PINETUM DANICUM. 



431 



This species is well described in the Sylva Americana"; it is 

 there said to attain the height of 70 or 80 feet. The distinguishing 

 properties of the wood of Black Spruce are stated to be strength, 

 lightness, and elasticity. Introduced into England about the year 

 1700 by Bishop Compton. 



The Black Spruce holds relatively the same position, in an 

 economic sense, among the coniferous trees of North-east America 

 as the Norway Spruce does among those of Europe. Its timber is of 

 excellent quality, light, strong, and elastic ; durable when protected, 

 but decaying rapidly when exposed to the weather. It is more used 

 in the Dominion of Canada and the adjacent portions of the United 

 States than that of any other coniferous tree ; it is also exported to 

 Great Britain in large quantities, chiefly to the ports of Liverpool and 

 Glasgow. The consumption of Black Spruce timber is known to be 

 enormous, many thousands of acres being cleared annually to supply 

 the demand. 



The Canadian French call the Black Spruce " Epinette alaBiere," 

 because the twigs of the tree used to be boiled in water with other 

 substances, such as sugar, molasses, &c., and the liquor being casked 

 and fermented, received the name of spruce beer. 



The ornamental qualities of Ahies nigra are not of a very high 

 order, although it possesses some very distinctive characters, but 

 these are only well developed in this country when the trees are 

 growing in retentive, loamy soils and moist places, freely exposed on 

 all sides. In the New England States and adjoining provinces of 

 Canada, where the Black Spruce is most abundant, it is found to 

 " delight in cold, hilly, and mountain regions, attaining its largest size 

 in those moderate elevations, ridges, or slopes where the soil has a 

 ready drainage, and at the same time retains considerable moisture 

 by reason of its mossy- shaded surface and large percentage of dark 

 v^sgetable mould. It also grows freely in low swampy lands and about 

 sphagnous marshes, but in such localities it is inferior in size and 

 quality." 



"The Black Spruce is much disposed to be variable. In open 

 sphagnous marshes a form occurs so marked in its appearance that in 

 some localities it has received the name of the Bastard Spruce. The 

 branches of this variety are generally slender, the internodes short, 

 and the leaves pale. The tree has a feeble, starved, and sickly 

 aspect, and does not attain a large size. Another form occurs in the 

 Adirondack region ; the foliage has a silvery or glaucous hue, on 

 which account it is sometimes mistaken for the White Spruce. The 

 most remarkable variety is found on the highest summits of the 

 Adirondacks. It is the variation of the tree into a mere procumbent 

 shrub, so small that it offers but little impediment to him who would 

 walk over it. These bushes are more or less flattened in outline, the 

 branches issuing nearly from the opposite sides of the trunk, as in the 



