328 DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS. 



pine, and hardwood in the northern Adirondacks, the property of 

 Mr. William G. Rockefeller. The area is notable as containing one 

 of the most valuable bodies of White Pine in New York. 



In addition to those completed, the preparation of working plans 

 was begun upon five timber tracts with a total area of 628,000 acres. 

 One of these, 80,000 acres in extent, lies in the Great Smoky Moun- 

 tains of eastern Tennessee, a region which offers a wide field for prac- 

 tical forestry and in which the Bureau is doing its first work on a 

 large scale in that State. The field work done on this tract included 

 a careful study of the more important hardwoods, particularly of the 

 White Oak and Yellow Poplar. 



A tract of 350,000 acres in Maine, owned by the Great Northern 

 Paper Company, is the largest area of private ownership for which the 

 Division has definitely undertaken a working plan and in several 

 ways one of the most promising. The larger portion of the tract is on 

 the Penobscot River near Moosehead and Chesuncook lakes. The 

 country contains a network of lakes and ponds surrounded by low 

 hills, between which are long stretches of fairly level land. It is in 

 consequence admirably adapted to the cheap logging and transport of 

 soft-wood timber. The forest is composed chiefly of spruce and fir, 

 with a varying mixture of hardwoods. The object of the owners is 

 so to lumber the tract as to insure a sustained supply of soft-wood 

 timber for their mill. 



It is a noteworthy fact that, before applying for a working plan for 

 its land, the Great Northern Paper Company had already shown its 

 appreciation of the advantages of conservative forest management by 

 incorporating in its logging contracts several of the more important 

 rules which govern lumbering now carried on under the supervision 

 of the Bureau of Forestry in the Adirondacks. It is believed that the 

 voluntary adoption of these rules by a paper company is the strongest 

 argument in their favor yet made. 



In the Adirondacks there are now four tracts to which practical 

 forestry is applied under the ^direction of the Bureau. One tract of 

 10,000 acres was added during the year, and the total area under man- 

 agement in that region is now 156,470 acres. An important experi- 

 ment in thinning second-growth hardwoods has been undertaken on 

 the 14,000 acres of hardwood land in Massachusetts to which refer- 

 ence has been made, in order to test the opportunity to make a profit 

 and improve the stand. The results, coupled with the study of the 

 rate of growth of New England hardwoods now in progress, will be of 

 direct value in suggesting lines along which similar New England 

 woodlands may be advantageously handled. 



The first year's work in practical forestry on the 6,000-acre domain 

 of the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tenn. , has been satisfac- 

 tory. The cutting advised in the working plan was carried out under 

 the direction of an agent of the Division. It left the forest in good 

 condition and yielded a profit at least equal to that usually earned by 

 ordinary lumbering under similar conditions in that neighborhood. 



This Bureau is now acting as the referee between the State of New 

 York and the Moose River Lumber Company, the holder of a contract 

 to lumber township 8, Herkimer County, N. Y., which now forms a 

 part of the Adirondack Preserve. At the joint request of the Forest, 

 Fish, and Game Commission of New York and the president of the 

 company, the Division of Forestry agreed to mark the timber to be cut 

 under this contract, and to assist in the location of lumber roads, the 

 expense of the work to be borne by the company. This request for 



