FORKST commissioner's REPORT. 45 



selves furnish rooting and nutriment to trees. There is con- 

 siderable good farming hmd on the drainage, not all of Avhich 

 by any means is yet utilized. The land lays well too. 

 While sehlom rough, it is always uneven, lying generall}' in 

 swells and ridges which conduce to good drainage. Even the 

 spruce hinds as we shall see later are not of the flat, deep- 

 mossed, slow-growing character which spruce lands else- 

 where frequently present. They are l)roken in surface, full 

 of knolls and })innacles, and therefore well drained. While 

 rocky, they seemed seldom to be entirely destitute of a min- 

 eral soil. 



The Moose river in ftict seems to be from the spruce point 

 of view the l)est portion of the Kennebec drainage — and 

 this not only in regard to present l)ut future supply. For 

 while distance from market has saved the Moose river to 

 such an extent that according to the estimates ol^tained, it 

 has now as much standing timber as the Dead river which is 

 a third larger, there are other things about it, relating both 

 to its character and its history, which will operate to its per- 

 manent advantaiie. First of these is its ijreater average 

 thrift, due to causes just enumerated. Second the smaller 

 proi)ortion of its area which has been burnt. Third — and 

 not likely' in the connection to be over-estimated in impor- 

 tance — is its comparative freedom from blowdown due to the 

 mixture of growth, to the presence in most places of a soil 

 in which the trees can firmly root, and to the comparative 

 fewness and distance of mountains whose abundance in a 

 region seems to l)ea sure sign of frequent destructive winds. 



The plan adopted forgetting an idea of the upper Kxpioration 

 Moose river towns, was to take a man who was tow?^'""^' 

 acquainted with the whole region, explore with him one town- 

 ship- as near as might l)e rei)resentative of the whole, and 

 then, when he understood wdiat I wanted to learn, and we 

 could talk together from a common experience, and with the 

 assurance of each understanding what the other said, to sit 

 down with him and learn what might be of the stand, cutting 

 history and condition of the whole region. For this purpose, 



