DESOEIPTIVE ENOMEKATION OP TREES. 115 



Scotcli Firs ; and tlie phrase is, you may after- 

 wards weed them out as you please. This is 

 ignominious. I wish not to rob society of these 

 hardy services from the Scotch Fir, nor do I 

 mean to set it in competition with many of the 

 trees of the forest, which, in their infant state, it 

 is accustomed to shelter ; all I mean is, to rescue 

 it from the disgrace of being thought fit for 

 nothing else, and to establish its character as a 

 picturesque tree. For myself, I admire its foli- 

 age — both the colour of the leaf, and its mode of 

 growth. Its ramification, too, is irregular and 

 beautiful, and not unlike that of the Stone Pine, 

 which it resembles also in the easy sweep of its 

 stem, and, likewise, in the colour of the bark, 

 which is commonly, as it attains age, of a rich 

 reddish brown. The Scotch Fir indeed, in its 

 stripling state, is less an object of beauty. Its 

 pointed and spiry shoots, during the first years of 

 its growth, are formal ; and yet I have sometimes 

 seen a good contrast produced between its spiry 

 points, and the round-headed Oaks and Elms in 

 its neighbourhood. "When I speak, however, of the 

 Scotch Fir as a beautiful individual, I conceive it, 



