130 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



point of it is that while much the same percentage growth is 

 found, the land absolutely produces Jar less after the closer 

 cut. The side which has the greater rate has on the other 

 hand a base that is so much smaller that the resultino; o-rowth 

 is only half as great. This is the great olijection to a hard 

 cut — it puts the producing power of the land for many years 

 after the crop is removed down to a very low figure. Land 

 cut to a standard of ten inches at the end of twenty years of 

 recuperation isn't up to the condition in which a fourteen 

 inch cut would have left it. 



A practical '^^^ valuc of this principle will be best seen by 

 lUustration. .^^^ application. A certain township on the lower 

 Androscoggin was bought within a few years by the owners 

 of a pulp mill plant who count on it for a large part of the 

 permanent stock of their mill. Their idea as I was told was 

 to go over the land piece by piece, cutting about four millions 

 a year, expecting that when the ground was all cut over, it 

 would be ready for another cut of equal size in the same rota- 

 tion . 



If they do have the idea that that or any other tow^nship of 

 land, treated as timberland is in this country, will grow four 

 millions of spruce timber a year, they are, I am confident, 

 some time to be much disa[)pointed in their expectations. 

 But very much depends, as we have just seen, on how they 

 cut their town. If they cut the mature spruce only, the 

 large, full-grown trees which however make up two-thirds or 

 three-fourths of all the wood on the ground, the resulting 

 growth will be one thing. If they cut down to the smallest 

 size marketable, while they will get [)prhaps a fifth more 

 timber, they will lower the producing power of their land to 

 a very small figure. As a matter of fact I understand the 

 limit set in their contracts is seven inches at twenty feet. 

 This is rather lower than the twelve inch stump limit set in the 

 cuttino; on Parkertown. Just what the growth following that 

 will probably be, may be seen in the calculation presented 

 herewith. Using the same per cents as before, the base is the 



