Chapter VI: Part 6

In a range so large and including situations so various, it is natural that the tree should vary greatly in size. In the Lake States the common height is fifty or sixty feet, and the diameter is twelve or fifteen inches. Young balsam firs grow vigorously when the ground is suitable and their tops receive sufficient light. In lumbered regions in the Lake States, this fir gets a foothold in the shade of a dense growth of paper birch and other quickly-growing species; and in a few years the pointed, intensely green spires of the balsams may be seen piercing the canopy of other young tree tops, and shooting above into the light. This is accomplished after a struggle of some years in the shade; but the firs ultimately win their way upward, and in a few years they shade to death most of their broadleaf associates. If they are in competition with northern white cedar or tamarack, they are not always successful in winning first place.

The leaves of balsam fir are from one-half to one and one-fourth inches long. They are green and lustrous above and silver white below, the whiteness due to stomata on their undersides. On young twigs the leaves bristle out on all sides and are very numerous and crowded together, but on older branches the leaves are more scattered, due to the dropping of some of them. It is their habit to adhere to the stems about eight years.

The leaves of balsam fir possess a pleasing and characteristic odor which is turned to account in a practical way. The small needles are stripped from the branches in large quantities, cleaned, dried, and are used for stuffing sofa pillows, cushions, and other kinds of upholstery. The odor persists a long time. Much of the collecting of the needles is done in summer as a pastime by summer campers in the northern woods. The needles are sufficiently tough to stand much wear in pillows, and they are still odorous when long use has ground them to powder.

The cones of balsam fir follow the fashion of all species of fir, and stand erect on the branches. Seeds are one-fourth inch in length and are winged. The wood is of approximately the same weight as white pine, but it falls considerably below white pine in strength and stiffness. It is of moderately rapid growth when conditions are favorable, and the annual ring has a fair proportion of summerwood. The yearly rings are quite distinct. The medullary rays are numerous, and for a softwood they are prominent. When a log is quarter-sawed, and the surfaces of the boards are planed, the wood presents a silvery appearance, but it is too monotonous to be very attractive. The heartwood is pale brown, streaked with yellow, the thick sapwood much lighter in color. It is perishable in contact with the soil.

Pulp manufacturers are the largest users of balsam fir. About three per cent of all the pulpwood cut in the United States in 1910 was from this species. Its use is on the increase, or appears to be; but recent statistics relating to this wood cannot be safely compared with returns for former years, because the custom of mixing fir with spruce and other pulpwoods formerly prevailed in New England, and it was then not possible to determine exactly how much fir reached the market. At the present time fir goes under its own name, and the output exceeds 132,000 cords, which is equivalent to 105,000,000 feet, board measure, yearly.

Eleven states contribute to the balsam fir lumber cut, but most is supplied by Maine, Minnesota, Vermont, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The total for 1910 was 74,580,000 feet. Much of it is employed in rough form for fences and buildings, while other is further manufactured by planing mills and factories. Car builders employ it in several ways. It serves as doors, siding, lining, and roofing for freight cars. It is not a durable wood when exposed to weather. The largest reported use of the wood in New England is by box makers. Massachusetts alone works nearly 15,000,000 feet a year into crates and shipping boxes. Its uses in the Lake States are more varied. The makers of berry, fruit, and vegetable baskets draw supplies from the wood. Some of the product is of thin split slats, and other of veneer or sawed material.

The light weight and white color of balsam fir make it acceptable to the manufacturers of excelsior. The product is employed in packing merchandise for shipment, and to a small extent in upholstery. The wood fills a rather important place in the woodenware industry, where its white color and light weight constitute its most important recommendations. It is sawed into staves for pails and tubs.

Though balsam fir has little figure and its appearance is rather common, it finds its way to planing mills and woodworking shops where it is made into ceiling, newel posts, molding, railing, spindles, chair-boards, and other interior finish.

The most widely known commercial product manufactured from this tree is Canada balsam. Strictly speaking, it is not a manufactured article except what is done in nature’s laboratory, and the product is the resin stored under bark blisters. The resin is transparent, and is employed by microscopists in mounting objects for examination. Little machinery or apparatus is used in removing the viscid fluid from the pockets in the bark. With a knife the thin, soft blister is slit and the resin is scraped out. All kinds of claims of medicinal virtue are made for balsam resin in the region where the tree grows; but the treatment in most cases effects cures--if any cures are really effected--by appeals to faith and the imagination.

Balsam fir owes a large part of its importance to its abundance. It is not exactly a swamp tree, but it does best in damp situations where the ground is moist and cool in summer. Only in periods of protracted drought does the ground litter become sufficiently dry to burn fiercely, and to that fact is due much of the promise of future supply of balsam fir. That which grows on the dry uplands may fall prey to forest fires, but that in the damp flats, associated with northern white cedar and tamarack, will hold its ground and continue to supply demand.

