20 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



a fraction too biof to represent its class exactly, and the relati'on maj- be 

 supposed to steadil}' hold. The stand of the quarter acre at 60 years of 

 age then adds up as shown — 232 cubic feet. 



. So much for the method, which is better 



than this illustration of it might lead one to 



expect. Tree number 3 was not a good sample 



of its class. Early figures based on it are, there 



^ is little doubt, too low, and the quarter acre at 



>o 60 years consequently is not given a big enough 



stand. One thing, moreover, is omitted that 



0) 1) 



2o 



"2 would be necessary to make the thing exact 

 104 •' 



31 and perfect. That is the trees that in course 



25 



of time and under the power of competition 



-•^^ have died. There is enough of that in such a 



— case to make a large difference in the jield of 

 the land. The German in his carefully tended forests uses this material. 

 In our own woods it falls down and rots. In order to ascertain the correct 

 full stock of our spruce for given land at any age, a matter indeed which 

 has for us at the present time only a theoretical interest, the history of a 

 grove would have to be watched for a long period, or different groves 

 found for comparison, in the same conditions but of different age. Some 

 time not far distant perhaps our timber trees will come to be studied in 

 this way. If so, what has been written here may prepare the way for 

 comprehension of the results. 



In digging out and piling up these complicated relations the plain and 

 practical bearings of the facts presented must not be covered up out of 

 sight. Here is a well soiled piece of ground, burnt over something like 

 108 years ago, on which there came up a thick stand of spruce associated 

 with quicker growing birch and pine. At the end of the time stated the 

 larger spruce are 10 to 13 inches in diameter and 60 to 70 feet high. An 

 acre stocked like our sample would yield about 30 cords of spruce pulp 

 wood counting in considerable of the knotty tops. Without the birch 

 and pine the spruce alone would have yielded 45 cords, let us say. This 

 is for thickly stocked land. Scattering trees, while at the same age they 

 are of much larger size, while at a much lower age they come to 

 merchantable dimensions, produce neither clear lumber, nor a large yield 

 of wood per acre on the land. 



Xow while this yield after 108 years of an average of 45 cubic feet, or 

 about two-fifths of a cord of pulp wood, per acre and year is a very 

 respectable one, while it is several times as much as the figures for 

 growth of spruce which in the body of this report have been attached to 

 most areas of cut-over old growth land (a fact which shows by the way 

 that stripping oft" spruce land would be no calamity if it only reseeded to 

 spruce and the succeeding growth should be protected to maturity) — yet 

 compare the yield of this area of spruce with that of a piece of ground 

 of the same size in pine. The figures here given were gathered at Saco 

 in a pine grove which was apparently 50 to .55 j^ears old, standing on 



