REPORT OF AUSTIN GARY. 



Hon. Charles E. Oak, State Forest Commissioner : 



Siu — In accordance with your desire that I should work 

 out in the study of our forest resources a laroe share of the 

 funds lying at your disposal for such purposes, in the spring 

 of 1895 I returned to the State, and of the work which 

 ensued make the following report : 



Meeting you ]»}' appointment at Augusta, and a,Va'fl'eia'*oE 

 arranging that the subject of the work should be *'""* stmiy. 

 spruce, it being determined too that the Kennebec, as that 

 one of the lar<rer river Ijasins of the State which had been 

 longest and hardest cut on, was the liest tield for study, no 

 time was lost in getting into the woods. My outfit was com- 

 pleted at Skowhegan, where also I profited by consultation 

 with Hon. Turner Buswell, manager of the lands of the 

 Coburn estate. From that point I started on June 13tli for 

 the spruce woods of the Dead river. 



As the job was entered upon, very indefinite ideas were 

 held as to what would come out of it. Your instructions 

 agreed with my own inclination that the objects of the work, 

 whatever its methods, should be of a thoroughly [)ractical 

 nature. Certain minor problems indeed were clearly in mind, 

 and it was ho[)ed, furthermore, that as a result of the study 

 reliable wholesale inferences as to the lumber business of the 

 region could be drawn. But just what shape these would be 

 in, or for how large a territory derived, could not be before- 

 hand determined. That had to l)e left until throuirh tlie 

 development and progress of the work itself it should appear 



