THE SUGAR PINE. 



129 



THE GREATER TREES OF THE NORTHERN FOREST.— No. 4. 



THE SUGAR PINE {Pinus Lambertiand). 



This beautiful Pine was discovered in Oregon by the famous explorer, Douglas; 

 and no picture of exploration is more clear to one's imagination than that of 

 Douglas, in the great forests of Columbia, long before the American settle- 

 ment of Oregon or the conquest of California, coming upon this noble Pine 

 and carrying off specimens of the cones from among warlike Indians. It is 

 found on both the eastern and western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and north- 

 ward to the Columbia, at from 3,000 to 7,000 and sometimes 8,000 feet ; 

 also, though less frequently, on the highest portions of the coast range : but 

 it reaches its noblest proportions in some of the great timber districts of the 

 Californian Sierra on the western slopes, at from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. It is 

 one of the most striking trees of the wide Pine forest belt of the Pacific Coast, 

 and ranks among the five or six of the giant conifers of the world. Even in 

 California, with all its other enormous conifers, the opinion of mountaineers 

 who live in the land of great trees, as well as the botanists and Sierra-climbers 

 from our valleys, is that this Pine is quite worthy to hold its head up even in 

 the presence of the big tree Sequoia. 



As one rides along the narrow, rocky trails of the Sierra, up vast canons 

 and over ridges, from which for miles upon miles the grey granite, the wild 

 rivers, the snow peaks, the wide, dark forests stretch out against Alpine heights, 

 one comes now and then upon a group of a few Pines or single trees of these 

 that surpass in majesty the finest Pines of California. So clean and bright, so 

 tall, well shaped and great are their shafts, so light and graceful their crowns, 

 so bright and living is the colour of their far-distant masses of foliage, that the 

 effect seizes strongly on one's imagination and never quite passes away. Com- 

 pared with the Sugar Pine, the great western Yellow Pine (P. ponderosd) is an 

 unrefined plebian of a tree, and even the ancient, massive, well-buttressed shafts 

 and shaggy tops of the big tree Sequoia, more awe-striking in its mass, moves 

 the heart less to affection. 



How great a tree the Sugar Pine can become in its native home mere sta- 

 tistics hardly show. Trees have been measured that were 14, 16, 18, or even 

 20 feet in diameter and 300 feet or more in height. Such trees, if sound, con- 

 tain from 300,000 to 400,000 feet of useful timber and an enormous amount 

 of cordwood and waste ; but, fortunately, these great trees are extremely difficult 

 to handle, liable to break to fragments when felled, and therefore are generally 

 left to live out their stately lives. 



I have lately measured a Sugar Pine that was 1 2 feet in diameter measured 

 breast high, and could have been little less 20 feet higher. It stood a little 



apart, on a knoll in the forest, and the smooth shaft rose above surrounding 



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