THE DOUGLAS FIR. 157 
length of the seed. The flowers appear in May, and the seeds 
are not ripe until nearly a year later. 
The tree is a shallow rooter, the roots going off horizontally 
in all directions a little below the surface, and becoming inti- 
mately matted with those of neighbouring trees. This surface- 
rooting often leads to disaster in plantations and forests of 
Spruce, for it is least able of all the firs to withstand a gale, 
which will sometimes make a broad avenue through the plan- 
tation by toppling the trees one against another. 
The wood of the Spruce Fir, though light, is even grained, 
elastic, and durable, and the straightness of its stem makes it 
very valuable for all purposes where great length and straightness 
are required, as for the masts of small vessels, ladders, scaffold- 
ing, telegraph-poles ; as well as for the varied uses the builder 
finds for its planks. It supplies resin and pitch, and most of 
the cheaper periodicals now issued largely owe their existence 
to the Spruce, for its fibres reduced to pulp are made into the 
paper upon which they are printed. Although its growth during 
the first few years is rather slow, progress during the next 
twenty-five years is tolerably rapid, being at the rate of two 
or three feet per year, if in a favourable situation, and on 
moist light soil. When grown in a wood the Spruce loses 
its lower branches early, but when given sufficient “elbow- 
room,” these remain to a good old age, so that from spire to 
earth the graceful cone of bright green is continuous. 
The name Spruce is from the German sprosse7i (a sprout), 
in allusion to the numerous short branchlets that are a 
characteristic of the tree. 
The Douglas Fir {Pseudotsuga douglasii). 
Although the name of this tree in English and Latin might 
reasonably lead one to suppose that David Douglas, the intrepid 
botanical explorer, was the discoverer of it, that is not really so. 
