' In our Southern
States pine-fat with resin is called lightwood, and is used for the
same purpose."
"That's an easy way of getting candles," said Clara.
"Easy, perhaps, compared with the trouble of moulding them," replied
Miss Harson, "but I do not think we should fancy either way of
preparing them."
"Is there anything to tell about the spruce tree?" asked Malcolm.
"It is too much like the fir," replied his governess, "to have any very
distinct character; but there are species here, known as the white and
black spruce, besides the hemlock."
But the children thought that hemlock was hemlock: how did it come to
be spruce?
"Because it has the family features--leaves solitary and very short;
cones pendulous, or hanging, with the scales thin at the edge; and the
fruit ripens in a single year. The hemlock-spruce, as it is sometimes
called, is, I think, the most beautiful of the family. 'It is
distinguished from all the other pines by the softness and delicacy of
its tufted foliage, from the spruce by its slender, tapering branchlets
and the smoothness of its limbs, and from the balsam-fir by its small
terminal cones, by the irregularity of its branches and the gracefulness
of its whole appearance.' The delicate green of the young trees forms a
rich mass of verdure, and at this season each twig has on the end a tuft
of new leaves yellowish-green in color and making a beautiful contrast
to the darker hue of last year's foliage.
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