REMAINS OF LARGE SPRUCE TREE. 121 



are two feet long, between the ages of fifteen and thirty 

 years, in a healthy plantation which enjoys moderate 

 shelter, and trees often attain a height of sixty feet in 

 forty years. 



The resinous production of the tree forms the 

 Burgundy pitch of commerce, which is the congealed 

 sap, melted and clarified by boiling it in water. Its 

 timber is white and soft, and inferior in value to Scotch 

 pine timber, and only free from knots when grown in 

 a close plantation. 



Douglass Spruce Fir (A. Douglasii). This tree, 

 which bears the name of Douglas, the celebrated 

 Scotch collector of American trees, is found on the 

 banks of the Columbia river, in North-west America, 

 and is a fast-growing magnificent tree. Its foliage is of 

 the richest description, and bears a striking resemblance 

 to that of a vigorous yew tree, and like other spruces 

 does best in ground that is not dried up by the heat 

 of summer. When in favourable situations, it fre- 

 quently forms leading shoots three feet in length in 

 one season, and generally assumes a bushy form in 

 proportion to its height. There are some fine speci- 

 mens of this tree now growing in England, the first 

 plants of which were produced from seed in 1827. 



Douglas describes the trunks of these trees as 

 varying in their native forests from two feet to ten 

 feet in diameter, and from 100 to 180 feet in height. 

 He mentions a stump of this tree near Fort St. George, 

 on the Columbia river, which measured, at three feet 

 from the ground, forty-eight feet in circumference. But 

 there has been scarcely time enough to arrive at a 

 correct conclusion on many points of interest con- 

 nected with these important trees from the north- 



