FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 101 



lumber, and here the surface of the ground was an ahnost un- 

 broken ])rush-heap, out of which there stood erect only the 

 few crooked and scrawny yellow birches which w^ere not 

 worth the dynamite that would have been required to split 

 them. Plenty of sjround that started with fifty hadn't more 

 than two or three cords of w^ood of any kind standing u[)on it. 

 Cruisino- round in the newer works, it was evi- .,,.,„. . 



I C; r uiiii a Or 



dent that so far as spruce was concerned quite as ^•"'^ I'^'^f^- 

 complete devastation had been wrought. The hard woods 

 had here been left, but the future prospects of the land per- 

 haps were even worse on that account, for the hard woods 

 left standing, which now at any rate are undesirable and value- 

 less species, will be sure, as many times seen in old cuttings 

 elsewhere, to spread out their crowns and largely appropriate 

 the ground. They are in position too to shower the ground 

 Avith seed, and so put competing species at a disadvantage. 

 A hundred years will not suffice to grow another crop of 

 spruce logs on that ground, and at two hundred it could not 

 fail under the circumstances to be much smaller than the 

 oriirinal stand. I ao;ree with the owners of the land in think- 

 ing that if fire could be controlled the best thing to do for 

 this country would be to burn it clean, and take the chances 

 on an entirely new crop. 



Some determinations of the spruce left on this Amount of 

 land will be of interest. Considera])le territory spiuce left. 

 was cruised, and selecting two or three pieces of representa- 

 tive ground a count was carried for more than a mile and a 

 half across the works of all spruce trees big enouoh to show 

 above the brush piles. So far as seeing was concerned, one 

 might sometimes have counted for a quarter of a mile each 

 way. j\Iy strip, however, in order closely to estimate it, was 

 confined as usual to a width of about forty-eight steps, or the 

 side of a quarter of an acre. Proceeding thus, the count 

 for 3,900 steps, covering an area of about twenty ^l^^l 

 acres, gave me the trees recorded in the accom- 

 panying table. Of these the larger were often 

 forked, crooked or otherwise deformed. Jiut few 

 trees above six inches had been left intentionally. 

 Trees down to seven inches at four feet from the ^otai. los 



