and usually with dubious results—the white 
or Weymouth pine (P. strobus)—at its best estate is the 
most majestic and imposing of all our Eastern trees. 
Comparatively few have seen it in perfection; but its 
broad sweep of huge horizontal shelving branches and 
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