66 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



In 1870, the wood lands covered 38.51 per cent of her entire 

 area, and in 1884 only 17.39 per cent thus indicating a decrease in 

 her forest cover of more than fifty-four per cent in fourteen years. 



An examination of Volume 9 of Census Reports of 1880, which 

 gives the product of wood and lumber for the whole country by 

 states, shows a larger production per forest acre in some of the 

 states than is shown in Ohio, — notably so, in New York and 

 Pennsylvania. 



In 1880, Maine ranked as seventh in the lumber production of 

 the country. There were then 848 establishments for its manufac- 

 ture with an invested capital of $6,339,396, giving employment to 

 9,836 hands, whose wages amounted to $1,161,142. The product 

 was 566,656,000 feet of lumber, 184,820,000 laths, 426,530,000 

 shingles, 62,376,000 staves, 3,312,000 sets of headings, 13,426,000 

 feet of spool and bobbin stock, which with other forest products 

 valued at $182,682 had a total value of $7,933,868. The amount of 

 wood consumed for domestic use was 1,215,881 cords, valued at 

 $4,078,137, the value of wood and lumber combined, being $12,- 

 011,005. This product of various kinds of lumber reduced to board 

 measure amounts to about 739,146,000 feet. 



As we have 12,000,000 acres of wood land, this is sixty-two feet 

 (per acre. 



Many townships in the State, however, cannot be profitably 

 operated at present on account of the cost of transportation, the 

 average cut per acre, therefore is much larger than this on the lands 

 where lumbering is carried on. If the wood used for fuel had alj 

 been cut from the farm wood lands as most of it must have been, 

 the average per acre would be about fifty-two cubic feet. 



There seems to be good reason for believing that so large a 

 cut of wood and lumber from this class of our wood lands is tend- 

 ing to their exhaustion. 



It is believed by experts that in less than fifteen years instead of 

 less than twenty tons a day of pulp and paper output, present 

 amount, it will reach 500 tons on the Penobscot river and its tribu- 

 taries alone. With the advantages of plenty of spruce in the vicinity 

 and a fine water power, the industry is bound to grow very rapidly. 



As spruce trees are worth more as pulp wood than as saw logs, 

 ;and as much smaller trees are available for this purpose, it looks 

 now, as if a spruce tree large enough for a bridge pile will be as 



