Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/85

Rh Valley and around Lakes Winnipiseogee and Ossipee, extending northward as far as North Conway. In the Connecticut Valley it appears less abundantly. The red pine (P. resinosa), often called "Norway pine," "is the most social of the pine genus," occurring in groups of from a few individuals to groves containing several acres. Although much less common, its range is about the same as that of the pitch-pine, probably attaining a higher elevation above the sea level. This species is of handsome and rapid growth, and is well worthy of being planted for ornament.

In the White Mountain region the balsam-fir and black spruce, growing together in about equal numbers, give to the scenery one of its peculiar features. They are the last of the arborescent vegetation to yield to the increased cold and fierce winds of the higher summits. North of these mountains, the arbor-vitæ forms the predominant evergreen, mingled with the white spruce about Connecticut Lake. In the southern part they are mostly confined to the highlands between the Merrimack and Connecticut Rivers, the black spruce being most abundant.

The hemlock is common in the southern part of the State, ranging most abundantly around the base of the Rocky Mountains, southward along the highlands, becoming less near the coast. Its northern limit is in the vicinity of Colebrook and Umbagog Lake, reaching an elevation of 1,200 feet above tide.

The tamarack does not enter largely into the flora of New Hampshire, being chiefly confined to swamps of small extent, and ranges along the highlands from Massachusetts to north of the White Mountains. The red cedar is chiefly limited to the sea-shore. The juniper is sometimes troublesome by overspreading hilly pastures. The American yew is often present in cold-land swamps.

The maples are best represented among deciduous trees. The river maple is most limited in range, being confined to intervales of the principal streams, and rarely far away from them. The red maple is common in all parts of the State, and the sugar-maple is abundant, filling an important part in the economy of the State, supplying both timber and sugar. It is common in most parts, but less towards the sea-coast. This with the beech makes up the greater part of the hard woods of Coos County. Southward the beech is common on high lands only, often growing with spruce and hemlock. Four species of birch are common, of which the black, yellow and canoe birches have about the same range as the red maple. The canoe or paper birch grows high up the sides of mountains. The fourth and smallest, the white birch, is most abundant in the southeast part of the State, affording the "gray-birch hoop-poles" used in the manufacture of fish-barrels.

Five or six species of oaks are found, of which the hardiest is the red oak. Although the only species found along the water-shed between the Merrimack and Connecticut, it does not extend much beyond the White Mountains, having its upper limit at about 1000 feet above the sea. The white and yellow oaks usually appear together, on the plains and hillsides along the rivers. The former extends northward in the Connecticut Valley nearly to the mouth of the Passumpsic, in the Merrimack Valley to Plymouth, and in the eastern part of the State to the vicinity of Ossipee Lake. Its limit in altitude is about 500 feet above the sea, which is also very nearly that of the frost-grape. The barren or shrub oak is abundant on the pine plains of the Lower Merrimack Valley, thence extending eastward to the coast, and to the sandy plains of Madison and Conway. The chestnut oak seems to be local in this State; at Amherst and West Ossipee it can be found abundantly.

The chestnut is found in the same situations as the white oak, but the chestnut is the first to reach its limit of altitude, which is about 400 feet above the sea. It occurs in a few localities about Lake Winnipiseogee at a somewhat greater height, the neighborhood of the lake producing less severity of temperature than the river valleys at the same altitude.

The American elm attains probably the largest size of any deciduous trees. It