Fir forest

“ Then there was another change, for the dark-green rough fir-boughs began to be lit up overhead, and the forest looked brighter than ever.
A wood of fir-trees is a puzzling place, from the fact that in a mile or two, consequent upon their regular growth, you may find hundreds, perhaps thousands, of places exactly alike—the same-looking tall, red, scaly columns, the same distance apart, the same grey carpet of fir-needles, and the same grey rough-topped, mushroom-shaped fungi growing up and pushing the fir-needles aside to make room for them. ”

“ But we must not remain among the Big Trees, for the forests extend much farther up the mountains. The most important tree of the upper forest belt is the fir, which is found growing from five thousand to nearly nine thousand feet above sea-level. It is one of the most graceful of the conifers. Sometimes these trees reach a height of two hundred and fifty feet and form dense forests with little undergrowth. The branches make the soft, fragrant beds which so rest and delight the tired mountain climber. ”

“ The steep slopes are clothed with vegetation and crested with a miniature forest of pines and fir trees that mingle their dark-hued verdure with the brighter foliage of the oak and the birch, making a little fairyland of woodland beauty, the natural charm of which is heightened by the cloud-shadows gliding slowly across. ”

“ Red cedars grow along the streams that cross the road. Little yew trees and vine maples mingle with the young conifers that form the undergrowth; the gloom of the forest is occasionally relieved by the white bark of alders and the smooth gray stems of the cottonwoods that grow on the sandy bank of the Nisqually. After the road crosses the Rainier Fork, noble fir and amabilis fir appear, but the Douglas fir and western hemlock are still the prevailing species. ”

“ Anyone passing through the fir forest will remember the wonderful size of surface roots of the fir trees, in some places running out part above the surface and nearly as big as a man's body. One day when I was driving a cart over the road mentioned the pioneers had opened, the wheels passed over and left the cart bed resting solidly on the big root, and so, in the common expression of the county, I was "stuck". ”

“ But never were the hearts of the townspeople gladdened by the sight of the Piper and his following of singing, dancing children issuing from the ancient oaks of the forest. What became of the children is a mystery even to this day.
14 THE FIR-TREE ON the borders of a forest a pretty little fir-tree once started to grow. The sun shone full on him, the breezes played freely around him, and in the neighborhood grew many companion fir-trees, both large and small. But the little fir-tree was not happy. He was always longing to be full grown. ”

“ In the East the same tendency is illustrated by the better sections of the Adirondack spruce forests and the splendid pineries that once covered the Great Lake region. If we call to mind these extensive examples, we realize how the conifers ever strive to build a dense and impenetrable forest. That they are capable of a like growth in other parts of the world also, will be attested by those who have seen the spruce and fir forests of Germany and France. ”

“ Deodar, blue pine, and some chir are floated down the rivers to depots in the plains. Firwood is inferior to cedar and pine, and the great fir forests are too remote for profitable working at present. ”

“ Other groups are made up of trees near the prime of life, nicely arranged as if Nature had culled them with discrimination from all the rest of the woods. It is from this tree, called Red Fir by the lumbermen, that mountaineers cut boughs to sleep on when they are so fortunate as to be within its limit. ”

“ There is a tendency in the fir-growing regions of the West to call all firs either white or red, depending upon the color of the heartwood. There are ten or more species of fir west of the Rocky Mountains, and to the layman they all look much alike, but to botanists they are interesting objects of study. ”

“ Found a small lake and many charming glacier meadows embosomed in an extensive forest of the two-leaved pine. The forest is growing on broad, almost continuous deposits of moraine material, is remarkably even in its growth, and the trees are much closer together than in any of the fir or pine woods farther down the range. The evenness of the growth would seem to indicate that the trees are all of the same age or nearly so. ”

“ The forester usually gets over these difficulties by planting beech, or silver fir, or some other species among the oaks, but in such a way that the oaks are never completely shaded by the other trees—that is to say, he keeps the trees at different ages, the beach, hornbeam, silver fir, spruce, etc., only being allowed to just close in the forest, leaving the leaf-crowns of the oaks to be fully exposed to the light above. ”

“ The lines of separation are to some extent also determined by complex conditions of slope, exposure, and moisture. The successive forest belts are uniform in the composition of their central areas, but blend and overlap where they come together.
The low valleys of the main and west forks of White River, of the Carbon, the Mowich, the Nisqually, and the Ohanopecosh are covered with a dense and somber forest of fir, hemlock, and cedar. The trees, pushing upward for light, are very tall and free from limbs for more than half their height. ”

“ That is due to the greater age to which spruce lives. Trees of that species continue to stand after the firs have died of old age. On the other hand, [153] fir outnumbers spruce in many young stands. That is because fir reproduces better than spruce, and grows with more vigor at first. In stands of second growth the fir often predominates. It depends to some extent upon the conditions under which the second growth has its start. Fir does not germinate well if the ground has been bared by fire and the humus burned. Consequently, old burns do not readily grow up in fir. ”

“ In the higher mountains, fir and spruce with some pine and larch form the forest; but broadleaf forest, especially [325] oak and beech is the prevailing type occupying the middle altitudes and the hill country. The private forest of small owners is being rapidly depleted, only the State forest and that of large proprietors being in good condition. ”

“ At sunset hour the forest was still, lonely, sweet with tang of fir and spruce, blazing in gold and red and green; and the man who glided on under the great trees seemed to blend with the colors and, disappearing, to have become a part of the wild woodland. ”

“ There are at best only five species of timber of high economic general importance, the (Scotch) pine which covers large areas in the northern sandy plain and the lighter soils in the south; the (Norway) spruce and (Silver) fir which form forests in the southwestern and other mountain regions and represent, in mixture with broadleaf forest, a goodly proportion in the northeastern lowlands; the (English) oak, of which botanically two species are recognized; and the beech. ”

