A FOREST WORKING PLAN. 437 



gaining the advantage of having all the natural spring floods to assist in driving 

 them down the stream below Big Moose Lake. There is, as shown by the 

 estimate, a large amount of mature timber standing on this compartment which 

 should be removed. There would undoubtedly be considerable opposition to 

 timber being driven clown through Big Moose Lake and the stream below. It is 

 not in the province of this working plan to discuss objections to the right to float 

 timber here or elswhere. Such questions can only be properly settled by the State 

 Legislature, but as this is the natural and most advisable way to remove the 

 timber from the compartment, the only thing possible to do in this plan is to 

 advise that it be so removed. If the right to drive the timber down through 

 the lake and its outlet to the mills below, or to some point where it could be 

 loaded on cars for shipment, were guaranteed, the stumpage would undoubtedly 

 find purchasers at a fair price. The timber in Compartment 6, Township 40, 

 should also be included in this sale, it being naturally tributary to Big Moose 

 Lake. While the whole compartment is generally hilly or mountainous, the beds 

 of the streams are comparatively smooth, and would furnish an opportunity 

 for the construction of good main log roads with a steady down grade for 

 hauling the logs from the extreme points of the compartment to the lake. The 

 stand of timber of the species advised to be removed is exceptionally good, 

 thereby compensating, in a measure, for the roughness of the territory. 



Sale of Stumpage by the State. 



The mature timber on the townships may be logged by the State or the 

 stumpage sold to private parties. 



State or governmental organizations are generally unable to carry on large 

 commercial enterprises as economically as private companies. If the State should 

 do its own logging on Townships 5, 6 and 41, a large and expensive logging 

 outfit would have to be purchased, camps and dams erected, and a big force of 

 clerks, foremen, and lumber jacks employed. The private company, on the other 

 hand, would have its outfit on hand and its organization for doing such work 

 completed. The State would secure just as much profit if the stumpage were 

 sold to private parties, and in addition be saved the annoyance of collecting an 

 efficient logging outfit. The demand for spruce, balsam, pine and hemlock is so 

 strong in this section that competition among manufacturers would force the price 

 offered up to very nearly the true value of the stumpage. 



