Abstract: This paper reports the results on 38 12-year-old open-pollinated progenies produced fiom a seed orchard of Chinese fir. The major conclusions are presented as follows: (1) Significant differences among and within 38 open-pollinated families are found for wood specific gravity (SG). This implies that there arc abundant variation sources for selection. (2) Heritability values for SG by progeny analysis arc 0.29 (on an individual basis) and 0,50 (on family mean basis) while from offspring-parent analysis 0.33+G.16 Therefore, it appears that there is a medium degree of genetic control for SG. (3) The weak correlations between SG and volume, for both phenotypic (-0.24) and genetic (-0.199), indicate that it is feasible to develop strains of Chines fir that have high specific gravity and also grow rapidly when they arc young. (4) There are significant correlations between several major mechanical properties (such as modulus of elasticity in static bending (MOE), modulus of rupture (MOR), maximum crushing strength in compressive parallel to grain (MCS), impact bending strength (IBS)) andSG, with correlation coefficients from 0.73 to 0.92. This implies that the selection for juvenile wood of above average SG and mechanical properties can be improved in some degree. Finally, several fundamental problems in wood property improvement of Chinese fir are discussed.