128 TREE-PLANTING. 



than the common silver fir, that at the age of five or six 

 years it is usually twice its height at the same age, and 

 at eight or ten years perhaps three times its height, but 

 then its vigour ceases, and it often stops growing 

 before it attains twenty years of age. At its best, and 

 in soil most congenial to its growth and nature, it 

 seldom lives beyond thirty or forty years, liking land 

 which is deep, moist, and well sheltered, and it is con- 

 sidered a fine specimen which reaches forty feet in 

 height. Its chief use, therefore, consists in its rapid 

 growth and ornamental appearance, its foliage being 

 closer and more dense than the silver fir, the leaves 

 being of a brilliant dark green with a silvery hue 

 underneath. It grows in a pyramidal form, and confers 

 both shelter and ornament to newly-formed planta- 

 tions, especially in shrubberies and belts of trees, in 

 which trees of longer duration are being established. 

 It will not endure in a light gravelly soil, being unable 

 to stand drought The bark, buds, and cones are 

 often literally saturated in turpentine, the resinous 

 extract, which exudes freely upon the slightest 

 excision, being known as Balm of Gilead, or Canadian 

 balsam, in its native country, which is highly odori- 

 ferous and of a penetrating taste, and said to be of 

 efficacy in cases of consumption. Its tendency to 

 early decay has been attributed to this excess of 

 resinous fluid. 



The Cedar (Abies cedrus or Cednis Libani}. In 

 England the cedar is commonly reckoned the least 

 valuable of the Conifers, or cone-bearing tribe, so far 

 as its timber is concerned, that which is grown in 

 Britain being open in the grain and soft, falling far 

 short of the ancient reputation which cedar used to 



