FOREST COMMISSIONER S REPORT. 89 



Such a tiiiiue, however, is worth setting. If its absokite 

 amount is too great for the comprehension, yet relatively, to 

 put alongside of similar figures for growth and for consump- 

 tion, it has a use. 



In order to arrive at it all that has been learned of the 

 country has been put together — the total area of spruce-bear- 

 ing land, the nature of the growth upon it, the severity with 

 which in different parts it has been used. Pulp , 



i i Area out for 



cutting, I may say, has so far l)een confined prac- p"1p "^^"oa. 

 tically to the Dead river and to the main river l)elow ]\Ioose- 

 head. Some of the towns near the main river, as for instance 

 The Forks and Carratunk are said to have ])ecn systematically 

 stripped. The same kind of cutting has partially gone over 

 others. Below The Forks of the Kennebec, there are only 

 one or two tracts said to have now standing upon them saw 

 losfs of any considerable amount. 



Wholesale figures on the amount of growth simi- ,, 



^ tD \ early 



larly are as much dependent on estimate as on ^^'O'^^'^ii- 

 computation. On the Moose river drainage in our estimate 

 on this matter we allowed a million feet of yearlj^ production 

 to every thirty square miles of productive land. The same 

 ratio may fairly be extended to the country triliutaiy to 

 Roach river and the lake, a basis of reckoning which sets the 

 yearly growth of the 367 square miles involved at about 

 twelve million feet. Perhaps the same will hold on the 

 Sandy river and Carrabasset. We will at any rate set the 

 yearly growth of this region at five million feet. 



For the other regions into which the basin of the Kennebec 

 was divided, no such production, I feel confident, will hold. 

 The Dead river at any rate is less evenly timbered with 

 spruce than the Moose river. Neither is it as a rule so 

 thrifty land. It has, furthermore, where it has been cut been 

 cut harder, which, according to principles earlier developed, 

 runs down its growing power. Tlie same things are true in 

 general of the country tributarv to the main river. 



Perhaps we shall not be far out of the way in setting the 

 yearly growth on these territories at a million feet for each 



