Silver fir

“ The silver-fir also gives timber of the greatest lengths and of the straightest growth; wherefore yard-arms [10] and masts are made from it. Also the vessels [11] and fibre are more clearly [12] seen in it than in any other tree. At first [13] it grows in height only, until it has reached [14] the sunshine ”

“ For bearing weight silver-fir and fir are strong woods, when set slantwise [2] : for they do not give like oak and other woods which contain mineral matter, but make good resistance. A proof of this is that they never split like olive and oak, but decay first or fail in some other way. Palm-wood is also strong, for it bends the opposite way to other woods: they bend downwards, palm-wood upwards. [3] It is said that fir and silver-fir also have an upward thrust. ”

“ Fir (Abies) , a genus of the Pine family containing about twenty-five species, natives of the cooler portions of the north temperate zone. The Silver Fir, is a common tree in central Europe, and is common to the mountainous forests of Germany. It reaches ninety to one hundred and thirty feet in height, and has a smooth, light silver-grey bark, and needle-shaped leaves, which, although they stand singly and in a spiral form round the branches, are yet distinctly turned towards two sides, and are serrated at their points. ”

“ Until the Silver Fir is about twelve years old its growth is slow, and its annual increase is only a few inches, but later it will be as many feet. During this early stage spring frosts often destroy the leader-shoot, but its place is taken by another shoot; and soon the symmetry of the tree is restored. If this occurs at a later stage, however, the tree bears evidence of it in a forked trunk. It is a deep-rooting species, with a branching tap-root, and succeeds best in an open soil that is moist without being wet.
The timber, which has an irregular grain, is strong, and does not warp ”

“ Their mother pierced a hole in a brown bud last autumn and laid her eggs there; then when the buds burst in spring the lower leaves grew fast together and made this comfortable house, and those green tusks you see are the leaf points.
But what is the other kind of fir that grows in our wood? It is rather like the spruce in shape, but it is not quite so stiff and prim and proper, and underneath each little leaf there are two silver lines, and so we call this the silver fir. You may always know it from the spruce by these silver lines. ”

“ When the branches of either tree are cut, sap streams from them for a considerable time, but especially from those of the silver-fir. Moreover the wood of the silver-fir has many layers, like an onion: [7] there is always another beneath that which is visible, and the wood is composed of such layers throughout. Wherefore, when men are shaving this wood to make oars, [8] they endeavour to take off the several coats one by one evenly: for, if they do this, they get a strong spar, while if they do the work irregularly and do not strip [9] off the coats evenly, they get a weak one ”

“ The largest silver fir in the world is the North American (A. grandis) , which in a young state might easily be mistaken for A. pectinata, but soon exhibits its true nationality by the extraordinary rapidity of its growth. It races upwards at the rate of three feet a year, and, distancing all surrounding growth, suffers the penalty inevitable in our stormy climate, unless it should be provided with shelter from a sufficient company of its peers. At the Avondale School of Forestry A. grandis is reported to be less liable to injury from spring frost than the common [181] silver fir. ”

“ They look like hairy giants, for their scales do not end in two little teeth, but in a long point which turns back and bends downwards.
The silver fir does not like quite such cold places as the spruce and the Scotch pine; it dwells lower down the mountain sides, and is at home in Central Europe.
[Pg 125] All the pines and firs, like the Scotch pine, have those wonderful pipes and reservoirs of sticky turpentine juice inside their bark, but each kind of fir has its own way of making its stores, and so we get different kinds of resin and turpentine and balsams from different trees. ”

“ But we must consider for what purposes [1] each several wood is serviceable. Silver-fir and fir, as has been said, are suitable both for ship-building house-building and also for other kinds of work, but silver-fir is of use for more purposes than fir. Aleppo pine is used for both kinds of building, but especially for ship-building, yet it soon rots. Oak is used for house-building, for ship-building, and also for underground work ”

