DOUGLAS FIR 201 



location ; but none of these reasons can prevail when dif- 

 ferent colors are produced in the same tree, which is not 

 uncommon. Evidently the causes which produce the dis- 

 coloration are not understood. As a rule, the wood is hard 

 and somewhat difficult to work, and, again, it is found soft 

 and adapted to almost any use, and no insignificant com- 

 petitor to Western White Pine. It is not durable when ex- 

 posed to the soil, but for want of wood which is more durable 

 it is largely used for railroad ties and telegraph poles. The 

 tendency of large sticks to check in seasoning operates some- 

 what against its use in heavy structural work, but when 

 cut into boards and plank, it seasons without checking, and 

 is well fitted for interior finish as well as for general pur- 

 poses. It serves well for masts of ships, booms for derricks, 

 and other like uses where large, long, stiff, strong, and 

 straight timber is required. 



The bark is thin when the tree is less than about twelve 

 inches in diameter, which makes it at this stage very sus- 

 ceptible to injury from forest fires ; but on mature trees the 

 bark at the base may reach a thickness of twelve or even 

 fourteen inches, and more on very old trees, and as it does 

 not scale off, it is then very rough with deep wide furrows. 

 The character of the bark varies much with the humidity 

 of the region. Trees in dry and exposed situations have 

 rougher bark than in moist, damp forests. 



If reasonable care should be taken, natural reproduction 

 would go far towards perpetuating the supply, especially 

 in western Oregon and Washington. But when fires are per- 

 mitted to run on cut-over lands, or second growth is cut 

 down on lands unfitted for cultivation, simply to obtain 

 scant pasture for live stock, little need be expected in the 

 line of conservation until exhaustion teaches a sorrowful 

 lesson. The tree is a rapid grower for the first one hundred 

 to one hundred and fifty years of its life, when the annual 

 rings begin to lessen in thickness, and at the age of three 

 hundred years they are not more than half as thick. This 

 produces both coarse- and fine-grained wood in the same tree. 



