United States or Myanmar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The larches or firs, in the stiff and angular enclosure, are always crowded together; and if not thinned by the care of the woodsman, will inevitably choke each other, or shoot up thin and unhealthy, in consequence of their close proximity to each other, and the dense mass of foliage which overshadows the upper part of the wood. But no such danger need be apprehended In the natural forest.
She glanced around quickly, running, as she did so, with a kind of blind instinct towards the clump of firs. Presently she saw a little stream of light in the trees.
The granite outcrop in the hilly field beyond had long ago whitened and vanished; the dwarf firs and larches which had at first taken uncouth shapes in the drift blended vaguely together, and then merged into an unbroken formless wave. But the gaunt angles and rigid outlines of the building remained sharp and unchanged.
Content with his wondrous work, the storm-king himself had fled to his far Northern home before the dawn of the Christmas day. Everything was bright and sparkling and beautiful. And most beautiful was the great hymn of praise the forest sang that Christmas morning, the pine-trees and the firs and the vines and the snow-flowers that sang of the prince and of his promised coming.
For the next few moments Devine stood listening with strained attention. At first he could hear nothing except a little breeze that sighed among the tops of the firs, but by and by he became sensible of a stealthy rustling somewhere in the shadows. Then a branch snapped with a sharp distinctness that set his heart beating a good deal faster than was comfortable.
Did he even recognize the significance of the apparition when a swift, erect figure stepped openly from under the shadowy boughs of the balsam firs into the middle of the road, that the bead might be drawn straight?
The quantity of woody powder that adheres to a tree is surprising; every motion dislodges it from a thousand minute crevices. As for firs, in climbing a fir one cannot look up at all dead sticks, needles, and dust pour down, and the branches are so thick together that the head has to be forced through them. The line fixed, the saw is applied, and by slow degrees the butt cut nearly through.
The avenue leading from the railway station to the palace was decorated with flags and garlands, and planted with the stems of young firs and birches. The doorways were crowded, and the windows dense with eager faces peering out of the draped bunting. The carriageway was kept clear by mild policemen who now and then allowed one of the crowd to cross it.
It is interesting to note the differences in the cones, and in the way they grow; singly, in clusters, at the end of branches, on the stems, large, medium-sized, small, short and stubby, long and slender, conical, etc. Then, too, while the pines generally have cones every year, the firs seem to miss a year, and to bear only alternate years.
Through these branches I can see a group of giant poppies just coming into flower, flaming out beyond the trees on the grass, and farther down a huge silver birch, its first spring green not yet deepened out of delicacy, and looking almost golden backed by a solemn cluster of firs.
Word Of The Day