NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 103 



will tend to direct public attention to existing abuses in forestry manage- 

 ment, and thereby arouse a healthy sentiment of protest, should be encour- 

 aged on every available opportunity. 



The general method of lumbering as carried out at the present day, in- 

 volves a waste of valuable material which often amounts to a high percent- 

 age of the entire cut. What this waste is may sometimes be ascertained, 

 but in the majority of cases it is impossible to form any adequate measure of 

 the destruction wrought. At the present time there is a fortunate and in- 

 creasing tendency to avoid loss and useless waste, but in the majority of 

 cases, there is yet room for improvement in this respect. In the United 

 States where attention is being directed to a careful scientific investigation 

 of all the facts which lie at the foundation of forest depletion, important 

 data have been collected with reference to special forest areas, and these 

 will serve an important purpose in guiding the formulation of a general 

 policy of protection and control. In the Adirondacks, favorable opportuni- 

 ties have been offered for the prosecution of such studies with markedly ad- 

 vantageous results, and in considering some of the forms of waste which 

 may readily be corrected, as well as in dealing with the general question of 

 reforestation, I shall avail myself of the valuable data collected by Mr. Henry 

 S. Graves as embodied in a bulletin issued by the United States Department \ 

 of Agriculture. 



HIGH STUMPS 



One of the most common forms of waste is to be found in cutting the 

 tree too high, whereby a stump of unnecessary height is left. A story hav- 

 ing reference to the early days of Maine, when the great forests extended 

 much further south than at the present time, may serve to emphasize the 

 point at issue. In those days the practice of felling trees during the time of 

 very deep snows, resulted in leaving stumps of varying height, reputed to 

 be upwards of twenty feet. A certain merchant of a Massachusetts city not 

 more than one hundred miles from Boston, having occasion to visit the State 

 in search of land, sought to take advantage of these high stumps for pur- 

 poses of observation. Selecting one which commanded an extended view, he 

 laboriously climbed to the top, but having taken no precaution against pos- 

 sible catastrophe, he was suddenly precipitated to the bottom of the hollow 

 trunk where he had abundant time to reflect upon ways of release. After 

 many fruitless efforts to escape, he was resigning himself to despair, when 

 the light above was suddenly blotted out and he heard a bear shuffling down. 



