EXOGENOUS SERIES-NEEDLELEAF WOODS. 131 



SOFT PINE. 



Soft pine is soft, clean, light, uniform, easily worked, not 

 strong, free from knots and resins, and obtainable in large and 

 perfect pieces. The wood is whitish and the yearly rings are 

 not pronounced. The supply is divided, as obtained from the 

 white pine on the one hand, and from the sugar-pine and all 

 other species on the other. 



White pine [Pinus strobus) grows in the north, central, 

 and eastern United States and was formerly the important tree 

 of North America. It emphasized the forest industries of 

 Maine and of Michigan, and methods connected with harvest- 

 ing it have influenced logging practices in many fields. It was 

 long the only softwood seriously considered by Northern 

 lumbermen. Thirty per cent of the sawn timber and lumber 

 used in this country in 1S99 was drawn from this species.* 

 White pine is diminishing so rapidly as to be already prac- 

 tically unobtainable in many places. 



The Sugar Pine {Pinus lai7ibcrtiand) of the Western States is 

 a tree growing at high elevations and is so large as to take rank 

 with the redwoods and other of the world's greatest trees. 

 Some material is derived from the Western white pine (Pinus 

 Jlexilis) and one or more minor species. Sugar pine resem- 

 bles, but is not as desirable as, white pine. The sweetish 

 exudations from this tree are sometimes used in medicine. 



* Roth, U. S. Forestry Bui. No. 22, p. 73. 



"White Pine Timber Supplies." U. S. S. Doc. S5-i, Vol. IV. 



