FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 91 



ever}^ townshij). Pro])ably not over ten per cent of the present 

 stand of merchantable coniferous timber on the Kennebec is 

 of that species. Its proj)ortion in the estimates on that |)()int 

 and also in the estimates of growth is far less than the lia1)ility 

 of either to error. 



Next we turn to another phase of the general ^jon**"" the 

 question — consumj)tion. Some statistics on this ^^^""ebec. 

 branch of the subject arc given in the api)endix. Here it is 

 only necessary to introduce general amounts. From the 

 books of the Kennebec Log Driving Company, I learn that 

 the cut of the river exclusive of the Sand}- river and Carra- 

 basset, whose cut is usually taken care of before it reaches 

 the main Kennebec, amounted in 1894-95 to about 105,000,000 

 feet.* The average for the last ten years is 137,(317,000 feet. 

 Both amounts include all the soft wood timber cut and driven 

 down the river — s[)ruce, pine, cedar and hemlock. The cut 

 of small mills at various points, getting their logs from nearljy 

 and selliiiff to a local market, is no( included in these figures 

 and has not been ascertained. It can be but a small amount, 

 not over one or two million feet. Neither is the cut of the 

 mills at Lowelltow'n on the Canadian Pacific included. These 

 are sawing at present nearly twenty millon feet a year, and 

 are entirely capable of taking care of the lumber on the two 

 or three townships in their immediate neighborhood. These 

 and the mill at Reddington, recognized as temporary, for the 

 consumption of the lumber in their vicinity, though it is an 

 item amounting to from twenty-five to thirty millions, it will 

 be easiest and fairest to leave out of account here. 



In the lumber driven down the Kennebec, the exact pro- 

 portion of spruce it would take much labor to learn. Inquiry 

 at the mills, and some figures relating to the cut of the Dead 

 river which are given in the appendix seem to indicate that 

 eighty per cent Avould not be far out of the way. This 

 leaves us with 84 millions for 1894-95, and 110 as the average 

 spruce cut of the main river for the last ten years. Of this 



* Including about five iniUions in 1894 and nine millions in 1895, brought from 

 the Penobscot at Northwest CaiTy. 



