FOREST commissioners' REPORT. 21 



of many acres of actively growing young pine, or in other 

 words, in the destruction of a portion of the most valuable of 

 our natural resources. The owners felt that if the trees were 

 doomed to immediate destruction by disease that they should 

 at once convert them into lumber. The writer has seen young 

 pine land "skinned" this season by the use of a portable mill to 

 the extent that trees which would make a single box board 

 were sacrificed in this way, and he has been told that certain 

 buyers in trying to buy stumpage on such land used the argu- 

 ment that the trees would soon be killed by blight and should be 

 cut to save them. 



The discussion which follows should be distinctly understood 

 to be confined to what has popularly been called "pine blight" 

 in Maine and is not based on observations in other parts of New 

 England, although correspondence and other available informa- 

 tion indicate that some of the trouble elsewhere is similar and 

 may be due to similar causes. Moreover in appearance it does 

 not conform in all respects to the published description of white 

 pine blight in New England as given by the agents of the United 

 States Forest Service although its distribution in Maine is essen- 

 tially the same as is given by them in a circular issued in May, 

 1908, and entitled "Extent and Importance of White Pine 

 Blight." 



In the circular above referred to, the disease was described as 

 follows : 



"Trees affected by the blight may readily be recognized from 

 the characteristic reddish-brown color assumed by the newest 

 needles. The tip of the needle is always affected first and 

 needles wath the base or middle turned brown but the tip 

 green are practically never seen. The extent of the discolora- 

 tion varies greatly in the different needles and in different trees ; 

 sometimes only the tip is affected, sometimes the whole needle. 

 Attacked trees look as if they had been scorched by fire, or as 

 if the tips of the needles had been dipped in reddish-brown dye. 

 * * * A tree which is attacked one year appears rarely to 

 escape the next." 



"Trees of all ages and sizes whether growing in the open or 

 in closed stands seem to be almost equally affected, with two 

 apparent exceptions : ( i ) Large full crowned trees with a 

 diameter of 18 inches or more, standing in the open, seem to be 



