MODERN FORESTRY 



of timber a misdemeanor punishable by law, 

 equal to the punishment meted out to offend- 

 ers of our game and other natural resource 

 laws. 



"Landowners should be required by statute 

 to keep and cultivate a fractional part of their 

 estates in timber and to retain the same up to 

 a given standard in numbers per acre." 



In the state of Maine, one of the heavily 

 timbered commonwealths, a forest commission 

 was not created until 1891. Since that time 

 the work incident to such a commission has 

 favorably progressed. A recent annual report 

 of the commissioner of forestry gives in detail 

 the attempt made to determine the amount of 

 standing timber in the state, in order that 

 there might be a basis for future work. Expert 

 scalers and explorers were employed. The re- 

 sult of their investigations showed that while 

 extensive logging has for many years been car- 

 ried on in the state, there were standing at the 

 date of the report— 1902— 21,239,000,000 feet 

 of spruce — the great timber supply of Maine 

 so much used in paper manufacture, — besides 

 large quantities of pine, cedar, hemlock and 

 hardwoods. It was demonstrated that the an- 



175 



