near the Lake of Tiri Fiord, showing the effect of the spruce fir and the Scotch pine, on rocky precipices. The lake seen in the middle distance is Tiri Fiord.

Fig. 2220. is a view of a lake, and the surrounding hills and mountains, near Wasbotten, between the towns of Porsgrund and Laurwig, showing the spruce fir, together with some groups and masses of Scotch pine on mountain scenery.

Fig. 2221. is a view on the road from Porsgrund to Laurwig, not far from the town of Porsgrund, which shows the effect of the spruce fir on low hills and in bottoms.

Fig. 2222. is a view of Illoe Fors, near Schion, showing an extensive forest of Scotch pine on an extent of table land, with groups of

2220

the spruce, as contrasted with those of the birch; and showing the fine effect of the latter tree when standing singly, or in small loose groups. In this respect, indeed, the birch differs from most other trees, at no period of its growth having a picturesque effect in masses.

History. Pliny frequently men.

tions the spruce fir, which he calls picea (whence the French names Epicea and Sapin - Pesse), and which, he says, produced tears of resin that could scarcely be distinguished from incense. He also mentions its use in funeral ceremonies, on which occasions a branch was placed at the door of the house of the deceased; and informs us that it was used when green for the funeral pile.

Though the spruce fir is generally allowed not to be a native of Britain, it appears to have been introduced at a very early period, as Turner includes it in his Names of Herbes, published in 1548; and both Gerard and Parkinson not only give very good engravings of it, but speak of its being found in great quantities in different parts of the island. The early British writers on trees, however, appear to have often confounded the Scotch pine with the spruce fir; and it is remarkable, that neither of the above-mentioned writers mentions the Scotch pine at all, though it is probably the tree Parkinson means, when he speaks of the "firre tree" growing wild in Scotland. The name of the fir tree, according to Gerard, was originally fire tree, in allusion to the use of the wood for torches and fuel; and it was also called the mast tree, and the deale tree. The spruce fir has always been considered, in Britain, as an ornamental tree; and, from the time of Miller, it has been introduced as such in parks and pleasure-ground scenery. About the end of the last century, and in the beginning of the present one, it was recommended by Adam, Sang, and others, in Scotland, and by Pontey in England, as well adapted for sheltering other trees; but it has never been planted in immense masses in Britain, as a timber tree, like the Scotch pine, though it has been so in Germany; and, from the various uses to which it may be applied even in a young state, it well deserves to be so in every country where it will thrive. The timber, which is called, in Norway, spruce pine, has been for an unknown period imported from that country into Britain, chiefly in the form of entire trunks, which are used for scaffoldingpoles, spars, oars, and masts for small craft; but partly, also, sawn into planks or deals, known in commerce as white deal, white Baltic deal, and white Christiania deal; the red deal being, for the most part, the timber of P. syl

véstris; though, as before stated, p. 2294., the wood of the spruce is red, when the tree is grown in certain soils and situations. The poles, spars, and oars are the thinnings of the Norwegian woods; and the deals and planks are made from the larger trees, which are left. The slenderest poles are taken from the largest and oldest woods, and are called seedlings: they are always found where the wood is most dense, and very often close by the side of a large tree. They grow very tall and slender, wholly without branches, except at the summit, and, though often only a few inches in diameter, are of great age. Some curious information on this subject, communicated by a Norwegian woodman, will be found in Monteath's Forester's Guide, from p. 226. to p. 232.

Poetical Allusions. According to some, the spruce fir was dedicated to Diana. Virgil speaks of it as being used in the funeral ceremonies of Mi

In the Georgics (lib. ii. 257.), Virgil speaks of the spruce fir as one of the indications of a cold soil.

The British poets so often mention the Scotch pine under the name of fir, which name they also apply to the spruce fir, that it is sometimes difficult to know which of these trees is meant; the following quotations, however, appear to belong to the spruce :

"Here spiry firs extend their lengthen'd ranks,
There violets blossom on the sunny banks."

