CONIFERS 153 



OUR EQUIVALENT FOR REDWOOD 



The big tree cannot hold a candle to the redwood (Sequoia 

 sempervirens) save in height. The tallest big tree I have heard of is 

 three hundred and fifty feet high; the tallest redwood three hundred 

 and twenty-five. In England the redwood will grow a hundred feet in 

 sixty years. I dare say I had read a hundred descriptions of the red- 

 wood before I went to England, in a vain attempt to get a mental 

 picture of it. Yet the essence of its beauty is ridiculously easy to 

 tell. Its foliage effect is simply that of our common hemlock. Add 

 to this a beautiful warm red bark and you have the whole story 

 of its landscape value. 



Of course, these points are nothing compared with the enor- 

 mous height of the redwood. I don't mean to say that any words of 

 mine can convey the feelings one has at the first sight of a hundred- 

 foot conifer, but the redwood is only one of many conifers that reach 

 a hundred feet. The distinctive beauty of the redwood is the feath- 

 ery grace of its foliage and this is produced in precisely the same way 

 as that of the hemlock, viz., by short, soft needles in two ranks. 

 Hemlock is inferior in height and beauty of bark, but if we plant 

 enough hemlocks we can make the East beautiful enough without 

 sighing for sequoias. England can grow our Western hemlock to 

 perfection but not our Eastern, so far as I have observed, for the lat- 

 ter tree makes several trunks instead of maintaining a single leader 

 as it does here. 



THEIR BEST FIR AND OURS 



England has no native fir (what is called "Scotch fir" is a 

 pine), but the common fir of Europe, which one sees everywhere, is 

 the silver fir (Abies Picea or pectinata) . This is the one we waste our 

 money on. But we have a much better tree in the white fir of 

 Colorado (Abies concolor). It is the cheeriest fir because of the 



