SOME LABRADOR TREES 
mournful song. The valley was picturesque 
in its rugged beauty and full of deep interest. 
This larch was the largest in a group of gnarled 
and twisted monarchs that must have defied 
the storms for many ages. He was still alive 
and the green buds of promise were appear- 
ing on his topmost boughs, which were fully 
thirty feet up in the air. At a distance of 
two and a half feet from the ground he meas- 
ured six feet in circumference. How I should 
have enjoyed counting his rings, which must 
have numbered many hundreds, but even if it 
had been possible to cut him down and smooth 
off his stump it would have been indeed sac- 
rilegious. May he live for many ages yet to 
come! 
On this same island, however, I did steel my 
heart and cut down a splendid spreading mat 
of verdure, a balsam fir that had grown com- 
paratively rapidly on a southern slope, but 
one that was so exposed to the gales from the 
gulf that it had reached a height of but three 
feet. One could walk over its compact top sur- 
face, which measured eighteen feet from side to 
side, but could not rest under the shadow of its 
branches unless one had been able to burrow 
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