THE RED SPRUCE. 3 



Minor uses of spruce are for matches, toys, clothespins, wooden- 

 ware, sieve frames, cheese molds, and bandboxes. On account of 

 its straight grain and light weight it finds a considerable use also in 

 the manufacture of ladders, screen frames, cold-storage plants, 

 refrigerators, pump stocks, furniture, canoe paddles, and light boat 

 oars. 



Two by-products of spruce may be mentioned. The resinous 

 exudations are used as chewing-gum, and the claim is sometimes made 

 that they possess medicinal properties. The extract made from the 

 tender tips of the branches by boiling with water forms the basis of 

 spruce beer, a nonalcoholic beverage formerly very popular, particu- 

 larly among seafaring men, by whom it was considered a preventive 

 of scurvy. 



AMOUNT AND VALUE OF SPRUCE CUT AND IMPORTED. 



Table 1 shows for the year 1909 1 the amount of spruce of all 

 species utilized for different purposes, and the total and unit value 

 of the material for each use. More than three-fourths of the total 

 was red spruce. 



Spruce ranked sixth in 1909 in the amount of lumber produced 

 and contributed 3.9 per cent of the total for all woods. It was 

 surpassed "by yellow pine, Douglas fir, oak, white pine, and hemlock. 

 In pulp production it ranked first and supplied 60 per cent of all the 

 wood used. Nearly one-third of this, however, was imported. 

 Spruce ranked ninth in slack stave production (3.6 per cent); twelfth 

 in slack heading production (1.3 per cent); and ninth in the pro- 

 duction of slack hoops (0.03 per cent), being surpassed in all of these 

 minor uses by red gum, pine, beech, elm, birch, basswood, and 

 maple. One per cent of the veneers produced in 1909 were of spruce, 

 which ranked fourteenth among the species. In addition, 1 per 

 cent of all the shingles, 0.2 per cent of all the railroad ties, 0.3 per 

 cent of all the telegraph and telephone poles, and 2 per cent of all 

 the cross arms produced in the United States were of spruce. 



1 Forest Products of the United States, 1909, Bureau of the Census in Cooperation with the Forest Service. 

 Government Printing Office, 1911. This contains the latest complete enumeration covering minor as 

 well as major forest products, which accounts for its use here in place of more recent data covering but a 

 part of the field. 



