Abies 749 



As the seed can now be procured in quantity and at a cheap rate, even when 

 home-grown seed is not available, there seems to be no reason why this beautiful 

 tree should not be raised at the same rate as the common silver fir and planted in 

 preference to the latter, for though it has not yet had time to attain its full size in 

 this country it grows quite as fast, and from what little we know of its timber is 

 likely to be at least as valuable. Its average rate of growth is from i to 2 feet 

 annually when once established ; and though we have as yet no evidence that it 

 will endure dense shade as well as the silver fir, yet the accounts of its growth 

 in the Caucasus lead one to expect that it will do so. 



Remarkable Trees 



Among the numerous specimens that we have measured in various places in 

 England, I have seen none to surpass a very healthy and vigorous tree which grows 

 in a wood facing east on the banks of the river at Eggesford, the property of the 

 Earl of Portsmouth in Devonshire, which in April 1904 measured 84 feet by 5 feet 7 

 inches, and had produced cones. But a tree growing in a wood called Hook's Grove 

 at Bayfordbury is perhaps taller ; it was about 85 feet by 6 feet 10 inches in 1907. 



At Strathfieldsaye, in the same year, I measured one as 78 feet by 6 feet 7 

 inches, and at Hemsted, in Kent, there is a tall but very slender specimen, not over 

 forty years planted, which bids fair to become a very large tree. In 1905 it was 68 

 feet by only 3 feet 7 inches. At Lynhales, Herefordshire, the seat of S. Robinson, 

 Esq., another is 70 feet by 5^ feet and growing freely. 



In Wales it is thriving at Penrhyn ; where there are two trees, one with its top 

 broken being about 75 feet by 10 feet ; the other even taller measures 6 feet 10 

 inches in girth ; and at Hafodunos, where it does well in plantations, Henry 

 measured one 60 feet by 6 feet 7 inches in 1904. 



In Scotland the largest recorded in 1891 was at Poltalloch, and then was said 

 to measure 70 feet by 6 feet, but when measured by Mr. Melville in 1906 he made 

 it only y^^ feet by 7 feet 4 inches. 



The finest I have seen myself is one at Moncreiffe which, in 1907, I made to be 

 no less than 79 feet by 65- feet ; a healthy tree from which many seedlings have been 

 raised. This is stated by Hunter to have been planted about 1856, and in 1888 was 

 only 30 feet by 2 feet 2 inches. It is said to have been hybridised by the silver fir, 

 but I could not see anything in the seedlings to distinguish them. 



In Ireland it also grows very well. A tree at Carton, the seat of the Duke of 

 Leinster, was 74 feet by 5 feet 4 inches, and one at Fota 68 feet by about 6 feet 

 in 1903. Another at Mount Shannon, Limerick, measured, in 1905, 75 feet by 8 

 feet 9 inches. A good specimen at Ballykilcavan, Queen's County, measured 68 feet 

 by 5 feet 2 inches in 1907. There are many fine healthy specimens at Dereen in 

 Co. Kerry. 



In the University Botanic Garden at Upsala, in Sweden, a tree was seen by 

 Henry in 1908 which was about 40 feet high and branched into three stems near the 

 ground, the result evidently of injury to the leader by severe frost in early youth. 



