Stránka:book 1922.djvu/378

348 The Book of Woodcraft ARBOR-ViTiE OR White Cedar. (Thuja occidentalis) Evergreen, 50 or 60 feet high. Wood soft, brittle, coarse grained, extremely durable as posts; fragrant and very light (the lightest on our list). Makes good sticks for rubbing stick fire. A cubic foot weighs only 20 lbs. The scale-like leaves are about 6 or 8 to the inch; the cone half an inch long or less. There is a kindred species {Chamaecyparis thyoides) of more southern distribution. It has much smaller cones and leaves. The Northern or White Cedar is noted for the dense thickets it forms in the hollows and hillsides of the eastern Canadian region. These banks, like evergreen hedges, are so close that they greatly modify the winter climate within their bounds — outside there may be a raging blizzard that no creature can face, while within all is dead calm and the frost less intense. The Cedar feeds its proteges too, for its evergreen boughs and abundant nuts are nutrient food despite their rosin smell and taste. Never do the deer and hares winter better than in cedar cover, and if there is great thicket in their region, they surely gather there as sparrows at a barn, or as rats around a brewery.