Balsam fir has an importance which can not be wholly measured in feet, pounds, cords, or dollars. Many of the choicest Christmas trees which in December go by tens of thousands to the cities, are of this tree. Its form is almost perfect, being conical, broad near the bottom, and running to a sharp apex. The deep green of the needles, which retain their color from two weeks to a month after the trunk is severed, gives balsam Christmas trees much of their popularity. The trees are cut from Maine to Michigan, and many are shipped across the international boundary from Canada. The custom of cutting Christmas trees is often condemned as a waste of resources. It has been argued that the destruction in one month of 1,000,000 young trees is equivalent to the destruction of 500,000,000 feet of lumber, because, if allowed to reach maturity, they would yield that much lumber. That argument does not take into consideration the fact that not one of the young trees in ten would reach maturity if left to the course of nature.

When Gifford Pinchot was United States forester, a protest against the cutting of Christmas trees was formally laid before him. It was generally believed that he would declare that the waste ought to be stopped and would set his disapproval on the practice; but he did nothing of the sort. He declared that the forests are for the use of the people and that they can serve in no better way than by supplying every child in the land with a Christmas tree once a year.

FRASER FIR

FRASER FIR

(_Abies Fraseri_)

The people who are acquainted with this interesting and somewhat rare tree have seen to it that it does not want for names. Some of these names are both definitive and descriptive, while others are neither. Tennessee, North Carolina, and West Virginia furnish the names. Within the tree’s range in Tennessee and North Carolina it is often known as balsam without any qualifying word, and that is quite sufficient, for no other fir or balsam grows within its range. In the same region it is called balsam fir. That is the common name of its northern relative, but there is little likelihood of confusing the two species, for their ranges do not overlap much, if they touch at all, which they probably do not. In Tennessee the name is reversed and instead of balsam fir it is fir balsam. It is likewise known as double fir balsam, but why “double” is added to the name is not clear. Similar mystery attaches to the name “single spruce,” which is applied to the balsam fir in the interior of British America. The southern Appalachian tree is called she balsam and she balsam fir. These names have no scientific basis, and they appear to have originated in a desire to distinguish this tree from the red spruce with which it is associated. The spruce is called “he balsam.” Artificial names like these are not necessary to distinguish red spruce from Fraser fir, as very slight acquaintance should enable anybody to tell one from the other at sight, and to see clearly that they are not of the same species. Mountain balsam, a North Carolina name for this fir, is well taken, for it is distinctly a mountain species. The name healing balsam is given in acknowledgment of the supposed medicinal properties of the resin which collects in blisters or pockets under the bark of young trees and near the tops of old. In West Virginia, where this tree reaches the northern limits of its habitat, it is called blister pine, on account of the resin pockets. In the same region it is called stackpole pine, because farmers who mow mountain meadows use straight, very light poles cut from this fir round which to build haystacks.

This tree is decidedly an inhabitant of the high, exposed localities, being found entirely in the upper elevations of the southern Appalachian mountains, either forming extensive pure stands or growing in the company of red spruce (_Picea rubens_), with a scattering of various stunted hardwoods, as birch, mountain ash, cherry and usually with an undergrowth of rhododendron.

Fraser fir’s range extends from the high mountains of North Carolina, where it grows 6,000 feet above sea level, northward into West Virginia, within a few miles of the Maryland line, at an altitude of 3,300 feet. The tree is not found in all regions between its northern and southern limits. Its best development is in the southern part of its range.

On the upper limits of its habitat the tree presents a decidedly picturesque appearance, being gnarled and twisted and plainly showing the results of its long struggle for life and development. It is always noticeable that on the exposed side the limbs are so short as to be almost missing and on the opposite side they grow out straight and long, appearing to fly before the wind. These limbs are sometimes of as great a girth for five or six feet of their length as any part of the main stem, and have a singular look, seeming to be all out of proportion to the rest of the tree. The older trees are vested in a smooth, yellowish-gray, mossy bark, which is quite different from that of the balsam fir. The bark is thin, about one-fourth of an inch on young trunks, and half an inch near the ground on old ones. The leaves are usually half an inch long, sometimes one inch, and their lower sides are whitish, which tint is due to abundant white stomata. In that respect they resemble leaves of balsam fir and hemlock.

The cones, like those of other species of fir, stand erect on the branches, and average about two and a half inches in length. They are smoother than the cones of most pines. They mature in September. The winged seeds average one-eighth inch in length, and are fairly abundant. The Fraser fir grows as tall as balsam fir, from forty to sixty feet, and the trunk diameter is greater, being sometimes thirty inches, though half of that is nearer an average. When of pole size, that is, from five to eight inches in diameter, Fraser fir is often tall, straight and shapely. Its form, however, depends upon the situation in which it grows. If in the open, it develops a relatively short trunk and a broad, pyramidal crown. This fir differs from balsam fir in its choice of situation. The latter, though not exactly a swamp tree, prefers damp ground, while Fraser fir flourishes on slopes and mountain tops.

