80 EVERGREENS. 



tudes. Trees from the hills will stand better on the plains. 

 Those from the highest limit best resist the cold. 



The Dougfas Spruce, The Douglas Spruce (Pseudotsuga 

 Douglassi) — Tsuga is hemlock. Resembling hemlock is the 

 signification. This is the tree for the million. It is now planted 

 largely in Europe. In visiting the nurseries of the interior and 

 also of the East I found it the most thrifty of all the evergreens, 

 making by far the most rapid growth. Some complain that It 

 grows too rapidly for a lawn tree, that it soon obstructs the 

 view in a yard, but it has Its place in a. grove. Mr. Pollard 

 of Nehawka, Neb., has a fine grove of them and they are mak- 

 ing a rapid growth. The foliage is too soft for a windbreak. 

 When exposed to the full sweep of the sirocco it sun scalds. 

 Tou need to hide it behind other trees or put it in a grove. 



In the western part of Nebraska I noticed that if planted on 

 low grounds, as it starts to grow very early, it is sometimes 

 nipped by late frosts, which give it a ragged appearance. This 

 is the most famous tree of the Pacific coast. B. B. Fernow, 

 former chief of forestry, tells us that nowhere on earth is there 

 such a burden of lumber to the acre as this tree produces. It 

 was named from David Douglas, an early explorer of the west- 

 ern forests. Tou will find it distributed ft-om the eastern slope 

 of the Rockies to the Pacific coast. 



John Muir says: "It is this grand tree that forms the fam> 

 ous forests of western Oregon, Washington, and the adjacent 

 coast regions of British Columbia, where it attains itfi greatest 

 size and Is most abundant, making almost pure forests over 

 thousands of square miles, dark, close and almost inaccessible, 

 many of the trees towering with straight and almost impercep- 

 tible tapering shafts to a height of 300 feet, their heads together 

 shutting out the light — one of the largest, most widely distri- 

 buted and most important of all our western giants." 



I call attention to one feature of this tree, and that is Its 

 almost infinite forms and features. Some are light green and 

 somie a, dark blue mingled with silver, some have short needles 

 and some have longer ones, some have rigid branches and 

 others those that are gracefully pendulous. Time and again 

 mountaineers have said: "I will show you an entirely distinct 

 tree," when It would prove to be a type of the Douglas. 



In eastern Nebraska and Kansas this tree will have a fu- 

 ture, and In the central portions It will do well if sheltered by 

 a row of Cedars on the South. As far West as Franklin, Neb., 

 there are some fine specimens, but its best field will be to th* 

 East of the 100th meridian. If one is planting a forest by all 

 means use this tree. It \v>ii bear close planting. Surround 

 a piece of land with other evergreens or deciduous trees, and 

 plant these In the center, and you will soon have a forest of 

 itraight, beautiful trees, which In a few years will make saw- 



