FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 55 



below that standinu' on our sample area. Probably thirty 

 trees per acre over six inches in diameter, and a total stand 

 of 300 to 400 cubic feet will be a safe average for the cut- 

 over portions of the town. That at the best allows only a 

 very few hundred of merchantable saw timber per acre. 



Now out of the total area of the town there are some 

 deductions to be made. A twelve-year-old luirn in the east 

 half of it cuts out two and one-half square miles from the 

 total area. Water and bog it is thought occupy as much 

 more, while unproductive swamps and hard wood areas cover 

 a little. Perhaps 19,000 acres may be considered as bearing 

 on the average as much spruce as stated. Bringing these 

 facts together, using again the percentage of growth found 

 to be characteristic, and converting cubic into board feet at 

 the ratio of four to one, we get as the yearh'- growth of 

 spruce lumber on this township from three-quarters of a 

 million to a million feet. To be sure it is not all grown in 

 merchantable form. Some of it is put onto trees which will 

 require many years of further growth before they will be tit 

 to cut for saw logs. But sometime they will reach that 

 condition. The yearly growth on all its trees is the only 

 safe basis for reckoning the production of land. 



It will be well at this point to introduce some J^,*;"'^!" ""^ 

 general fio-ures relatinirto ijrowth. On page 27 of hl",Two"d 

 this report Pressler's method of determining the 

 percentage of growth on standing trees was described. At 

 convenient times during my cruising trees were cut into for 

 the purpose of making this determination. Diameter and 

 height of trees were noted, factors which give approximately 

 the volume, and the general conditions of the trees as well. 

 The table herewith presented gives the results for country 

 such as is the most of Dennis, good land, covered with mixed 

 timber, with all conditions favorable to rapid growth. 

 Behind this table are determinations on about 120 trees, 

 about one-third from Dennis, the rest from similar land at 

 other points. In the field whenever notes of this kind were 