On the mountains of western North Carolina fir grows in mixture with red spruce. Sometimes the fir is fifty per cent of the stand, but usually it is less, and frequently not more than fifteen per cent. Few fir trees in that locality are two feet in diameter. They grow with fair rapidity in their early years, but decline in rate as age comes on. It may be observed in traveling through the stands of mixed spruce and fir among the high ranges of the southern Appalachian mountains that the proportion of spruce is much higher in old stands than in young. That is due to the greater age to which spruce lives. Trees of that species continue to stand after the firs have died of old age. On the other hand, fir outnumbers spruce in many young stands. That is because fir reproduces better than spruce, and grows with more vigor at first. In stands of second growth the fir often predominates. It depends to some extent upon the conditions under which the second growth has its start. Fir does not germinate well if the ground has been bared by fire and the humus burned. Consequently, old burns do not readily grow up in fir. The best stands occur where the natural conditions have not been much disturbed further than by removing the growth. Fortunately conditions on the summit and elevated slopes of the southern Appalachians do not favor destructive forest fires. Rain is frequent and abundant, and the shade cast by evergreen trees keeps the humus too moist for fire. To this condition is due the comparative immunity from fire of the high mountain forests of fir and spruce. Sometimes, however, fires sweep through fine stands with disastrous results. The destruction is more serious because no second forest of evergreens is likely on tracts which have been severely burned.

A report by the State Geological Survey on forest conditions in western North Carolina, issued in 1911, predicted that spruce and fir forests aggregating from 100,000 to 150,000 acres among the high mountain ranges, will become barren tracts, because of the destructive effect of fires stripping the ground of humus.

The cutters of pulpwood in the southern Appalachian mountains take Fraser fir wherever they find it, mix it with spruce, and the two woods go to market as one. Statistics show the annual cut of both, but do not give them separately. The output of spruce, including fir, south of Pennsylvania, in 1910 was 115,993 cords, equivalent to about 80,000,000 feet, board measure. Most of it was red spruce, but some was fir, and in North Carolina probably twenty-five per cent was of that species. The total pulpwood cut in that state was 14,509 cords of the two woods combined, and probably 3,800 cords were Fraser fir.

The wood of Fraser fir is very light. An air dry sample from Roan mountain, N. C., weighed 22.22 pounds per cubic foot. That is lighter than balsam fir, which is classed among the very light woods. It is stronger than balsam fir by twenty-five per cent. The wood is soft, compact and the bands of summerwood in the annual rings are rather broad and light colored and are not conspicuous. The medullary rays are thin but numerous. The color is light brown, the sapwood mostly white.

This wood is not of much commercial value except for pulp. It is not abundant, and it is not suited to many purposes. It is suitable for boxes, being light in weight and moderately strong; but other woods which grow in the same region are as good in all respects and are more abundant, and will be used in preference to fir for that purpose. The decrease in area on account of fires, and in quantity because of pulpwood operations, indicates that forest grown Fraser fir has seen its best days. On the other hand, the United States Forest Service has acquired tracts of land on the summits of the mountains where this species has its natural home, and the growth will be protected from fires and from destructive cutting, and there is no danger that the species will be exterminated.

It is an interesting tree. It contributes to the pleasure of tourists and campers among the southern mountains. The fragrance of its leaves and young branches add a zest to the summer camp. The traveler who is overtaken in the woods by the coming of night, prepares his bed of the boughs of this tree and of red spruce and sleeps soundly beneath an evergreen canopy. Pillows and cushions stuffed with fir needles carry memories of the mountains to distant cities.

In one respect this tree of the high mountains is like the untamed Indians who once roamed in that region: it refuses to be civilized. The tree has been planted in parks in this country and in Europe, but it does not prosper. Its form loses something of the grace and symmetry which it exhibits in its mountain home, and its life is short. Those who wish to see Fraser fir at its best must see it where nature planted it high on the southern mountains.

ARIZONA CORK FIR (_Abies arizonica_) very closely resembles forms of
the alpine fir, and may not be a separate species. Sudworth was
unable to distinguish its foliage and cones from those of alpine
fir, but the bark is softer. Its range is on the San Francisco
mountains in Arizona. It is very scarce, and only local use of its
wood is possible.

NOBLE FIR

NOBLE FIR

(_Abies Nobilis_)

This tree’s name is justified by its appearance when growing at its best in the forests of the northwest Pacific coast. It is tall, shapely, and imposing. It often exceeds a height of 250 feet, and a trunk diameter of six feet. It is sometimes eight feet in diameter. No tree is more shapely and symmetrical. When grown in dense stands the first limb may be 150 feet from the ground, and from that point to the base there is little taper. It over-reaches so many of its forest companions that it is sometimes designated locally as bigtree; but it is believed that lumber is never so spoken of, and that the name applies to the standing tree only. The Indians of the region where it grows call it tuck-tuck, but information as to the meaning of these words is not at hand. In northern California, and probably still farther north, this species is often called red fir, feather-cone red fir, or bracted red fir. The color of the heartwood and the appearance of the cone, doubtless are responsible for these names. There is a tendency in the fir-growing regions of the West to call all firs either white or red, depending upon the color of the heartwood. There are ten or more species of fir west of the Rocky Mountains, and to the layman they all look much alike, but to botanists they are interesting objects of study.

