Abies DouglasiJ and its Precocity. 



By JAMES GORDOX, ROSSDHXJ ESTATE. 



Of late years a good deal has been written and spoken in this and 

 other countries about Coniferse, and still our knowledge of them is far 

 from perfect. The Ahies Douglasii as a timber and ornamental tree 

 cannot be said to have escaped notice. Some have spoken in admiration 

 of its fine appearance, and others have enlarged on the quality of its 

 wood, and have pictured to themselves the excellent returns from this 

 tree that might be realized by proprietors and others were they and 

 their foresters wise enough to plant plenty of it. The writer, too, has 

 always been an admirer of this species of fir, but has never been led 

 to think of it as a more useful, or even more leautiful tree than Abies 

 .excelsa or common spruce. Compared with Abies excelsa its habit is 

 not so beautifully compact, its form not so sharply conical, nor its 

 .colour so decided. It is frankly admitted that when Abies Douglasii 

 is planted side by side with Abies excelsa, in deep loam, it will grow 

 faster and make more timber in a given time than the other, but this 

 is no test of its comparative usefulness. The A. excelsa thrives as well 

 in less favoured circumstances, in which A. Douglasii can hardly exist 

 The soil and situation that suit A. Douglasii will invariably 

 produce timber far more profitable than either it or A. excelsa. A 

 well-grown specimen of A. Douglasii is certainly a noble tree, but it 

 is difficult to imagine it becoming a profitable timber tree. 



This Abies Douglasii, about which so mucli has been said, and said 

 with all the energy of persons wishing to annihilate an old, worn-out, 

 and establish a new sound arboricultural system, seems to have a 

 propensity to early flowering, of which the writer, until this season, 

 was unaware. A number of specimens were lifted and replanted in 

 the nursery here in the spring of 1876, with a view to removing the 

 plants to permanent situations during the spring of this year. This 

 replanting and transplanting has caused them to develop numerous 

 male and female flowers, although the plants are not more than six 

 feet high on an average. On examination I found the flowers to be 

 prctandrous, and consequently impregnation was hopeless, unless by 

 impregnation of the earliest female flowers with the pollen of the 

 latest males, which latter were perfect about the beginning of May, 

 and not a few of them earlier. Three cones were thus treated, but 



