8 



from the forestry standpoint. Its woodlands produce the 

 largest amount, and its wood-using industries consume the 

 largest amount of native lumber of any county in the State. 



The forest surveying was done in the summer months by 

 students of various forest schools. In this way we w r ere able to 

 get trained men at small expense. The work has taken more 

 time than we anticipated, and was not completely finished until 

 this summer. In the meantime, however, a similar survey of 

 Plymouth County has been undertaken and will be completed 

 this year. 



Method of Survey. 



Investigations similar to this have been attempted in other 

 States, and the usual method of work has been for the men to 

 traverse all the roads in each town and to sketch in the forest 

 and open land on a base map provided for the purpose. We 

 started our work on the same plan, but after completing a 

 couple of towns changed our method. We found that most of 

 the open farming land lies along the roads, and that the bulk 

 of the forest lies back of this open country. For this reason, 

 while it is possible to sketch in boundaries of the forest land 

 from the roadside, it is impossible to obtain any adequate idea 

 of the composition, size and density of the woodland without 

 actually traversing it. Such a system, therefore, did not give 

 us the information that we most desired. 



The method of field work finally used is an adaptation of a 

 large-scale timber cruising system which we felt gave a maxi- 

 mum amount of information at a minimum cost. Each man 

 worked one town at a time, running lines one-half mile apart 

 by compass and pace from one boundary to the other. In a 

 specially ruled notebook, on a scale of 1 inch to 1,000 feet, the 

 length of each type as shown by the pace was recorded. Panto- 

 graph enlargements of government topographical sheets on a 

 scale of 1,000 feet to an inch were used as a base map. The 

 data on the notebooks were therefore easily transferred to the 

 map. One of these maps is shown as a cut of the town of 

 Bolton. (In the Plymouth County survey photographic en- 

 largements of the topographic sheets on a scale of 2,000 feet to 

 the inch were found satisfactory, and were more convenient to 

 handle.) 



