es 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.

To us who are not woodsmen or "timber-cruisers" the most familiar of all
the spruces is the introduced form from Norway. Its yellowish green
twigs are bright and cheerful, and in specimens that have reached the
fruiting age the crown of cones, high up in the tree, is an additional
charm, for these soft brown "strobiles," as the botanist calls them, are
smooth and regular, and very different from those of the rugged pines. I
have often been told that the Norway spruce was short-lived, and that it
became unkempt in age; but now that I have lived for ten years and more
beside a noble specimen, I know that the change from the upreaching push
of youth to the semi-drooping sedateness of maturity is only a taking on
of dignity. There stands on the home grounds of a true tree-lover in
Pennsylvania a Norway spruce that has been untouched by knife or
disaster since its planting many years ago. No pruning has shortened in
its "leader" or top, no foolish idea of "trimming it up" has been
allowed to deprive it of the very lowest branches, which, in
consequence, now sweep the ground in full perfection, while the
unchecked point of the tree still aspires upward forty feet above. A
beautiful object is this tree--perhaps the most beautiful of all the
conifers in my friend's great "pinetum," with its scores of rare
species. Let me ask, then, those who would set this or any other tree of
evergreen about the home, to see to it that the young tree from the
nursery has all its lower branches intact, and that its top has never
been mutilated. With care, such specimens may be obtained and
successfully transplanted, and will grow in time to a lovely old age of
steady greenness.

The balsam fir is almost indistinguishable from the Norway spruce when
young, but soon grows apart from it in habit, and is hardly as
desirable, even though a native. It is rich in the true balsamic odor;
and this, again, is its destruction; for one "spruce pillow" may
destroy a half dozen trees!

[Illustration: Cones of the white spruce]

The white cedar, our common juniper, with its aromatic blue berries or
fruits, is perhaps the most familiar of all the na