At Blair Atholl there was a grand spruce blown down in 1893, measuring 142 feet in height and containing about 420 cubic feet of timber. There are still many lofty spruces in the woodland about Dunkeld and Dupplin, containing well-grown, clean timber, and Messrs. Elwes and Henry have recorded a number of trees in various parts of the United Kingdom from 130 to 150 feet high. As a rule, however, in this country spruce, even when the requisite shelter has been secured, is not grown under sufficiently strict forest conditions to produce the best deals; it is commonly raised in mixed plantations, wherein, being patient of side shade, it retains its branches, a habit that renders the timber coarse and full of knots. Probably the most successful result from a plantation of pure spruce in Scotland was that obtained on the estate of Durris, on Deeside, where the trees on 400 acres were sold standing at 60 years old, the average number of spruce per acre being 560. As the average contents per tree were 10 cubic feet, and the price realised was 5d. per foot, the value amounted to £116 per acre. [Illustration: DOUGLAS FIRS (_Pseudotsuga douglasii_) PLANTED AT TAYMOUNT IN 1860] It would be vain to expect any such return from spruce planted in such situations as are frequently given to it. In a seaboard exposure it is worse than useless, for no tree becomes more unsightly than a spruce under the influence of salt-laden winds. For such situations, if spruce be grown of any kind, there are other species likely to give better results. I shall name two of these presently, but, first, it may be mentioned that the genus _Picea_ consists of two distinct groups--first, the true spruces, distinguished by having four-sided needles; second, the Omorika spruces, which have flat, two-sided needles. Inasmuch as some species of the second group have silvery undersides to the needles, they are apt to be mistaken for some kind of _Abies_, or silver fir. Here, again, the needle serves to distinguish between them, for, as aforesaid, in the spruce family the needles are set on little peg-like projections on the twig, whereas in the silver firs there is no such projection, but each needle when pulled off leaves a circular scar. There are probably upwards of twenty species of true spruce, including the Norway spruce. Some of them well deserve attention from the arboriculturist, being exceedingly ornamental, such as the Himalayan Morinda (_P. smithiana_), first raised from seed at Hopetoun House, Linlithgowshire, in 1818, and now flourishing in various parts of the United Kingdom at a height of 70 to 80 feet, with handsome pendulous branchlets.