“ But there is a general silence, a present suspense, while the [Pg 6] lime yellows, and the birch takes on her pale gold, and oak and sycamore and ash slowly transmute their green multitudes into a new throng clad in russet or dull red or sunset-orange. The forest is full of loveliness: in her dusky ways faint azure mists gather. When the fawn leaps through the fern it is no longer soundlessly: there is a thin dry rustle, as of a dove brushing swiftly from its fastness in an ancient yew. One may pass from covert to covert, from glade to glade, and find the Secret just about to be revealed ... ”

“ Lastly, from its very nature, the New Forest is ever beautiful, at every season of the year, even in the depth of winter. The colouring of summer is not more rich. Then the great masses of holly glisten with their brightest green; the purple light gathers round the bare oaks, and the yews stand out in their shrouds of black. Then the first budding branch of furze sparkles with gold, and the distant hill-side glows with the red layers of beech-leaves. And if a snow-storm passes up from the sea, then every bough is suddenly covered with a silver filigree of whitest moss. ”

“ All these woods there are for rambles, flushed in the spring with wood-anemones and wood-sorrel, set in the green moss and the greener heather of the bilberry. Nowhere, too, in the Forest, than in these woods, have I seen more lovely sunsets. Through some deep-cut oriel of the trees have I watched the sun begin to sink, each moment burning brighter, and then suddenly its great brand of fire would fall, reddening each tree trunk, and crimson billows of clouds come rolling eastward. ”

“ There is no undergrowth as in our forests at home, but there are here and there gray rocks, large and small, covered with fresh green moss, or with gray, pink and yellow lichen. There were rustic benches all along, but the forest was quite deserted except for an occasional woodman with a fire and piles of neatly chopped wood, or some little boys drawing carts filled with bundles of sticks for winter use. ”

“ The lower limbs die young and drop off for want of light. Life with these close-planted trees is a race for light, more light, and so they push straight for the sky. Mowing off ten feet from the top of the forest would make it look like a crowded mass of telegraph-poles; for only the sunny tops are leafy. A sapling ten years old, growing in the sunshine, has as many leaves as a crowded tree one or two hundred years old. As fires are multiplied and the mountains become drier, this wonderful lodge-pole pine bids fair to obtain possession of nearly all the forest ground in the West. ”

“ Winter and summer, these forests keep their green ranks closed against the winds, their moss-hung boughs blotting out the sun. Today, wilderness roads wind between the green walls made by these ancient forest giants, whose branches, interlacing overhead, sough and murmur in vagrant winds. ”

“ On the other hand, the plants too truly tell the character of the soil. In the spring the little tormentil shows its bright blossoms, and the petty-whin grows side by side with the furze, and the sweet mock-myrtle throws its shadow over the streams. In the summer and autumn the blue sheep’s-bit scabious and the golden-rod bloom, with the three heathers. In the bogs the round-leaved sundew is pearled with wet, and 252 not far from it the cotton-grass waves its white down, and the asphodel rears its golden spike.
These are the commonest flowers of the Forest, and grow everywhere over its moors. ”

“ Of the broadleaf forests there are many types. There are forests of oak and chestnut, of maple and beech; dry upland forests, and the tangled woods of the swamps. There are young thickets of birch and aspen, of willow and alder, and scrubby oak barrens. There are second-growth forests, and now and then even a patch of fine old virgin timber. In size, also, there is a great difference, from the grove that covers the hilltop to the unbroken forest that stretches over an entire mountain range. ”

“ They pulled up presently, dead beat to the world, on the ridge of rocks, and flung themselves down under the shelter of one of the great forest trees. Behind them the forest stretched away mile upon mile, and on the other side of the valley the sinister woodland was equally thick and forbidding. These two fringes of wood were not more than sixty or seventy yards apart, with a shelf of rock on either side trending sharply down into the flat valley, level as a pavement and feet deep in the leaves which the winter storms and gales had reaped from the forest. ”

“ Such is the evidence which The Chronicle and the short examination of Domesday yield. The country itself, however, still more plainly proves the bias of the Chroniclers. The slightest acquaintance with geology will show that the Forest was never fertile, as it must have been to have maintained the population which filled so many churches. [20] Nearly the whole of it is covered with sand, or capped with a thick bed of drift, with a surface-soil only a few inches deep, capable of naturally bearing little, except in a few places, besides heath and furze. ”

“ May 28th.—The most extraordinary blight is now upon the trees that I believe ever was known: it is confined entirely to the oak, and chiefly to the large trees, although in some parts it is extending to the young plantations. The whole of the High Meadow woods and great part of the Forest, particularly Russell’s Enclosure, and where the timber is thick, are entirely stripped of their leaves, and look as if fire had passed through them. Where a beech stands amongst them, it is perfectly green, and the oaks all around quite brown. ”

“ The finest beech-wood is that of Mark Ash. There you may see true beech-forms, the boles spangled with silver scales of lichen, and the roots—more fangs than roots—grasping the earth, feathered with the soft green down of moss.
But not in individual trees lies the beauty of the Forest, but in the masses of wood. There, in the long aisles, settles that depth of shade which no pencil can give, and that colouring which no canvas can retain, as the sunlight pierces through the green web of leaves, flinging, as it sets, a crown of gold round each tree-trunk. ”

“ A deep lane, its banks a garden of ferns, its hedge matted with honeysuckle, and woven together with bryony, runs, winding along a side space of green, to the latch-gate, guarded by an enormous oak, its limbs now fast decaying, its rough bark grey with the perpetual snow of lichens, and here and there burnished with soft streaks of russet-coloured moss ”