“ In Western Scotland, where, as in Ireland, the silver fir makes grand growth, aphides [179] swarm immediately upon any tree that has been debilitated by late frost or other injury. On the other hand, the Caucasian silver fir (Abies nordmanniana) , which thrives splendidly in many parts of Britain where the common silver cannot be grown, frequently succumbs in the west to the attacks of aphis. At Benmore, on the Holy Loch, about 2,000 acres were planted about forty years ago with different kinds of conifers. ”

“ The trunk is covered with greyish brown bark, which is smooth when the tree is young; but as the tree grows old—and the Silver Fir will live for four hundred years—this bark cracks into many rugged fissures. You remember that the Spruce tree has a sharp spear-like point rising from the very top of the trunk. In the Silver Fir the tree is only pointed when very young, and by the time it is full grown the top is bushy, with many small unequal branches standing out from the main stem. ”

“ Now silver-fir, fir and Syrian cedar [1] are, generally speaking, useful for ship-building; for triremes and long ships are made of silver-fir, because of its lightness, and merchant ships of fir, because it does not decay; while some make triremes of it also because they are ill provided with silver-fir. The people of Syria and Phoenicia use Syrian cedar, since they cannot obtain much fir either; while the people of Cyprus use Aleppo pine, since their island provides this and it seems to be superior to their fir. Most parts are made of these woods ”

“ For purposes of timber probably the common (A. pectinata) and the Caucasian silver fir (A. nordmanniana) are the pick of the genus, but there are also many other species of singular beauty. Their beauty, indeed, especially in a young state, has proved somewhat of a snare, inducing people to plant them in gardens and pleasure-grounds where they soon outgrow their environment, and, being isolated from their kind, are apt to send up many leaders and so forfeit their true character. ”

“ There [6] is this peculiarity too in the silver-fir in the same connexion; when, after taking off all the branches, one cuts off the top, it soon dies; yet, when one takes off the lower parts, those about the smooth portion of the trunk, what is left survives, and it is on this part that the amphauxis forms. And plainly the reason why the tree survives is that it is sappy and green because it has no side-growths. ”

“ Thus in the United Kingdom most people know exactly what tree is meant by the silver fir; but in the United States, with a population well on to double that of the British Isles, the silver fir is understood to mean quite a different species—namely, Abies venusta, a native of California, not suitable for forestry purposes in this country. In like manner, though there is no true cedar indigenous to America, there are half-a-dozen trees there known as red cedar, white cedar, and so forth. English, being a living language, is still fluid ”

“ And the silver-fir, or female. I begin with the first: The boughs whereof are flexible and bending; the cones dependent, long and smooth, growing from the top of the branch; and where gaping, yet retain the seeds in their receptacles, when fresh gather’d, giving a grateful fragrancy of the rosin: The fruit is ripe in September. But after all, for a perfecter account of the true and genuine fir-tree, (waving the distinction of sapinum, from sapinus, literâ sed unâ differing, as of another kind) is a noble upright tree from the ground, smooth and even, to the eruption of the branches ”

“ Douglas and silver firs, western hemlock and red cedar grow to remarkable size and height. The towering trees, heavy with hanging moss, and the lush undergrowth give the impression of a tropical forest. In the summer the valleys are very beautiful, with sunlight and shadow falling in fascinating patterns through the green, moss-draped trees. In the Canadian zone, where elevations range from 1,500 to 3,500 feet, the silver fir is noticeable, with a sprinkling of western white pine, Douglas fir, and western cedar. ”

“ The second tree was sixteen feet two inches in girth at five feet from the ground; seventeen feet eleven inches at three feet from the ground; and nineteen feet ten inches when measured immediately above the roots." The Silver Fir likewise grows to a large size in Ireland, much more rapidly than any other tree. Some planted in a wet clay, on a rock, have measured twelve feet in girth at the base, and seven feet six inches at five feet high, after a growth of forty years. ”

