Tlu IVkite Pine. 253 



among them, scarcely more than one in five of the worms that 

 were hatched coming to maturity and forming their cocoons. Of 

 these it required one thousand to furnish an ounce of reeled silk, 

 the floss being equal to a quarter of an ounce more. The cocoons 

 were gathered in eight days from their commencement, and in 

 eight days more were wound off. No necessity hence arose for 

 destroying the vitality of the insects to prevent their piercing the 

 balls. The chrysalides being placed in bran, in due time became 

 moths and produced eggs, each female furnishing between three and 

 four hundred.' 



THE WHITE PINE 



Pinus strobus. 



This species, one of the 

 most interesting of the Ameri- 

 can pines, is known in Cana- 

 da and the United States by 

 the name of White Pine, from 

 the perfect whiteness of its 

 wood when freshly exposed; 

 and in New Hampshire and 

 Maine by the secondary de- 

 nominations of Pumpkin Pine^ 

 Apple Pine, and Sapling PinCy 

 which are derived from certain 

 accidental peculiarities. This, 

 tree is diffused, though not 

 uniformly, over a vast extent 

 of country; it is incapable of 

 supporting intense cold, and 

 still less extreme heat. It is 

 first observed in the north 

 Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. A cone. Fig. 3. A seed, about forty leagues from the- 

 mouth of the river Mistassin, which discharges itself into Lake St. 

 John in Canada, in the latitude of 48° 50'. It appears to be most 

 abundant between the 43d and 47th degrees of latitude; farther 

 south it is found in the valleys and on the declivities of the Alle- 

 ghanies to their termination, but at a distance from the mountains 

 on either side, its growth is forbidden by the warmth of the clim- 

 ate. It is said with great probability to be multiplied near the 



