UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BULLETIN No. 1060 
Contribution from the Forest Service 
WILLIAM B. GREELEY, Forester 
Washington, D. C. 
May, 1922 
SITKA SPRUCE: ITS USES, GROWTH, AND 
MANAGEMENT. 
By N. Lekoy Gary, Forest Examiner. 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
Introduction 1 
Geographic distribution and altitudi- 
nal range 2 
Present supply and annual cut 4 
Characteristics of the wood 5 
Uses 6 
Logging and milling 8 
Size, age, and distinguishing charac- 
teristics 10 
Occurrence 12 
Rottom-land type 12 
Page. 
Slope type 13 
Composition and volume of stand 13 
Climatic and soil requirements 15 
Light requirements 16 
Reproduction 16 
Causes of injury 18 
Growth 23 
Yield ' 27 
Management 28 
Appendix 33 
INTRODUCTION. 
Sitka spruce (Pic£a sitche-nsh (Bong.) Trautv. and Mayer), also 
called tideland spruce, is an important timber tree of the Pacific coast 
region, growing naturally from Alaska to northern California. It 
is found largely at low altitudes and never very far from the ocean. 
In Alaska it is the principal tree of commerce; in Oregon and Wash- 
ington it is one of the components of the dense and luxuriant conifer- 
ous forest that blankets the humid strip of country on the west side 
of the coastal ranges. Here several of its associate trees are more 
abundant than Sitka spruce ; but in the superior qualities of its wood, 
in its magnificent form, and in its immense size it has no superior 
except the redwood with which it mixes at the south end of its range. 
Because Sitka spruce does not ordinarily occur in pure stands, 
it must be logged in conjunction with other timber species — with 
Douglas fir, western hemlock, and western red cedar in Washington 
and Oregon, and with the western hemlock in Alaska. The greater 
part of the virgin forests in which Sitka spruce occurs has not been 
Note. — The writer wishes to acknowledge the valuable assistance given him by Messrs. 
H. T. Gisborne, R. H. Weidman, and others in the preparation of this manuscript. 
85569—22 1 
