ame
suddenly into view, just as this raft was passing by. There were two men
on the raft.

"See those men on the raft," said Marco. "They are paddling."

"No," replied Forester; "they are sculling."

"Sculling?" repeated Marco.

"Yes," replied Forester. "They always scull a raft. It is a different
motion from paddling."

Marco watched the men attentively, examining the motion which they made
in sculling, and considering whether he might not have sculled his raft
to the shore in the same manner.

[Illustration]

"What straight logs!" said Marco.

"Yes," replied Forester; "the pine tree grows up tall and straight, and
without branches, to a great height. This is the source of some of its
most valuable properties. It makes the wood straight-grained. That is,
the fibres run smooth and regularly, from one end of the stem to the
other."

Just at this time, Forester saw a large pine tree growing alone, by the
side of the road they were travelling. This solitary tree had a great
many branches growing out from the stem, in every part, from the top to
the bottom.

"That is because the tree grows by itself," said Forester, "in the open
field. Those that grow in the forest do not throw out branches from the
stem, but they ran up to a great height, with only a little tuft of
branches on the top."

"I don't see why they don't have branches in the woods," said Marco.

"Because," replied Forester, "where trees grow close together, the light
and the air is excluded from the lower parts of the stems, and so
branches cannot grow there. Nothing can grow without light and air."

"I've seen monstrous long potato sprouts grow in a dark cellar," said
Marco.

"Yes," said Forester; "so have I. I did not think of that. But they
don't grow very well."

"They grow pretty long, sometimes," replied Marco.

"At any rate," said Forester, "the branches of trees will not grow from
the stems of the trees near the ground, in the woods; and this is of
great importance, for, whenever a branch grows out, it makes a knot,
extending in to the very centre of the tree. This would injure a pine
log very much, as the knot would show in all the boards, and a knot is a
great injury to a pine board, though it is of great benefit to a
mahogany one."

"Why?" asked Marco.

"Because it gives the wood a beautiful variegated appearance when they
get it smoothed. So that the more knotted and gnarled a log of mahogany
is, the better. It makes the mor