224 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
spruce retains its foliage for about five to seven 
years, so that, though the needles are small and 
short, they form a dense canopy overhead. 
Unlike the Douglas fir and Menzies spruce, 
the common spruce is less rapid in early growth 
than larch or pine, and this, coupled with the 
power of bearing shade, makes it, under favour- 
able conditions, suitable for forming mixed woods 
in order to improve the growth of these more 
valuable trees, and to preserve the productive 
capacity of the soil. As in certain cases, how- 
ever, somewhat similar advantages may perhaps 
—though experiment can alone safely determine 
this—be attainable with more profitable results 
by means of Corsican pine, Douglas fir, and 
Menzies spruce, the common spruce seems never 
likely to rank as one of the more remunerative 
kinds of timber crops in the British woodlands ; 
and apart from this the tree has no special 
interest, as spruce woods are among the darkest, 
the most sombre and the most depressing of 
woodlands, though the tree itself, when grown 
isolated, forms a remarkably beautiful addition 
to the pinetum or the park. One great purpose, 
however, the spruce can serve—and in this respect 