The range of noble fir covers parts of three states, but the whole of no one. Its northern limit is in Washington, its southern in northern California, and it follows the mountains across western Oregon. It often forms extensive forests on the Cascade mountains of Washington. It is most abundant at elevations of from 2,500 to 5,000 feet in southwestern Washington and northwestern Oregon. On the eastern and northern slopes of those mountains it is of smaller size and is less abundant. Like several other of the extraordinarily large western trees, it keeps pretty close to the warm, moist coast of the Pacific.

The shining, blue-green color of the leaves is a conspicuous characteristic of noble fir as it appears in the forest. They vary in length from an inch to an inch and a half. They usually curl, twist, and turn their points upward and backward, away from the end of the branch which bears them. The cones, following the fashion of firs, stand upright on the twigs, and are conspicuous objects. They are four or five inches in length, which is rather large for firs, but not the largest. The seeds are half an inch long, and are winged. They are well provided with the means of flight, but many of them never have an opportunity to test their wings, for the dextrous Douglas squirrel cuts the cones from the highest trees, and when they fall to the ground he pulls them apart with his feet and teeth, and the seeds pay him for his pains. If cones ripen on the trees and the released seeds sail away, there are birds of various feather waiting to receive them. Consequently, the noble fir plants comparatively few seeds. Their ratio of fertility is low at best, but that is partly compensated for by the large numbers produced.

Thick stands of noble fir are not common. It generally is found, a few trees here and there, mixed with other species. Sawmills find it unprofitable to keep the lumber separate from other kinds. It does not pay to do so for two reasons. Extra labor is required to handle it in that way, and there is a prejudice against fir lumber. It does not appeal to buyers. For that reason some operators have called this timber Oregon larch, and have sent it to market under that name. That is a trick of the trade which has been put into practice many times and with many woods. The purpose in the instance of noble fir was to pass it for the larch which grows in the northern Rocky Mountain region. The two woods are so different that no person acquainted with one would mistake it for the other. A recent government report of woods used for manufacturing purposes in Washington does not list a foot of noble fir. The inference is that it must be going to factories under some other name, for it is incredible that this wood should be put to no use at all in the region of its best development.

Noble fir is of slow growth, and the large trunks are very old, the oldest not less than 800 years. The summerwood forms a narrow, dark band in the annual ring. Medullary rays are numerous, but very thin and inconspicuous. The wood possesses little figure. It weighs twenty-eight pounds per cubic foot, which is four pounds less than the average Douglas fir. It is very low in fuel value, as softwoods usually are which have little resin. It is very weak, and it bends easily. It is soft, easily worked, and polishes well. This is one of its most valuable qualities. It is deficient in a number of properties which are desirable in wood, but partly makes up for them in its ability to take a smooth finish. It is pale brown, streaked with red, the sapwood darker. In that particular it is unusual, for most softwoods have sap lighter in color than the heart.

It has been already pointed out that difficulty is met when an attempt is made to list the uses of noble fir, because it loses its name before it leaves the sawmill yard and takes the name of some other wood, and those who put it to use often do so without knowing what the wood really is. It is known that some of it is manufactured into house siding. It works nicely and looks well, but since it is liable to quick decay it must be kept well painted when it is exposed to weather. It serves as interior finish, and this seems to be one of its best uses. It is so employed for steamboats and for houses, and many shipments of it have been made to boat builders on the Atlantic coast. It is used for shipping boxes, and its light color fits it for that purpose, as the wood shows painting and stenciling to good advantage.

European nurseries have propagated noble fir with success, but it does not do so well in the eastern part of the United States, though it lives through winters as far north as Massachusetts. It is not known to have been planted for other than ornamental purposes. Unless it would grow much faster in plantations than in its wild state, it will be too long in maturing to make it attractive to the timber planter.

WHITE FIR (_Abies concolor_). The whiteness of the wood and the
silver color of the young branches give this species its name, but
it is not the sole possessor of that name, but shares it with three
other firs. In California, Idaho, and Utah it is called balsam fir.
The branches and upper parts of the trunk where the bark is thin,
are covered with blisters which contain white resin. In Utah it is
known as white balsam, as silver fir in some parts of California,
and as black gum in Utah. The reason for that name is not apparent,
unless it refers to the black bark on old trees. It has several
other names which are combinations of white and silver with some
other term. Its range is mostly in the Sierras and in the Rocky
Mountain ranges, extending from southern Colorado to the mountains
of California, north through Oregon, and south through New Mexico
and Arizona. The immense proportions are reached only in the Sierra
growth, those trees in the Rockies being hardly above ordinary size.
In its free growth the tree is reputed to be the only one of its
genus found in the arid regions of the Great Basin, and similar
localities in Arizona and New Mexico. It is not distinguished by all
botanists from the similar species, _Abies grandis_.

