in size but in beauty and majesty. Oregon may well be proud that its
discovery was made within her borders, and that, though it is far more
abundant in California, she has the largest known specimens. In the
Sierra the finest sugar pine forests lie at an elevation of about five
thousand feet. In Oregon they occupy much lower ground, some of the
trees being found but little above tide-water.

No lover of trees will ever forget his first meeting with the sugar
pine. In most coniferous trees there is a sameness of form and
expression which at length becomes wearisome to most people who travel
far in the woods. But the sugar pines are as free from conventional
forms as any of the oaks. No two are so much alike as to hide their
individuality from any observer. Every tree is appreciated as a study
in itself and proclaims in no uncertain terms the surpassing grandeur of
the species. The branches, mostly near the summit, are sometimes
nearly forty feet long, feathered richly all around with short, leafy
branchlets, and tasseled with cones a foot and a half long. And when
these superb arms are outspread, radiating in every direction, an
immense crownlike mass is formed which, poised on the noble shaft and
filled with sunshine, is one of the grandest forest objects conceivable.
But though so wild and unconventional when full-grown, the sugar pine
is a remarkably regular tree in youth, a strict follower of coniferous
fashions, slim, erect, tapering, symmetrical, every branch in place.
At the age of fifty or sixty years this shy, fashionable form begins to
give way. Special branches are thrust out away from the general outlines
of the trees and bent down with cones. Henceforth it becomes more and
more original and independent in style, pushes boldly aloft into the
winds and sunshine, growing ever more stately and beautiful, a joy and
inspiration to every beholder.

Unfortunately, the sugar pine makes excellent lumber. It is too good
to live, and is already passing rapidly away before the woodman's
axe. Surely out of all of the abounding forest wealth of Oregon a few
specimens might be spared to the world, not as dead lumber, but as
living trees. A park of moderate extent might be set apart and protected
for public use forever, containing at least a few hundreds of each of
these noble pines, spruces, and firs. Happy will be the men who, having
the power and the love and benevolent forecast to do this, will do it.
They will not be f