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94 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland
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Sargent says its growth is very rapid, the leading shoots of young trees on
Puget Sound being often 3 to 4 feet long.
John Muir measured a tree in Washington 180 feet high, at 240 years old,
with a trunk 4 feet 6 inches diameter. Another near Vancouver, B.C., only 48 years
old, had a trunk 3 feet in diameter.
In Alaska, German measured two trees one grown in a dense wood, well pro
tected from wind, was 160 feet high, at 267 years old, with a diameter of 3 feet
11 inches; and the other on a hillside exposed to fierce north-east gales, was 4^ feet
in diameter at 14 feet from the ground, and 434 years old. The heart of this tree
was 32 inches from the south-west side, and only 16^ inches from the north-east side,
showing the effect of prevalent winds on the production of branches and wood.
A tree measured by Muir at Wrangel, Alaska, was no less than 764 years old,
with a trunk 5 feet in diameter, and this, I think, is the greatest age to which any
recorded spruce has attained.
INTRODUCTION
Though discovered in Puget Sound in May 1792 by Archibald Menzies, who
was surgeon and naturalist to Vancouver's expedition, it was not introduced to
cultivation until 1831 by David Douglas, and was described by Lindley under the
name of Abies Menziesi one year after Bongard had made it known to science under
the specific name which we adopt. It is, however, still commonly known in Great
Britain as Menzies' spruce, and his name it may well bear. According to Loudon,
only a very few plants were raised in the Horticultural Society's Garden in the year
1832, of which some still survive.
The Oregon Association, which was formed a little later by a few Scottish
arboriculturists for the purpose of introducing the conifers of the Pacific coast,
and who sent out John Jeffrey as a collector about 1850, were fortunate in
procuring a large quantity of seed, from which the pineta of Scotland and England
have been stocked, and it has now become a common tree.
CULTIVATION
Though Menzies' spruce loves a wet climate, it loves a wet soil even more, and
soon becomes unsightly and loses its foliage in dry localities. No conifer, except
perhaps the Douglas fir, grows so rapidly where it has a suitable situation, and in
some parts of Scotland it is now being planted experimentally as a forest tree.
It is easily raised, either from home-grown or imported seed, and is, like all
spruces, slow of growth for the first few years, and requires at least five or six in the
nursery before it is large enough to plant out.
At Durris, in Aberdeenshire, on the property of Mr. H. R. Baird, there is a
plantation of Sitka spruce about 15 acres in extent, of which Mr. John Crozier, the
forester in charge of the estate, gives us the following particulars in a letter dated
12th September 1904 :
Picea 95
"The plantation occurs at an altitude of 700 to 800 feet, the aspect being
northerly, soil a sandy peat over boulder clay. The age of the plantation is twenty-
five years; but there is no record either as to the number of the plants put out or
the age when planted. They were, however, notched in, and their age would most
probably be four years. They were planted rather irregularly, the distance varying
from 6 to 9 feet, and both common spruce and Scots fir have been used to fill up
between, to 3 feet between each plant. The average height of the Sitka trees is
about 33 feet; and the girth at 5 feet taken at random is (where they had been
planted 9 feet apart), 24 in., 22 in., 20 in., 25 in., 22 in., 22 in., 28 in., 22 in., 26 in.,
25 in. The largest common spruces I could find on the same ground measured 9 in.,
8 in., r r in., 9 in., 11 in., 12 in., 16 in., 9 in., 10 in., 12 in., and their height was about
26 feet. I took the measurement of a hundred Sitkas over a track 20 feet broad, just
as they came, and they averaged 22f in. Where the Sitkas had been planted at
6 feet apart, the common spruce and Scots fir are dominated, and the greater part of
them quite dead. I drained some very wet parts a year ago, where both the Scots
fir and common spruce had been killed through excess of moisture, but the Sitka had
been very little harmed by it. Judging by what I have seen of the tree here and
elsewhere, it will stand a greater degree of moisture than any other conifer I know.
The plantation is altogether in a very healthy state."
A few hundred Menzies' spruces were planted out in 1879 on the mountain at
Bronydd, on the property of Lord Penrhyn in North Wales, at 900 feet elevation ;
according to Mr. Richards, the forester, only half a dozen trees now survive, in a
wretched condition. He states, however, that as the young growths come out late in
the spring the tree is never touched by frost in North Wales. At Penrhyn there is
a good specimen of the tree measuring 10 feet 6 inches in girth in 1904.
Menzies' spruce, 1 on account of its sharp needles, has been supposed to be free
from the attacks of deer, rabbits, and hares; but recent observations made in the
royal domain of Freyr in Belgium show that out of 10,000 plants introduced some
years ago only 2000 remain, and these are not expected to survive long. This is
much to be regretted, as they had grown splendidly.
REMARKABLE TREES
One of the largest trees we know of in the south of England is at Highclere,
Berks, the seat of the Earl of Carnarvon, where we measured a tree in August
1903 which was 96 feet by 12 feet. The tree, having lost its lower branches
owing to a heavy snow-storm, has put out new branches down the trunk, a
somewhat rare occurrence in large conifers. Another very fine tree is growing
at Barton, Suffolk, which was planted in 1847, and when measured by Henry in
1904 was 99 feet by 9 feet 3 inches. Both of these are in a dry climate but in a
good soil.
At Bicton, Devonshire, I measured a tree in 1902 which was 85 feet by n feet
1 Bull. Soc. Cent. Forest. Belgique, April 1 901.