the sea. It is a large tree growing to a height of sixty or seventy feet, but its timber is so soft that it has little value for the builder, though the carpenter finds many uses for it, and much of it is used in the preparation of resin, turpentine and tar. The tree may be readily identified by its long, dark leaves (in twos), forming large, brush-like clusters. These leaves vary from six to twelve inches in length. The cones are as large again as those of the Scotch-pine, and each scale bears in the centre of the raised portion a hard, sharp point of a grey colour. This is the tree which has proved of such great service in France in turning to use considerable areas of barren sea-sands. In the Departments of the Landes and Gironde troublesome rolling sands have been rendered fit for agriculture by making plantations of P. pinaster, which can thrive in such poor stuff, even so near the sea.
The Silver-fir (Abies pectinata).
Here we have a true fir, which will be seen on examination to
differ in several points from the pines. It will at once be noted
that the leaves are not gathered into bundles of two, three, or
five, but grow solitarily in two rows, on opposite sides of a
branch. They are flat, with blunt ends, whitish or silvery
underneath, and evergreen. The cones, too, are very different from
those of the pines, for whereas those were found to be conical,
these are really cylindrical, and consist of a number of woody
cones of pretty equal thickness throughout, not thickened at the
tips as in Pinus. The firs are excellent timber trees, and are
rich in turpentine.
The Silver-fir gets its popular name from the silvery undersides of its leaves. The cones stand erectly from the branches; at first they are green, then reddish, finally purplish-brown. They are six or eight inches in length. Each scale has a long, tapering bract attached to its outer surface, and turned over at
