"
[Illustration: THE WHITE PINE.]
"The white pine," said Miss Harson, "is one of the loftiest and most
valuable of North American trees. Its top can be seen at a great
distance, looking like a spire as it towers above the heads of the trees
around it. You see that it has widespread branches and silken-looking,
tufted foliage. The leaves are in fives and not so stiff as those of the
other pines, and you will notice that the branches are in whorls, like a
series of stages one above another. The foliage has a tasseled effect
with those long silky tufts at the ends of the branches, and the whole
outline of the tree is very pleasing."
"This isn't a pine tree, is it?" asked Malcolm, touching a small tree
with very slender branches, some of them as slight as willow-withes and
covered with grayish-red bark, while that on the main stem was
bluish gray.
[Illustration: THE LARCH.]
"It is a species of pine," was the reply, "because it belongs to the
Coniferae, or cone-producing, family; but it is not an evergreen,
although it ranks as such. This is the larch--generally called in New
England by its Indian name of _hacmatack_--and it differs from the other
pines in its crowded tufts of leaves, which, after turning to a soft
leather-color, fall, in New England, early in November. The cones, too,
are very small."
"What's the use of cones, any way?" asked Malcolm as he picked up some
very large ones under the white and pitch pines.
"Their principal use," replied his governess, "is to contain the seeds
of future trees: they are the fruit of the pine; but they have a number
of uses besides, which you shall hear about this evening.
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