Pine grove

“ We had to cross gravel patches and pits where avalanches had slid, and at last, gaining the bench we went through the pine grove, out to a manzanita thicket, to a rocky point where the ledges were toppling and dangerous. The stand here afforded a magnificent view. We were now down in the thick of this sloped and canyoned and timbered wildness; no longer above it, and aloof from it. The dry smell of pine filled the air. When we finally halted to listen we at once heard the baying of the hounds in the black notch below us. We watched and listened. ”

“ But the winds go to every tree, fingering every leaf and branch and furrowed hole; not one is forgotten: the Mountain Pine towering with outstretched arms on the rugged buttresses of the icy peaks, the lowliest and most retiring tenant of the dells—they seek and find them all, caressing them tenderly, bending them in lusty exercise, stimulating their growth, plucking off a leaf or limb as required, or removing an entire tree or grove, now whispering and cooing through the branches like a sleepy child, now roaring like the ocean ”

“ To most people a grove is a grove, and all groves are alike. But no two groves are alike. There is as marked a difference between different forests as between different communities. A grove of pines without underbrush, carpeted with the fine-fingered russet leaves of the pine, and odorous of resinous gums, has scarcely a trace of likeness to a maple woods, either in the insects, the birds, the shrubs, the light and shade, or the sound of its leaves. ”

“ A grove of oak and maple came almost to the water's edge, and within it a number of barrack-like structures of clean yellow pine were taking shape and substance. The odor of the pine mingled with the earthy smells of the grove; now and then a little pile of sawdust was taken swirlingly by the breeze, and here and there a long, fresh shaving was seen caught upon the prickly branches of some June rose. ”

“ That of the pine will always be dry, as it is the peculiar quality of its leaves to imbibe moisture: but in lightness, variety, and general beauty, that of deciduous trees excels. If, however, you wish your grove to be in the gloomy style, the pine race will serve your purpose best.
The open grove rarely makes a picturesque [034] appearance. It may, indeed, have the effect of other woods in distant scenery; for the trees of which it is formed need not be separated from each other, as in the copse, but, being well massed together, may receive beautiful effects of light. ”

“ It was more like a grove,–a vast grove of primeval pines. Into the shadow of this wood she entered, then stopped, and gazed about. Such trees she had never seen,–an endless vista of gigantic trunks, like the columns of a mighty cathedral, all towering to a vault of green, far above her head. And this effect of an interior–of some boundless temple–was augmented by the smooth, brown floor,–a carpet of pine-needles. With upturned face and half-closed eyes the girl drew a long deep breath. The fragrance of the pines, the sighing of the wind through the canopy above, all were soothing to the senses ”

“ There is nothing like a grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter and an air of coolness in summer, so does the slightest breeze make the pine-needles swish like the freshening sea. But to this scene, where pines made a friendly background, there were added oak, ash, and hickory trees, though in less quantity on the side of the river where were Jean Jacques Barbille's house and mills. ”

“ Fortunately, these gigantic soft pines belong to the high Sierras and do not go down to the sea, where lumbermen could sacrifice them without effort. Nature has fenced them in by many barriers, and the government, by reservation in national parks, insures the preservation of some of the finest sugar pine groves, for the use and inspiration of all the people. ”

“ There are shops, indeed, and a principal street, but they are so mixed up with the pines and so divided, one from the other, that they do not give an impression of town life at all, and one easily imagines oneself to be in the depths of the country. The pines are the fetishes of Bournemouth. You breathe in their healing balsam, you bathe in pine juice and sleep on pine pillows. You walk in pine groves, and sit on furniture made exclusively of pine and, when you die, you are laid under the shade of the pines. I don’t doubt the fact that pines are healthy in moderation, but they are monotonous. ”

