88 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



general tendency to underrunthe truth. The}^ designate, as I 

 understand it, the amount of saw log timl)er on th-e tracts in 

 question, meaning by that, trees that will yield logs say eight 

 inches in diameter at twenty or twenty-five feet. Pulp is not 

 included, and unavailable lumber is not included — meaning by 

 that again lumber that is so distant from water or so scattered 

 that according to current methods and standards it is not 

 worth getting. Reason has been shown in this report why 

 such timber, on the upper waters at least, cannot be reckoned 

 at less than several million feet of saw lumber for each town. 

 This is not included in the estimates, yet in thinking of the 

 future it must l)e allowed for, aside from its bearino- on the 

 growing power of the land. The estimates vary greatly, too, 

 in the care with which they were made, while the views and 

 lumberino: methods of different men have very o^reat influence 

 upon them. Consideriug these facts and the history in gen- 

 eral of such figures, I think it highly prol)al)le that the same 

 lumber brought to the test of actual cut, or even viewed 

 standing ])y the more careful Kennebec explorei's, would 

 come to as much as two billion feet. 



o™u"an •'^^ regard to the amount of pulp in the country — 



spruce. ^j^g small sprucc, that is, which is too small to cut 

 for saw logs, but which the pulp mills can very well utilize, — 

 luml)erman's estimates are only in a few cases to be had. I 

 shall prefer not to consider this material in the present con- 

 nection, to consider it not as available lumber, but as mate- 

 rial which is left on the land for growth. An estimate of its 

 amount, however, is essential even from that point of view. It 

 is best given not in board feet, the common but variable term 

 of lumbermen, but in cubic feet, a scientific and unvarying 

 measure. I suppose if I set the total amount of spruce stand- 

 ing on the Kennebec drainage at 1,000,000,000 cubic feet, 

 made up one-half of available saw timber and one-half of 

 material which from size, quality and location cannot be 

 so considered, that will mean very little at first sight to any 

 who read it. Certainly little can be claimed for any such 

 figure, only, in fact, a probability of proximity to the truth. 