FAWKES's Bramham Park.

Spenser speaks of it as "the fir that weepeth still;" and Fairfax terms it "the weeping fir;" both evidently alluding to the pendulous disposition of the branches. Prior, also, says :

"There towering firs in conic forms arise,
And with a pointed spear divide the skies."

Properties and Uses. The wood of the spruce fir is light, elastic, and varying in durability according to the soil on which it has grown. Its colour is either a reddish or a yellowish white, and it is much less resinous than the wood of P. sylvéstris. According to Hartig, it weighs 64 lb. 11 oz. per cubic foot when green, 49 lb. 5 oz. when half-dry, and 35 lb. 2 oz. when quite dry; and it shrinks in bulk one seventieth part in drying. The value of the wood for fuel is to that of the beech as 1079 is to 1540; and its charcoal is to that of the beech as 1176 is to 1500. Both as fuel and charcoal, the spruce fir is superior to the silver fir. As fuel, it is to the silver fir as 1211 to 1079; and as charcoal, as 1176 to 1127. The ashes furnish potash; and the trunk produces an immense quantity of resin, from which Burgundy pitch is made. The resin is obtained by incisions made in the bark, when it oozes out between that and the soft wood; and the mode of procuring and manufacturing it will be detailed hereafter. The bark may be used for tanning; and the buds and young shoots for making spruce beer, the details respecting which will be given under the head of A. nigra. The cones, boiled in whey, are considered good in cases of scurvy. The principal use to which the wood is applied is, for scaffolding-poles, ladders, spars, oars, and masts to small vessels; for which purposes, the greater proportion of the importations of spruce fir timber from Norway are in the form of entire trunks, often with the bark on, from 30 ft. to 60 ft. in length, and not more than 6 in. or 8 in. in diameter at the thickest end. The planks and deals are used for flooring rooms, and by musical instrument makers and carvers; they are also used by cabinet-makers for lining furniture, and for packing-boxes, and many similar purposes. The wood, being fine-grained, takes a high polish, and does well for gilding on; and it will take a black stain as well as the wood of the pear tree. In carving, the grain is remarkably easy to work, taking the tool every way. No wood glues better; and hence its great use for lining furniture, and making musical instruments. The young trees, especially when the bark is kept on, are found to be more durable than young trees of any other species of pine or fir, with the single exception of the larch; and for this reason they are admirably adapted for fencing, for forming roofs to agricultural buildings, and for a variety of country purposes. The durability of young trees of the spruce fir was first pointed out by Pontey in his Profitable Planter; and the circumstance which led him to discover it was, the sound state in which he found the dead branches in spruce fir plantations, which, though probably some of them had been dead more than twenty years, he uniformly found not only undecayed, but tough. This agrees with an observation of Mitchell, that the lateral branches of both the silver fir and the spruce fir are so full of turpentine, as to be as red as brick, and 4 lb. per foot heavier than oak. On further examination, Pontey discovered that young trees, which had been employed as beams in buildings, were perfectly sound at the end of 24 years; the bark, which had been left on, being also perfectly sound. There are but few spruce fir trees in Britain old enough to produce timber of large dimensions; but some of the older trees cut down at Blair, on the estate of the Duke of Athol, have been used as spars and topmasts, and found equal in quality to those imported from Norway. The value of the bark for tanning is nearly equal to that of the birch and the larch, quite equal to that of the silver fir; and much stronger than that of the Scotch pine. In Sweden, and also (according to Kasthofer) in Switzerland, the young shoots form a winter food for cattle and sheep. The inhabitants of Finmark mix the points of the shoots with the oats given to their horses; and the Laplanders eat an excrescence about the size of a strawberry, which they collect from the extremity of the branches, where it is produced by the puncture of insects. The floors of rooms in Norway and Sweden, we are informed by Mary Wolstonecroft, and also by Samuel Laing, Esq., (the author of Journal of a Residence in Norway during the Years 1834-35-36,) are, at least once a week, strewed over with the green tops of the fir or juniper; which, on a white well-scoured deal floor, have a lively and pretty effect, and prevent the mud on the shoes from adhering to and soiling the wood, giving out at the same time,

