FOREST COMMISSIOKEll'S REPORT. 153 



aeneiiil elevation of the country about iSlars Hill is much 

 lower. 



The oceurrcnce of spruce* in the State is in close ™^„*o? 

 rehition to this topography. In the high and =*'"""«• 

 rough hinds of northern New Hampshire stand probably the 

 largest and tinest spruce trees to l)e found anywhere in New 

 Enoland. Heavv and fine stands of spruce timber are like- 

 wise found, the average of the country I)cing far beyond 

 what it is in central and eastern ]\Iaine. To this region the 

 country surrounding the Rangeley lakes naturally joins itself. 

 Still high and rougii, left too by the continental glacier with 

 but little soil, it is a natural s[)ruce country. Stands of mixed 

 spruce and hard woods are most frequently seen, but spruce 

 nearly pure covers the mountains and the specially rocky 

 levels. It is sometines a matter of surprise how little soil 

 a[)[)arently it takes to maintain a magniticent stand of spruce. 



East of the Kanoelevs there never was, the country over, 

 such a stand of si)ruce timber. There is more hard wood in 

 the country, and, it appears to me, more swam[) land etc., 

 land that is waste in respect to all kinds of timljer. Great 

 areas of pure hard wood occur all over the waters of the 

 Kennebec and Penobscot, and the mixed land does not have 

 on the average so large and even a stand of spruce. Only in 

 certain districts, generally mountain districts, as in the coun- 

 try about Lobster lake or in the mountain land in the neigh- 

 borhood of Ktatuln, do any such heavy spruce stands occur 

 as on the Androscoggin and in New Hampshire are plentiful. f 



*I5y spruce ia generally iiieiint In this report the bluck spruce, Pirea nigra. It 

 is seldom that Picea alba forms more than a very small proportion of the stand in 

 our forests. Its fretjuency about towns, on old runout pastures and fields, is 

 niucli greater than in the original woods. 



tThe stand of spruce on the Maine plateau increases thus from east to west, 

 from the lower to the higher portion of it. A striking corroboration of the state- 

 ments here made is to be found in the yield which In the different parts of the 

 region is considered to be a good one for a spruce town. Lumbermen on the 

 eastern Penobscot and in the Aroostook country as I understand consider lifty 

 million feet of spruce a large amount for a town to yield. In the neighborhood of 

 Moosehead are townships which have cut ion million. On the Androscoggin the 

 maximum yield is not less than 'JOO. Part of this difference is due to difference in 

 scaling and cutting methods. More of it, however, must be due to the natural 

 stand, and the most general and clearest feature behind that is the difference In 

 vertical height. 