White fir attains a height of 250 feet and a diameter of six in some
instances, but the average size of mature trees among the Sierra
Nevadas is 150 feet tall and three or four in diameter. In the Rocky
Mountain region the tree is smaller. It grows from 3,000 to 9,000
feet above sea level. The leaves are long for the fir genus, and
vary from two to three inches. The tree’s bark is black near the
base of large trunks but of less somber color near the top. Near the
base of large trees the bark is sometimes six inches thick. The wood
of this species is light and soft. Carpenters consider it coarse
grained, by which they mean that it does not polish nicely. It is
brittle and weak. The rings of annual growth are generally broad,
with the bands of darker colored summerwood prominent. In lumber
sawed tangentially, rings produces distinct figure, but it is not
generally regarded as pleasing. The medullary rays are prominent for
a softwood, but quarter-sawing does not add much to the wood’s
appearance. It decays quickly in alternate wet and dry situations.
Trees are apt to be affected with wind shake, and the wood’s
disposition to splinter in course of manufacture has prejudiced many
users against it. However, it has some good qualities. The wood is
free from objectionable odor, and this qualifies it as box material.
Fruit shippers can use it without fear of contaminating their wares.
It is light in color, and stenciling looks well on it. Its weight is
likewise in its favor.

Trees of this species seldom occur in pure stands of large extent,
but are scattered among forests of other kinds. Sawmills cut the fir
as they come to it, but seldom go much out of their way to get it.
The United States census for 1910 showed that 132,327,000 feet of
white fir lumber were cut in the whole country, but as several
species pass by that name it is not possible to determine how much
belonged to the one under discussion, but probably about half, as
that much was credited to California where this tree is at its best.
The fir does not suffer in comparison with trees associated with it.
Its trunk does not average quite as large as the pines, yet larger
than most of the cedars; but in height it equals the best of its
associates, and in symmetrical form, and beauty of color of foliage,
it must be acknowledged superior. The dark intensity of its green
crown when thrown against the blue summer skies of the Sierras forms
a picture which probably no tree in the world can surpass and few
can equal. Its cones suffer from the depredations of the ever-hungry
Douglas squirrel which is too impatient to wait for nature’s slow
process to ripen and scatter the seeds; but he climbs the trunks
which stand as straight as plummet lines two hundred feet or more,
and clinging to the topmost swaying branches, clips the cone stems
with his teeth, and the cone goes to the ground like a shot. A
person who will stand still in a Sierra forest in late summer, where
firs abound, will presently hear the cones thumping the ground on
all sides of him. If his eyes are good, and he looks carefully, he
may see the squirrels, silhouetted against the sky on far-away tree
tops, seeming so small in the distance that they look the size of
mice; yet the Douglas squirrel is about the size of the eastern red
squirrel. He does not always let the cones fall when he cuts their
stems, but sometimes carries them down the long trunk to the ground,
then goes back for another. The squirrel hoards the cones for
winter, but does not neglect to fully satisfy his appetite while
about the work. A single hoard--carefully covered with pine needles
as a roof against winter snow--may contain five or ten bushels of
cones, which are not all fir cones, but these predominate in most
hoards.

GRAND FIR

GRAND FIR

(_Abies Grandis_)

In California, Oregon, and Idaho this tree is called white fir, but it has several other names, silver fir and yellow fir in Montana and Idaho. In California some know it as Oregon fir, western white fir, and great California fir. Grand fir is more a botanist’s than a lumberman’s name.

The range extends from British Columbia to Mendocino county, California, and to the western slopes of the continental divide in Montana. The coastal growth lies in a comparatively narrow strip. In the mountains an altitude of 7,000 feet is sometimes reached, the soil and moisture requirements, however, being the same. The largest trees are found in bottom lands near the coast where trunks 300 feet tall and six feet in diameter are found, but the average is much less. In mountain regions at considerable altitudes a height of 100 feet and a diameter of two or three is an average size. The leaves are about an inch and a half in length, occasionally two and a half. They are arranged in rows along the sides of the long, flexible branches. Cones are from two to four inches long, and bear winged seeds three-eighths of an inch long, the wings being half an inch or more in length. The bark of old trunks may be two inches thick, but generally is thinner. It is unfortunate that the wood of the large western firs lacks so many qualities which make it valuable. It is generally inferior to the woods of Douglas fir, western hemlock, Sitka spruce and the western cedars, sugar pine, and western yellow pine. The wood of grand fir is light, soft, weak, brittle, and not durable in contact with the soil. Its light color and the abundance of clear material in the giant trunks are redeeming features. These ought to open the way for much use in the future. It cannot find place in heavy construction, because it is not strong enough. That shuts it from one important place for which it is otherwise fitted. Box makers find it suitable, as all fir woods are, and large demand should come from that quarter. Trunks that will cut from 15,000 to 20,000 feet of lumber that is practically clear, and of good color, and light in weight, are bound to have value for boxes and slack cooperage. Trees grow with fair rapidity. Annual rings are usually broad, and the bands of summerwood are wide and distinct. This guarantees a certain figure in lumber sawed tangentially, but it is not a figure to compare in beauty with some of the hardwoods, or even with Douglas fir, or the southern yellow pines. It ought to be a first class material for certain kinds of woodenware, particularly for tubs, pails, and small stave vessels, and as far as it has been used in that way it has been satisfactory. It cannot be recommended for outside house finish, such as weather-boarding, cornice, and porch work, because of its susceptibility to decay; but it meets requirements for plain interior finish, and tests have shown it to be good material for cores or backing over which to glue veneers of hardwood.

