674 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



better showing. The pores are small, numerous, and are distributed 

 equally through all parts of the wood. 



Balm of Gilead bears seeds abundantly and scatters them widely. 

 It must do its planting quickly in the short summers of the cold North. 

 It sticks dose to alluvial flats, banks of rivers, borders of lakes and 

 swamps, and gravelly soils. It grows to a diameter of fifteen inches in 

 about forty-five years. 



Though balm of Gilead is not one of the most important timber 

 trees of this country, its place is by no means obscure. No separate 

 tally is kept of it among woods cut for pulp, but it goes with aspen and 

 other similar species as "poplar." A little better account is kept of the 

 amount passing through wood-using factories. The annual quantity 

 so reported in Illinois is 2,775,000 feet, and it is made into boxes and 

 crates. The lumber is shipped from the North, since it does not grow 

 as far south as Illinois. The situation is different in Michigan, for 

 balm of Gilead grows there. The amount going yearly into factories in 

 that state is reported at 4,912,000 feet. It is made into many com- 

 modities, but boxes and crates take most of it. The wood is reduced 

 to veneer and converted into berry buckets, grape baskets, fruit and egg 

 crates, and other small shipping containers. It is made into excelsior 

 and woodwool which are used as packing material. Druggist's barrels 

 are manufactured from this wood. These are small, two-piece vessels, 

 bored hollow, with a closely fitting lid, and varying in size from a couple 

 of inches high, to nearly a foot. They contain powders, perfumes, pills, 

 and other commodities in small bulk. The wood is worked into pails, 

 tubs, and kegs. Furniture makers put balm of Gilead to use in several 

 ways. It is cut thin for shelving; it is made into panels, and is em- 

 ployed as cores over which to lay veneers of more expensive materials. 

 Woodenware factories generally keep it in stock in the northern states. 



The supply is ample at present to meet all demands. Cutters of 

 pulpwood probably take more than sawmills, and are satisfied with 

 smaller timber. Trees are often planted for ornament, but few if any 

 have yet been propagated for forestry purposes. 



HAIRY BALM OF GILEAD (Populus balsamifera candicans) is not a 

 species but a variety, and it is so different from balm of Gilead that it is 

 entitled to a place of its own. Ordinarily it passes under the common 

 names applied to balm of Gilead. It is a cultivated tree in eastern 

 Canada and northeastern United States, where it has escaped from 

 cultivation and is running wild. Both Sargent and Sudworth say that 

 nothing is definitely known of the tree's native range; while it has been 

 claimed by others that it once grew wild in Michigan but was destroyed 

 by lumbermen. Probably most planted balm of Gileads are of this 



