The Douglas Fir. 179 



and on high mountains. In California it often grows to a great size 

 at elevations varying from 6,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea, and some- 

 times ascends on the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to even higher 

 altitudes, although it is always smaller and less valuable as a timber 

 tree in the dry interior portions of the continent than in the moist 

 coast I'egion. 



Other trees of the Pacific forest produce more valuable wood 

 than the Douglas Fir — the Port Orford Cedar, the Sugar Pine and 

 the Redwood. These trees are confined to a comparatively small 

 region, however, and the Douglas Fir, in view of the great territory 

 over which it has spread, must be considered the most important 

 timber-tree of western America, and of no other tree is there now 

 standing such a body of valuable and available timber. The wood 

 of the Douglas Fir is hard, strong and durable; it may be recog- 

 nized by the numerous spirally marked wood cells which distinguish 

 it from the wood of allied conifers. The small cells which are devel- 

 oped in the wood of conifers at the end of the growing season are 

 very numerous, and form broad bands which often occupy half the 

 width of the layers of annual growth. These bands of small cells 

 are dark colored and conspicuous, and become hard and flinty with 

 exposure, making the wood of this tree difficult to work excej^t when 

 it is freshly cut. Some trees produce light red and some yellow 

 wood, and individuals vary to a much greater degree than those of 

 most other trees in the time required for their sap-wood to turn into 

 heart-wood. The yellow wood is closer-grained and is considered 

 much more valuable than the red wood. Lumbermen recognize 

 these two varieties and pretend to be able to distinguish the trees 

 which produce them, an assumption which still needs demonstra- 

 tion. The conditions which lead to the formation by the same spe- 

 cies of such different wood are not well understood; in the case of 

 the Douglas Fir they are probably due to soil and elevation, and, in 

 part at least, to the age of the individual. The wood of the Douglas 

 Fir is known in commerce as red fir, yellow fir and Oregon pine, the 

 last name belonging, however, more properly to the wood of the 

 Yellow Pine (Pinus ponderosa) of western America. It furnishes 

 the principal product of the immense saw-miils situated on Puget 

 Sound, and is manufactured, besides, wherever forests of this tree 

 exist; it is used for all sorts of building purposes and for construc- 

 tion, railway ties and fuel. 



The Douglas Fir was discovered late in the last century by Arch- 

 ibald Menzies, Vancouver's surgeon and naturalist, on his voyage of 

 discovery; and a few years later Lewis and Clark found it in Mon- 

 tana during their transcontinental journey. David Douglas redis- 

 covered it on the Columbia river in 1825 and introduced it into En- 

 gland; and it is the name of this bold and enterprising botanist 

 which has become associated with this tree, although, unhappily, it 

 cannot bear it in the language of science. No tree is more unfortunate 



