Canadian Pacific Railway
A Giant Douglas Fir
This species of fir tree grows to an enormous height in British Columbia. It is now being planted in many Scotch forests.
But to realize the romance of a Pine forest, it is necessary to tramp, as in Germany one sometimes has to do, for thirty miles through one unending black forest of Coniferous trees; there are no towns, scarcely a village or a forester's hut. The ground is covered with brown, dead needles, on which scarcely even green moss can manage to live.
Then one realizes the irritating monotony of the branches of Pines and Spruces, and their sombre, dark green foliage produces a morose depression of spirit.
The Conifers are, amongst trees, like those hard-set, gloomy, and determined Northern races whose life is one long, continuous strain of incessant endeavour to keep alive under the most difficult conditions.
From its very earliest infancy a young Pine has a very hard time. The Pine-cones remain on the tree for two years. The seeds inside are slowly maturing all this while, and the cone-scales are so welded or soldered together by resin and turpentine that no animal could possibly injure them. How thorough is the protection thus afforded to the young seeds, can only be understood if one takes a one-year-old unopened cone of the Scotch Fir and tries to get them out. It does not matter what is used; it may be a saw, a chisel, a hammer, or an axe: the little elastic, woody, turpentiny thing can only be split open with an infinite amount of trouble and a serious loss of calm.
When these two years have elapsed, the stalk of the cone grows so that the scales are separated, and the seeds become rapidly dry and are carried away by the wind.
These seeds are most beautiful and exquisitely fashioned.