94 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ July 30, 1682 
water pipes from under the back path to the front would be of advantage 
to both. 
The Priory grounds are park-like and well wooded. They adjoin 
the Alexandria Palace. The flower beds are bright, especially those 
of the best of all tricolor Pelargoniums, Mrs. Henry Cox, the foliage 
being all aglow with bright colours. Among other specimens on the 
lawn is a fine “Smoke Tree,” Rhus cotinus, covered with its gauzy 
cloud-like inflorescence. The mansion is quaint, the garden enjoyable, 
and children, old and young, spend many happy hours with their 
hospitable friends, Mr. and Mrs. Williams.—A Visitor. 
THE FRUIT CROPS NEAR LIVERPOOL. 
Calderstones, Aigburth. 
Cherries May Duke, Elton, and all early and midseason varieties 
have carried a good crop. Morellos are not so good. Plums and 
Damsons nil, the fruit falling owing to the cold winds. Raspberries 
are abundant, the same remark applying to Gooseberries, also Black, 
Red, and White Currants. 
Apples are a good general crop. In many cases thinning has had to 
be resorted to, the fruit being so small. The varieties that are doing 
best this, as well as former years, are Warner’s King, Lord Suffield, 
Hawthornden, Jolly Beggar, Stirling Castle, Keswick Codlin, Dumelow’s 
Seedling, Golden Noble, Tower of Glamis, Ecklinville, Ribston Pippin, 
and Annie Elizabeth. The latter Mr. Tunnington informed me is a 
splendid Apple, and ought to be more grown. 
Pears are a good crop. The fruit is small and has had to be thinned, 
and unless we have a very fine autumn the crops will be nearly useless. 
The varieties bearing the best are Williams’ Bon Chretien, Louise Bonne 
of Jersey, Jargonelle, Souvenir du Congres, Beurrh Diel, Beurre Ranee, 
Doyenn4 du Comice, Winter Nelis, Pitmaston Duchess, Uvedale’s St. 
Germain, and Vicar of Winkfield. 
Peaches on open walls are a fair crop. Early Beatrice is just 
changing colour, Grosse Mignonne a full crop, Walburton Admirable a 
sprinkling ; the same remark applies to the remaining varieties grown. 
Lord Napier Nectarine has a full crop and is always good. 
Strawberries.—An abundant crop, but owing to bo much rain many 
have been spoiled. King of the Earlies has been the first to ripen ; it 
is a few days earlier than Vicomtesse Hericart de Thury. The fruit is 
small but good in colour. Mr. Tunnington considers it most useful to 
succeed the forced crop, but Vicomtesse is a greater cropper, and being 
bright in colour, is useful for preserving. Auguste Nicaise, good for 
forcing and in the open. Laxton’s Noble produces fine fruit from the 
first gathering, then the later being small and badly formed. Laxton’s 
Commander showed plenty of fruit on strong footstalks, but did not 
swell off and had the appearance of being scalded. It is to be discarded, 
as are Jubilee and A. F. Barron. President, Sir J. Paxton, and Sir 
Charles Napier are excellent in every respect, and not surpassed by the 
new varieties grown here. The best late varieties are Stirling Castle, 
Oxonian, and Waterloo. 
Rainford Hall, near St. Helens. 
Apples a fair crop, quantities fell after setting owing to the late 
frosts. 
Pears are a good crop, Plums very good, and Cherries abundant. 
Strawberries, early crops suffered from the late frosts when in bloom, 
but President, Vicomtesse Hericart de Thury, and later varieties have 
been very good, but late. Bush fruits, with the exception of Black 
Currants, are heavily cropped. In addition Mr. Middleton stated that 
the early sorts of Potatoes are fully three weeks later in the lifting, but 
second earlies and late varieties promise good crops, and vegetables of all 
kinds are excellent, but late. 
Blacklow House, Roby. 
Apples are an average crop. The trees when in bloom were perfect 
pictures, but late frosts were destructive. The varieties bearing the 
heaviest crops are Lord Suffield, Stirling Castle, Ecklinville, Golden 
Noble, New Hawthornden, Blenheim Pippin, Ribston Pippin, King of the 
Pippins, Nelson’s Glory, Alfriston, Brabant Bellefleur, Flanders Pippin 
and Rose of Sharon (Rose de Chine). 
Pears a good crop, but fruit very small. Particularly good on 
espaliers and standards are Marie Louise, Citron des Carmes (enormous 
crop), Beurr£ Diel, Easter Beurre, Beurr6 Ranee, Beurr6 d’Amanlis, 
Hacon’s Incomparable, Grosse Calabasse, Fondante d’Automne, Prince 
Consort, Winter Nelis, and Crassanne. Strawberries an excellent crop, 
the best being Noble, Vicomtesse Hericart de Thury, James Veitch, 
President, Sir C. Napier, Sir J. Paxton, and Waterloo. Raspberries and 
Gooseberries, with Red, Black, and White Currants, are all good. Early 
Cherries fair, but Morellos laden. Plums, with the exception of a local 
variety, quite a failure.—R. P. R. 
THE DOUGLAS FIR. 
