THE FIVE-LEAVED SOFT PINES An evergreen with needle-like leaves in bundles, two to five leaves in a bundle, is a pine. These bundles are usually bound with a thin, papery sheath at the base, and set in spiral rows that wind around the twig. The leaves in the newest sheaths are nearest the growing tip of the shoot. Here we shall find the leaves shorter, some so short that they have not yet got out side of their sheaths. The silky covering hides them, as the bud scales on other trees covered the undeveloped shoot with its flowers and leaves, wrapped in the winter buds.
The kind of pine depends upon the number of leaves in a bundle. This is the first thing to find out when we undertake to determine the name of a pine tree. All of the vigorous young shoots have bundles that do not vary in number of needles. Further back on the limb are leaves more than a year old. The sheaths are shorter, or have fallen away entirely. Now the number of needles in a bundle begins to be uncertain.
We find bundles that have fewer needles than those on the younger wood. This is because the older leaves are falling. Finally we reach a point where the twigs are bare. On white pine shoots it is easy to find leaves that are five to seven years old.
" Soft pine " is a lumberman's term. Car penters use it, so do all people who work in wood. It means that the wood of a certain group of pines is soft and light, and the sap is not gummy. Any boy who has cut kindling wood knows what a joy it is to whittle soft pine. Until a few years ago, this was the wood out of which boxes of all sorts were made, and it was the only kind ling wood we had. Now things are changed. Much box lumber is made of poplar and other soft woods, which do not split as easily as pine. This means that soft pine is getting scarce, and is too valuable to use where cheaper woods will serve.