68 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



stump, is evidenced by the history of a piece of land in my own 

 town. The land was that of the late Mr. James Junkins, who sold 

 in 1881 the pine timber standing on about six acres in one body, 

 amounting to 300,000 feet, which netted him $3,300, or about $550 

 per acre on the stump. This timber was transported by railroad 

 to Saco, about twenty miles distant, where it was manufactured 

 into lumber. 



Mr. Junkins' father settled upon the farm, of which this tract was 

 a part, about 1809. This patch of pine trees then contained about 

 nine acres, and was the only wood land on the farm, and some of 

 the trees were large enough to split for fence poles. From that 

 time to about 1860, a large part of the fire wood consumed and all 

 the lumber used in repairing the fences and buildings on a well 

 managed one hundred acre farm, were furnished from the thinnings 

 of this lot. About 1855, $200 tvorth of timber was sold from the 

 thinnings at one time and there were sales at other times. 



This lot was systematically thinned and trimmed for the seventy- 

 two years, care having been taken to break off the dead limbs, 

 a long pale with a hook on the end being used for the pur- 

 pose. Tliese trees had increased in diameter slowly the last twenty 

 years of their life. Some had made only two inches at the stump 

 in seventeen years or seventeen rings to the inch. They were from 

 twelve to thirty or more inches in diameter. But the outside ring 

 on one of these old ti'ees contained a much larger amount of wood 

 than did a ring of double its thickness when the tree was half as old. 



By an examination of the foUowmg diagram, schedule and copy 

 of the record of one of many trees measured by me, and by com- 

 paring the growth of one year with another this fact will be obvious. 

 By the examples given, it will be seen that the inciement of wood 

 in any year while the tree was growing, can be approximately 

 computed. 



These measurements were made for use in the Monograph, on the 

 white pine by Prof. Spalding of Ann Arbor, Mich., who in his 

 report says : "The plan for taking measurements and recording 

 external conditions and surroundings, devised by the Chief of the 

 Forestry Division has proven to be admirably adapted to the end 

 in view, and my main regret is that it was impossible, through lack 

 of competent assistance, to measure a larger number of trees under 

 different conditions of growth " This Monograph is in print and 

 will soon be issued by the Department of Agriculture at Washing- 