While the eastern states have not yet wakened up to the fact that this tree is of value in ornamental planting, its decorative qualities in open stands have been recognized for some time in eastern Europe, where trees of considerable size, promising to attain almost primeval proportions, are already flourishing.

RED FIR (_Abies magnifica_) is the largest fir in America. At its best it attains a height of 250 feet and a diameter of ten, but that size is rare. It has several names, magnificent fir, which is a translation of its botanical name; redbark fir, California red fir, and golden fir. The reference to red which occurs in its several names, is descriptive of its heartwood. Its range lies on the Cascade mountains of southern Oregon, and along the entire length of the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas in California. It is common in southern Oregon and sometimes forms nearly pure forests at elevations of 5,000 or 7,000 feet. It is plentiful in the Sierra Nevada ranges at altitudes of from 6,000 to 9,000 feet. In southern California it ascends 10,000 feet. On old trees the limbs, regularly whorled in collars of five, are usually pendulous or down-growing and are regularly and precisely subdivided into branches and twigs, the short, stiff blue-green leaves, which persist for ten years, closely covering the upper side of the latter. Its cones are the largest of the firs, are dark purple in color and grow erect on the branches.

The cones are six or eight inches long, and three or four in diameter. They present a fine appearance as they stand erect on the branches. The seeds are large, but their strong wings are able to carry them away from the immediate presence of the parent tree. The wings are extremely beautiful, and flash light with the colors of the rainbow. Old trees are protected by hard, dark-colored bark five or six inches thick. A forest fire may pass through a stand of old firs without burning through the bark, but young trees are not so protected, and are liable to be killed.

A study of the wood of the red fir reveals rather more favorable qualities than the other firs afford. Sap and heartwood are more easily distinguished than in the other species, the sapwood being much lighter in color than the reddish heart. Contrary to the general rule among the firs, this wood possesses considerable durability, especially when used for purposes which bring it in contact with the soil. It is, however, light, soft and weak, but has a close, fine grain and compact structure. Seasoning defects, such as checking and warping, are liable to occur unless properly guarded against. It weighs 29.30 pounds per cubic foot, or nearly three pounds less than Douglas fir. It is used for rough lumber, packing boxes, bridge floors, interior house finish, and fuel.

SHASTA RED FIR (_Abies magnifica shastensis_) is pronounced by George B. Sudworth to be only a form of red fir (_Abies magnifica_) and not a separate species. The principal difference is in the cones. The Shasta form was discovered on the mountain of that name in northern California in 1890 by Professor J. G. Lemmon. It was supposed to be confined to that locality, but was subsequently found on the Cascade mountains in Oregon, and also at several points in northern California. It was later found in the Sierras five hundred miles south of Mount Shasta.

LOVELY FIR (_Abies amabilis_) is known by a number of names, red
fir, silver fir, red silver fir, lovely red fir, amabilis fir, and
larch. The last name is applied to this tree by lumbermen who have
discovered that fir lumber sells better if it is given some other
name. The range of this species extends from British Columbia
southward in the Cascade mountains through Washington to Oregon. It
is the common fir of the Olympic mountains and there reaches its
best development, sometimes a height of 250 feet and a diameter of
five or six; but the average, even in the best part of its range, is
much under that size, while in the northern country, and high on
mountains, it is a commonplace tree, averaging less than 100 feet
high, and scarcely eighteen inches in diameter. When this fir stands
in open ground, the whole trunk is covered with limbs from base to
top; but in dense stands, the limbs drop off, and a clean trunk
results.

Some of the largest trees rise with scarcely a limb 150 feet, and
above that is the small crown. The bark of young trees is covered
with blisters filled with resin. The bark is thin and smooth until
the tree is a century or more old, after which it becomes rougher,
and near the base may be two and a half inches thick. It is of very
slow growth, and a century hardly produces a trunk of small sawlog
size. The leaves are dark green above, and whitish below. They are
much crowded on the twigs, those on the underside rising with a
twist at the base, and standing nearly erect. They are longer than
those on the twig’s upper side. The purple cones are conspicuous
objects on the tree, are from three and a half to six inches long,
and bear abundance of seeds which are well dispersed by wind.
However, the reproduction of this tree is not plentiful. The species
holds its own, and not much more. When artificial reforestation
takes place in this country, if that time ever comes, lovely fir
will receive scant consideration, because of its discouragingly slow
growth. It ranks with lodgepole pine in that respect. Nature can
afford to wait two hundred years for a forest to mature, but men
will not plant and protect when the prospect of returns is so
remote. The wood is light, weak, moderately stiff and hard. The
heartwood is pale brown, the sap nearly white. The summerwood
appears in thin but well-marked bands in the annual rings, and the
medullary rays are large enough to show slightly in quarter-sawed
lumber. Growing as it does, interspersed with really valuable woods,
the lovely fir is not highly thought of from a commercial
standpoint. However, it is exploited in conjunction with the other
species and turned into lumber and general structural material. A
considerable quantity finds a market as interior finish and other
millwork. It has many of the properties which fit it for the
manufacture of packing boxes, particularly those intended for dried
fruit and light merchandise. It bears considerable resemblance to
spruce. The utilization of this and similar species of western fir
for pulp has been suggested, but little has been done. It has been
planted ornamentally in parts of Europe, but there is no comparison
between the decorative appearance of this fir and its associated
species, the others which are in cultivation being much superior.
Removal from the old habitat militates greatly against its natural
beauty and reduces it to the level of the ordinary.

