l62 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



quantity of land much better suited for planting is available in 

 most districts. 



The two species of Sequoia grow extremely fast in suitable 

 situations in these islands, but the quality of the timber produced 

 does not justify their employment on an extensive scale. 



Of the silver firs of the Pacific Coast region, Abies grandis 

 is decidedly the most promising, surpassing even the Douglas fir 

 in rapidity of growth. At Avondale, it is less subject to spring 

 frosts than the common European species, Mr Crozier states 

 that at Durris, in Kincardineshire, it has been free from all trace 

 of disease (chermes, etc.), producing a great volume of soft, 

 white timber available for box-making. It may be useful in 

 situations unsuitable for Douglas fir or larch. Abies nobilis 

 also grows at Durris (Plate XVIII. Fig. 4), where it succeeds well. 

 The broad-leaf trees of the Pacific Coast region are few in 

 number, and comparatively unimportant for forestry purposes. 

 The most interesting species are Populus trichocarpa^ Fraxinus 

 oregona, Betula Lyalliana, and Umbellularia califo7-nica. The 

 first-named is liable in botanic gardens to canker, but in some 

 places has thriven amazingly. The Oregon ash may be useful. 

 Betula Lyalliatta (commonly known erroneously as B. occident- 

 alis) is the best of all the birches, and from the seed which I 

 gathered in 1906, near New Westminster, B.C., a large number 

 of thriving trees have been raised in England. The Californian 

 laurel {Umbellularia cali/ornica) a.tta.\ns a large size on alluvial 

 flats in Oregon, where it produces a valuable furniture wood. 

 This species in more southerly districts is often a mere bush, and 

 care should be taken to get seed of it from its most northerly 

 station in Oregon. 



The Rocky Mountains region has yielded a few hardy trees, 

 which are slow-growing but ornamental in our gardens, as Bicea 

 pungens^ the Colorado form of the Douglas fir, Abies arizonica, 

 Abies concolor, and Cupressus arizonica. The only tree of forestry 

 importance from this region is Larix occidentalis. This is the 

 finest of all the larches, attaining in Western Montana and the 

 adjacent districts of Idaho and British Columbia a height of 

 160 feet and a girth of 15 feet, and yielding timber of magnificent 

 quality. Introduced by seed for the first time in 1903 by Elwes, 

 followed up by larger supplies in 1908 (consequent on my visit 

 to Montana in 1906), this larch is now being extensively 

 tried both in this country and on the Continent, but it is too 



