162 FOREST commissioner's report. 



mosses, which assist in creating the condition in their turn. 

 Now this is a condition in a way unfavorable to tree growth. 

 Spruce may stand thickly in such land, but the growth of the 

 trees is slow, and they do not reach their maximum size. 

 Such timber, too, is especiall}' lialjle to damage by winds. 

 The trees have poor rooting, and are mainly held up by the 

 mutual protection of their neighbors. Thinned out by cut- 

 ting, the greater part of what is left is almost sure to blow 

 down. 

 „ Numerous obcurrences of this kind of timber 



Manage- 

 ment, have been mentioned in the text. A notable 



instance is in III R. 6, Somerset county. Here is a consid- 

 erable area of heavy timber which has been and still is of 

 comparatively small value on account of the roughness of the 

 land and its distance from drivable water. These natural 

 obstacles it is proposed to meet by a temporary railway to 

 transport the lumber to driving water on the Enchanted 

 Stream. If that is done the owners should plan, it seems to 

 me, to clean the land. Timber they may leave will be of no 

 account. Most of it will blow down, and if it did not, fifty 

 years wo'uld not grow enough to pay to build a railroad to it 

 again. The best thing that can be done is to strip the land 

 and let it come up to a new growth. Should this prove to be 

 largely birch, that will be no calamity. But we can count 

 on spruce, seeing what it has done, and considering its known 

 biolofirical characteristics, to ajiain some time recover the 

 land. Let it be said, however, that fire on such a country 

 would be a great set-back. It would burn up not merely the 

 timber but the soil, and centuries would intervene before the 

 land could again maintain a valuable tree growth. Demon- 

 stration of how much land of that kind is worth after fire has 

 run over it is to be seen in the immediate vicinity. Another 

 example of the same thing may be seen on Wassataquoik 

 Stream, which drains the country east of Ktaadn. 



A development of this kind of land remains to be men- 

 tioned, merely an intensification of its features. Rocky, 

 clayey or moorish land which is particularly flat and there- 



