Getting Acquainted with the Trees

by J. Horace McFarland

Any one who has traveled south of Virginia, even by the Pullman way of not seeing, cannot fail to have noted the lovely green leaf-fountains springing up from the ground along the railroads. These are the young trees of the long-leaved or Southern yellow pine. How beautiful they are, these narrow leaves of vivid green, more than a foot long, drooping gracefully from the center outward, with none of the stiffness of our Northern species! In some places they seem to fairly bubble in green from all the surface of the ground, so close are they. And the grand long-leaved pine itself, maintained in lusty vigor above these greeneries, is a tree of simple dignity, emphasized strongly when seen at its best either in the uncut forest, or in a planted avenue. We of the North are helping to ruin the next generation of Southern pines by lavish use, for decorations, of the young trees of about two feet high, crowded with the long drooping emerald needles. The little cut-off pine lasts a week or two, in a parlor—it took four or five years to grow!

All pine-cones are interesting, and there is a great variation between the different species. The scrub-pine one sees along the railroads between New York and Philadelphia has rather stubby cones, while the pitch-pine, beloved of the fireplace for its "light-knots," has a somewhat pear-shaped and gracefully disposed cone. A most peculiar cone is that of a variety of the Norway pine, which, among other species brought from Europe, is valued for ornament. The common jack-pine of the Middle States hillsides wears symmetrical and handsome cones with dignity. Cones are, of course, the fruits or seed-holders of the pine, but the seeds themselves are found at the base of the scales, or parts of the cones, attached in pairs. Each cone, like an apple, has in its care a number of seeds, which it guards against various dangers until a kindly soil encourages the rather slow germination characteristic of the order.

The nurserymen have imported many pines from Europe, which give pleasing variety to our ornamental plantings, and aid in enriching the winter coloring. The Austrian pine and the Scotch pine are welcome additions to our own pine family. In these days of economic chemistry and a deficient rag supply, every reader of these words is probably in close proximity to an important spruce product—paper. The manufacturers say, with hand on heart, that they do not use much wood pulp, but when one has passed a great paper-mill flanked on all sides by piles of spruce logs, with no bales of rags in sight anywhere, he is tempted to think otherwise! Modern forestry is now planting trees on waste lands for the pulp "crop," and the common poplar is coming in to relieve the spruces.

Beautiful trees are these spruces and firs, either in the forest or when brought by the planter to his home grounds. The leaves are much shorter than those of most pines, and clothe the twigs closely. There is a vast variety in color, too, from the wonderful whitish or "glaucous" blue of the Colorado blue spruce, to the deep shining green of Nordmann's fir, a splendid introduction from the Caucasus. Look at them, glistening in the winter sun, or drooping with the clinging snow; walk in a spruce wood, inhaling the bracing balsamic fragrance which seems so kindly to the lungs; hark to the music of the wind in their tops, telling of health and purity, of God's love and provision for man's mind and heart, and you will begin to know the song of the firs. To really hear this grand symphony, for such it then becomes, you must listen to the wind playing on the tops of a great primeval coniferous forest, of scores and hundreds of acres or miles in extent. And even then, many visits are needed, for there are movements to this symphony—the allegro of the gale, the scherzo of the easy morning breeze, the deep adagio of a rain-storm, and the andante of warm days and summer breezes, when you may repose prone upon a soft carpet of pine needles, every sense made alert, yet soothed, by the master-theme you are hearing.

An avenue of white pines

There is a little wood of thick young pines, interspersed with hard maple and an occasional birch, close by the lake of the Eagles, where my summers are made happy. The closeness of the pines has caused their lower branches to die, as always in the deep forest, and the falling needles, year by year, have deepened the soft brown carpet that covers the forest floor. Some one, years ago, struck by the aisles that the straight trunks mark out so clearly, called this the "Cathedral Woods." The name seems appropriate at all times, but especially when, on a warm Sunday afternoon, I lie at ease on the aromatic carpet, hearing the soft organ tones in the pine tops, and drinking in God's forest message.

I have visited these pine woods at midnight, when a full moon, making brilliant the near-by lake, gave but a ghostly gloom in the deep, deep silence of the Cathedral; but, more impressive, I have often trodden through in a white fog, when the distance was misty and dim, and the aisles seemed longer and higher, and to lead one further away from the trifles of temper and trial. Indeed, I do not believe that any one who has but once fully received from the deep forest that which it gives out so freely and constantly can ever think of things trivial, or of minor annoyances, while again within its soothing portals.

But of the trees of the forest of pine and spruce it must be noted that sometimes the deepest, glossiest green of the leaves as presented to the eye only hides the dainty, white-lined interior surface of those same leaves. To the outside, a somber dignity, unassailable, untouched by frost or sun, protective, defenseful, as nature often appears to the careless observer; but inside is light, softly reflected, revealing unsuspected delicacies of structure and finish.