IFOREST AND STREAM. 



165 



of me, every movement of Edith as she glided through the 

 figures of the dance, and noting with anger and bitterness 

 of spirit, every glance she bestowed upon others, when I 

 chanced to hear her name mentioned by some one near me. 



Now, during the dancing the poop-deck is occupied ex- 

 clusively by the chaperons and those unfortunate male 

 creatures who find their heels intractable. In the spanker 

 I recognized a middle-aged matron, the mother of two 

 young ladies dancing merrily below, and distant relative 

 or connection of my flame. 



"I suppose you know," she said to her companion, that 

 Edith is engaged to Lieutenant Hardtack. He proposed at 

 the picnic, and she accepted him, of course. Why his 

 father is a Baronet, with an income of £500 a year, and 

 if his six brothers die before him he will succeed to the title 

 and estate. The family are delighted, as they were afraid 

 Edith would throw herself away on a fellow who has been 

 paying her some attention. He's a printer, or an editor, or 

 something of that sort, and he used to send her books and 

 the most lovely wild-flowers, but of course he'll never have 

 anything, and Lieutenant Hardtack has £500 a year beside 

 his pay. 



I did not stop to hear more of the conversation, to which 

 I had been an involuntary, but of course a deeply interested 

 listener. Nor did I wait to claim my dance. A sadder 

 and a wiser man I hailed a boatman to row >me ashore. 

 Shortly after I left Halifax forever. I did not write to 

 Edith, and 



" Send her back her letters and give her hack her ring." 



1 had neither letters or ring to send or give. I did not 

 upbraid her, or have a stormy interview at parting. I never 

 saw her after that night. And that is "How I was jilted." 



Had the sea been smoother and the wind been less bois- 

 terous, I might have had a different story to tell, but that 

 is pure conjecture, and this is a narrative of facts. 



Chakles A. Pillsbury. 



cgS 



r aodlmid f Wmvn Mid %wdm. 



HEDGES AMD THEIR USES. 



No. VIII— The Pine Tree. (Pinus.) 

 Nat. Ord. (Cainfem.) 



•' Beneath the forest's shade I rest, 

 Whose branching pines rise dark and high, 



And hear the breezes of the west. 

 Among the threaded foliage high." 



Beyant. 



THE pines comprise one of the most important of the 

 genus evergreens, whether made use of as a standard 

 to adorn the lawn, a standard tree, or as a plant in the 

 hedge. The eye can scarcely rest upon a more enchanting 

 sight than the white pine in its native forest. This tree is 

 capable of withstanding the greatest extremes of cold 

 without the slightest injury. Growing even in the greatest 

 luxuriance in regions of ice, it lives and thrives with a per- 

 petual verdure.* 



Although a finely developed tree, and, we believe, a good 

 hedge plant, but few of the ten species growing in the Uni- 

 ted States have thus far been very extensively used for 

 hedges. The pine always presents the same cooling aspect 

 in summer and agreeable greenness m mid- winter. In many 

 of the snow-clad portions of the world, as Switzerland, the 

 high Alps, and even in Norway and other cold latitudes, 

 the pine is called the pet tree of the homestead. In Mex- 

 ico Humboldt says he "found them higher than any other- 

 tree," and Lieutenant Glennie describes them as growing in 

 "thick forests on the mountains of Popocatapetl as high as 

 12,693 feet, beyond which altitude vegetation ceases en- 

 tirely." 



The pine is a tree so well known to almost eveiy person 

 who lives in the United States that it would seem superflu- 

 ous to enter upon the minuter details of this interesting 

 tree. Yet there may be some men possessed of consider- 

 able information, too, who do not "know pines." To such 

 a few practical ideas may not be given in vain. Certainly 

 not if they would use this tree arboretically, or as a screen 

 hedge of larger dimensions. 



The leaves of the pine are^very peculiar, being linear, or 

 needle-shaped, and are always arrayed in little parcels of 

 from two to six, this number varying in the different spe- 

 cies. The great value of the pine in withstanding our se- 

 verest winters has made them a deservedly household tree. 

