THE ADIRONDACK BLACK SPRUCE. 61 



wide divergence by claiming that in many cases there were two or 

 more rings formed in single years owing to climatic effects, 

 which is discussed later on. 



But, in view of the short season in the Adirondacks during which 

 the flow of sap is not checked, as might occur in trees which feel 

 the influence of an early spring, only one ring could reasonably 

 be expected for each year's growth. It is more reasonable 

 to account for the rapid growth of some of the trees by 

 the fact that these trees stood where they received more 

 light and air; and for the slow growth of the others by the 

 deprivation of the same. 



Although the black spruce is the slowest in growth of all our 

 forest trees, it does not require the number of years to attain 

 maturity that are indicated by the preceding statistics. It must 

 be borne in mind that these tables indicate the age of the spruce 

 when growing under natural conditions, where it is deprived of a 

 proper amount of light and air during the greater period of its 

 growth. Starting as a seedling, the young tree struggles for 

 many years in the cold and gloom of the underbrush, the first 

 decade of its existence being merely a struggle for survival. 

 This is evident from the figures in Table IY, in which so many 

 trees show that over 30 years were passed in attaining their first 

 inch of radius or two inches of diameter. Only through the sur- 

 vival of the fittest do these nurslings struggle upward until by 

 overtopping the surrounding growth they gain light and air, 

 after which their increase in rapidity of growth is plainly 

 noticeable. 



Now the black spruce of the Adirondacks does not require any 

 such number of years to attain a merchantable size. On Lot 94-, 

 Township 21, in the Town of Long Lake, Hamilton county, there 

 is at the present time a thick growth of spruce on a piece of land 

 where the Rev. Robert Shaw, a local clergyman, according to his 

 statement, mowed grass 26 years ago. Many of the trees in this 

 clump of spruce are over 30 feet high and nine inches in diame- 

 ter. Emerson* mentions seven spruce trees of 31 years' growth, 

 in the Botanic garden, which averaged 30 inches in diameter, or 

 one-third of an inch annual growth in diameter. 



* Trees and shrubs of Massachusetts, by Gteorge B. Emerson. 



