HARDWOOD RECORD 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES. 



Balsam Fir. 



Ahies l)alsamea — Linn. 

 Abies halsamea, or the "Christmas tree," 

 is found through a -wide range of growth, 

 extending from the Great Bear Lake region 

 and Hudson Bay on the north through Labra- 

 dor and Newfoundland; south to Pennsyl- 

 vania and down along the higher mountains 

 to Virginia ; it is found also in Michigan and 

 Minnesota, and to some extent in 

 Ohio and Nebraska. 



The tree is called balsam fir in 

 New Hampshire, Vermont, Massa- 

 chusetts, Rhode Island, New York, 

 Pennsylvania, West Virginia, "Wis- 

 consin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ne- 

 braska, Ohio and Ontario; it is 

 known as balsam in Vermont, New 

 Hampshire and New York; as Can- 

 ada balsam in North Carolina; as 

 balm of Gilead in several states, 

 notably Delaware, New York and 

 Pennsylvania; as blister pine and 

 fir pine in West Virginia; as firtree 

 in Vermont; as single spruce in 

 New Brunswick and the Hudson 

 Bay district; as silver pine in parts 

 of the same region; as sapin in 

 Quebec; to the New York Indians 

 the tree was known as clxo-'kolc-tung 



a word which translated means 



' ' blisters. ' ' 



Balsam fir has several varieties 

 distinguished in cultivation. In 

 shape it is broad at the base, with 

 pointed crown, forming a symmetri- 

 cal pyramid, and though a small 

 tree— only from fifty to seventy feet 

 tall and from one to two feet in 

 diameter — presents a majestic and 

 picturesque figure in the forest. It 

 is most frequently met with in the 

 damp woods and mountain swamps 

 from Minnesota to Maine, and is 

 particularly prolific in the latter 

 state, where thousands of young 

 trees are cut every year and shipped 

 to the large markets where they are 

 sold as Christmas trees. Hans 

 Christian Andersen, in his exquisite 

 tale of "Der Tannenbaum," re- 

 lates the sad adventures which be- 

 fell one of these "little wander- 

 ers. ' ' 



The bark of balsam fir is brown, 

 thin, smooth and shows numerous 

 white horizontal markings of a 

 blister-like nature, which secrete an abund- 

 ance of resinous matter valuable as the 

 "Canada balsam" of commerce, which is 

 much used in mounting microscopic speci- 

 mens and as a curative agent. Young trees 

 produce a great abundance of the balsam, 

 and wounding them serves to increase the 

 flow. Air laden with the aromatic odors of 

 this fir is very beneficial to certain forms of 

 disease, and many an invalid is relieved of 



SEVENTY-THIRD PAPER. 



distressing symptoms by a vacation in the 

 balsam woods of Maine, New Hampshire or 

 North Carolina. Asheville is situated on a 

 plateau which is surrounded by the Balsam 

 Eange of the Alleghanies, and the pure, dry 

 air filtered through countless fir trees has 

 proven better than all the drugs in the world 

 to many a victim of phthisis and similar af- 

 fections, especially when breathed constantly 



ends, and with broad, closely-overlapping 

 scales; it has peculiar purplish color when 

 young, but turns brown with age. 



The balsam is a popular tree with every 

 camping party in the northern woods, and 

 the women industriously gather its leaves and 

 tiny twigs for sweet-scented pillows, while 

 hunters make their couches from its fragrant 

 boughs. 



The wood of balsam fir is coarse- 

 grained, but of compact structure; 

 the heartwood is brownish white, 

 the sapwood considerably lighter. 

 It is soft, light, not very durable, 

 and easily spUt. A cubic foot 

 weighs approximately twenty-three 



The tree is cut when of good size 

 and marketed with pine or spruce 

 lumber. It resembles spruce in 

 structural qualities and appearance, 

 but may be distinguished from that 

 tree and other conifers by the fact 

 that it has no resin-ducts, although 

 the blisters upon the bark contain 

 the clear liquid balsam ; however, its 

 wood is freer from sticky deposits 

 than would naturally be thought 

 from that fact. It mingles with 

 tamarack, black ash, arbor vitse and 

 other trees of the forest, seldom 

 being found in a pure stand of any 

 extent. 



Balsam lumber has never been 

 manufactured to any extent until 

 very recently, but of late large quan- 

 tities of it have been employed in 

 box making and in the paper pulp 

 industry, especially in the North. 



The tree picture accompanying 

 this article forms an illustration in 

 Eogers' "The Tree Book." 



TYPICAL FOREST GROWTH BALSAM FIR. 



day and night from a tent in th-e woods. 



The leaves of the balsam fir are dark green 

 and lustrous above, paler below; on top they 

 show a decided groove, with corresponding 

 ridge beneath ; they are evergreen and needle.; 

 shaped, like the other members of the conifer 

 family, but are very blunt at the ends. 



The staminate flowers are yellowish, the 

 pistillate purple. The fruit is an erect cone 

 two to four inches in length, blunt at the 



Wood Shrinkage. 



Intoiesting experiments on the 

 sliiiiikat;r nf wood due to the loss of 

 moisture have recently been com- 

 jdeted by the Forest Service through 

 its timber testing station at Yale 

 university. These experiments show 

 that green wood does not shrink at 

 all in drying until the amount of 

 moisture in it has been reduced to 

 about one-third of the dry weight 

 of the wood. From this point 

 on to the absolutely dry condition, 

 the shrinkage in the area of cross- 

 section of the wood is directly pro- 

 portional to the amount of mois- 

 ture removed. 



The shrinkage of wood in a direction paral- 

 lel to the grain is very small; so small in 

 comparison with the shrinkage at right angles 

 to the grain, that in computing the total 

 slirinkage in volume, the longitudinal slirink- 

 age rnay be neglected entirely. 



The v'olu;netric shrinkage varies with dif- 

 ferent woods, being about twenty-six per 

 cent of the dry volume for the species of 