“ Quickest growing of all are ... [1] yew lakara (bird-cherry) Valonia oak Phoenician cedar maple hop-hornbeam zygia manna-ash alder Aleppo pine andrachne cornelian cherry box wild pear. But silver-fir fir and Aleppo pine bear fruit from the very first, whatever size they have attained.
While the growth and budding of most trees are irregular as regards the position in which the buds appear, [2] the growth and budding of the silver-fir follow a regular rule, and its development afterwards is also in a regular sequence. ”

“ The silver fir flourishes in a deep loamy soil, and will grow even 397 upon stiff clay, when well drained—a situation in which few conifers will succeed. On such lands, where otherwise desirable, it may sometimes be planted with profit. The cones do not ripen till the second year.
The silver fir of Canada (A. balsamea) , a small tree resembling the last species in foliage, furnishes the “Canada balsam”; it abounds in Quebec and the adjacent provinces.
Numerous other firs are common in gardens and shrubberies, and some furnish valuable products in their native countries ”

“ Of our common timber trees, Scots fir, silver fir, and spruce, larch, pinaster, black Italian poplar, Salix alba, commonly called Huntingdon willow, red-wood willow, beech, Spanish chestnut, ash, plane, elm, birch, oak, are here ranked nearly in the order of quantity of measure which adapted ground in this country will produce or support; that is, that an acre of close Scots fir trees, of whatever age, will admeasure more timber than an acre covered with any other tree of the same size ”

“ On the left, the self-sown firs grow in close ranks. The ground below them is bare but for tussocks of coarse grass and ruddy beds of fallen fir needles. On the right, the fir wood is broken by coppices of silver-stemmed birches, and spaces of heather—that shows a purple-brown against the gray of the reindeer moss out of which it springs. ”

“ They are about six inches long, three wide, covered with a fine gray down, and streaked with crystal balsam that seems to have been poured upon each cone from above.
Both the Silver Firs live 250 years or more when the conditions about them are at all favorable. Some venerable patriarch may often be seen, heavily storm-marked, towering in severe majesty above the rising generation, with a protecting grove of saplings pressing close around his feet, each dressed with such loving care that not a leaf seems wanting. ”

“ Symmetrical silver firs, giant cedars and spruce, grow side by side with sugar pines of vast and irregular outline, whose huge branches, like outstretched arms, hold aloft the splendid cones—such is the ancient wood. ”

“ The only rival in bulk to them is to be found at Ardkinglass, on Loch Fyne, about 120 feet high, and estimated to contain over 1,000 cubic feet of timber.
In many places on the south and east coasts the silver fir does not thrive. It requires an abundant rainfall and a moist atmosphere, which probably accounts for its inability to stand the climate of the Eastern United States. There are, however, some fine specimens in Sussex (at Cowdray there is, or was a few years ago, a silver fir over 130 feet high, with a clean bole of 90 feet) , and at Alnwick, in Northumberland ”

“ In planting silver firs it is important to take advantage of their power of bearing shade, for the young trees are very susceptible of injury by late frost, from which older and taller woodland will protect them. It is remarkable how long and patiently the young silvers so treated will wait for head-room—marking time, as it were, till the older crop is cleared away, when they will go ahead and occupy the ground. ”

“ Representative Uses of Wood.
Occasionally used as inferior lumber.
Weight of Seasoned Wood in Pounds per Cubic Foot.
23.
Modulus of Elasticity.
1,160,000.
Modulus of Rupture.
7300.
Remarks.
Scattered throughout Northern pineries. Cut when of sufficient size and sold with pine or spruce. Cultivated in gardens. Exudations known as Canada Balsam used in medicine. The poplar (P. balsamifera) is also called Balm of Gilead. [p158]
Great Silver Fir, White Fir. Abies grandis Lindl.
Nomenclature. (Sudworth.)
Silver Fir (Mont., Idaho) .
Oregon White Fir, Western White Fir (Cal.) . ”

“ Most silver firs are old in their second or third century, pines in their fourth or fifth, while the Big Tree growing beside them is still in the bloom of its youth, juvenile in every feature at the age of old pines, and cannot be said to attain anything like prime size and beauty before its fifteen hundredth year, or under favorable circumstances become old before its three thousandth. ”