I. 2. THE HEMLOCK. 79 
cated with green, fleshy scales, within each of which are two 
raised points, making an opening downwards to a cavity con- 
taining the rudiments of the future seed. Without, is a small, 
jagged, thin scale. 
The cones are elliptical and pointed, of a light brown color, 
three-quarters of an inch long, and three-eighths broad, set upon 
the extremities of the smallest branches, and pendent on a short 
footstalk larger than the branchlet, of which it is the end. 
They consist of about twenty-five to thirty-five entire scales, 
rounded at the edge, the central ones protecting each two small 
seeds, which are furnished with wings in size and shape not 
unlike those of a common fly. ‘The cones are mature in the 
autumn, and shed their seeds then and during the winter. 
The hemlock is said by Pursh to extend to the most northern 
regions in Canada, and was found by Mr. Menzies in North- 
west America; it is found in every part of this State, on almost 
every variety of soil. It flourishes in the ruins of granitic rocks, 
on the sides of hills exposed to the violence of the storms. As 
it bears pruning to almost any degree, without suffering injury, 
it is well suited to form screens for the protection of more ten- 
der trees and plants, or for concealing disagreeable objects. 
By beimg planted in double or triple rows, it may, in a few 
years, be made to assume the appearance of an impenetrable, 
evergreen wall,—really impenetrable to the wind and to domes- 
tic animals. A hedge of this kind, seven or eight feet high, on 
a bleak, barren plain exposed to the northwest winds, gave 
Dr. Greene of Mansfield a warm, sunny, sheltered spot for the 
cultivation of delicate annual plants. When I saw it, the an- 
nuals, several of which were rare exotics, were beautiful, but 
the hemlock screen was much more so. 
The hemlock is at first of slow growth, and the delicate 
drooping plant looks, for two or three years, as if the sun or the 
wind would inevitably destroy it. Unprotected and single, it 
should never be exposed to their influence. In three or four 
years it lifts up its head, and at last grows, in favorable situa- 
tions, with great rapidity. Several trees at the Botanic Garden, 
which, in 1841, had been thirty-one years planted, showed, on 
careful measurement, an average growth of fourteen inches 
