CHAPTER I.
The Pines.--White Pines: rank claimed for this Variety.-- Predilections.--Comparison instituted.--Pitch and Norway Pines. --White Pine.--Magnitude.--New York Pines.--Lambert's Pine on Northwest Coast.--Varieties.--Its Rank.--Great variety of purposes to which it is devoted.--Great Pine near Jackson Lake.--Capital Invested.--Hands employed on the Penobscot.
After the foregoing brief notice of some of the most interesting trees, we come at length to consider that species which constitutes the theme of the following pages.
The PINE has been appropriately called the Monarch of the Forest. Taken all in all, it is the crowning master-piece of all woody plants. This avowal is made in full view of what has been said respecting other specimens of the vegetable kingdom. From early education, we are accustomed to regard some things as before others in point of merit, whether truth in the case would support our notions or not.
For trees we have our preferences. There is much of interest in every development of nature--much to admire, especially in the grandeur, the picturesque beauty, and sublimity of large forest trees. These things are so clearly defined in the mind of the botanist--so many excellencies does he discover in each genus, and every species of the respective families, that each succeeding description seems to place the last before every preceding one.
Mankind, pretty generally, are disposed to place the Oak at the head of the vegetable kingdom, and it is crowned monarch of the forest.
I was reared among the noble Pines of Maine, nestled in my cradle beneath their giant forms, and often has the sighing wind made music that has calmed me to repose as it gently played through their tasseled boughs. Often have I been filled with awe as I gazed upon their massive trunks and raised my eye to their cloud-swept tops.
When a child, even, I could never read the following eulogy on the Oak without a fit of jealousy:
"The Oak for grandeur, strength, and noble size Excels all trees which in the forest grow."
Of the truth of this sentiment I could never feel persuaded; in fact, in only one particular is this true. In strength the Oak excels, but in towering grandeur and massive diameter the Pine far exceeds the Oak, and indeed all other North American trees. Properly there are but three species of the Pine. 1. The White Pine. 2. Pitch Pine. 3. The Norway, or Red Pine, as it is sometimes called.[5] The Red Pine is remarkable for its tall trunk; it sometimes rises eighty feet before it puts out a limb. I recollect cutting one on the Mattawamkeag River, which disembogues into the Penobscot, eighty-two feet before reaching a limb. They are sometimes found one hundred feet in height and four feet in diameter.
[5] "With very few exceptions, the Pines are monoecious (having the male and female flowers on the same tree). The yellow pollen, which is very abundant, often falls in such quantities upon the branches and leaves below, and upon the neighboring plants, as to cover them; and being as light and fine as dust, it has been sometimes carried by the wind from a forest of Pines and spread upon the ground at a great distance. This affords a probable explanation of the stories which have been told, and which have been regarded with superstition or incredulity, of showers of sulphur."
Lambert, describing the common Scotch Fir, says, "The pollen is sometimes in spring carried away by the wind in such quantities as to alarm the ignorant with the notion of its raining brimstone."
The Pitch Pine is inferior to the red in size. The largest measurements I have ever seen give to one a diameter of two and a half feet, and ninety feet height; to another a girth of seven feet at the ground, and eighty feet height. This Pine is chiefly valued for the excellence of its fuel; and for generating steam in working engines it is preferable to any other wood.[6] Formerly, in some parts of the country, it was found much larger than it now is. "Men are living in Massachusetts and Maine who remember that it was not uncommon to find them of more than a hundred feet in height and four or five feet in diameter."
[6] The amount of this wood annually consumed on the rail-roads in Massachusetts is valued at $200,000.
At present the White Pine is altogether the most important of the species. In New England, particularly in the northern part, it is often found to measure one hundred and fifty feet in height.
It is said that not many years since pines were found in the eastern part of New York which measured two hundred and forty feet in height. "Lambert's Pine, on the Northwest Coast, is found growing to the height of two hundred and thirty feet, and Douglas's Pine, in the same region, the loftiest tree known, has been said to exceed three hundred feet." The traveler quoted above describes one of the following dimensions: "One specimen, which had been blown down by the wind--and this was certainly not the largest which I saw--was of the following dimensions: its entire length was two hundred and fifteen feet; its circumference, three feet from the ground, was fifty-seven feet nine inches (nineteen feet three inches in diameter); and at one hundred and thirty-four feet from the ground it was seventeen feet five inches" in circumference, or about six feet in diameter.[7]
[7] Since writing the above, the following account has come to hand: "The Bald Cypress of Oaxana (_Taxodium distichum_) and the famous Chestnut of Ætna have been often cited as the giants of the vegetable kingdom. But these sovereigns are dethroned, and put into the second rank by those lately discovered in Tasmania, which leave far behind them those antique monuments of nature. Last week I went to see the two largest trees existing in the world. Both of them are on the border of a small stream tributary to the river of Northwest Bay, in the rear of Mount Wellington. They are of the species named there Swamp Gum; I and my companions (five of us) measured them. One of them had fallen; we therefore easily obtained its dimensions. We found its body two hundred and twenty feet from the ground to the first branch. The top had broken off and partly decayed, but we ascertained the entire height of the tree to have been certainly three hundred feet. We found the diameter of the base of it to be thirty feet, and at the first branch twelve feet. Its weight we estimated to be four hundred and forty tons. The other tree, now growing without the least sign of decay, resembles an immense tower rising among the humble Sassafras-trees, although very large in fact. The Gum-tree at three feet above the ground measured one hundred and two feet in circumference. In the space of a square mile, I think there were not less than one hundred of these trees, none less than forty feet in circumference. It must require several thousand years to produce the largest one."--_Revue Horticole._
In Doctor Dwight's Travels we have an account of a tree in Lancaster, New Hampshire, which measured two hundred and sixty-four feet in length. "Fifty years ago, several trees growing on rather dry land in Blandford, measured, after they were felled, more than thirteen rods and a half, or two hundred and twenty-three feet in length."