 In the New England towns and villages great pains and 

 care are frequently bestowed in the selection of pine plants 

 to adorn and beautify the green lawns about the home- 

 stead. One old farmhouse upon the hillside of one of our 

 New England villages affords an apt illustration of the util- 

 ity of setting a "green tree now and then." "I love," says 

 a modern writer, "to see the green boughs of the pine tree 

 waving in the breeze; the sound is so homelike. I love to 

 sec them as they bend to the slightest breath of air. They 

 look invitingly pleasant to me— they tell me of home. " 



When quite a lad this gentleman, a great lover of trees, 

 removed from the neighboring pine tree forest a great num- 

 ber of the small white pine plants in the winter, and set 

 them out in a circular belt around the base of a hill near 

 his now delightful home. He made one of the most beau- 

 tiful and permanent pine tree hedges I ever beheld, which 

 fully proves to my own mind the ease with which the white 

 pine, and other pines also, if judiciously used, can be made 

 into hedges. 

 The plan pursued by my friend was as follows, and the 



result warranted all his painstaking. He cut a small trench 







*Upon Mount Blanc pines grow within 2.800 feet of the line of eternal 

 snow in full vigor. 



all around the small pine plants to" be removed, leaving the 

 ball of earth to become frozen by the cold. These he re. 

 moved in winter to holes previously prepared for them, and 

 he has a beautiful hedge of the white pine ten feet wide 

 and ten feet broad at the base, without a single stem be- 

 ing denuded from this long circular belt. 



I have seen several belts of this kind of hedge all in 

 thrifty condition, and very even in their outline, growing 

 freely and evenly from their base to their terminal points. 

 The best manner is to give the plants all the room they 

 want in the row, and not to apply the shears too 

 much, if any. If the plants are selected and planted quite 

 near together in lines (say not over fourteen inches to two 

 feet apart) they will readily compact themselves into a thick 

 bushy row hedge, as they grow more slowly in this manner 

 than when standing alone as trees or in groups. This kind 

 of pine seems naturally adapted to bleak, windy localities, 

 and clings with great tenacity to its new locality when it 

 has acquired from two to three years' growth. It grows 

 well on the most silicious soils. Wc have seen them thriv- 

 ing heartily upon sand hills that would scarcely afford sus- 

 tenance for any other tree. 



We have heard it said that in several portions of Massa- 

 chusetts the lands were too poor to bear anything but pines. 

 Well, grow pines then, and you will in this manner be add- 

 ing to the wealth of the country. A fine white pine forest 

 is not only a beautiful but a very desirable object to be- 

 hold; there being both beauty and wealth in the invest- 

 ment. And these pine forests are yet to be planted and 

 tilled in great number, and if you have available land lying- 

 idle (of which many hundreds of acres may be found in 

 all our States) the best thing you can do is to seed the same 

 down to white pines. It will pay in the course of one gen- 

 eration, and if you do not live yourself to reap the benefit 

 of your plantation of pines, you can leave it as a heritage 

 to your sons. In our plea for the woodlands we shall urge 

 upon all who own lands they do not know what to do with 

 to consider well the claims of the times, the replacement of tlie 

 ancient forests. But our article is upon the hedge, and not 

 the woods, and we again return to our theme. 



If you have an abrupt, rocky side-hill, which j r ou would 

 cover with belts or groups of trees, you cannot choose a 

 better or more thrifty tree than the pine. In some States 

 of our Union the pine tree plants are used as belt lines with 

 good effect, and are really veiy valuable as orchard pro- 

 tections against the windy currents which frequently blow 

 quite strongly in certain directions. In one favorite local- 

 ity we recommended the planting of a pine tree barrier for 

 the protection of a fine orchard of thrifty young pear trees 

 of the dwarf kind. Some ten years ago the owner of this 

 pear orchard asked us, professionally, Avhat he should do 

 to preserve this fine orchard of his from the cold wintry 

 winds V Our answer was, plant a good sized barrier hedge, 

 say in three parallel lines, at equal distances in your field, 

 and you are all right. He was satisfied with our written 

 directions as to how to select plants, to make his trenches 

 out, and all the necessary treatment due the same for the 

 term of three years. He grumbled somewhat at paying us 

 for our written advice (a ten dollar bill) at that time, but he 

 has since confessed it to have been to him the "very best 

 investment of the whole season." He was wise in follow- 

 ing to the letter our directions, and has now one of the best 

 pear orchards to be found in the State. Were I to plant 

 out an orchard of dwarf pear trees upon an exposed situa- 

 tion — fiat land particularly — the first" thing I would do 

 would be to enclose it with an evergreen hedge barrier. 



