362 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



September, 



NOTES ON A NORTHWESTERN FIR. 



THE NOBEE FIR ABIES NOBIEIS. 



By J. GiRviN Peters. 



THE following notes on the Noble 

 Fir {Abies nobilis) were taken 

 during the summer of 1901 while the 

 writer was in the camps and mills of 

 the Bridal Veil Lumbering Company in 

 Oregon. It is in this region, on the 

 western side of the Cascade Mountains, 

 that the Noble Fir reaches its best de- 

 velopment. Owing to the almost inac- 

 cessible elevations at which the tree is 

 found, it is little logged, and hence is 

 little known ; still it is one of the im- 

 portant timber trees of the Northwest. 

 Though its lumber is manufactured on 

 a large scale by practically only one 

 company, it is found in the eastern 

 market today, and its good qualities 

 have been recognized by such consumers 

 as the Cramps, of Philadelphia. 



The product of the Noble Fir is known 

 to the lumbermen of Oregon and Wash- 

 ington as Earch, and is sold as such. 

 It is sometimes called Silver Fir. 



UTILITY. 



From a commercial standpoint larch 

 lumber is valuable. It will fit in wher- 

 ever the tide-land Spruce will go ; it 

 frequentl}' takes the place of Red Fir, 

 and compares favorably with eastern 

 White Pine. 



The wood is close-grained, and when 

 dry is very light. In drying it loses from 

 40 to 50 per cent of its green weight, 

 which is from 3,500 to 4,000 pounds per 

 1,000 feet, board measure. It may be 

 said, by wa^^ of a comparison, that where 

 larch lumber is left in the Ci.xy kiln for 

 ten days, Red Fir is taken out at the 

 end of three days, which indicates some- 

 thing of the relative porosity of these 

 two kinds of lumber. The wood of the 

 Noble Fir is very soft, even softer than 

 that of the eastern White Pine, and is 

 easil}^ worked. Its freedom from pitch 

 makes it especially valuable for interior 

 finish and for all kinds of molding, and. 



as it takes paint well, much of the tim- 

 ber is manufactured into bevel siding 

 for exterior work. 



The sap wood is almost white, and 

 the heart wood is of variegated tints, 

 which shade from a light reddish brown 

 to almost purple, and give to bastard 

 stuff the appearance of a beautifully 

 wavy grain. Earch timber, sawed at 

 such an angle to the grain as to produce 

 a wavy effect, can be turned into mate- 

 rial for interior work, which shows up 

 quite well when finished in oil. For di- 

 mension stuff and bridge timbers Earch 

 is not so well adapted as Red Fir. 



A new phase of the larch-lumber in- 

 dustry, and one of no mean economic 

 importance, is in turning the second- 

 grade stuff into box lumber. There is 

 a ready market for this in Oregon among 

 the many fruit-packers in the valleys of 

 the Willamette and the Columbia Rivers 

 and their tributaries. 



Though, as yet, no experiments have 

 been made to test the suitability of the 

 wood for pulp, its long, soft fiber and 

 its freedom from pitch would seem to 

 make it of value for this purpose. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



The Noble Fir extends in a zone, be- 

 tween elevations of 2,000 and 4,000 feet, 

 along the western slope of the Cascade 

 Range, from the southern slope of Mt. 

 Baker, in northern Washington, to the 

 summit of the Siskiyous, in southern 

 Oregon. Upon the eastern slope of the 

 Cascades the tree occurs much less 

 abundantly and at generally higher ele- 

 vations than upon the western side. In 

 the Coast Range, from Olympia to the 

 Rogue River Mountains, it is distributed 

 scatteringly upon high, isolated spots, 

 often rising to an altitude of 5,000 feet. 



The Noble Fir is found in greatest 

 quantities in the Cascade Range in 

 Oregon, just south of the Columbia 



