OF FOREST-TREES. 297 



the surface of the ground, to keep off the heat^ and in winter the cold ; cH. XXI L 

 but let no dung touch either stem or root : You may likewise sow in 

 such earth about February ; they will make a shoot the very first year 

 of an inch ; next an handful ; the third year three feet, and thence- 

 forward above a yard annually. A northern gentleman (who has 

 obliged me with this process upon his great experience) assures me that 



been nine years in use, and at this time are perfectly sound. He has attended with much 

 accuracy to their durable quality as applied to the purpose of hop-poles : and he finds that 

 Larch is the best, the Weymouth Pine the next, and the Scotch and Spruce, the least 

 durable. The second thinnings (1794) are now taking place, and the trees are converted into 

 scantlings and rafters, being about forty feet in height. The number of trees at present 

 standing upon the twelve acres, are computed at 18,531, and are valued at 573/. 



It would appear from the hardy nature of the Fir, and the readiness with which it grows 

 in almost every part of this island, that it is an indigenous tree ; yet Csesar expressly says 

 that it is not a native. In his description of the country, he observes, that Britain had all 

 the trees of Gaul, except the Beech and Fir : Materia cujusque generis, ut i)i Gallia, prceter 

 Fagum ct Abietem, As all the British words for the Beech are clearly of Roman derivation, 

 Faighe, Faghe, or Faydh, it is probable that it was introduced into Britain with the Roman 

 colonies : but with regard to the Fir, the case is otherwise, for many of its names are 

 purely British ; and this is a testimony not to be overthrown. The ingenious Mr. Whitaker, 

 in the first volume of his History of Manchester, p. 309, treats this subject with great learn- 

 ing and precision. He says, " Among the many Roman names for the Fir in the British 



language, there are three which are purely and absolutely British. The Scotch distin- 

 ^' guish the Fir by the British appellation of Gius ; the Irish, by the British appellation of 

 "Giumhus; and the Welch, by the British appellation of Fynniduydh. Had the Fir been 

 " originally introduced into the fields of Britain by the Romans, all the British appro- 

 " priated appellations of it must have been, as some of them evidently are, the mere de- 

 " rivatives of the Roman Abies, Z-aban, S-ibuydh, S-apin, and S-abin. And the existence 

 " of one British appropriated appellation for the Fir, is a strong argument in itself that the 

 " tree was not introduced by the Romans, but that it was originally British. 



" Firs actually appear as early as the third century in the unromanized regions of 

 "Caledonia and Ireland, and appear as the acknowledged aborigines of the country. 

 ^' Firs are frequently mentioned in the poems of the Caledonian bard, not as plants seen 

 "by him on the continent or in the provinces, not merely as forming the equivocal 



imagery of a similitude, but as actually and anciently growing in both. The spear of a 

 " warrior, says an Irishman in Ulster, pointing to a neighbouring tree, is like that blasted 

 " Fir : And it is compared by another to the Fir of Slimora particularly, a mountain in the 

 " north of Ireland. And the tomb of a fallen warrior, upon the western shore of Cale- 

 " donia, is thus described from the reality by the bard : Dost thou not behold, Malvina, a rock 

 " with its head of heath ? Three aged Firs beiidfrom its face ; green is the narrow plain at its feet. 



" The Fir is also discovered in our Mancunian mosses together with the Birch and the 



Oak, as frequent as the Oak, and much more frequent than the Birch. The Fir of our 



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