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you will find this Oriental spruce. A good honey 

 locust stands diagonally over from it, to the south- 

 east. Like all true spruces the leaves of the Oriental 

 are four-sided and scattered singly over the branch. 

 You remember that the chief feature of the pine is 

 the characteristic gathering of its leaves together in 

 little bundles (fascicles), of twos, threes, or fives. 

 The spruce is therefore easily distinguished from the 

 pine by observing this leaf feature alone. With the 

 spruce each leaf is fastened to the branch singly, and 

 is /ot<r-sided. In this four-sided feature it differs from 

 the fir which has its leaves Hat. There are many other 

 botanical distinctions between the pine, the spruce, 

 and the fir, but these features just mentioned will be 

 enough for any rambler who has not delved into the 

 deeper mysteries of botany, to tell at a glance whether 

 a tree is a pine, spruce or fir. It may be well to add 

 here that the cone of the fir stands up erect on the 

 branch, and its scales fall away from a central axis 

 when ripe ; the cone of the pine and of the spruce do 

 not break their scales apart in this manner, but, when 

 ripe, fall from the branch, as a whole cone, with all 

 the scales persistent. The cones of the pine and of 

 the spruce hang drooping (pendulous) from the 

 branches, the cones of the fir stand straight up, erect, 

 like candles set upon a candle-stick. 



The leaves of the Oriental spruce are short, stout 

 and blunt at the tip. They are about an inch long, 

 of a rich, glossy dark-green which gives the tree in 

 the fulness of its foliage, a dark handsome gloom. 

 When I come upon one of these dark and slumbrous 



