34 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



What would 3-01; think of the business capacity of a man owning 

 a woolen mill, which by proper management would yield him a 

 reasonable interest and a comfortable living for all time, who should 

 immediately destroy the plant and sell the machinery for the ready 

 money it would bring? The same lack of business sagacity is shown 

 by the owner of a timber tract, which bj- proper thinning, replanting 

 and care could be made a source of perpetual income, who should in 

 his greed for present money, so destroy conditions for reseeding and 

 a second growth, as to convert his timber lands into a barren waste. 



To those informed upon the subject I need not say, that this dis- 

 astrous policy has governed the operations of lumbermen over the 

 whole country in the past and to a large extent is the basis of opera- 

 tions to-day. An}' policy adopted by the citizens of a State that 

 lessens the permanent annual exports and converts what might be a 

 source of perennial wealth into an unproductive waste is a matter of 

 State concern and for State control. 



« 



CLIMATIC EFFECTS. 



So far as we know there is no reliable data showing that forest 

 denudation has in any very appreciable way affected the climate of 

 Maine We have no comparative data upon our river flowage and 

 eannot tell whether the main streams have been affected by the cut- 

 ting of forest, though instances of smaller streams being affected are 

 well known. 



The area of forest is yet large and the time of observation short. 

 Maine has a copious rainfall and the effect would not be so readily 

 observed. It is generally understood that deforestation along the 

 coast does not affect the climate so much as it does in the interior, 

 or in localities where the climate is continental in character. There 

 have been no observations upon the silt deposited by the Maine 

 rivers by which one could study the effects of erosion and transpor- 

 tation due to deforestation. The cutting of forests along the coast 

 of Maine would expose the northern part of the State more directly 

 to ocean winds and northern blasts, and probabl}' result in more 

 sudden rains and snows, and interfere with the distribution of rain- 

 fall if not the amount. The tendency would be toward more sudden 

 storms along the coast endangering shipping. 



The cutting of our forest would allow the northern current to gain 

 the ascendency earlier in the fall, thus producing earlier frosts. 