ALPINE FIR (_Abies lasiocarpa_) is so called because it thrives on
high mountains and in the far North. It grows in southern Alaska, up
to latitude 60°, and southward to Oregon and Colorado. Its other
names are balsam, white balsam, Oregon balsam, mountain balsam,
white fir, pumpkin tree, down-cone, and downy-cone subalpine fir. It
grows from sea level in Alaska up to 7,000 feet or more in the
South. It is not abundant, and not very well known. However, its
slender, spirelike top distinguishes it from all associates and it
may be recognized at long distances by that characteristic. It
endures cold at 40 degrees below zero, and summer climate at 90
degrees. Trees are usually small, and the trunks are covered with
limbs to the ground. On high mountains the lower limbs often lie
flat on the ground, and the twigs sometimes take root. Under very
favorable circumstances this fir may reach a height of 160 feet and
a diameter of four, but the usual size is less than half of it, even
when conditions are fair, while on bleak mountains mature trees may
be only three or four feet high, with most of the limbs prostrate.
The sprawling form of growth makes the tree peculiarly liable to be
killed by fire. The bark is thin, smooth, and flinty; and in color
it is ashy gray or chalky white. Leaves are one and a half inches or
less long; the purple cones from two to four inches. Trees bear
cones at about twelve years of age. The seeds are equipped with
violet or purplish wings, and they fly far enough to find the best
available places to plant themselves. The wood is narrow-ringed,
light, soft, and in color from pale straw to light yellowish-brown.
It is fairly straight grained, and splits and works easily; but
trunks are very knotty. Its best service in the past has consisted
in supplying fuel to mining camps and mountain stock ranges.

DOUGLAS FIR

DOUGLAS FIR

(_Pseudotsuga Taxifolia_)

During one hundred and ten years, from 1803 until the present time, botanists and others have proposed and rejected names for this tree. It has been called a fir, pine, and spruce, with various combinations, but the name now seems to be fixed. Laymen have disputed almost as much as botanists as to what the tree should be named. It has been called red fir, Douglas spruce, Douglas fir, yellow fir, spruce, fir, pine, red pine, Puget Sound pine, Oregon pine, cork-barked Douglas spruce, and Douglas tree. More than a dozen varieties are distinguished in cultivation.

The range of Douglas fir covers most of the Rocky Mountain region in the United States and northward to central British Columbia; on the coast from the latitude of southern Alaska to the Sierra Nevada mountains in central California. It reaches its maximum development in western Washington and Oregon, particularly between the Cascade mountains and the Pacific ocean. In these Cascade forests, stands are found which yield from 50,000 to 100,000 feet per acre, and mills in that region cut the longest timbers in the world, some two feet square and 100 feet long.

Two forms of Douglas fir are recognized by botanists, not essentially different except in size and habit of growth. One is the finely developed form on the Pacific coast where the climate is warm and the air moist. The other is the Rocky Mountain form which is smaller and shows the effect of cold, dryness, and other adverse circumstances. When the seeds of the two forms are planted in nurseries, where they enjoy identical advantages, the coast form outgrows the other in Europe, but the Rocky Mountain form thrives best in the eastern part of the United States.

Douglas fir needles are from three-quarters to one and a quarter inches long, and of a dark, yellow-green color. They remain on the twigs about eight years. Cones are from two to four and a half inches long, and are borne on long stems. The seeds, which ripen in August, are of light, reddish-brown color with irregular white spots on the lower side; are about a quarter of an inch long, and are provided with wings. Trees of this species in the moist climate of the Pacific slope average much larger than those in the mountains farther east. The largest are 300 feet high, occasionally more, and from eight to ten in diameter. The average among the Rocky Mountains is from eighty to 100 feet high, and two to four in diameter. Young trees are slender with crowded branches. In thick stands the lower limbs die and the trunks remain bare, except an occasional small branch. Douglas fir at its best grows in thick stands, with crowns forming a canopy so dense that sunlight can scarcely reach the ground. The result of this is that other species have little show where Douglas fir prevails.

The bark of large trunks attains a thickness of eight or ten inches near the base. Young bark contains blisters filled with resin, similar to those of balsam and other species of fir.

