FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 71 



main road, while between systems there is sure to be left 

 more or less of standing timber. These the explorer, imless 

 he strikes out regardless of the traveling, will be sure to miss.* 



So it is that a guide who knows a town is often a disadvan- 

 tage to a stranger who wishes to get acquainted with its feat- 

 ures and condition without the expenditure of too much time. 

 Such a jjuide takes a man either where there is no timber or 

 into the best bunches. He knows the short cuts and the good 

 travelling too well, and while he may sometimes save his man 

 a needless swamp or brush-hole, and he will more times by his 

 knowledge hinder than help the work of getting a clear idea of 

 the land. I found it quite as well, when it was possible, to do 

 alone the exploring that I wanted to do. My conscience 

 always troubled me as long as I was in a road, while to drag 

 a man who didn't see the point of it out through the swamps 

 and brush piles partook too much of the nature of cruelty to 

 be comfortable. 



As to the exploration of this particular tract and ^"ploi*:^. 

 the results obtained, somewhat more remains to be ^'""' 

 said. Some four days were spent on it one time and another. 

 The line already run was followed liy another, carried across 

 the township south of the first, w'hile from Roach River House 

 a couple of days were spent in study and travel in the eastern 

 and southern portions. After this the tract and its spruce 

 was summed up al)out as follows : say five square miles in the 

 northeast part of the town which has never been cut into. Of 

 this, about cme square mile is hard wood land with a small 

 mixture of spruce, while most of the remainder is covered 

 either with thick spruce growth, standing on mossy ground 

 or else with mixed timber, in which spruce bears a large pro- 

 portion. Some three square miles of irregular shape in the 

 west part of the town is covered with second , growth about 

 110 years old, of which area perhaps a half is covered largely 

 with spruce. The southeastern corner ol the tract with the 

 neighboring country on I R. XIH, is flat, rocky land with 



♦Judge Buswell of Skowhegan first gave me these ideas about exploring. Tlicy 

 were thorouglily tested in my own work. 



