148 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



consumption on the Androscoofgin and at the same time has 

 any actual knowledge of its timberland and lumbering methods, 

 will dissent — if cutting methods, the most sweeping and 

 thorough anywhere practiced, are maintained, and especially 

 if the volume of the pulp and paper business keep:* on increas- 

 ing at the rate of recent years, Androscoggin business men, 

 however bright the prospect seems now, will at the end of but 

 a very few decades find themselves face to face with a blank 

 wall. Prediction as to the Kennebec is difficult and uncertain, 

 because of the variet}' in the stand of timber, the size of the 

 drainage, the length of time which it has been worked, the 

 variety of lumbering methods practiced, both in its past and 

 present. On the Penobscot the same things, operating to a 

 prolongation of its supplies beyond all expectation, are to a 

 much o^reater extent true. On the AndroscoiTii'in no such 

 things hold. Its resources are great, but they are in that 

 compact shape which in rendering them open to accurate esti- 

 mate, leaves them liable to total extinction by the lumberman 

 as well. There can be no doubt about it. The problem here 

 is little more than one in simple division. We must choose 

 between having our cake and eating it, or, better, adopt that 

 third alternative which growth and reproduction in all living 

 things render possible — take and use such as is grown and 

 fit, and assure ourselves by conservatism and moderation in 

 leaving the stock necessary for reproduction and growth, of 

 a steady future supply. 



statistical Nothing remains now but to record the statistical 



summary, material relating to the Androscoggin river which 

 it has been possible to collect. First is Mr. Pike's letter 

 relating to the stand of spruce timber on the drainage. Next 

 comes the study of the acreage of the region so far as it relates 

 to the problems in hand. In resfard to water areas, the fis:- 

 ures given in Well's "Water Power of Maine" have in this 

 work usually been followed. In the case of the Rangeley 

 lakes, however, the manuscript map of the region compiled 

 by Daniel Barker, a copy of which, along with other valuable 



