I. 1. THE WHITE PINE. 63 
autumn, they are mature, when they are from four to six inches 
long. 
The male flowers are in brown cones, 3-Sths of an inch long 
by 1-8th broad, on short stalks, surrounded by scales, occupy- 
ing, to the number of twenty or more, half an inch of the base 
of some of the new shoots on the extremities of the lower 
branches. The pollen is contamed in numerous, anther-lke 
double sacks, opening on each side from top to bottom. 
The geographical range of the white pme is from the Sas- 
katchawan, in about 54° north, to Georgia, where it is found 
only on the ridges of the Alleghany Mountains; and from Nova 
Scotia to the Rocky Mountains; and beyond, from the sources 
of the Columbia to Mount Hood. It occurs in every part of 
New England; growing in every variety of soil, but flourishing 
best in a deep, moist soil of loamy sand. 
The white pines receive different names, according to their 
mode of growth and the appearance of the wood. When grow- 
ing densely in deep and damp old forests, with only a few 
branches near the top, the slowly-grown wood 1s perfectly clear 
and soft, destitute of resin, and almost without sap-wood, and 
has a yellowish color, hke the flesh of the pumpkin. It 1s then 
called pumpkin pine. Standing nearly by itself, or surrounded 
by deciduous trees, especially on the boundaries between high 
lands and swamps, it grows rapidly, is usually full of knots 
and resin, has much sap-wood, and thence receives the name of 
sapling pine. Bull sapling resembles the pumpkin pine in all 
respects save the color of the wood, which is a clear white. 
These names are little used, except in Maine, and by persons 
who import wood from that State. 
The roots of the white pine are almost incorruptible. In 
clearing up new lands, where the trees have been felled or 
blown down, the stumps with the roots are often taken up and 
used to make a fence by setting the under surface of the roots, 
to form the outside, towards the road. E’ences so made, exhibit, 
after a hundred years, few signs of decay. 
The branches, taken from the tree when they are beginning 
to die, form somewhat durable stakes; while the trunks of small 
trees used in this way decay very rapidly. 
