12 FOREST COMBIISSIONEK's REPORT. 



have been able to accomplish luit comparatively little, for I 

 know of no other person in the United States with his prac- 

 tical experience. The results of his studies, explorations, 

 investigations and reasonings will be found written in his 

 own language as the principal part of this report. 



In arranging the work with him it was decided that it was 

 only in the woods themselves that the specific information 

 which we already had on our list as necessary to obtain, 

 together with many other facts relating to growth, could be 

 obtained. Accordingly it was arranged that he should under- 

 take a trip on the drainage of the Kennebec river, but in our 

 various consultations as to what particular line of work he 

 should follow, we found ourselves confronted with so many 

 different problems, each seeming of some degree of importance 

 and worthy of considerably more time and attention than we 

 could aft'ord to give it, that it seemed impossible to arrange 

 any definite plan of action. Consequently when he started on 

 his long cruise his only s[)ecific directions.were to avoid for the 

 present, as far as possible, all purely scientific matters, but 

 direct his efforts towards collecting wholesale practical 

 information, facts so necessary for the individual owner in 

 the manaoement of forest lands, as well as bearino- on the 

 commercial interests of the State. 



I almost said that it was facts desired very much by the 

 individual owner, but that would hardly be true, for I regret 

 to say that the large majority of land owners pay little or no 

 attention whatever to the management of their lands other 

 than to collect all stumpagc dues. Unlike all other business, 

 comparatively little study (the word intelligence might almost 

 be allowed) is ever given to the care of wild lands, excepting 

 in a /ew instances. 



Many of our land owners are non-residents and their actual 

 knowledge of their own property, excepting as to what reve- 

 nues it yields, is very little. Many such owners hardly know 

 one kind of forest growth from another and seem to think, if 

 one can judge by their actions, that the revenues they have 



