ORIGINAL FORESTS AND THEIR EARLY DEVELOPMENT 1 93 



rounded a week at a time by floating lumber from the Maine 

 woods." 



Thoreau's first trip up the Penobscot was in 1846. Just above 

 the mouth of the east branch, he says: "The woods hereabouts 

 abounded in beech and yellow birch, of which last there were 

 some very large specimens ; also spruce, cedar, fir, and hemlock ; 

 but we saw only the stumps of the white pine here, some of them 

 of great size, these having been already culled out, being the 

 only tree much sought after, even as low down as this. Only 

 a little spruce and hemlock beside had been logged here. The 

 eastern wood which is sold for fuel in Massachusetts all comes 

 from below Bangor. It was the pine alone that had tempted 

 any but the hunter to precede us on this route." Even in those 

 days Maine was famous for its forest fires, for he says: "The 

 lumberers rarely trouble themselves to put out their fires, and 

 this is one cause, no doubt, of the frequent fires in Maine, of 

 which we hear so much on smoky days in Massachusetts." 

 Thus interestingly he describes the Bangor of that day: "There 

 stands the city of Bangor, fifty miles up the Penobscot, at the 

 head of navigation for vessels of the largest class, the principal 

 lumber depot on this continent, with a population of twelve 

 thousand, like a star on the edge of night, still hewing at the 

 forests of which it is built, already overflowing with the luxuries 

 of Europe, and sending its vessels to Spain, to England, and to 

 the West Indies." 



At this time little was used from the great forests but pine, 

 but gradually as this became scarce and had to be sought in the 

 west the lumbermen of northern New England began to saw the 

 better specimens of spruce. Later the great pulp industry grew 

 up to use an ever-increasing quantity of that species for the pro- 

 duction of paper. Tracts which long ago had been culled of 

 their pine and later of their large spruce were now gone over for a 

 third and a fourth time for smaller spruce trees for pulp. The 

 rivers of Maine, the Merrimac, the Connecticut and its branches 

 still bear their great drives of logs in the spring. A goodly pro- 

 portion of these now go to the pulp mills. With the extension of 



