2314- ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III, 



2227 



lying between 44 and 53 N. lat., and between 55 and 75. w. long.; viz. 

 in Lower Canada, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the district 

 of Maine, Vermont, and the upper parts of New Hampshire, where it is so 

 abundant, as to constitute a third part of the native forests. Farther south 

 it is rarely seen, except in cold and humid situations on the top of the 

 Alleghanies. " It is particularly remarked in a large swamp not far from 

 Wilkesburg in Pennsylvania, and on the Black Mountain in South Carolina ; 

 which is one of the loftiest summits in the southern states, and is probably 

 thus named from the melancholy aspect occasioned by the dusky foliage of 

 this tree. It is sometimes met with, also, in the white cedar swamps near 

 Philadelphia and New York ; but in these places, which are always miry, and 

 sometimes submerged, its vegetation is feeble." (Michx^) The regions in 

 which the black spruce is most abundant are often diversified by hills ; and 

 the finest forests are found in valleys, where the soil is black, humid, deep, 

 and covered with a thick bed of moss ; and where the trees, though crowded 

 so as to leave an interval of only 3ft., or at the most 5ft., between the 

 trunks, attain their greatest height. It is found in the same countries on the 

 declivities of the mountains, where the soil is strong, dry, and covered only 

 with a thin bed of peat, and on what are called in America the poor black 

 lands j but in these situations it does not exceed 50 ft. in height, with short 

 thick leaves, of a blackish green, and cones scarcely more than half their 

 usual size. This tree is called epinette noire, and epinette a la biere, in 

 Canada; double spruce in the district of Maine; and black spruce in Nova 

 Scotia. It has been long known in Europe ; and Josselyn, in his History of 

 New England, published in London, in 1672, informs us that it was con- 

 sidered, at that period, to furnish the best yards and topmasts in the world. 

 It was introduced into England by Bishop Compton, before 1700. Cones 

 being frequently imported, the tree is abundant in British nurseries, and 

 has been generally distributed as an ornamental tree ; which it richly merits, 

 not only on account of the colour of its cones when young, but of the 

 dense habit of growth of the tree. 



Properties and Uses. The black spruce, according to Pursh, is of " great 

 mechanical use" in America, besides being "the tree of which that whole- 

 some beverage called spruce beer is made." Michaux says " the distinguish- 

 ing properties of the black spruce are, strength, lightness, and elasticity. In 

 the dockyards of the United States, the spars are usually of black spruce 