when trodden on, a refreshing odour; the more necessary in countries where the rooms being heated by stoves, for the sake of saving fuel, are badly ventilated. At funerals, the road into the churchyard and to the grave is strewed with these green sprigs; the gathering and selling of which is a sort of trade for poor old people about the towns. In both Sweden and Norway, the inner bark is made into baskets; and the canoes, which are made of the timber of the large trees, and which are so light, as Acerbi informs us, as to be carried on a man's shoulders when a rapid or cascade interrupts the navigation, have their planks fastened together with strings or cords made of the roots, so that not a single nail is used in their construction. The long and slender roots are made use of to form this kind of strings; and they are rendered flexible by splitting them down the middle, and by boiling them for two or three hours in water mixed with alkali and sea salt. After this, they are dried and twisted into cordage, which is used as a substitute for hemp, both for naval and agricultural purposes. In Britain, the frond-like branches form an excellent protection to the blossoms of fruit trees on walls; being tucked in among the shoots of the fruit trees, when the blossom buds of the latter are beginning to expand, and left in that position till they have shed their leaves; by which time the fruit is set, and requires no farther protection. Spruce fir branches are also used for sticking early peas, to which they form a secure protection from spring frosts; and they might be used with excellent effect for protecting half-hardy plants, whether against walls or in the open garden.

The Spruce Fir is one of the best Nurses for other trees, not only from its dense mass of foliage, which may be considered as a reservoir of heat, but because, from its conical form, and its being abundantly furnished with branches on the surface of the ground, it acts as a non-conductor, and keeps the soil from cold and drought; and, while it protects the plant to be sheltered from high winds, it admits the top of that plant to the free enjoyment of light and air. From the great abundance of resin in the leaves and bark, the tree is considered a powerful non-conductor; and it is said that the snow that falls on its branches melts much faster than that which falls on any other tree, which is another argument in its favour as a nurse plant. William Adam, Esq., of Blair, in Kinross-shire, a planter of great experience, gave the following opinion as to the comparative merits of the larch, the spruce, and the silver fir, in 1794:-"The larch being deciduous, is not a good nurse; and, from its quick growth, it is probable that it is a great robber of the nourishment of other trees. From my own experience, I have no hesitation in saying that the spruce is to be preferred beyond all the other trees as a nurse. I have thousands of instances of oaks and elms growing up uninjured in the bosom of spruces. The fact is most important, and reason at the same time supports it. Deciduous trees send their roots downwards, particularly the oak: the spruce spreads its roots close under the surface; and their nourishment is drawn from different sources. The larger the oak grows, the more it derives its nourishment from the subsoil, and, consequently, the less its roots interpose with those of the spruce. This last rises, in a regular and very pointed cone, so that it leaves full space for the spreading top of the oak. The spruce is thickly clothed with leaves, and its branches are of a strong unpliable nature; consequently, it gives much protection, and does little injury to its neighbour; and, as it is very much feathered and bushy at the root, it protects the forest tree from being wind-waved. The larch, on the contrary, is naked of leaves during the worst of the season; and, from its boughs being thin and pliable, it lashes the neighbouring trees unmercifully, and it is in a condition, from its nakedness, to make every lash be felt just at the time when its neighbours begin to spring. It has also no peculiar thickness at the bottom, to protect the others from wind-waving. It might be supposed that the silver fir would make as good a nurse as the spruce; but, in point of fact, I have not observed that the forest tree grows so kindly with this fir as with the spruce; and it may be observed that the silver fir is not so thoroughly leaved as the spruce: the sides of the bough only are covered with leaves; and the tree itself is