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Eastern hemlock, Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière, reaches the southern extent of it range in Alabama, where there are disjunt populations on Sand Mountain both in Pisgah Gorge and at Bryant where oldtimers called them spruce, then most notably further west in the Bankhead National Forest where the Alabama state champion at 130 feet tall, 157 inches girth, and 44 feet spread is found.  The growth rings of a much smaller tree could be counted where it was cut due to falling across a trail in the Sipsey Wilderness Area.  The number of rings in the sapwood was just over 70 and this was only a third of the radius besides being several feet from the rootball thus this tree was estimated to be over 200 years old perhaps even as old as the United States of America thus it could have been a seedling when William Bartram was traveling throughthe Southeast looking for undiscoverd species of plants.  With the populations in Alabama being disjunct from the rest of range in the Southern Appalachians it will hopefully protect them from the hemlock woolly adelgid, Adelges tsugae, an exotic insect pest that is decimating the native hemlocks, including the Carolina hemlock, T. caroliniana Engelm., which is found in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and adjacent parts of the Appalachian Mountains.  The main risk of the spread of hemlock woolly adelgid into Alabama will be the importation of infected nursery stock.  Many people think of Socrates being poisoned at the mention of hemlock, but this is an example of common names causing confusion because poisonous hemlock is an exotic herb that is in a completely different family and is in fact not relateted until two or more classification levels higher depending on the system of organizing the plant kingdom.  Therefore, contrary to this falliecous expectation the vernacular nomenclature may imply eastern hemlock is said to be eatable although this would need to be a desperate emergency survival situation due to the significant damage such use would cause relative to the nutritional benefit gained.  Due to the wide latitudinal range of the species caution should be taken when getting nursery grown hemlock to be sure that it is at least close to the southern end of the range since it will need to be more tolerant of heat stress considering that even those found growing here are in the cool moist microclimates of canyons.  The potential size should also be a factor considering that I have heard of nurseries that effectively lied by implying that a mature height of say 15 feet is the same as the maximum height of the tree just so they could sell 8 feet tall trees for about $800 dollars considering that 15 feet was the maximum height a homeowner desired.  At least hemlock can be pruned as a hedge of nearly any height considering that I recall, but can't confirm that it was at one time in the Guinness Book of Records for the tallest clipped evergreen hedge at about 75 feet.  Interestingly the tip of a hemlock tree weeps slightly away from the prevailing wind, but if this is removed the tree hardly gets any taller unless another leader can establish dominance, but more often on injured saplings this results in multiple dominate leaders and eventually bad form.  Therefore it is best to remove all but one dominate leader as soon as possible, which will allow the resulting gaps to be filled in by the remaining branches that may have otherwise been self pruned.