286 The Black Spruce. 



wood of the pine or the hemlock. Though decaying quite 

 rapidly when exposed to the weather it is quite durable 

 when protected. It constitutes an important element in 

 the lumber trade. Spruce boards are deemed more valu- 

 able than hemlock but less valuable than pine boards 

 because of a greater liability to warp and crack. They 

 are harder than pine and are therefore more difficult to 

 work. Spruce is sometimes used for the frames of build- 

 ings and for floor timbers, but generally it is cut into boards, 

 door and window casings, siding, flooring, etc. In some 

 localities the making of spruce shingles is an important 

 branch of industry, but such shingles are generally consi- 

 dered inferior to those made from pine or hemlock. From 

 the New York census returns for 1865, we learn that the 

 amount of spruce lumber produced in the preceding year 

 was 71,000,000 feet, more than six-sevenths of which was 

 produced by the counties bordering on the northern forests. 

 The value of this at twenty dollars a thousand would be 

 nearly one and a half million dollars. The lumbermen of 

 these northern counties go far back in the woods along the 

 principal streams, cut the logs and draw them to the 

 water courses. In the spring, when the water is high, they 

 are floated dowu the stream to the mills where they are to be 

 sawed. In this way deep inroads have been made in the 

 forests so that they are not now the vast unbroken wilder- 

 ness they seem. To one passing along the upper Hudson 

 or the valley of the Sacandaga in summer time, the numer- 

 ous piles of spruce logs that have lodged against rocks or 

 on low banks, speak plainly of the rapid destruction of the 

 spruces and of the swiftly contracting areas that are 

 darkened by their shadows. And yet these are but the 

 small portion of logs that fail to get through to their des- 

 tination while the spring freshets last. If we suppose five 

 thousand feet to be the product of one acre it would require 

 more than 14,000 acres to furnish the 71,000,000 feet above 

 mentioned. 