“ Coming at last to the rim of the forest, you look out over the sea, where go lumber-laden ships to all the world. Close by the beach, dwarfed and distorted by winds of the ocean, and nourished by its fogs, north-coast pine (Pinus contorta) extends its prostrate forms over the cliffs and dunes of the shore, just as your first acquaintance, the white-bark pine, spreads over the dunes and ridges of the mountain. They are brothers of a noble race. ”

“ Summit behind summit rise its pyramidal ranges, or down to the very grass sweep the circlets of its boughs; so that there is nothing but green cone and green carpet. Nor is it only softer, but in one sense more cheerful than other foliage; for it casts only a pyramidal shadow. Lowland forest arches overhead, and chequers the ground with darkness; but the pine, growing in scattered groups, leaves the glades between emerald-bright. Its gloom is all its own; narrowing into the sky, it lets the sunshine strike down to the dew. ”

“ Unlike the tall, straight, naked trunks of the pines of the forest, those of the plains are adorned with branches often to the very ground, varying in form and height, and often presenting most picturesque groups, or rising singly among scattered groves of the silver-barked poplar or graceful birch-trees; the dark, mossy greenness of the stately pine contrasting finely with the light waving foliage of its slender graceful companions. ”

“ The bravest species go out into the desert. Almost as brave are those which survive the smoke and dust of cities like Pittsburg and St. Louis, though theirs is a losing fight with sulphurous fumes and cramped root space in the smoky town. As shelter belts, as wind-breaks, as shade and ornamental trees, there are pines in cultivation in all parts of the country, their winter usefulness and beauty making them universally the choice of home-makers, rich and poor.
By-products of pine wood are chiefly turpentine, pitch, resin, and oil, derived from the resinous sap. ”

“ They have long grey beards, hairy, twisted mosses hanging from bough to bough. Well polished and dripping with balsam is the silvery, shimmering pine. But in the rough, furrowed, knotted bark of the larch-tree, with the mysterious signs and innumerable scars, is engraved the whole world's legend, from that day when the exiled murderer Cain rested for the first time under the wild interwoven branches of the larch, up to the hour when another, also homeless, inhales the perfume of the tender, light-green needles.
It is dark, as in a Gothic temple; the pine-forest builds the pointed arch. ”

“ One knows, of course, the tips of tender green that come with May and turn a pine wood into a sea of bewildering beauty. But, though deciduous, one is never aware that anything is lost; its branches never thin; it puts out, properly speaking, no buds. And the monotony of a pine forest is merely a defect of its great quality of constancy. In summer its shade is deeper, its recesses more cool than those of other woods; and in winter, just when most trees are leafless and unable to fight, it bears the full weight of the snow and meets the whole force of the destroying winds. ”

“ From the river the slopes shoot skyward in one grand sweep—abrupt, unbroken, well-nigh precipitous. Pine forests, their dark-green featheriness looking at that height like a different growth of grass upon the lighter hue of the pastures—huge rocks and boulders lying in heaped-up profusion even as when first hurled from the mountain-side above, seeming mere pebble heaps—châlets, too, in brown groups like toy chocolate houses or standing alone perched on some dizzy eyrie among their tiny patches of yellow cornland—all testify to the stupendous vastness of Nature’s scale. ”

“ Many varieties of the red, yellow, and pitch pine, intermingled with the graceful larch, the picturesque beech and maple, birch, elm, oak, and numerous other tribes of forest timber, grow down close to the water’s side, spreading in stately grandeur over the broad plains, or stretching proudly up to the summits of the mountains that descend precipitously to the river. In summer the bright and cheerful green of the forests is exceedingly beautiful and refreshing to the eye, the dark pines alone forming a sombre contrast to the vivid freshness of the deciduous trees ”

“ Scarcely a peak or ridge in the whole region rises bare above the forests, though they are thinly planted in some places where the soil is shallow. From the cool breezy heights you look abroad over a boundless waving sea of evergreens, covering hill and ridge and smooth-flowing slope as far as the eye can reach, and filling every hollow and down-plunging ravine in glorious triumphant exuberance.
Perhaps the best general view of the pine forests of the park, and one of the best in the range, is obtained from the top of the Merced and Tuolumne divide near Hazel Green. ”

