us AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



slender, pointed at the apex. They become lustrous at maturity. The 

 staminate flowers are oval, bright red in color; the pistillate ones are 

 oblong, with thin rounded scales. The fruit of the red spruce is a cone, 

 from one to two and a half inches in length; it is green when young, 

 turning dark with age, and falling from the branches when the scales open. 

 The seeds are dark brown, and winged. 



Formerly spruce was little thought of for lumber and manufactur- 

 ing purposes in this country, though some use was made of it from the 

 earliest settlements in the regions where it grew. White pine could 

 generally be had where spruce was abundant, and the former wood was 

 preferred. As pine became scarce, spruce was worked in for a number of 

 purposes. The tree's form is all that a sawmill man could desire. The 

 trunk has more knots than white pine, for the reason that limbs are a 

 longer time in dying and in dropping off; but knots are small and 

 generally sound. By careful culling, a moderate amount of clear lumber 

 may be obtained. The wood is light, soft, narrow-ringed, strong in 

 proportion to its weight, elastic, and its color is pale with a slight tinge of 

 red, the sapwood whiter and usually about two inches thick. The 

 contrast between heart and sapwood is not strong. The medullary 

 rays are numerous, but small and obscure. The summerwood is thin 

 and not conspicuous. It is the wood's red tinge which gives the tree its 

 commercial name. 



It is believed that the yearly cut of red spruce in the United States 

 for lumber is about 500,000,000 feet, one-half of which comes from 

 West Virginia and southward, where this species reaches its highest 

 development; and the pulpwood cut in the same region is about one- 

 tenth as much in quantity. The long fiber and white color of spruce 

 make it one of the most satisfactory woods for pulp in this country. 

 Red spruce is only one of several species of spruce which contribute to the 

 supply. The total output of spruce pulpwood in the United States 

 yearly is equivalent to about 1,000,000,000 feet of lumber. 



Red spruce lumber has a long list of uses. Much flooring is made of 

 it, and it wears well, but not as well as hard pine from the South. It is 

 more used for shipping boxes in the northeastern part of the United 

 States than any other wood, except white pine. Its good stenciling 

 qualities recommend it. Manufacturers of sash, doors, and blinds find 

 it excellent material, combining lightness, strength, and small tendency 

 to warp, shrink, or swell. Coopers make buckets, tubs, kegs, and churns 

 of it; manufacturers of refrigerators use it for doors and frames; and 

 makers of furniture use it for many interior parts of bureaus, tables, and 

 sideboards. Textile mills use spruce clothboards as center pieces round 

 which to wind fabrics; and a further use in mills is for bobbins. It has 





