THE BLACK SPRUCE.
P. Mariana, B. S. & P.
The black spruce is a ragged, unkempt dingy tree, with short drooping branches, downy twigs, and stiff dark blue green foliage, scarcely half an inch long. Its cones, least in size of all the spruce tribe, are about one inch long and they remain on the branches for years (See illustration, page 247).
Rarely higher than fifty feet, these scraggly undersized spruces arc ignored by horticulturists and lumbermen, but the wood-pulp man has taken them eagerly. The soft
weak yellow wood, converted into paper, needs very little bleaching. From the far North the species covers large areas throughout Canada, choosing cold bogs and swamp borders, or well-drained bottom lands. In the United States it extends south along the mountains to Virginia and to central Wisconsin and Michigan.