FOREST COMMISSIONER'S REPORT. 9 



them that our forests are virtually exhausted. Reasoning 

 from what has taken place during the last fifty years, the 

 time when this condition shall exist is not very far distant, 

 unless better judgment and greater intelligence is used. 



In cutting spruce on the St, John river and its tributaries, 

 where they try to limit the size to eleven inches, the usual 

 custom is, not to measure the trees to see where they arrive 

 at the size required but to '"top" it at the place where it will 

 scale best. Logs to saw to advantage must be straight and 

 if a crook or sweep in the tree occurs, that is the place 

 selected to end the log, and as a usual thing, the balance of 

 the tree, although it may be excellent lumber, is left on the 

 ground, for the reason that the next log is likely to be only 

 nine or ten inches at the top and it would not pay the operator 

 to pay full stumpage on such lumber and get only two-thirds 

 price when it reaches the mills, 



I am told that the same thing occurs, but perhaps to a less 

 extent, on the other waters of the State, but of that I am 

 not so conversant as with the cutting in the region first men- 

 tioned where I have frequently visited the luml)er regions 

 and have seen very large quantities of lumber left where it 

 fell, only to be wasted. As before remarked, it is within the 

 memory of very many of our people when the best of lumber 

 was standing in large quantities even down to tide waters. 

 When the people stop to think of that and the few years it 

 has taken to create the condition as it exists to-day, perhaps 

 they will have less faith in the idea that our forests are inex- 

 haustible and that the growth each year makes up for the 

 amount wasted or taken away. Year by year the woodsman 

 Soes farther and farther back in the woods — onto smaller 

 streams and into less accessible regions, in establishing his 

 camps for the winter's operation. The reason for this is 

 owing to various causes, one of which being that the land 

 owners wish to take off a crop of fully matured lumber fi'om 

 townships far remote, in order to prevent its going to decay, 

 and also to allow the young growth a chance to sy^ring uj), 

 but that reason cannot be given much longer, because I think 



