1 6 A MANUAL OF THE CONIFEK^. 



Silver Fir ( Abies peetinata) . . from 450 to 600 years. 



Komaii Cypress (Oupressus sempervirens) . „ 350 „ 500 „ 



Sugar Pine (Pinus Lambertiana) . ■ „ 350 ,, 500 „ 



Moreton Bay Pine (Araucaria Birhrilli) . „ 300 „ 400 „ 



Coniferous Timber. — The timber yielded by the stems of Coniferous 

 trees is of universal importance. It possesses qualities that render 

 it exceedingly serviceable for building and other constructive 

 purposes, as durability, strength, lightness, elasticity, fineness in 

 grain, &c. It also abounds in quantity immensely in excess of that 

 of any other Order of Trees, so that it is also the cheapest and 

 most easily obtained. In the northern hemisphere, the timber used 

 in building may be said to be almost exclusively Coniferous, obtained 

 from the Fir and Pine tribe, and in populous countries as Great 

 Britain, Holland, Belgium, &c, where it does not exist, or cannot 

 be grown in quantity sufficient for the supply, and where natural 

 forests have long since almost disappeared, it forms an important 

 article of commerce. 



The qualities of Coniferous timber vary much in the different tribes, 

 and also among members of the same tribe. Thus the wood of the 

 Eoman Cypress (Oupressus sempervirens) is almost imperishable by the 

 ordinary agents of decay except fire; that of the Canadian Hemlock 

 Spruce decays rapidly on exposure to the weather; the wood of 

 the Yew is among the hardest and most elastic known ; that of the 

 Californian Mammoth (Wellingtonia) is one of the softest and most 

 brittle; the timber of the Weymouth Pine (Pinus Strobus) and Black 

 Spruce (Abies nigra) is among the most valuable obtained from American 

 trees, while their near allies, the New Jersey Pine (Pinus inops) and 

 the Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea), growing in the same region, are 

 scarcely worth felling for fuel. 



Some remarkable instances of the durability of the wood of some of 

 the Coniferous trees have been recorded. 



The gates of Constantinople, which were destroyed by the Turks in 

 1553, after having lasted eleven hundred years, were made of the 

 wood of the European or Roman Cypress. 



Mr. Moorcroft writes in his Journal (about fifty years ago), "A short 

 time since a building, erected by the order of the Emperor Akbar 

 (a.d. 1542 — 1605), was taken down, and its timber, which was that 

 of the Deodar Cedar, was found so little impaired as to be fit to be 

 employed in a house built by Rajah Shah; its age could not have been 

 less than two hundred and twenty-five years.* 



* Loudon, Arb. et Frut,, p. 2431. 



