England has no native fir (what is called "Scotch fir" is a pine), but the common fir of Europe, which one sees everywhere, is the silver fir (Abies Picea or pectinata). This is the one we waste our money on. But we have a much better tree in the white fir of Colorado (Abies concolor). It is the cheeriest fir because of the soft silvery tone of its foliage, and it is the most graceful because it has the longest and softest needles. Most firs are stiff; this is not.

But England has us badly beaten on hundred-foot firs. She can grow to perfection the colossal firs that attain two hundred and three hundred feet on the Pacific Coast — the Cascade Mountains, Puget Sound, Columbia, and California red firs (Abies amabilis, grandis, nobilis, magnified). These we can never hope to grow. But I saw them only as specimens in collections; they do not affect the English landscape. Whether we can ever grow hundred-foot conifers on Eastern estates time alone can tell. Our only chance, apparently, among firs is with the Colorado white and the Crimean (Abies concolor and Nordmanniana). If we fail we can console ourselves with the reflection that they are out of proportion, anyhow, on a small estate.