58 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



fore I can only conjecture them. They may perhaps be the best 

 by comjaarison of the parts of the district already known. 



"From ten years of interested observation and the concurrent 

 opinion of all with whom I have had opportunity to converse 

 and on whose judgment I could rely, I am convinced that to fill 

 the interior of the District rapidly with inhabitants, nothing is 

 more necessary than good roads, and liberal terms of sale — 

 that on this subject parsimony is real waste, and an extensive, 

 liberal and vigorous system of improvement the only true 

 economy. 



GREENLEAF's REPORT. 



Mr. Greenleaf was among those who were intensely and par- 

 tisanl}' interested in the proposed separation of the District of 

 Maine from Massachusetts, and. in 1816, when this matter was 

 before the legislature, published his first book, one of the objects 

 of which was to give the members of the General Court infor- 

 mation regarding the District. This report was recognized as 

 containing extremely valuable and accurate statements concern- 

 ing the District about which at that time comparatively very 

 little was known by ^Massachusetts people. Even those who 

 were the best informed thought of Maine, if they thought about 

 it at all, as an unknown and almost useless annex of their 

 Commonwealth. Mr. Greenleaf in this report among other 

 things said : 



"More than three-fourths of the land in Maine is yet a wilder- 

 ness, and is owned principally by the state of ^Massachusetts ; 

 the remainder bv different individuals, who have purchased 

 wholly with a view to ])rofit by re-sales, and not for the purpose 

 of cultivation. The rest may be considered generally as in the 

 hands of the cultivators. It will be necessary to consider these 

 two as separate classes ; and it will be sufficiently exact for the 

 present purpose if all the land in the incorporated towns and 

 plantations is classed, as in the hands of the cultivators, and 

 valued according to its estimated net income; and the remainder 

 as belonging to the State, and to be valued only by the product 

 of its future sales. The quantities belonging to each class are 

 as follows : 



