APPENDIX. 77 



sible to cut on every township each year ; in fact, I do not think 

 that one-fourth of the townships on the Penobscot and St. John 

 rivers are operated to any extent every year, and as a rule the 

 operations are not large on each township. We now and then have 

 an instance of a man or a number of men buying a township of 

 land and cutting it continuously until it is all cut over. But this is 

 the rare exception rather than the rule 



As an illustration, I am inter* sted in one township on the head- 

 waters of the Penobscot, which I have owned in since 1874, and 

 have never taken off enough stumpage to pay the interest. Another 

 half town, we own on Chesuncook lake and have owned it about 

 four years ; here, we have taken off just about enough to pay the 

 interest. Another township we own with Mr. Coe, on the east 

 branch, pretty well up toward the headwaters, which had not been 

 cut for twenty years previous to our buying into the town. We 

 bought into the town four or five years ago and have taken off 

 stumpages two years. Last year we cut some fourteen hundred 

 thousand, I think, and the year before not quite so much ; this year, 

 we may cut a lit'le more. This has all been done under permits, 

 by parties who are operating the town But take townships clo;e 

 by markets, or in other words what we term handy lands, where we 

 can get logs, railroad ties, cedar post-*, stave timber and cord wood, 

 as well as pulp wood, we are apt to cut them too fast. I know of 

 townships in this part of the State, some isolated cases, that have 

 yielded very great revenues, but take the timber lands as a whole, 

 in the State of Maine, I do not think to-day they are paying six per 

 cent on the valuation put upon them by the last Valuation Commis- 

 sion. No, I do not think they are paying four per cent. But, to 

 come right down to the point, I will give this as ray judgment, that 

 a man can take a township of land and by devoting his att ntiou to 

 it, can cut, if ihe town happens to be well timbered, two million 

 feet per 3'ear, for fifteen years — perhaps in some cases for twenty 

 years. But if the ti'ees were all cut down to tw Ive or fourteen 

 inches at the stump, it would not be wise nor economical to operate 

 the same territory again in ten years. In lands that are gone over 

 once in ten years, the rule has been with us that the operators do 

 not cut nearly all the large trees — they leave many trees between 

 their roads, and the operator who happens to go on in ten years 

 after the first operation for instance, takes all of thela'ge trees left 

 by the first operator, and many of the smaller ones during the ten 



