FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 137 



Libby & Sons, and their sui)ply of logs comes from this local- 

 ity. Beginning at the lower end of the valley and on the lower 

 slopes of its sides they had gradually worked M„i,„t,^j,^ 

 back and up until they hiid nearly cleaned the valley i»"it>«iin!?- 

 of spruce back as far as the Glen House and up to a height of 

 2,000 feet above the stream, which was about as far up the 

 mountains as lumbering by present methods could go. It 

 was a hard country to luml)er, A fall of 2,000 feet in two 

 miles makes a pretty steep road, one on which Ijridling and 

 snub-warp and all the other devices of rough-country operators 

 are required. 



Cutting, it was said, had gone up to about 2,000 feet on the 

 mountains each side. The spruce had naturally been thick, 

 and the land was consequently left in pretty ragged condition. 

 The destruction was evident, not only from the inside, but, to 

 a practiced eye, from the outside also. But few places had 

 been cleaned of trees entirely, a few very steep spots where 

 the spruce was pure and from which it had to be sluiced, but 

 on the cut-over portions of the country there was an absence 

 of evergreen tops showing, in marked contrast with the con- 

 dition of the virgin country. From the hills on one side of 

 the valle\' , the best idea could be gained of the condition of 

 the opposite slope. Not only the absence of evergreen toi)s, 

 but the broken surface of the crown cover, and the way in 

 which the snow showed up through it, indicated with perfect 

 distinctness, the boundary of the region cut. Further up the 

 valley, however, the timber had not been touched. It was a 

 magnificent stand. Along the road up the mountain, particu- 

 larly, was a considerable stretch of country in which, except 

 to cut the road, no ax had ever been struck. In fact, lum- 

 bering had then on]>' crossed it in one place. 



Not lontr after I got out of the woods from this sce.ieryand 



~ o the lumber- 



cruise, I happened to meet an old and frequent ^'^^^' 



visitor in tiie White mountains. It was a lady whose general 



love of nature was highly specialized in the direction of trees. 



In fact she loved trees very much, she was highly interested 



in the ai^itation regarding the destruction of White moun- 



