FOREST CO.AIMISSIOXER's UErORT, 77 



ra niiin cuts in the way described. The same thing could he 

 done every two years for that matter as long as it lasts. Of 

 course the cut of timl)erland has overrun all estimate when 

 that has been based on such inadequate methods of kunberino-. 

 The tirst explorers, and some of more recent date as well, 

 made no account of timber unless it was both thick and laroe, 

 and when in the course of time all timber became valuable and 

 was utilized, men laid to arowth what really had always been 

 on the around. In tliat way men have fooled themselves 

 iibout the su[)ply and urowth of timber, vastly depreciating 

 the one and often as fjreatly multiplvino- the other.* 



But we should miss the main point if we stopped here. 

 These facts, when rightly interpreted, contain a lesson for 

 our census makers and our other official and scientific authori- 

 ties. In their investigations of our timber resources, they 

 have so far for the most part contented themselves with 

 second-hand information. The partial knowledo;e and rouiih 

 guesses and notions of such lumbermen as were handiest have 

 been put together, stamped with an official seal or the 

 authority of a well known name, and passed out upon the 

 country as timber statistics. And the point of this little 

 study of two tracts lying side l)y side, of which one by 

 inquiry would get much the same account, is that facts gath- 

 ered in that way, unchecked by actual knowledge of the 

 woods and of lumbering, are actually of not the least 

 account. If any man doubts that let him go to the tenth 

 census, to that great volume on forest trees which lays claim 

 to monographic completeness, and see how the figures for 

 Maine and the forecast to be based on them have come out. 

 The difficulties of such census work of course are great. But 

 if those difficulties are not to be met, if the only result of 



* A8 an example of this, also as Illustrating the accuracy of current ideas as to 

 growth, I will recount the estimates of a wealthy land-owner ami successful 

 business man of Calais on the growth of the St. Croix river. Taking as a starting 

 point the original estimates of the St. Croi.x townships, with the date, he reckoned 

 up the amount of timber cut on the same townships to the present time, added 

 the estimated present stand, and by subtraction obtained the amount of growth 

 meanwhile. It amounted to 400 feet board measure per acre and year. 



