The spruce-fir forest of the eastern United States encompasses a diverse range of edaphic conditions due to differences in surficial geology, mineralogy, elevation, and climate. This chapter describes the characteristics of soils supporting eastern spruce-fir ecosystems, including soil properties that are important in understanding forest function and the consequences of atmospheric deposition to forested ecosystems. Chapter 1 describes the silvical characteristics of the spruce-fir forest. The Spruce-Fir Research Cooperative included six intensive study sites; five were high-elevation research sites located from western North Carolina to New Hampshire, with one low-elevation site in Maine. Information gained from research at these sites, and other relevant research from these regions, provides the basis for this description of eastern U. S. spruce-fir soils.