Trees of this species seldom occur in pure stands of large extent, but are scattered among forests of other kinds. Sawmills cut the fir as they come to it, but seldom go much out of their way to get it. The United States census for 1910 showed that 132,327,000 feet of white fir lumber were cut in the whole country, but as several species pass by that name it is not possible to determine how much belonged to the one under discussion, but probably about half, as that much was credited to California where this tree is at its best. The fir does not suffer in comparison with trees associated with it. Its trunk does not average quite as large as the pines, yet larger than most of the cedars; but in height it equals the best of its associates, and in symmetrical form, and beauty of color of foliage, it must be acknowledged superior. The dark intensity of its green crown when thrown against the blue summer skies of the Sierras forms a picture which probably no tree in the world can surpass and few can equal. Its cones suffer from the depredations of the ever-hungry Douglas squirrel which is too impatient to wait for nature’s slow process to ripen and scatter the seeds; but he climbs the trunks which stand as straight as plummet lines two hundred feet or more, and clinging to the topmost swaying branches, clips the cone stems with his teeth, and the cone goes to the ground like a shot. A person who will stand still in a Sierra forest in late summer, where firs abound, will presently hear the cones thumping the ground on all sides of him. If his eyes are good, and he looks carefully, he may see the squirrels, silhouetted against the sky on far-away tree tops, seeming so small in the distance that they look the size of mice; yet the Douglas squirrel is about the size of the eastern red squirrel. He does not always let the cones fall when he cuts their stems, but sometimes carries them down the long trunk to the ground, then goes back for another. The squirrel hoards the cones for winter, but does not neglect to fully satisfy his appetite while about the work. A single hoard--carefully covered with pine needles as a roof against winter snow--may contain five or ten bushels of cones, which are not all fir cones, but these predominate in most hoards. [Illustration] GRAND FIR [Illustration: GRAND FIR] GRAND FIR (_Abies Grandis_) In California, Oregon, and Idaho this tree is called white fir, but it has several other names, silver fir and yellow fir in Montana and Idaho. In California some know it as Oregon fir, western white fir, and great California fir. Grand fir is more a botanist’s than a lumberman’s name.