“ In the million acre Black Hills Reserve of South Dakota, the easternmost of the great forest reserves, made for the sake of the farmers and miners, there are delightful, reviving sauntering-grounds in open parks of yellow pine, planted well apart, allowing plenty of sunshine to warm the ground. This tree is one of the most variable and most widely distributed of American pines. It grows sturdily on all kinds of soil and rocks, and, protected by a mail of thick bark, defies frost and fire and disease alike, daring every danger in firm, calm beauty and strength. ”

“ Nothing can be more cheerful in scenery than the occasional groups of Pines which have come up spontaneously on the bald hills near our coast, elsewhere a dreary waste of gray rocks, stunted shrubbery, and prostrate Juniper. In the forest the White Pine constitutes the very sanctuary of Nature, its tall pillars extending into the clouds, and its broad canopy of foliage mixing with the vapors that descend in the storm. ”

“ With this plant the whole world would seem rich though none other existed. It is not easy to keep on with the camp cloud while such plant people are standing preaching by the wayside.
During the afternoon we passed a fine meadow bounded by stately pines, mostly the arrowy yellow pine, with here and there a noble sugar pine, its feathery arms outspread above the spires of its companion species in marked contrast; a glorious tree, its cones fifteen to twenty inches long, swinging like tassels at the ends of the branches with superb ornamental effect. ”

“ Up from the sea the scrub pine climbs, ascending the Coast Ranges and western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, changing its habit to a tree twenty to thirty feet tall with thick branches and dark red-brown bark, checked into oblong plates. Gummy exudations of this pitch pine make it peculiarly liable to running fires. Thousands of acres are destroyed every summer, but they seize the land again and soon cover it with the young growth. This happens because the burned trees drop their cones, which open and set free the seeds which have never lost their vitality. ”

“ The back of the lower slope began to change to a dark green, which told me I was surely getting closer to the mountains, even if it did not seem so. The trail began to rise, and at last I reached the first pine-trees. They were a disappointment to me, being no larger than many of the white oaks at home, and stunted, with ragged dead tops. They proved to me that trees isolated from their fellows fare as poorly as trees overcrowded. Where pines grow closely, but not too closely, they rise straight and true, cleaning themselves of the low branches, and making good lumber, free of knots. ”

“ During the last fifty years this aggressive, indomitable tree has enormously extended its area, and John Muir is of the opinion that, "as fires are multiplied and the mountains become drier, this wonderful lodge-pole pine bids fair to obtain possession of nearly all the forest ground in the West." ”

“ It is thrilling business to bring those giant Pines down. The ground trembles under the stroke, while the reverberating echo of its fall, as it rings through mountains and valleys, may, on a still morning, be heard six or eight miles. Before felling the Pine, small trees are cut for bed-pieces, the Pine-tree falling across them transversely, to prevent it from becoming too deeply imbedded in the snow. ”

“ For half a day and a night we have been traversing grazing-land, and for half a day fine timber growing in a soil of intense fertility. And now for half a day we are in a pine country, sometimes with wide levels of turf spreading out among the trees, sometimes with oak and walnut so thickly intermingled with the pines that the whole forms a magnificent forest. Passion-flowers entangle all the lower undergrowth, and up the dead trees climbs that fine scarlet creeper which is such an ornament of well-ordered gardens of some English country houses. ”

“ Again the forest pageant changes. There are groves of pine stricken with hoary age, bearded like patriarchs with long, pendent streamers of colourless moss;285 then comes a young growth of pine, fore-doomed to early death which already shows in the bronze of premature decay. It is a beautiful spot, nevertheless, balsam-sweet and strewn with needles that nurture violets of yellow and purple, twin flowers and Queen's Cups. ”