THE WOOD-USIXG INDUSTRIES OF MAINE. 



FoRKSTs AND Water Power in Maine. 



The total land surface of Alaine is 29,895 square miles. 

 About 12 per cent of this, or 2,420,000 acres, was originally 

 forested. It is estimated that as late as 1869, the virgin for- 

 ests of Maine covered an area seven times as large as that of 

 the famous Black Forest of Germany. Then, as now, white 

 pine, spruce, and hemlock, were the common and most widely 

 distributed species. At first white pine was considered to be 

 the only timber worth cutting on a large scale and until recent 

 years it made up the bulk of the lumber cut in the State. As 

 a consequence most of the virgin pine of Maine was early con- 

 verted into lumber, so that now one seldom sees Maine white 

 pine on the market except that cut from second-growth timber. 



As the production of white pine lumber decreased spruce 

 came into prominence, and to-day the State of Maine produces 

 more spruce lumber than pine, while the pulp mills of the 

 State use more spruce for pulp than the sawmills cut into lum- 

 ber. At the present time spruce is supplying more wood than 

 any other tree of the Maine forests. 



As white pine became scarcer lumbermen turned their atten- 

 tion to hardwoods which were previously considered of little 

 value. To-day important industries depend for their existence 

 upon a continued supply of these hardwoods. 



The southern half of Maine offers water power sufficient for 

 extensive manufacturing and the State is perhaps unequaled 

 in the extent, volume, and constancy of its water power. The 

 constancy of the supply depends on the northern forests which 

 absorb the abundant rainfall like a sponge, and to the 1,500 

 lakes which serve as reservoirs. The volume of power depends 

 on the fall of the streams on the average, 600 feet in 150 to 

 200 miles. When it is realized that the commercial supremacy 

 of the State depends largely upon the manufacture of its own 



