BULLETIN OF THE Jjghk * 
Contribution from the Forest Service, Henry S. Graves, Forester. § 
March 25, 1914. 
(PROFESSIONAL PAPER.) 
BALSAM FIR. 
By Raphael Zon, 
Chief of Forest Investigations. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The enormous expansion of the pulp industry in this country during 
the last two decades, with its present annual demand for not less than 
three and a quarter million cords of coniferous wood, has stimulated 
the use of balsam fir, which but a few years ago was considered of 
little value. With the increase in the price of spruce for pulpwood, 
balsam fir has begun to take its place for rough lumber, laths, shingles, 
and box shooks. The cutting of balsam fir to any extent for pulp or 
lumber began only about 20 years ago, as the more valuable species of 
the northern forests became scarce and as its suitability for many pur- 
poses for which only white pine or spruce were originally used became 
recognized. 
Balsam fir, though in general inferior to white pine and red spruce, 
is now a tree of considerable economic importance in the northeastern 
forests. It constitutes numerically about 20 per cent of the coniferous 
forests in northern New York and Maine, and is abundant m many 
parts of New Hampshire, Vermont, and in the swamps of northern 
Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Through prolific 
seeding and rapid growth it readily reforests cut-over areas and attains 
sizes suitable for pulpwood in a short time. 
The uses for which balsam fir is suited and the appearance of barked 
wood, especially after it has remained for any length of time in water, 
are so much like those of spruce that it is commonly sold in mixture 
with and under the name of spruce, because of a fingering prejudice 
against balsam fir among pulp manufacturers and lumbermen. This 
prejudice, formed at the time of still abundant supplies of spruce and 
Note.— This bulletin deals with all aspects of balsam fir, its distribution, the forest types in which it 
occurs, the present stand and cut, its economic importance, especially in relation to the paper-pulp in- 
dustry, methods and cost of lumbering, life history of the tree, characteristics of the wood, rate of 
growth and yield, and proper methods of management. Balsam fir is found in commercial quantities in 
the northeastern border States from Maine to Minnesota. . . 
20137°— Bull. 55—14 1 
