The Pines are, most of them, trees of considerable magnitude and lofty growth, varying from 40 to 150 or even 200 feet in height in favorable situations, rising with a perpendicular trunk, which is rarely divided into branches bearing much proportionate size to the main stem, as in most deciduous trees. The branches are much more horizontal than those of the latter class (excepting the Larch). The leaves are linear or needle-shaped, and are always found arranged in little parcels of from two to six, the number varying in the different species. The blossoms are produced in spring, and the seeds, borne in cones, are not ripened, in many sorts, until the following autumn. Every part of the stem abounds in a resinous juice, which is extracted, and forms in the various shapes of tar, pitch, rosin, turpentine, balsam, etc., a considerable article of trade and export.
As ornamental trees, the Pines are peculiarly valuable for the deep verdure of their foliage, which, unchanged by the severity of the seasons, is beautiful at all periods, and especially so in winter; for the picturesque forms which many of them assume when fully grown; and for the effectual shelter and protection which they afford in cold, bleak, and exposed situations. We shall here particularize those species, natives of either hemisphere, that are most valuable to the planter, and are also capable of enduring the open air of the middle states.
