462 CONIFERS. 



ornamental or picturesque tree in landscape. This opinion, 

 however, seems applicable to it only when planted in situ- 

 ations, or in districts foreign and unsuited to its natural 

 habit, and where it can never be expected to attain either 

 the dimensions or the form it bears in its native habitats, 

 whether upon the Alps of Switzerland, or in the fir- clad 

 regions of the north of Europe. Accordingly, we find 

 Sir T. D. Lauder, in his valuable edition of Gilpin, ex- 

 pressing himself in the following terms, when speaking 

 of the effect of the Spruce in its native regions : " The 

 Spruce Fir is the great tree of the Alps, and, so far as 

 our opinion of its effect in landscape may go, we can only 

 say, that with us it is so mentally associated with the 

 grandeur of Swiss scenery, that the sight of it never fails 

 to touch cords in our bosom, which awaken the most 

 pleasing recollections. What can be more sublime than 

 to behold, opposed to the intensely blue ether, the 

 glazed summits of Mont Blanc, or the Jungfrau, rising 

 over the interminable forests of Spruce Firs which clothe 

 the bases of the mountains, while some such gigantic 

 specimens as those we have been noticing rise in groups 

 among the rocks before us, many of them shivered, broken, 

 and maimed by tempests, their dark forms opposed to 

 all the brilliant prismatic hues of some immense, gorgeous 

 glacier, which nourishes in its vast bosom a mighty river, 

 that is doomed to fertilize and to enrich whole kingdoms !" 

 The timber of the Spruce is of excellent quality, being 

 light, elastic, and durable, when grown in a soil, and in 

 a climate, or at an elevation, suited to its nature. In 

 colour it varies from a yellowish to a reddish white, and 

 is less resinous than the wood of the Pinus sylvestris. The 

 great height it frequently attains in proportion to its bulk, 

 when growing in thick and crowded masses, renders it an 



