APPENDIX. 45 



ECONOMICAL CUTTING OF OUR FORESTS. 



By Wilson Crosby, Bangor. 

 Hon. C. A. Packard, Forest Commissioner, Augusta, Me. 



Dear Sir : In reply to your request for some suggestions as to 

 the wastful cutting of the forests of this State or the economy that 

 might be practiced in the matter, it may be said that, aside from the 

 wanton destruction, the spirit of which seems to possess a certain 

 class of persons the moment they enter the woods, even in the legiti- 

 mate cutting of timber for logs, a very wasteful system is pursued 

 and that a great saving might be made by a little change in methods. 



This waste occurs, first, from the cutting of trees unsuitable for 

 lumber which are unnecessarily cut for the purpose of getting at 

 other trees or for worse reasons, and which, being unsuitable, are 

 left to deca}^ in the woods ; and, secondly, from the taking from the 

 trees cut for lumber, so small a portion of the wood and leaving so 

 large a portion. 



The first of these sources of waste can be largely stopped by 

 abandoning the use of "wagon sleds" to haul from the stump. As 

 a team of horses with a "wagon sled" (consisting of two pairs of 

 runners, i. e. a pair of bob-sleds, set the proper distance apart, one 

 behind the other) can haul a much larger load than the same team 

 could haul on one sled, the temptation is to use them, particularly 

 when the logs have to be hauled a long distance to the water or 

 the mill. 



The cutting and keeping open of roads is expensive and hence, 

 of course, it is advisable to have as few of them as may be, but as 

 these sleds will take large loads it is well to put on them as much 

 as possible. Hence a road is cut, the logs adjacent to it are loaded 

 on, and those that stand further back are cut and rolled out from 

 where they fell, to the sled in the road, all of the small growth stand- 

 ing between the fallen tree and the sled, that would be in the way 

 of the rolling, being cut down and, if too small for lumber, after 

 serving as skids for the rolling, being left on the ground. When 

 this process has been carried so far back from the road as to make 

 it, in the opinion of the man in charge, unprofitable to roll any 

 farther, another road is laid out a little farther back and the same 



