THE NATIONAL NURSERY^rAN 
63 
Conifers at the Arnold Arboretum 
The diinate of New England is usually considered un¬ 
favorable to the successful cultivation of conifers. As 
compared with New Zealand, northern Italy, Ireland, and 
the region adjacent to Puget Sound, New England is cer¬ 
tainly a poor country for these trees. There are worse 
regions for conifers, however, like some of the middle 
western slates and Texas, and two of the handsomest 
trees of this class in the world grow at their best in New 
England, the White Pine, Pinus Strobus, and the Hem¬ 
lock, Tsuga canadensis. No region need be poor in coni¬ 
fers where these two trees flourish. The conifers of 
Europe do not find congenial conditions here, although 
those from the northern and central parts of the continent 
like the Norway Spruce, and the Scotch, Austrian and 
Swiss Pines, are hardy although generally short-lived. 
The Himalayan species, with the exception of Pinus ex- 
celsa which is never satisfactory here, are not hardy. 
None of the conifers of Mexico or South America, Aus¬ 
tralia or Tasmania, can be grown in the northern states in 
which the species of southern China and Japan are not 
hardy. Unfortunately very few of the conifers of wes¬ 
tern North America succeed in the eastern states, as 
these are the noblest of the trees of this class. The^ex- 
ceptions are the western White Pine, Pinus monticola, a 
tree which bears a general resemblance to our eastern 
White Pine and which is distributed from the sea-level 
on Vancouver Island up to high altitudes on the California 
Sierra Nevada and the mountains of Idaho. The Sugar 
Pine of the California Sierras, Pinus Lambertiana, the 
greatest of all Pine trees, gives little promise here of ever 
becoming a large or valuable tree. This is also true of 
Jeffrey’s Pine, Pinus ponderosa var. Jeffreyi, which can 
be seen in its greatest beauty on the eastern slopes of the 
Sierra Nevada. The western Mountain Hemlock, Tsuga 
Mertensiana, or as it is often called Pattoniana, Abies 
amablilis, the lovely Fir of the Cascade Range, the In¬ 
cense Cedar of the Sierra Nevada, Libocedrus decurrens, 
and the Fir of the northwest coast, Abies grandis, and 
the Red Cedar, Thuya plicata or gigantea, are hardy in 
sheltered positions in the x\rboretum but do not promise 
to be very long-lived here or to add much permanent 
beauty to our plantations. All the conifers of the north¬ 
eastern part of this continent are, of course, hardy here 
but, with the exception of the White Pine, the Hemlock, 
the Red or Norway Pine, Pinus resinosa, the White 
Spruce, Picea canadensis, the Arbor Vitae, Thuya occi- 
dentalis, the Red Cedar, Juniperus virginiana, and the 
Larch, Larix americana, none of these are of much orna¬ 
mental value. 
On the slopes of the Rlue Ridge in South Carolina, 
about the headwaters of the Savannah River, there is a 
conifer which seems destined to play an important part in 
the decoration of our northern parks and gardens. This 
is the so-called Carolina Hemlock, Tsuga caroliniana, 
which although a smaller tree than our northern Hem¬ 
lock is even more graceful in the droop of its slender 
branches. This is a tree from which much can be ex¬ 
pected. It is very bardy in the Arboi’ctum where it has 
been ginwing for thirty years. The largest specimen in 
the collection will be found in the rear of the Laurels by 
the side of a walk along the northern l)ase of Hemlock 
Hill. There are also a numher of sj)ecimcns in the 
mixed plantation of conifers near tlie corner of Centre 
and Walter Streets. 
All the conifers of the Rocky Mountains are hardy in 
the Arboretum. The most promising of them are the 
Douglas Spruce, Pseudotsuga mucromda, and the Engel- 
mann Spruce, Picea Engelinannii. The Douglas Spruce 
is one of the great trees of the world; it grows to an enor¬ 
mous size; it produces valuable timber, the Oregon Pine 
of commerce, and it is widely distributed from the shore 
of the Pacific Ocean over nearly all the mountain ranges 
of the west as far ea.st as Colorado. A valuable lesson 
has been learned from this tree. For individuals raised 
from seeds gathered near the Pacific coast had not been 
hardy in New England, while plants from Colorado seed 
are perfectly hardy here, grow rapidly, and promise to be¬ 
come useful ornamental and timber trees. This exper¬ 
ience with the Douglas Spruce shows in a striking man¬ 
ner the importance of a careful selection of the seeds of 
trees, and that in the case of widely distributed trees, tike 
many conifers, the seeds should be gatlu'red from regions 
most similar in climate to the region where the trees 
raised from the seeds are to grow. Such careful selec¬ 
tion of seeds has been too generally neglected. When, 
however, its importance is understood it is possible that 
the area over which many trees can be successfully cul¬ 
tivated will be greatly extended. 
Engelmann’s Spruce in Colorado forms pure forests up 
to altitudes of 11,000 or 12,000 feet and ranges north into 
Alberta. It is a narrow pyramidal tree w ith gray-green 
foliage and cinnamon-red bark. It is too soon to speak 
of the value of this tree as a permanent addition to our 
plantations for it is only fifty years since it was discov¬ 
ered. The trees in the Pinetum of the Arhorctum, w Inch 
are believed to be the best in cultivation, are thirty-two 
years old. The Colorado White Fir. Abies concolor, is a 
fast-growfing and hardy tree which of all the silver Firs 
appears to be best suited to New England. There are a 
number of specimens in the Pinetum about thirty years 
old but, like other silver Firs, they will probably grow 
less attractive as they grow' older. The California form 
of Abies concolor, the Abies Lowiana of some collections, 
is hardy here but is a less desirable tree in this climate 
than the Colorado form. The best known of the Colorado 
conifers is the so-called Rlue Spruce, the Picea pungens 
of most collections. This has been largely propagated in 
European and American nurseries and very generally 
planted. As this tree grow s in Colorado, w here it is not 
common, it becomes long before it attains its full size 