I have worked in the forests among this timber several years, have cut many hundreds of trees, and seen many thousands, but have never found one larger than the one I felled on a little stream which emptied into Jackson Lake, near the head of Baskahegan stream, in the eastern part of Maine. This was a "Pumpkin" Pine; its trunk was as straight and handsomely grown as a molded candle, and measured six feet in diameter four feet from the ground, without the aid of spur roots. It was about nine rods in length, or one hundred and forty-four feet, about sixty-five feet of which was free of limbs, and retained its diameter remarkably well. I was employed about one hour and a quarter in felling it. The afternoon was beautiful; every thing was calm, and to me the circumstances were deeply interesting. After chopping an hour or so, the mighty giant, the growth of centuries, which had withstood the hurricane, and raised itself in peerless majesty above all around, began to tremble under the strokes of a mere insect, as I might appear in comparison with it. My heart palpitated as I occasionally raised my eye to its pinnacle to catch the first indications of its fall. It came down at length with a crash which seemed to shake a hundred acres, while the loud echo rang through the forest, dying away among the distant hills. It had a hollow in the butt about the size of a barrel, and the surface of the stump was sufficiently capacious to allow a yoke of oxen to stand upon it. It made five logs, and loaded a six-ox team three times. The butt log was so large that the stream did not float it in the spring, and when the drive was taken down we were obliged to leave it behind, much to our regret and loss. At the boom that log would have been worth fifty dollars.
Of the White Pine there are varieties, which by some are attributed to peculiar characteristics of the various locations in which they grow. That variety called sapling Pine, bull sapling, &c., usually grows on high, hard-wood land, or a mixture of evergreens and deciduous trees; particularly on the boundaries which mark damp, low forests and the lower border of ridges. The pumpkin Pine is generally found on flat land and in ravines; also on abrupt ridges, called horsebacks, where the forest is dense.
The sap or outside of the sapling Pine is much thicker than that of the pumpkin Pine. I have seen it more than six inches thick on the former, and less than half an inch on the latter. This difference is accounted for by the rapidity with which the sapling grows, and the tardiness with which the swamp Pine matures, which, as before intimated, is to be attributed to the difference in their location.
Of course, we must yield to the opinions of learned botanists; but while they maintain that these two are simply varieties of the same species, the proof seems insufficient to convince many whose daily occupation renders them most familiar with forest trees. If the difference is only attributable to soil and position, then we may reply that we have found the sapling in all possible locations. Besides, there are marked distinctions. The general contour differs much. The size, number, and position of the branches, the shape of the trunk, the toughness of the wood in the sapling, and the softness of that of the pumpkin Pine, all indicate a specific and essential difference. We have seen whole groves of saplings on low, swampy land. The same number of saplings are generally much sounder than an equal number of soft Pine.
The soft Pine-tree holds its diameter to a much greater length than the sapling. I have seen a log of the former twenty feet long, differing not more than an inch and a half in diameter at either end. In a sapling log of the same length there would be a difference of several inches.
There is one circumstance in the habits of this Pine worthy of note. As a general thing, they grow in clusters or communities. Indeed, this is a common characteristic of the Hemlock, the Cedar, and the Hackmatack.
But there is, however, a sort of nationality in the local attitude of the latter. While the Pines, growing in clusters, seem to constitute the aristocracy--families of nobility--the rest of the forest seems to make up the populace; and I may add, that backwoodsmen are accustomed to pay them the same deferential regard above other gentlemen foresters which is awarded to superiors in human society. Indeed, the Pine has claims upon our regard, not only on account of its unequaled dimensions, but "from the importance of its products in naval, and especially in civil and domestic architecture, in many of the arts, and in some instances in medicine."
"As it affords timber and boards of a greater size than any other soft-wooded tree, and is lighter and more free from knots, it is used in preference for the masts of ships, for the large beams, posts, and covering of wooden buildings, and for the frame-work of houses and bridges, as well as for clap-boards and shingles. The clearness, softness, and beauty of this wood recommend it for the panels and frames of doors, for wainscotings, for the frames of windows, for cornices and moldings, and for all the uses of the joiner. As it receives paint perfectly, it is employed for floors which are to be painted. Varnished without paint, it gradually takes a yellowish or light reddish color, and has considerable beauty. It is excellent for the carver in wood, and is used for the figure-heads of vessels; and as it takes gilding well, it is preferred for the frames of looking-glasses and pictures."
Its importance may be estimated, also, from the vast amount of employment it furnishes and the revenue it produces. Its history is full of interest from the hour it leaves the stump in the forest, through the various processes it passes until taken from the hold of the ship and piled away upon our market piers. The amount of employment it furnishes to lumbermen, mill-men, rafters, coasters, truckmen, merchants, and mechanics, exceeds that furnished by any other single product in Maine or the province of New Brunswick. On the Penobscot alone there are said to be ten thousand men engaged in lumbering.