Our evergreens are too much neglected, and have been 

 for years, but a change, for the better seems to have been 

 gradually coming over many of our States. 



Any one inclined to make an experiment with pine 

 hedge making upon a small scale can do so, and will find a 

 pleasure as well as profit in the same. Do not stop to con- 

 sider your time a failure, and that you will lose twenty per 

 cent, of your first planting. AVhat if you do ? Try again. 

 Select one hundred plants, and, after preparing your trench, 

 take up from the woods plants of one or two feet high, dig 

 carefully, and wdien planted as before instructed, mulch 

 and wait, and you can then tell your exact per centage of 

 loss. Do this, and inform us of your success. Every man 

 should try his hand at making a one hundred tree hedge, if 



no more. Ollipod Quill. 

 ^.*+. _ 



Fresh-blown Flowers in Winter.— The following di- 

 rections are indorsed by the Manufacturer and Builder: 

 "Choose some of the most powerful buds of the fhywers 

 you would preserve— such as are latest in blowing and 

 ready to open; cut them off with a pair of scissors, leaving 

 to each, if possible, a piece of the stem three inches long. 

 Cover the stem immediately with sealing wax; and when 

 the buds are a little shrunk and wrinkled, wrap each of 

 them up separately in a piece of paper, perfectly clean and 

 dry, and put them in a dry box or drawer, and they will 

 keep without corrupting. In winter, or any other time, 

 wdien you would have the flowers bloom, take the buds at 

 night and cut off the end of the stem sealed with wax, and 

 put them into water into which a little nitre or salt has 

 been diffused; and the next day you will have the pleasure 

 of seeing the buds open and expand themselves, and the 

 flowers display their most lovely colors and breathe their 

 agreeable odors." 



— -♦♦♦ 



—Some idea of the rate at which the forests of the North- 

 west are falling beneath the axe of the lumbermen, may be 

 gathered from the following: The total amount of lumber 

 run out of the Cass river, Michigan, this season, is about 

 80,000,000 feet; out of the Au Gres 60,000,000; out of the 

 Rifle booms 60,000,000, and out of the Saginaw river 



A PETRIFIED FOREST. 



IN Sonoma county, California, about eleven miles north 

 of Santa .Rosa, is a region known as "The Petrified 

 Forest," not, as most tourists expect to find it, a growth 

 of standing timber, but broken trunks and fragments of 

 trees scattered everywhere, which a correspondent of the 

 Alta Oalifornian thus describes : 



The guide first conducts you to what was once a "goodly 

 tree," but which is now a " solid rock," (the most conve- 

 nient, but not a very scientific name,) lying on the ground 

 and broken into several fragments. The circles of growth, 

 knots, cracks, decayed parts, nodes, and every other char- 

 acteristic of vegetation are quite distinctly perceptible. 

 This specimen is rather a small one, but a little higher up 

 you find others varying from three to ten feet in diameter 

 near the root. In each of these the signs of structure are 

 remarkably distinct and clear. Here you find a spur of a 

 root, a piece of a branch, a piece of bark, and again you 

 can see a fragment of charcoal petrified, and another not; 

 another made red from the intensity of the heat, and frag- 

 ments of every degree of petrification. You can find evi- 

 dences of sulphur in some fragments, but silica seems to be 

 the great agent of petrification. 



At the root of, one of the largest of the petrified trees I 

 found some of the bark imbedded in the volcanic tufa, 

 which was almost as "natural as fife." The tree itself was 

 one of the finest specimens of petrification, being ten feet in 

 diameter, almost as hard as adamant, and exhibiting all the 

 cracks and cranies and other irregularities of an old trunk; 

 yet by its side was this bark, soft and yielding to the touch. 



To the north of the tree region stand hills of volcanic 

 tufa, which extends down to and around every tree. This 

 is a kind of sand-stone, is soft, unaffected by fire, but easily 

 dissolved in water. The" whole region north and west, 

 forming a kind of semi-circle, is composed of this tufa. 

 The trees, with scarcely a single exception, lie prostrate, 

 almost clue north and south, showing that the force which 

 prostrated them acted in the same direction and possibly at 

 the same time. When the ^rees fell, they broke "right 

 short off," showing that they were petrified before the dis- 

 turbing force came into operation. I would also hazard 

 the conjecture that the trees were nude, hard and dry before 

 petrifaction began. This is evidenced by the fact that they 

 bear every sign of old age, being full of cracks, and show- 

 ing a good quantity of what must have been decayed sap 

 of the last year's growth. The trees belong to the common 

 species of redwood, a few of which are still to be seen 

 growing in the tufa, and in a good healthy condition. It is 

 worthy of mention that one fragment shows indications of 

 having been cut with some instrument. 



