Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/312

 CHAPTER XXXVI.

PINES—(Continued).

THE OREGON OR DOUGLAS PINE, OR FIR TREE (Abies Douglasii).

noble and gigantic species of Pine, or Fir, is, according to Mr. Douglas, to be found in large forests in North-Western America, stretching from 43° to 52° of North latitude. It is an evergreen of erect growth, varying from 100 to fully 200 feet in height, and from 5 to 25 feet in circumference, and occasionally even exceeding this measurement in girth. The bark is rough, and varies from 1 to 2 inches in thickness.

The wood is reddish-white in colour, close, straight, and regular in the grain, tough, elastic, has very little alburnum or sap-wood, and is remarkably free from knots, it being no uncommon thing to find pieces 70 to 80 feet in length without a single one upon the surface. In general appearance it more closely resembles the Red Pine (Pinus resinosa) of Canada than either of the other Pines and Firs with which we are acquainted. It is, however, slightly harder than the Red Pine, and less firm in texture.

The Oregon Fir or Pine is rather more rapid in its rate of growth than the Firs and Pines generally are,