COMMON, OR NORWAY SPRUCE FIR. 461 



to, is to see that the trees, as they advance in size, have 

 sufficient room to allow of the full developement of the 

 whole of their lower branches, as upon the retention of 

 these its protecting qualities and use as a skreen entirely 

 depend. It has, also, been treated successfully as a hedge- 

 plant, in which form it affords good shelter in nursery 

 or garden grounds. A fence of this kind is described 

 by Mr. M'Nab, in the " Gardener's Magazine,'''' as growing 

 at the Whim, about fourteen miles from Edinburgh, every 

 part of which, he remarks, is beautiful and green. When 

 first made, the plants, about ten feet high, were put in 

 at three feet apart, and cut down or headed to five feet ; 

 it was then cut or trimmed with the shears in the January 

 of the following year, an operation since annually repeated 

 in the same month, in order to keep it close and of a proper 

 form. A figure of a portion of this hedge is given in the 

 " Arboretum Britannicum," in which work Loudon also 

 remarks, that hedges of Spruce are not unfrequent in 

 Carpathia, Baden, and Bavaria, and that, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Moscow, they may be seen, in some gen- 

 tlemen's grounds, trained to a height of thirty or forty 

 feet. 



In point of symmetry and regularity of form, the Spruce 

 Fir, individually, is one of the finest of the Aiietince, and, 

 when in full and vigorous growth, must be acknowledged 

 as forming in itself a beautiful object. Its pretensions, 

 however, to rank as an ornamental or a picturesque tree 

 in landscape scenery, depend upon concomitant circum- 

 stances, such as the propriety of the situation in which 

 it is placed, and the effect it is calculated to produce, in 

 contrast, or when grouped with other trees. Gilpin, though 

 he could admire the Spruce individually for its feathery 

 and floating foliage, allowed it little or no merit as an 



