114 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



that matter, have their timber topped off at the lower limbs, 

 wasting in this way from fifteen to twenty per cent, of their 

 available lumber.* About the first step, it would seem, in the 

 preservation of our forests should be the securing of greater 

 economy in the use of their products. The waste mentioned 

 is the more unjustifiable because it is very largely due to our 

 faulty and unjust methods of scaling timber. A discussion of 

 this matter will l)e found elsewhere in this report. 

 sinan'tfm- '^^^® most interesting topic of inquiry pursued on 



beitoRiow. Pavkertown was a system of cutting inaugurated 

 within two years, designed to save the small timber for 

 growth. The woods work of the owners of Parkertown is 

 very carefully looked after, and the superintendent of the 

 company, backed up by his chief assistant, having regard for 

 the future of the land, had hit on the scheme of leaving trees 

 twelve inches and under on the stump. It was stipulated in 

 contracts with jobliers that trees of less size should be left 

 unless they stood in the line of the roads, while the same rule 

 of cutting was impressed on the minds of the company's own 

 men. I wanted to see how the scheme had worked, how the 

 men viewed the new regulation and what effect it had had on 

 the growing power of the land. 



There was but one criticism on the scheme that I had to 

 make ajjriori, and the justice of that was readily assented to 

 by its author. A stump diameter is a very variable and 

 unsatisfactory measure. A standard of ten inches diameter 

 four feet from the ground would accomplish aljout what was 

 desired, and be a much more reliable and handy rule. Other 

 considerations suggested were of a more fundamental charac- 

 ter, not urged Avith a view to their immediate adoption, but 

 rather formulated for consideration during the study of the 

 land. A practical woodsman, of course, had not to be reminded 

 that in man\^ places it was of no use to leave small timber, that 

 such as he did leave would be almost sure to blow down. In 

 another way, however, the plan seemed inadequate to accom- 

 plish its purpose. The course determined on, while it is a 



*See appendix for figures bearing on this point. 



