OBSERVATIONS ON HIMALAYAN CONIFERS. 



241 



states that the cones may be gathered as mature any time between 

 November and April, which reduces the period of gestation in 

 both these spruces, in common with some others of the Abietince, 

 to a period of six or eight months. 



In A. Smithiana the young cones are at first upright, and the 

 position assigned by Dr. Wallich may have originated in his 

 having found them only at this stage ; but from their own weight, 

 and the slenderness of the branchlets, they soon become pendulous. 

 The very beautiful tender green shoots, as they elongate in April 

 and May, carry before them, like an extinguisher, the brown 

 transparent scales of the leaf-buds ; owing to a blight of some 

 kind, the young leaves frequently turn a rich orange colour. 

 The twigs, &c, are in general use in Joobul and other states as 

 litter, and thus form good manure ; and the shepherds of the 

 higher mountains are accustomed to carve out great cantles of 

 the bark of this species and of the Pindrow to roof their shiel- 

 ings, and also to serve as water-troughs for the cattle; full 

 many a noble tree is destroyed in this way. But, excluding all 

 consideration of the part which it probably plays in meteoro- 

 logical phenomena, the principal end and design of the Himalayan 

 spruce, like that of the lilies, which neither toil nor spin, is to 

 be sought in its extreme beauty. Loudon mentions a Norwegian 

 variety with pendulous branches, which must resemble it closely : 

 and Spenser's allusion to the Norway spruce, as "the fir that 

 weepeth still," recalls Captain Raper's distant and independent 

 " weeping fir " of the Gurhwal Alps. 



Abies excelsa is the Picea of Pliny, " distinguished tonsili 

 facilitate, by its fitness to be shorn, which agrees with the spruce 

 fir, whereof I have seen close shorn hedges." * Loudon also 

 informs us, that it differs from most of the Coniferce by its pro- 

 perty that, where the extremities of the lower branches touch the 

 ground, they readily take root, and originate new trees. 



Captain Hodgson {Gleanings in Science, February, 1830, 

 p. 52) measured a fallen Rai fir, exceeded by others standing near 



* Bishop Berkeley's " Siris, a chain of Philosophical reflections and 

 enquiries concerning the virtues of tar-water," and theology. His method 

 of preparing the former is this. Pour a gallon of cold water on a quart of 

 tar, and mix them well with a spatula for five or six minutes : let the 

 vessel stand closely covered and unmoved for three days and nights : then 

 skim the water, and pour it off unshaken into bottles, which are to be well 

 stoppered. The Bishop's theology has outlived his tar-water. The Greeks 

 used and still use (Hoffmeister, p. 18) tar-wine, a more generous but a less 

 virtuous potation, which will perhaps survive the theology. " Jonstonus, 

 in his Dendrographia, observes that it is wholesome to walk in groves of 

 pine trees, which impregnate the air with balsamic properties." Siris : none 

 more so than P. longifdia : but the dry air and soil selected by pines are 

 more probably at the root of the salubrity. 



