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186 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland
It is scarce in the dry belt of country east of the Cascade Mountains, but common
in the Selkirk and Gold ranges, though, so far as I know, it never extends to the
eastern side of the Rocky Mountains.
On the coast and in Vancouver Island it attains an immense size. I have
never measured trees more than 200 to 220 feet high, but Prof. Sheldon says that it
attains 250 feet in Oregon, though no actual measurements are given. 1 As regards
their girth, I have measured two trees which may have grown from the same root,
so close do they stand together, one of which was 39, the other 25 feet at 5 feet
from the ground. These stand on Mr. Barkley's farm in Vancouver Island, in
swampy land near sea level, and are figured in Plate 56.2 At over 2000 feet eleva
tion in Oregon I measured another, also a twin tree, which was 30 feet in girth.
Mr. Anderson states that he has seen Indian canoes 6 feet and more from the level
of the gunwale to the bottom, hewn out of a log of this tree, such canoes being
often 50 feet and more long. A hewn plank 5 feet wide by 15 feet long is in the
museum at Victoria, B.C., and split boards, quite straight, 12 feet long and 15 inches
wide, are made from it without difficulty.
The natural reproduction by seed was, wherever I saw it, very good, though in
the densest shade the western hemlock seemed to have the advantage.
CULTIVATION
Wherever I have seen this tree growing in England and Scotland it is a
vigorous, healthy tree of great beauty and promise, and one that I think is likely
in fifty years or so to become a more valuable timber tree than the silver fir or
spruce.
It has been stated in a report by Herr Bohm, in the March number of the
Zeitschrift fiir Forst. u. Jagdweser for 1 896* that the parasitic fungus Pestalozzia
funerea has done serious damage to the tree in North Germany, and statements to
the same effect have been made elsewhere; but I can say that out of the thousands
of this tree that I have raised from English seed and planted out in a bad soil and
climate, I have never had any die from any disease whatever, and have found it an
easier tree both to raise and to transplant than any other conifer. It will grow on
almost any soil at the rate of at least one foot per annum, as in damp, cold bottoms
where the spruce will hardly thrive, on the poor dry oolite soil of the Cotswold
hills, and seems equally indifferent to wind, damp, and spring frosts.4 It seldom
loses its leader, is rarely blown down, endures heavy shade, and transplants both in
1 In the Canadian Court of the Colonial Exhibition of 1886, there was shown a portion of a bole of this species, which
was taken from a tree girthing 21 feet, and having a length of 250 feet. It caine from British Columbia. Card. Chron.
1886, xxvi. 207.
2 An illustration of a tree growing near Snoqualraie Falls on the Seattle and International Railway, Washington, was
given in The Pacific Rural Press in 1897. This is said to have been 107 feet 7 inches round at the base, and was supposed
to have been over 1000 years old, but we know of no good evidence that it ever attains so great an age as this.
3 Cf. A. C. Forbes, Card. Chron. 1 896, xix. 554.
4 The very severe frost on May 20-21, 1905, when Io -i5 of frost were registered in many places, which killed many young
beech trees in low situations at Colesborne, and checked the young growth considerably, killed none except a few of the
weakest Thuyas which were freshly transplanted ; but the autumn frost of the following October, when the trees were still in
growth, seems to have done more harm, though the young trees did not die till the following spring.
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Thuya 187
early autumn and late spring with great readiness. It has, therefore, every good
quality a forest tree can have, except the as yet unproved one of cleaning its trunk
from branches without pruning.
And as this has not yet been properly tested by thick planting, I venture to say
that there is no conifer better worthy of an extensive trial as a timber tree for such
purposes as the larch is now used, and especially for fencing posts, for which its
remarkable durability in the ground seems to make it most valuable. 1
I should therefore recommend that this tree should be planted at distances of 6
to 8 feet apart in situations where larch will not thrive, and not thinned as long as
the trees keep healthy.
In the New England states it is not hardy enough to live in many places, but
Professor Sargent tells me that a variety raised from seed from the Coeur d'Alene
mountains in northern Idaho is hardy at Boston, where the form from the Pacific
coast is tender, just as in the case of the Douglas fir.
No reliable tests, so far as I know, have yet been made in England or America
as to the breaking strain and strength of this wood, but Sheldon states that it is used
for telegraph posts in Oregon, and though its branches die off so slowly that the
home-grown timber may probably be knotty, it is certainly not worse in this respect
than spruce, to which I should consider it in every respect a superior forest tree.
The seed usually ripens about the end of October, and is very freely produced
in most seasons. It soon sheds when ripe, and should be sown in boxes or in the
open ground in early spring. I have tried both plans with great success, and find
it best to plant the seedlings at two years old in nursery lines, and plant out
the trees finally either in the early autumn or spring, when the deaths will be very
small if the roots are not allowed to dry before planting.
There is very little variation among the seedlings, which grow rapidly in moist
soil, and are less liable to suffer from spring frost than most trees, though if planted
in mid-winter the tops are liable to die back.
There is no reason why this tree should not be sold in nurseries at the price of
spruce except the absence of a regular demand, as it can be got up to a proper size
for planting in two years less time.
The tree seeds itself very rapidly on sandy soil in many parts of the west and
south of England, though liable to be thrown out of the ground by frost during
the first year, and often destroyed by rabbits. On the lower greensand at Blackmoor,
Hants, self-sown seedlings were quite numerous, both of this tree and of many other
conifers, but rabbits are not allowed here, and both Lord and Lady Selborne take
great interest in self-sown seedlings.
REMARKABLE TREES
The giant Thuya has not been long enough in cultivation to show whether it
1 I have recently been shown hy Mr. Molyneux a plantation of Thuya gigantea and larch called Mays hill, made by him
in 1888 on poor, heavy wheat land overlying chalk at Swanmore Park, Hants, the seat of W. II. Myers, Esq., M.P. Here
the Thuyas have completely outgrown the larch, and in many cases suppressed them, and are 15 to 20 feet high, and quite
healthy ; whereas where the larch were planted alone in the same place they are diseased and sickly.