SPRUCE FIR. 191 
In growing this tree for ornament, it is absolutely neces- 
sary that it have shelter, and at the same time sufficient 
space ; for the natural beauty of the species is only fully 
developed when the tree stands alone. 
It is of formal growth, uniformly conical, and the foliage 
on a good specimen is always rich and luxuriant down to the 
surface of the ground. In the absence of those bold ramifi- 
cations which adorn many other species, the gentle tapering 
of its lofty top adds a gracefulness to the object, adapts it the 
more for standing on a soft soil and enduring the vicissitudes 
of a northern climate. 
One of the best specimens of the tree in Scotland stands at 
Blair-Athole. Its height is 110 feet 6 inches. It is full of 
luxuriant foliage down to near the surface of the ground, 
where the trunk measures four feet in diameter. It stands 
in a low and sheltered glen on the banks of a stream, and in 
soil composed of red loamy gravel incumbent on limestone. 
After being a few years established in suitable soil, this 
species advances rapidly, and generally between the age of 
fifteen and thirty years, its yearly top-shoots are two feet long, 
and with moderate shelter it is often sixty feet high in forty 
years. 
In close plantations the earliest thinnings are used as prop- 
wood, and sell at prices similar to that of the Scotch pine. 
The timber is white and soft; it is finely grained, and free 
from knots only when grown in a close plantation. The 
ordinary purposes for which it is used are planks and spars 
for gangways and scaffolding, masts for small vessels, boarding 
for roofing, railway sleepers, water-troughs, conduits, and 
sluices. In value it seldom exceeds the price of the more 
degenerate sort of Scotch pine timber. The principal resinous 
production of the tree is Burgundy pitch, which is the con- 
gealed sap melted and clarified by boiling it in water. 
A. nigra (Michaux).—The black spruce fir is a native of 
North America, and was introduced into Britain by Bishop 
Compton, in the end of the seventeenth century. It has 
reached the height of from sixty to seventy feet at Painshill 
