110 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



was entered which probably never possessed more than three 

 or four thousand feet of spruce per acre. The spruce now 

 standing after a cut six years old stood in a similar small propor- 

 tion. A short distance through this brought us to a piece of 

 rough ledgy country which offered no firm rooting to trees, 

 while in the original condition it was covered with nearly 

 pure spruce. The cut, therefore, had left the land very ragged, 

 and especially subject to winds. A detailed count here 

 yielded West about 700 board feet per acre, while by my 

 count there appeared to be standing twenty-six trees whose 

 contents was set at 275 cubic feet. The stand of all species 

 was perhaps 400 or 500 cubic feet, while a much larger 

 amount of wood lay flat on the ground. After that we came 

 into well mixed growth standing like that first described. 

 Here we took occasion to cut down a couple of trees for detail 

 measurement and to test in quite a number the percentage of 

 growth characteristic of this typical, thinned-out land. 

 ring!°its ^ little matter that came to our notice here is 



causer- worthy of mention. The writer was doing the 



measuring and taking notes, while West made the shoal cut 

 necessary and counting in marked the tenth ring from the 

 bark. Now having his attention directed particularly to this 

 ring, he soon noticed that it was thicker than its neighbors to 

 a very perceptible degree. He found, in fact, that he could 

 by this mark put his pencil on the tenth ring without count- 

 ino;, and that in almost every tree. The same thing; I believe 

 I had previously noted in Grafton, though it is not down in 

 my note book. We afterwards found it, however, at Bemis, 

 and about the Kichardson lakes. 



This little fact is one of those suggestive things which sets 

 everybody to theorizing, but which to carefully follow out is 

 a very different matter. A thick ring, let me say, found 

 regularl}' and over a considerable extent of country is some- 

 what of a novelty, at least to the present writer. Thin rings 

 are not infrequent, constant or nearly so in their position, 

 and found throughout a large range. Often they are known to 

 be due to cold and inclement seasons. For this other occur- 



