The deep-green bark, striped with gray, is full of balsam, or
resin, known as balm of Gilead or Canada balsam, and highly valued as a
cure for diseases of the lungs. The long cones are erect, or standing,
and grow thickly near the ends of the upper branches. They have round,
bluish-purple scales, and the soft color has a very pretty effect on the
tree. They ripen every year, and the lively little squirrel, as he is
called, feasts upon them, as the crossbill does on the cones of the
stone-pine. But the mischievous little animal also barks the boughs and
gnaws off the tops of the leading shoots, so that many trees are injured
and defaced by his depredations."
[Illustration: AMERICAN WHITE SPRUCE.]
"He _is_ a lively little squirrel," observed Malcolm. "How he does race!
But he doesn't gnaw our trees, does he?"
"No, I think not, for he prefers staying in the woods and fields; but
fir-woods are his especial delight. Our balsam-fir is the American
sister of the silver fir of Europe, both having bluish-green foliage
with a silvery under surface, in a single row on either side of the
branches, which curve gracefully upward at the ends. The tree has a
peculiarly light, airy appearance until it is old, when there is little
foliage except at the ends of the branches. The silver fir is one of the
tallest trees on the continent of Europe, and it is remarkable for the
beauty of its form and foliage and the value of its timber."
"I know what this tree is," said Clara, turning to an evergreen of
stately form and graceful, drooping branches that almost touched the
ground: "it's Norway spruce.
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