PINE FAMILY 
together when cold weather comes as if it were preparing for 
a long winter’s sleep. 
The cones are long, slender, loose, and terminal, without 
spine or prickle, and fall in the winter of their second year. 
The seeds should be sown in the spring and covered lightly, 
if at all. The seedlings are delicate and should always be 
protected from both wind and sun, 
The expression, “ Bearded with moss,” is more than a poet’s 
fancy. Tufts of gray moss are found abundantly on the 
trunks of all pines that grow in damp, close, northern woods, 
the thread is round and fine like a hair, and a bunch of 
the moss constantly suggests the gray beard of an old man. 
This moss plays an important part in the domestic life of the 
northern Indians, it is in this warm, soft substance that the 
Indian babies are packed for transportation on their cradle 
boards. A good Indian mother gathers it by the bushel, it is 
like linen for the tender flesh, it is soft, resinous, aseptic, 
porous, healthful; and the small brown baby swathed in moss 
may be quite as well off physically as his civilized neighbor 
clothed in flannel and linen. 
The economic value of the White Pine gives to its life 
history an interest which under other circumstances it might 
not have. It is clear that the commercial supply will soon 
be exhausted. The best pines of the northern states have 
already been cut, a few forest tracts still remain but they are 
in process of extinction. 
The White Pine has considerable vitality and has shown 
itself capable of taking possession of the abandoned lands of 
New England, where vigorous young forests are springing 
up on land worthless for any other crop. But it cannot 
come again on a tract that has been devastated by fire. 
448 
