Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/233

FIE 223 in thickness. Its growth is rapid, the straight leading shoot, in the vigorous period of the tree, often extending 2.1 or even 3 feet in a single season. In its native habitats it is said to endure for several centuries ; but in those countries from which the commercial supply of its timber is chiefly drawn, it attains perfection in from 70 to 90 years, according to soil and situation. In the most prevalent variety of the Norway spruce the wood is white, apt to be very knotty when the tree has grown in an open place, but, as produced in the close northern forests, often of fine and even grain. Im mense quantites are imported into Britain from Norway, (Sweden, and Prussia, under the names of " white Norway," " Christiania," and " Danzig deal." The larger trees are sawn up into planks and battens, much used for the purposes of the builder, especially fcr flooring, joists, and rafters. Where not exposed to the weather, the wood is probably as lasting as that of the pine, but, not being so resinous, appears less adapted for out-door uses. Of late years great quantities have been sent from Sweden in a manufactured state, in the form of door and window-frames and ready-prepared flooring, and much of the cheap " white deal " furniture is made of this wood. The younger and smaller trees are remarkably durable, especially when the bark is allowed to remain on them ; and most of the poles imported into Britain for scaffolding, ladders, mining- timber, and similar uses are furnished by this fir. Small masts and spars are often made of it, and are said to be lighter than those of pine. The best poles, according to Monteath, are obtained in Norway from small, slender, drawn-up trees, growing under the shade of the larger ones in the thick woods, these being freer from knots, and tougher from their slower growth. A variety of the spruce, abounding in some parts of Norway, produces a red heart- wood, not easy to distinguish from that of the Norway pine (Scotch fir), and imported with it into England as "red deal" or "pine." This kind is sometimes seen in plantations, where it may be recognized by its shorter, darker leaves, and longer cones. The smaller branches and the waste portion of the trunks, left in cutting up the timber, are exported as fire-wood, or used for splitting into matches, an industry that has lately sprung up in Sweden. Recently, the wood of the spruce has been employed in the manu facture of paper-stuff, being first reduced to a state of fine division, and then deprived of its resin by long boiling in alkaline solutions, an application that will probably be considerably extended with the wider employment of paper- pulp in the useful arts. The resinous products of the Norway spruce, though yielded by the tree in less abundance than those furnished by the pine, are of considerable economic value. In Scandinavia a thick turpentine oozes from cracks or fissures in the bark, forming by its congelation a fine yellow resin, known commercially as "spruce rosin," or "frankincense"; it is also procured artificially by cutting off the ends of the lower branches, when it slowly exudes from the extremities. In Switzerland and parts of Germany, where it is collected in some quantity for commerce, a long strip of bark is cut out of the tree near the root ; the resin, that slowly accumulates during the summer, is scraped out in the latter part of the season, and the slit enlarged slightly the follow ing spring to ensure a continuance of the supply. The process is repeated every alternate year, until the tree no longer yields the resin in abundance, which under favour able circumstances it will do for twenty years or more. The quantity obtained from each fir is very variable, depending on the vigour of the tree, and greatly lessens after it has been subjected to the operation for some years. Eventually the tree is destroyed, and the wood rendered worthless for timber, and of little value even for fuel. From the product so obtained most of the better sort of "Burg undy pitch " of the druggists is prepared. The resin collected from the fir is melted and boiled in water, then filtered through a sackcloth bag, and left to congeal in a cask beneath ; nearly half the original amount of resin is obtained in this purified condition. Its chief employment is for plasters, much used in disorders of the chest and other complaints in which a mild stimulant to the skin is required. It is often applied in conjunction with the spruce-rosin itself and other ingredients. Much of the so- called Burgundy pitch of the shops is, according to Pereira, a compound of common rosin, palm oil, and water. By distillation with water the resin of the spruce yields oil of turpentine; but only a comparatively small quantity of that of commerce is obtained from this source, and it is considered inferior to that yielded by the pine and larch. By the peasantry of its native countries the Norway spruce is applied to innumerable purposes of daily life. The bark and young cones afford a tanning material, inferior indeed to oak-bark, and hardly equal to that of the larch, but of value in countries where substances more rich in tannin are not abundant. In Norway the sprays, like those of the juniper, are scattered over the floors of churches and the sitting-rooms of dwelling-houses, as a fragrant and healthful substitute for carpet or matting. The young shoots are also given to oxen in the long winters of those northern latitudes, when other green fodder is hard to obtain. In times of scarcity the Norse peasant-farmer uses the sweetish inner bark, beaten in a mortar and ground in his primitive mill with oats or barley, to eke out a scanty supply of meal, the mixture yielding a tolerably palatable though somewhat resinous substitute for his ordinary flad-brod. A decoction of the buds in milk or whey is a common household remedy for scurvy ; and the young shoots or green cones form an essential ingredient in the spruce-beer drank with a similar object, or as an occasional beverage. The well-known " Danzig-spruce " is prepared by adding a decoction of the buds or cones to the wort or saccharine liquor before fermentation. Similar preparations are in use wherever the spruce fir abounds. The wood is burned for fuel, its heat-giving power being reckoned in Germany about one- fourth less than that of beech. From the wide-spreading roots string and ropes are manufactured in Lapland and Bothnia : the longer ones which run near the surface are selected, split through, and then boiled for some hours in a ley of "wood-ashes and salt, which, dissolving out the resin, loosens the fibres and renders them easily separable, and ready for twisting into cordage. Light portable boats are sometimes made of very thin boards of fir, sewn together with cord thus manufactured from the roots of the tree. The Norway spruce seems to have been the " Picea " of Pliny, but is evidently often confused by the Latin writers with their " Abies," the Picea pectinata of modern botanists. From an equally loose application of the word "fir" by our older herbalists, it is difficult to decide upon the date of introduction of this tree into Britain ; but it was commonly planted for ornamental purposes in the begin ning of the 17th century. In places suited to its growth it seems to flourish nearly as well as in the woods of Norway or Switzerland ; but as it needs for its successful cultivation as a timber tree soils that might be turned to agricultural account, it is not so well adapted for economic planting in Britain as the Scotch fir or larch, which come to perfection in more bleak and elevated regions, and on comparatively barren ground, though it may perhaps be grown to advantage on some moist hill-sides and mountain hollows. Its great value to the English forester is as a " nurse " for other trees, for which its dense leafage and tapering form render it admirably fitted, as it protects, without overshading, the young sapling?, and yields saleable