branches maintaining sturdy, milk-white 
branchlets, proudly erect, and bearing aloft 
their condensed fascicles of shortened, thick¬ 
ened leaves, half concealing the abbreviated, 
hardened cones, they strongly appeal to sensi¬ 
tive souls for sympathy. 
It is interesting to note in this connection 
that of all the forest trees, of whatever class 
or family, on the face of the earth; of all the 
cone-bearing trees so bountifully bestowed 
upon California, it is the pine that is en¬ 
dowed with a constitution sufficiently hardy 
and with organs sufficiently pliable to meet 
alike the rigorous requirements of existence 
upon the bleak, inhospitable shores of Alaska 
and the similarly storm-beaten, but two-miles 
higher peaks of the Sierra. 
Imprisoned in ice and snow for the greater 
part of the year, the White-stem Pine only has 
time to breathe, when, for a few weeks, the 
midsummer sun melts the snow banks, re¬ 
vealing the icicle-decorated heroes uplifting 
their white-staffed scepters, bright with royal 
purple gems, as who should say: “We are the 
strongest trees on earth, the highest expres¬ 
sion of arboreal existence, the crown of the 
world's forests ! Leaving relatives behind eons 
ago, through ages of strenuous endeavor, and 
despite the rigid repression of the elements, 
we have battled for this exalted throne. We 
alone above the worthy and titled individuals 
of the celebrated forests below are privileged 
to stand before kings; the heaven-piercing 
pinnacles of the High Sierra only, are loftier 
than we-” 