This petrified forest has doubtless been known to the 

 old trappers and mountain men for many years, they having 

 frequently encountered it on their horse stealing raids to 

 the California missions. It is unquestionably referred to 

 in Ruxton's Life in the far West, published in 1855, on page 

 17, Avhere an old hunter narrates his experience in the lingo 

 peculiar to his class : 



One day we crossed a "canon" and over a "divide," and 

 got into a peraira, whar w r as green grass, and green trees, 

 and green leaves on the trees, and hires singing in the green 

 leaves, and this in Febrary, wagh. Our animals was like 

 to die when they see the green grass, and w^e all sung out, 

 "hurraw for summer doins." 



"Hyar goes for meat," says I, and I jest ups old Ginger 

 at one of them singing birds, and down come the critter 

 elegant; its darned head spinning away from the body, but 

 never stops singing, and wdien I takes up the meat I finds 

 it stone, wagh. "Hyar's damp powder and no fire to dry 

 it," I says, quite sheared. 



"Fire be dogged," says old Rube. "Hyar's a hos as'll 

 make fire come;" and with that he takes his ax and let's 

 it drive at a cotton wood. Schr-u-k — goes the ax agin the 

 tree, and out comes a bit of the blade as big as my hand. 

 Wedooks at the animals, and thar they stood shaking over 

 the grass, which I'm dog-gone if it wasn't stone, too 

 Young Sublette comes up, and he'd been clerking down to 

 the fort on Platte, so he know'd something. He looks and 

 looks, and scrapes the trees with his butcher knife, and 

 snaps the grass like pipe stems, and breaks the leaves 

 a snappin' like Caiifomy shells. 



.<*«> 



— Certain facts have been made known that show that 

 lime is a good preserver of timber. Ships and barges used 

 for the transport of lime last longer than others, A small 

 coasting schooner, laden with lime was cast ashore and 

 sunk. She was raised and set afloat once more and re- 

 mained sound for thirty years. Again, a platform of nine 

 planks was used to mix mortar on during three generations, 

 and then being no longer required, was neglected, and at 

 length hidden by the grass that grew over it. Sixty years 

 afterwards,- on clearing the ground, it w r as discovered sound 

 and well preserved. 



*+*-»~ — 



Famous Trees. — Individual trees planted by famous 

 men are still to be seen by the pilgrims who visit their 

 homes and haunts. In the last century, there was quite a 

 fashion for planting willows. It is said that the first weep- 

 ing-willow seen in England was sent to the poet Pope, as a 

 present, from Turkey," by his friend Lady Mary Wortely 

 Montagu, and planted by him in his garden at Twicken- 

 ham. It is the famous Salix Babylonica of the Psalter, upon 

 which, on the banks of Euphrates, the weeping daughters 

 of Jerusalem hung their harps. Garriek planted two wil- 

 lows on his lawn beside his Shakspeare Temple; in the 

 midst of a thunder-storm, which destroyed one of them, the 

 pious and devoted widow of the graat actor was seen 

 running up and dowm excitedly, crying out, "Oh, -my Gar- 

 rick! Oh, my Garriek!" The wiliow T known as Dr. John- 

 son's willow, at Litchfield, was blown down long ago: 

 it was said in the Gardener's Magazine to have been planted 

 by him, but it is more probable that his admiration and 

 talk of it developed the legend of his planting it. At the 

 time of its destruction, it w r as thirteen feet in girth. Pieces 

 of household furniture and snuff-boxes were made of it ; 

 and slips from it were planted by his admirers throughout 

 the neighboring country; an offset of the old tree was plant- 

 ed on the same site. Thomas Moore tells us that, when 

 Byron first w T ent to Newstead Abbey from Aberdeen, at the 

 age o*f ten, he planted a young oak in some part of the 

 grounds. He had a notion, or thought he had, that, as it 

 flourished, so should he. Six or seven years later, on re- 

 visiting the spot, he found his oak choked up with weeds, 

 ,3 -1 — "■j a * — ' 



