They are ripe in September and October.
Then the flat scales open and the seeds take wing, but the empty cones
become still more beautiful and effective, for their diameter is nearly
doubled by the spreading of the scales, and their color changes to a
warm yellowish-brown; while they remain swinging on the tree all the
following winter and summer, and continue effectively beautiful even on
the ground many years after they fall. The wood is deliciously fragrant,
and fine in grain and texture; it is of a rich cream-yellow, as if
formed of condensed sunbeams. _Retinospora obtusa, Siebold_, the
glory of Eastern forests, is called "Fu-si-no-ki" (tree of the sun) by
the Japanese; the Sugar Pine is the sun-tree of the Sierra.
Unfortunately it is greatly prized by the lumbermen, and in accessible
places is always the first tree in the woods to feel their steel. But
the regular lumbermen, with their saw-mills, have been, less generally
destructive thus far than the shingle-makers. The wood splits freely,
and there is a constant demand for the shingles. And because an ax, and
saw, and frow are all the capital required for the business, many of
that drifting, unsteady class of men so large in California engage in it
for a few months in the year.
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