The Douglas Fir, from many points of view, is one of the most 
interesting trees of the American forest. Its monotypic character, its 
probably recent development in its distinct existing form, for the record 
of the ages has not divulged the secrets of its ancestry, the vasuness of 
the region it occupies, its size and value to man, its beauty and capacity 
of adapting itself to new surroundings, all make this Fir an important 
inhabitant of the forests of Western America—forests remarkable for the 
variety, size, and value of the cone-bearing trees of which they are 
principally composed. The Douglas Fir is distinguished from the true 
Firs or Abies by its petioled leaves, which, in falling, leave oval scars, 
by its pendulous cones with persistent scales, and by its seeds, which are 
not furnished with resin vesicles. It looks, moreover, in general appear¬ 
ance, more like a Hemlock than a Fir; it differs from the Hemlock, 
however, in the absence of the permanent, persistent bases of the fallen 
leaves which roughen the branchlets of all Hemlock trees, and in its 
much larger cones, which may be always recognised by the large acutely 
two-lobed and long-pointed bracts extended beyond the scales. It can 
be readily knowD, too, by the flat, distinctly stalked leaves which are 
somewhat two-ranked by a slight twist at their base. 
Where c'imatic conditions favour the growth of large trees, as they 
do in the humid region of western Washington and Oregon, or on the 
middle western slopes of the northern Sierra Nevada, the Douglas Fir 
often rises, in the course of 500 or 600 years, to the height of 300 feet, 
and forms a trunk 10 or 12 feet in diameter above its enlarged base. 
The bark, which, like that of the Hemlocks, contains a considerable 
amount of tannin, is thick, deeply furrowed, and dark brown or red, or 
sometimes grey in certain situations. Young trees, like young Spruces 
and Firs, are pyramidal in form, and retain their lower branches for a 
considerable time, sometimes even for 200 or 300 years, when the indi¬ 
vidual finds sufficient space for their lateral growth, as it does occasion¬ 
ally when it has stood on the margin of the forest or on the steep slopes 
of some mountain canon. Usually, however, the trees stand close 
together, especially in these parts of the country in which, under the 
favouring influences of a heavy rainfall, they grow to the largest size, 
and then their great trunks tower upward, for 100 feet or more, without 
a branch. The leaves are linear and generally obtuse, an inch or 1£ inch 
long, dark green, and very abundant, covering the long, slender, grace'ul 
branchlets. The flowers of the Douglas Fir are produced from the axils 
of the leaves of the previous year, the males surrounded by conspicuous 
bud-scales, the females much shorter than their narrow bracts. The 
cone«, which are subcylindrical, ripen the first year, and vary in length 
from 2 to 4 inches. The seeds are triangular, convex, and red on the 
upper side, flat and nearly white on the lower side, with short wings, 
broad at the base and acute at the apex. 
This Abies extends from latitude 55° north, where it is found in the 
coast ranges and on the interior plateau of British Columbia, southward 
through all the region west of the Cascade and the Sierra Nevada 
Mountains to Southern California. It is abundant in the Rocky 
Mountains from British Columbia far into Mexico, extending eastward 
to their eastern slopes in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Texas; it 
is common on the Wahsatch and Uintah Mountains in Utah, but is 
unknown on the ranges of the great basin and on the eastern slopes of 
the Sierra Nevada. It is most abundant, and reaches its greatest size on 
the low glacial plain which surrounds the shores of Puget Sound. Here 
the Douglas Fir can be seen in all its majesty. It is the most common 
tree in a forest in which trees stand so close together that the traveller 
can barely push his way between their mighty trunks which support 
far above his head a canopy so dense that the rajs of the sun never 
pierce it. Through these dark and awful shades the most thoughtless 
man cannot pass without experiencing that sense of solemnity and awe 
with which the human mind is impressed when confronted by Nature 
in her grandest manifestations. 
The Douglas Fir grows almost as large on some of the California 
mountain slopes as on the shores of Puget Sound, and it is one of the 
remarkable things about this tree that it flourishes at the sea level and 
on high mountains. In California it often grows to a great size at 
elevations varying from 6000 to 8000 feet above the sea, and sometimes 
ascends on the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to even higher altitudes, 
although it is always smaller and less valuable as a timber tree in the 
dry interior portions of the Continent than in the moist coast region, 
Other trees of the Pacific Forest produce more valuable wood than the 
Douglas Fir—the Port Orfori Cedar, the Sugar Pine, and the Redwood. 
These trees are confined to a comparatively small region, however, and 
the Douglas Fir, in view of the great territory over which it has spread, 
must be considered the mo3t important timber tree of Western America, 
and of no other tree is there now standing such a body of valuable and 
available timber. The wood of the Douglas Fir is hard, strong, and 
durable ; it may be recognised by the numerous spirally marked wood 
cells which distinguish it from the wood of allied Conifers. The small 
cells which are developed in the wood of Conifers at the end of the 
growing season are very numerous, and form broad bands which often 
occupy half the width of the layers of annual growth. These bands of 
small cells are dark coloured and conspicuous, and become hard and 
flinty with exposure, making the wood of this tree difficult to work 
except when it is freshly cut. Some trees produce light red and some 
yellow wood, and individuals vary to a much greater degree than those 
of most other trees in the time required for their sap-wood to turn 
into heart-wood. The yellow wood is closer-grained, and is considered 
much more valuable than the red wood. Lumbermen recognise these 
two varieties and pretend to be able to distinguish the trees which pro¬ 
duce them, an assumption which still needs demonstration. The con¬ 
ditions which lead to the formation by the same species of such different 
wood are not well understood ; in the case of the Douglas Fir they 
are probably due to soil and elevation, and, in part at least, to the age 
of the individual. The wood of the Douglas Fir is known in commerce 
as red fir, yellow fir, and Oregon pine, the last name belonging, however, 
more properly to the wood of the Yellow Pine (Pinus ponderosa) of 
Western America. It furnishes the principal product of the immense 
saw-mills situated on Puget Sound, and is manufactured, besides. 
