GENERAL REPORT. 9 



is coarse-grained. Where nothing better offers, it may be sawed into 

 boards. 



Firms flexilis, James.— ("American Cembran Pine.") — Attains in Cen- 

 tral Colorado a height of 50 feet in its best situations, with a diameter of a 

 foot and a half. The shape and color of the cones as well as the pliable 

 character and white wood of the young shoots are, as Dr. Parry has 

 already noted, strikingly suggestive of the White Pine of the East. The 

 extremely slow growth of this tree is remarkable. The trunk, as a rule, 

 is quite too full of knots to make good boards, though there is no reason 

 why the less stunted specimens might not be used for coarse, heavy 

 timbers. 



Firms Balfowriana, Murr.- — This tree is seldom, if ever, found at an alti- 

 tude less than 9,000 feet above the sea. It is the last to survive the expo- 

 sure on the mountain-tops ; and finding a pine at timber-line is presumptive 

 evidence that it is this species. It grows sometimes 35 feet. high and 18 

 inches in diameter ; has little value as a timber. 



Pinus edulis, Engelm. — (Pinon Pine of Southern Colorado.) — The 

 Pinus edulis is the one so frequently alluded to by Frdmont as the Nut 

 Pine. It furnishes capital fuel, having enough of the terebinthinate in 

 it to make an intensely hot fire. This is the most important use to which 

 the tree is applied. It ranges from the hills near Canon City south, not 

 going into the mountains west until it has crossed the valley of the Arkansas 

 southward. 



Pinus ponderosa, Dougl. — ("Yellow Pine" of the West.) — This is the 

 largest and most valuable of the trees in the region surveyed during the 

 season of 1873. It makes the best lumber the country affords, and, besides, is 

 quite abundant, though this fact will probably be the reason why it will be 

 the first to be extirpated before the growing needs of an increasing popu- 

 lation. In the valley of the Conejos River, it was found growing 60 to 70 

 feet high, with a diameter of nearly three feet. 



Abies JDouglasii, Lindl. — Tree 60 to 90 feet high, though becoming 

 much smaller as it ascends the mountain sides. As a timber it is only mid- 

 dling in quality. It does well for beams, &c. It becomes much larger and 

 more valuable on our northwest coast and has fewer knots than on the 



