FOKEST commissioner's KEPOKT. 81 



nearest to water. Other land covered witli timber which 

 perhaps needs the axe to save it from decay, is allowed to 

 lie fallow because it is more distant, or its timber is scatter- 

 ing. If taken out later, that is done at greater expense. 



Xow much of this again is unavoidable, for the reason just 

 stated. As our lumbermen have moved back on our waters, 

 carrying the border of profitable operation gradually back on- 

 to more distant and difficult land, they could only take at 

 each step the best and the nearest. But now that all our 

 timberlands have gained a value, now that we are inquiring 

 and with need if our supplies of some kinds of lumber are 

 Ions' to be maintained, some of these wasteful methods ouofht 

 to be abandoned. Much of this is due merely to our ])usi- 

 ness organization, to the fact that the interests of the man 

 who cuts the lumber are divorced from the interests of the 

 land. I trust I have made clear by concrete example the 

 difference there is when the man who owns the land cuts it, 

 and when a land owner sells stumi)age to a man who cuts the 

 logs without hindrance or su{)ervision. From the mere state- 

 ment of the case it must be so. The o[)erator strikes for the 

 bunches and leaves the scattered timl)er. He cuts the land 

 for the best only and butchers the rest or leaves it to blow 

 down. He tops his logs off short for scale, *and leaves the 

 tops to rot in the woods. All this the man who owns the 

 land and cuts it himself avoids. Wherever there is timber that 

 will pay for hauling he gets it. His interest prompts him to 

 leave the land in as good shape as he knows how. If he is a 

 mill man, and modern economy has been fully followed, he 

 can use the knotty top logs. When we come to the Andros- 

 coggin these matters will again crop out. If after that I 

 could give the facts about a genuine Penobscot town, could 

 give the history of the cutting and utilization of its lumber, 

 recounting also its present condition, the contrast would be 

 more marked than any which has yet been brought out in 

 these pages. 



♦See page 50, note, for an illustration. 

 6 



