ENGELMANN SPRUCE 183 



is light, not strong, light yellow in color, and with scarcely 

 distinguishable sapwood. In a few years it must produce a 

 large portion of the wood cut for pulp in Canada. The tree 

 can be easily recognized by the rank, and, to some, very 

 disagreeable odor of its leaves. There is little need of arti- 

 ficial propagation if reasonable care be taken to keep out 

 fire and leave enough trees for seed. 



ENGELMANN SPRUCE : Picea engelmanni 



SUCH lumber as is cut from this tree and shipped East is 

 known in the trade as " Rocky Mountain Spruce." It dif- 

 fers botanically from the eastern Spruces and grows much 

 larger, yet the lumber cut from it is very much like that in 

 character and can be used for substantially the same pur- 

 poses and can be produced in much larger dimensions. Its 

 natural range south of the Canadian line is along the Rocky 

 Mountains and the Cascade Range southward to northern 

 Arizona and New Mexico, at elevations from 5000 to 10,000 

 feet above the ocean. On the lower altitudes it frequently 

 grows to one hundred and twenty feet high and three 

 feet in diameter, but on high ones it is little better than 

 a shrub. This produces great variation in the character and 

 quality of the lumber cut from it. 



Grown in the open, it forms a broad-based, conical crown, 

 with long, drooping, lower limbs produced in regular whorls 

 spreading far out, and some even resting on the ground. If 

 in a dense stand, it sends up a straight, somewhat tapering, 

 clean stem, with a very short, contracted crown of small 

 branches. It is a slow growing, long-lived tree, reaching 

 an age of five hundred years. 



The wood is soft, light, compact, but not strong, close- 

 and straight-grained, pale yellow in color, tinged with red 

 verging to reddish brown, with thick sapwood hardly dis- 

 tinguishable from heartwood, and with little difference 

 between spring and summer wood. Its medullary rays are 

 more conspicuous than in any other Spruce. It is used for 



