Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/313

CHAP. XXXVI.] and makes about 24 inches in diameter in a hundred years, or, as I have proved by an average of several specimens, it makes 1 inch diameter of wood in 4.32 years.

Cargoes of Oregon Fir spars are occasionally brought to this country, together with a little timber and plank; but it can scarcely be said that there is as yet any regular trade kept up in this wood, owing chiefly to the great cost of transport, the heavy freight charges preventing its importation and successful competition with the Canadian and Baltic Firs, which can be put upon the London market at less expense.

The Oregon spars are generally well dressed, or manufactured for the market, are perfectly straight, and vary from about 10 inches in diameter and 40 feet in length, to 32 inches in diameter and no feet in length. They are much sought after, and are well adapted for lower-masts, yards, and bowsprits, &c., &c.; for yachts, and for the royal and mercantile marine. For top-masts, however, where there is often much friction, they are not so well suited as Riga or Dantzic Fir, or the Kauri Pine of New Zealand, owing to the want of cohesion in the annual layers.

A good specimen of the Oregon Fir, 159 feet in length, was placed in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew for a flagstaff, about the year 1861, and seems likely to do good service there. One or two such spars, suitable for flagstaff's, the dimensions varying from 9 to 14 inches in diameter, and 80 to no feet in length, are commonly brought with each cargo.

The present price (1875) of these Oregon Pine spars for masts, &c., varies from £7 10s. to £11 10s. per load of 50 cubic feet, according to size. This is in excess of that usually charged for the Yellow Pine of Canada, but,