The wood is light red or yellow, the sap much whiter. Lumbermen recognize two kinds of wood, yellow and red. The former is considered more valuable. Both may come from the same trunk, and the reason for the difference in color and quality is not well understood. It cannot be attributed to soil or climate, or to the age of the tree, and it does not seem to depend upon rate of growth. The bands of summerwood are broad and quite distinct. A few scattered resin ducts are visible under a magnifying glass of low power. The medullary rays are numerous, rather large, frequently yellow, conspicuous when wood is split radially. The wood’s average weight is given by Sargent at 32.14 pounds per cubic foot, yet some specimens exceed forty pounds. It is hard, strong, and stiff. In mechanical properties it rates about the same as longleaf pine of the South. Elaborate tests have been made to determine which of these woods is the better for heavy construction, and neither appears to win over the other. In one respect, however, Douglas fir has a clear advantage over its southern rival: it may be had in much larger pieces. No other commercial wood of the world equals it in that particular. The Douglas fir flagstaff at the Kew gardens in England was 159 feet long, eight inches in diameter at the top, more than three feet at the base. The extraordinary size of squared beams cut from this species has led to great demand for it for heavy construction in Europe and this country. The pines from the Baltic sea region of northern Europe, which held undisputed place in heavy work during centuries, has now yielded that place to Douglas fir and longleaf pine.

No other single species in the United States or in the world equals the annual sawmill cut of Douglas fir. The four species of southern yellow pines, if counted as one, surpass it; but singly, not one comes up to it. In 1910 the lumber cut from this fir amounted to 5,203,644,000 feet, which exceeded one-eighth of the total lumber cut in the United States. The importance of such a timber tree can scarcely be estimated. The available supply in the western forests is very large and will last many years, even if the demand for more than 5,000,000,000 feet a year continues to be met.

The timber is exported to practically every civilized nation in the world. Shipbuilding creates a heavy demand. Some of the leading European nations use it as deck lining for battleships, and except mahogany and teak, it is said to have no equal for that purpose. Its cheapness gives it a decided advantage over those woods.

Every important lumber market in the United States handles Douglas fir, and its uses are so many that it would be easier to list industries which do not use it than those which do. It is manufactured into more than fifty classes of commodities, in Illinois alone. Among these are boats, railroad cars, electrical apparatus, farm machinery, laundry supplies, ladders, refrigerators, musical instruments, fixtures for offices, stores, and banks, and sash, doors, and blinds. This list of uses shows that its place in the country’s industries includes much more than rough construction. It may be stained in imitation of valuable foreign and domestic woods, including walnut, mahogany, and oak. The natural grain and figure of the wood may be deepened and improved by stains, and this is much done by manufacturers of interior finish, panels, and store and office fixtures. There is practically no limit to the size of panels which may be cut in single pieces. It is easy to procure planks large enough for whole counter tops.

The best grain of Douglas fir is not brought out by quarter-sawing. The figures desired are not those produced by the medullary rays, but by the rings of annual growth. Therefore, the sawyer at the mill cuts his best logs--if intended for figured lumber--tangentially, as far as possible. In the state of Washington, which leads all other states in the production of Douglas fir, its chief use as a manufactured product is for doors, sash, and blinds, and the annual consumption in that industry exceeds 50,000,000 feet. It is cut in veneers, and it is likewise used as corewood to back veneers. Crossarms for telegraph and telephone poles demand 35,000,000 feet yearly in Washington alone, and many thousands of poles are of this wood. It is third among the crosstie woods of the United States, the combined cut of oaks standing first, and the pine second. It is rapidly taking high position as material for large water pipes and for braces, props, stulls, and lagging in mines and for paving blocks for streets.

BRISTLECONE FIR (_Abies venusta_) is pronounced by George B.
Sudworth to be “the most curious fir tree in the world.” It is found
almost exclusively in Monterey county, California, but a few trees
grow outside of that circumscribed area. It has been called Santa
Lucia fir, because it was once supposed to exist only in canyons of
Santa Lucia mountains, but its range is now known to be more
extensive. Monterey county, California, is of peculiar interest to
dendrologists. Three species of trees are either confined to that
area, or have their best development there. They are Monterey
cypress (_Cupressus macrocarpa_), Monterey pine (_Pinus radiata_),
and bristlecone fir. All are peculiar trees: the cypress because of
its ragged form and extremely limited range, the pine because of
its exceedingly rapid growth when given a chance, and the fir,
because of its peculiar form of crown, odd appearance of cone, and
extraordinary weight of wood. No reason is apparent why that
particular point on the California coast should have brought into
existence--or at least should have gathered to itself--three
peculiar tree species. Bristlecone fir is well named from the
bristles an inch long covering the cone. The leaves, too, are
peculiar, bearing much resemblance to small willow leaves. Their
upper sides are deep yellow-green and the under sides silvery. The
largest leaves are two inches long, cones three inches. They ripen
in August, and soon afterwards scatter their seeds. The tree is not
a prolific seeder, and it is believed that its range is becoming
smaller. Bristlecone’s form of crown has been compared to an Indian
club, the large end on the ground and the handle pointing upward.
Trees from sixty to eighty feet high have such “handles” twenty or
thirty feet long. That peculiarity of shape makes the tree
recognizable among associated species at a distance of several
miles. The recorded weight of the wood is 42.27 pounds per cubic
foot, which is nearly twice the weight of some other firs. The wood
is moderately soft, but very firm. Few uses for it have been
reported. Trunks are very knotty, and are too few in number to be of
importance as a source of lumber. The tree has been planted
successfully for ornament in the south of Europe.