THE FIR.
The Fir and the spruce are readily distinguished from the pine by their botanical characters and by those general marks which are apparent to common observers. They have shorter leaves than the pine, not arranged in fascicles, but singly and in rows along the branch. The cones of the American species are smaller than those of the pine, and they ripen their seeds every year; their lateral branches are smaller and more numerous, and are given out more horizontally. They are taller in proportion to their spread, and more regularly pyramidal in their outlines. The principal generic distinction between the Fir and the spruce is the manner in which they bear their cones; those of the Fir stand erect upon their branch, while those of the spruce are suspended from it. Botanists have lately separated the spruce from the Fir, which they describe under the generic name of Picea. As my descriptions of trees are physiognomical rather than botanical, I shall have no occasion to adopt or to reject this innovation. The spruces, however, are always described by travellers as firs. Whenever they speak of Fir woods, they include in them both the Fir and the spruce.
THE BALSAM FIR.
This tree is the American representative of the silver fir of Europe, but is inferior to it in all respects. The silver fir is one of the tallest trees on the continent of Europe, remarkable for the beauty of its form and foliage, and for the value of its timber. The American tree is inferior to it in height, in density of foliage, in longevity, and in the durability of its wood. Both trees, however, display the same general characters to observation, having a bluish-green foliage, with a silvery under surface, closely arranged upon the branches, that curve gracefully upward at the extremities. The secondary branches have the same upward curvature, never hanging down in the formal manner of the Norway spruce. There is an airiness in its appearance that is quite charming, and to a certain extent makes amends for its evident imperfections. When the Balsam Fir is young, it is very neat and pretty; but as it advances in years it becomes bald, and displays but little foliage except on the extremities of the branches. This is a remarkable defect in many of this family of trees. European writers complain of it in the silver fir. It is observed in the hemlock, except in favorable situations, and in the black spruce, but in a less degree in the white and Norway spruces.