FOREST TREES 
red fir is an important and exceedingly 
useful tree, especially for the purposes 
of practical and scientific forestry. Like 
the white pine it was planted long ago 
by those pioneers in forestry, the Ger- 
mans, and has proved itself among them 
to be one of the few trees of foreign 
extraction that can be called successful. 
When young, the red fir grows rap- 
idly and symmetrically, and has a 
fresh, vigorous, healthy look. It then 
already possesses the bluish depth to 
its foliage that it preserves throughout 
life, a color that is comparable in its 
purity only to that of the white pine. 
In several of its other features, how- 
ever, it changes with the lapse of 
years. It gradually loses the graceful 
lower boughs that feather to the 
ground in the young tree; its bark 
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