oe 
ABIES. 
try; but it can have no place in a wood grown 
for general profit, and still less in grounds laid 
out for ornament. ‘To place this tree upon good 
soils, on pasture lands, in arable fields, in hedge- 
rows, in the vicinity of villas, on the side of 
small gardens, or as a shade to the cottage or 
the farmery, is an outrage upon both good taste 
and common sense. The abele impoverishes land, 
spreads out a wide mat of exhausting roots, at- 
tracts noxious insects, vulgarizes villa-ground, 
looks derision upon a parterre, and proclaims its 
planter in such situations to be a jackanapes 
who would plant gorse athwart a vineyard, or 
g1ow cabbages in a rosary. The extreme facility 
with which it takes root and grows, ought not 
to provoke even a poor man to prefer it to a 
better tree. 
_ The uses of the abele as timber have been very 
| variously stated, and by some writers, such as 
| Miller, Hartlib, and Pontey, have been highly 
_ extolled. This timber has been recommended 
| as, in some instances, superior to the oak, on 
account of its exceeding whiteness; as very suit- 
able for flooring, and fitted to endure in that capa- 
city for many years, if it has been seasoned two 
| or three years before using ; as excellent for wain- 
| scotting, on account of being less subject to swell 
or shrink than most other timber ; as eminently 
| suitable, on account of its whiteness and facility 
of working, for the manufacture of trays, bowls, 
_ and other wooden utensils ; as excellently adapt- 
ed for the purposes of the bellows-maker, and 
of the manufacturer of wooden soles of shoes; 
as good for light carts; as excellent for laths 
and packing-cases ; as very superior for wooden 
constructions under water ; and, in fact, as avail- 
| able for an almost innumerable variety of pur- 
poses, from the mean ones of fuel and poles, to 
the noble ones of tools and furniture. Pontey 
even asserts it to be perfectly suitable for almost 
every article usually made of mahogany, and 
quite capable of being stained and doctored into 
a very close imitation of that valuable wood. Its 
only true uses, however, or those in which it 
excels most other wood, are’ for turnery, pack- 
ing-cases, and water-works.—The name abele 
is derived from the Low Dutch abeel, and was 
suggested by the hoary appearance of the tree ; 
and the name poplar, which the abele shares 
with other species, is derived from the Latin 
populus, or the French peuplier. The tree, there- 
fore, has not a properly English name, and can- 
not be regarded as of English origin. It is a 
native of Kurope and of North America; and is. 
also found in Asia and in Northern Africa. See ar- 
ticles Popuar and Prantine.—Miller’s Gardener’s 
Dictionary. V. Populus.— Marshall on Planting. 
—WNicol’s Planter’s Kalendar.—Pontey’s Profitable 
Planter—Phillips’ Shrubbery.— Treatise on Plant- 
ing inthe Library of Useful Knowledge. Loudon’s 
Encyclopedia of Plants. 
ABIES—popularly the Fir, or the Spruce Fir. 
le portion of the large, beautiful, and highly impor- 
| 
— es Se he Seok Ly SS 
= “ot 
tant tribe of needle-leaved and cone-bearing trees. 
The firs possess such accommodating habits, such 
handsome foliage, and so elegant an appearance 
as to be general favourites for at once forests, 
clumps, and pleasure-grounds; and they share 
with other portions of the cone-bearing tribe a 
value as timber-trees which is scarcely second to 
even that of the oaks. 
merly included in the genus pinus, and is still 
very often confounded with it; yet it may be 
readily distinguished by its leaves being solitary, 
or issuing from one scale or sheath on the bark 
of the branches, while those of the pinus are 
gathered or amassed in bunches, and also by its 
outline presenting some resemblance to a cone 
‘or pyramid, while that of the pinus is compar- 
atively irregular and broken. For some time 
after its erection into a separate genus, the 
abies included some rare, curious, and more or 
less tender species, which are now arranged in 
several distinct genera; and even as at present 
constituted, it has recently been broken up by 
some botanists into the four genera of abies or 
spruce fir, larix or larch, picea or silver fir, and 
cedrus or cedar. The spruces, or species of the 
abies proper, are characterized by the leaves grow- 
ing singly round the branches, and all spreading 
equally; the silver firs or species of picea, by 
their leaves growing singly round the branches, 
and being all turned toward one side ; the larches 
or species of the larix, by their leaves growing 
in clusters, and being deciduous ; and the cedars 
or species of the cedar, by their leaves growing 
in clusters, and being evergreen. But the sev- 
eral divisions will be more fully noticed, and | 
their habits, culture, and uses stated in the arti- 
cles Fir, Sinver-Fir, Larcu, and Cepar. We pos- | 
sess a list of about seventy species of abies and 
pinus, collected from North America, Canada, | 
Mexico, the Himalaya mountains, and Europe. 
In the latter great division of the world, this | 
group is universally diffused, from the Arctic | 
circle to the shores of the Mediterranean. 
ABLACTATION. The weaning of a young | 
sucking animal: also the grafting of trees by the 
method better known as inarching or grafting 
by approach. See Grarrine. 
ABLAQUEATION. An absurd and 
practice in arboriculture. 
bare the roots of young trees during winter, that 
they might be freely exposed to the action of air 
and weather, and might acquire habits of hardi- 
ness and sturdy growth; but it was found to be 
mischievous, and was universally abandoned. 
ABNORMOUS, or Asnorman. Not conform- 
able to rule. Irregular. 
ABOMA'SUS. The fourth and lowermost, or 
true stomach of ruminating animals. 
ABORTION. The premature expulsion of 
calf, lamb, or foal from the womb. What con- 
stitutes abortion, as distinguished from a birth, 
is the appearance of the foetus in so incomplete 
a state of its formation as, if life exist, to render 
ABORTION. 3 
The genus abies was for- | 
obsolete | 
It consisted in laying || 
