108 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



the country below Lincoln Plantation. This country was 

 naturally heavily timbered and for spruce but little of it was 

 waste land. The water areas by the maps foot up about seven 

 square miles. Of burnt land there is, as near as I could 

 learn, about five. Of waste in mountain top and bog there 

 "was to be seen but little. Perhaps all items may foot up in 

 land which is not producing spruce ten per cent, of the 

 whole. 



Parkertown is perhaps the most typical township of the 

 five. The river flows throuijh its midst, windins; l)ack and 

 forth in a belt of alluvial land. Into the river from each side 

 run a number of brooks. These reach back to the divides, 

 and since they are themselves separated by high land, the 

 town is divided into six or eight different basins, each of 

 which is, for purposes of lumbering, a district by itself. Out- 

 side of the flat land along the river the country is uneven, 

 much of it pretty rough. Drainage therefore is excellent and 

 while there is seldom much of any soil, there is amply 

 sufiicient for the production of spruce. The mountains were 

 covered with it nearly pure ; the ridge country had mixed 

 growth in which spruce almost always bore a strong propor- 

 tion ; the alluvial land along the river and the small areas 

 of flat land on the brooks have generally a considerable 

 mixture. In the virgin condition of the township acres 

 without their two or three thousand of spruce must have been 

 infrequent, while the average stand would have been con- 

 sideral)ly greater. 



—methods'" This particular township, however, is now largely 

 of^observa- ^^^^ through. The day after our arrival bringing 



weather in which woodsmen feel called on to be up and 

 doing, we left camp in the morning and struck east by the 

 compass to see what we could find. A few rods travel car- 

 rying us out of the alluvial land, we struck next a ridge coun- 

 try in which spruce formed originally about half the growth, 

 mixed with fir, yellow birch and some white birch and maple. 

 The land was cut ten years ago, not as closely as in work 

 of more recent years. Travelling long enough to get an idea 



