GROWING NORWAY SPRUCE FOR PAPER PULP. 805 
average age and growth of the poles on this stock pile, I measured the 
diameters and counted the annual rings of twelve black spruce and three 
white spruce poles. Both black and white spruce are slow growers, as the 
figures will show, but the former is much more so than the latter. The 
black spruce averaged 4.56 inches in diameter, with an average of 52.92 
years; or it required 11.6 years to grow one inch in diameter. The white 
spruce averaged 9.5 inches with an age of 79.3 years; or one inch growth in 
8.35 years. A small black spruce which I cut in the woods near Cloquet, 
measured at twelve inches from the ground, 33 inches in diameter and was 
sixty-five years old—an average growth of one inch in 19.26 years. This 
tree was about twenty feet high, but would scarcely furnish one eight foot 
pole for pulp. In Bulletin No. 49 of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment 
Station I find figures for three white spruce trees, with an average diameter 
of 6.75 inches and an age of 50.67 years; or one inch in 7.5 years. These 
figures on black and white spruce are rather discouraging to the prospective 
pulp-wood operator. But let me now introduce the new tree which I am 
going to recommend as a more rapid grower. 
The Norway spruce, Picea excelsa, a native of northern Europe and 
Asia, has become a general favorite in the eastern states on account of its 
easy propagation from seed, its rapid growth and its very graceful and 
stately form. Wherever planted in Minnesota it seems to do well. On the 
Experiment Farm, at St. Anthony Park, I measured seven Norway spruces 
with an average diameter of 4.5 inches and about fifteen years old. These 
trees having now passed through the earlier struggle for place may be ex- 
pected to grow much faster for the next fifteen years. In addition to these 
there are in the forest plantation on the farm about sixty-four other trees 
which I did not measure, but which are in a very thrifty condition and will 
in a few years more furnish some excellent data as to rate of growth in 
plantation on Minnesota soil. 
On the Hendrickson place in the same section, there are standing some 
thirteen Norway spruce trees, which were set out about twenty-five years 
ago, when they were four or five years old. These trees are now about 
thirty years old, average thirty-seven feet high, with a diameter of 13.6 
inches, or one inch growth in 2.2 years. On the Parker place, adjoining the 
Experiment Station on the north, are two trees about thirty years old with 
a diameter of thirteen inches, or one inch in 2.3 years. At the Rosehill Nur- 
sery, one-half mile west of the station, there are eleven Norway spruces, 
said to be about twenty-five years old, and which average in diameter 11.68 
inches, or one inch growth in 2.14 years. 
From the Hendrickson spruces one could cut twenty-four feet of log- 
length suitable for pulp. The volume of such a log, twenty-four feet long, 
with a basal diameter of 13.6 inches and top diameter ot four inches would 
be 13.15 cubic feet; and allowing 400 trees to the acre, it would be possible 
to raise in thirty years, 5,260 cubic feet of pulp wood, or about 61.16 cords 
per acre. (86 cubic feet volume—r cord). If a paper mill uses twentv 
cords of wood per day and runs 300 days in the year, 6,000 cords would be 
required each year to keep it going or, in other terms, 96.3 acres of land 
would have to be cleared of timber each year. For speculative consideration 
we may make this 100 acres per year, and each year for the next thirty years 
we will seed to Norway spruce 100 acres of land, or a total of 3,000 acres. 
Norway spruce matures in from twenty-five to thirty years, after which its 
