118 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



ter. Much study has shown it to be characteristic of t3'pical 

 Androscoggin spruce land, while from it are drawn hereafter 

 important practical conchisions. Beside this virgin acre, are put 

 the notes of an acre not far away from which the spruce a few 

 yeai's ago was very cleanly cut and which has since been 

 visited by winds. 



wooJrieftin ^^ ^^ ^^^® amount now standing on the cut-over 

 cutting. portions of this town, it appears after getting 

 together the notes of three and one-half days' travel which 

 include the detail count and estimate of the growth for about 

 five miles, that a fair figure for the spruce loft after cutting 

 on the mixed lands which certainly comprise four-fifths of its 

 surface is 350 or 400 cubic feet. In this amount a fair allow- 

 ance has been made for the small trees under six inches not 

 included in the count. Three hundred cul)ic feet, however, is 

 probal)ly in the shape of tree six inches and over in diameter, 

 which number about twenty to the acre. Of these enough 

 might l)e considered merchantable to make up an average of 

 1,000 feet board measure on a close scale by the Blodgett 

 rule. All the spruce left, as near as I can estimate it, 

 amounts to some fifteen or twenty per cent of the original 

 stand. 



This is a hard cut, but it is characteristically a systematic 

 cut. The even mixture of spruce made it w^orth while to go 

 all over the land. The cutting was done by the owners of the 

 land who also manufactured the lumber, or by jobbers who 

 were under strict contract and close supervision. It is vastly 

 difl:erent from the work that will be seen in the bunchy tim- 

 ber and stumpage-cut lands of the Penol)scot river. 



