FOREST COMMISSIONER'S REPORT. 7 



that it was considered almost degrading to cut anything but 

 pine in those olden days, and as soon as the supply was 

 exhausted in that county, he went to Aroostook in search of 

 more. Numerous pieces of land he bought there solely for 

 the pine growing upon them and later sold to settlers for a 

 small pittance, having since yielded from three dollars to 

 thirty dollars per acre in spruce and cedar. After the pine 

 beoan to be somewhat scarce throughout the State the lum- 

 bermen began to cut the largest and best spruce, and these 

 cuttings of spruce have gradually increased and pine decreased 

 €ver since. 



With the increased cutting of spruce, however, the char- 

 acter and quality of the lumber has gradually grown poorer 

 until the present time, so much so, that those familiar with 

 old cuttings, express great surprise at the appearance of the 

 brows and booms of logs along the Penobscot, Kennebec and 

 Audroscoo;ffin, of to-day. 



Possibl}^ their recollections may be partly at fault when 

 they tell us of the size and quality of the spruce cut of fifty 

 years ago, yet there must be much truth in their statements. 



In northern Maine, on the waters leading into the St. John 

 river, until within ten years, the mill owners would not buy 

 any lumber less than eleven inches in diameter at the top 

 end, excepting at a two-thirds price when delivered at mills 

 in St. John, and even now they try to limit the cut to from 

 ten to twenty per cent of what they call "battens" or logs less 

 than eleven inches at the top end, for which they pay full 

 price. How different it is on the other waters of the State, 

 where the day has long since gone by when they have limited 

 the size to eleven inches or more, and where, in granting per- 

 mits, the proprietors stipulate that they must cut to eight 

 inches perhaps, and what is worse for the general welftire of 

 the State, that on mau}^ townships thus stripped of lumber to 

 manufacture at the lumber mills — the pulp manufacturers are 

 permitted to go on and cut down to as small size as they 

 fit — usually to about four inches. 



