The sap or outside of the sapling Pine is much thicker than that of the pumpkin Pine. I have seen it more than six inches thick on the former, and less than half an inch on the latter. This difference is accounted for by the rapidity with which the sapling grows, and the tardiness with which the swamp Pine matures, which, as before intimated, is to be attributed to the difference in their location.
Of course, we must yield to the opinions of learned botanists; but while they maintain that these two are simply varieties of the same species, the proof seems insufficient to convince many whose daily occupation renders them most familiar with forest trees. If the difference is only attributable to soil and position, then we may reply that we have found the sapling in all possible locations. Besides, there are marked distinctions. The general contour differs much. The size, number, and position of the branches, the shape of the trunk, the toughness of the wood in the sapling, and the softness of that of the pumpkin Pine, all indicate a specific and essential difference. We have seen whole groves of saplings on low, swampy land. The same number of saplings are generally much sounder than an equal number of soft Pine.
The soft Pine-tree holds its diameter to a much greater length than the sapling. I have seen a log of the former twenty feet long, differing not more than an inch and a half in diameter at either end. In a sapling log of the same length there would be a difference of several inches.
There is one circumstance in the habits of this Pine worthy of note. As a general thing, they grow in clusters or communities. Indeed, this is a common characteristic of the Hemlock, the Cedar, and the Hackmatack.
But there is, however, a sort of nationality in the local attitude of the latter. While the Pines, growing in clusters, seem to constitute the aristocracy--families of nobility--the rest of the forest seems to make up the populace; and I may add, that backwoodsmen are accustomed to pay them the same deferential regard above other gentlemen foresters which is awarded to superiors in human society. Indeed, the Pine has claims upon our regard, not only on account of its unequaled dimensions, but "from the importance of its products in naval, and especially in civil and domestic architecture, in many of the arts, and in some instances in medicine."