Report of the Forest Commission. 183 



country emigrated to the Ohio valley. This severe weather 

 then was without doubt the cause of the thin rings so regularly 

 found in the spruce trees. 



" Since that time this zone of rings has been found in spruce 

 trees in all parts of the State and in the northern portion of New 

 Hampshire. Careful notes of its character and occurrence were 

 taken, in the course of other study, and the facts observed and 

 inferences drawn will be found in full in the publications of the 

 United States Forestry Division. 



" This belt of thin rings can be seen by anyone who will take 

 the trouble to examine carefully any good sized spruce log. It 

 demonstrates the effect of inclement seasons on the growth of 

 trees, and it is further of value in that while there is some varia- 

 tion about it, the approximate regularity of its position, the close 

 correspondence in number of the rings outside the thin belt with 

 the seasons that have elapsed since the cold year, gives added 

 confidence in the substantial regularity of ring deposit and con- 

 sequently in the results of investigation which proceed on that 

 assumption. 



" An instance of the effect Oi. exposure on the growth of trees 

 I am able to present through the interest of Mr. William Monroe, 

 of Bangor. In the winter of . 893-94 he scaled* a landing of 

 spruce hauled into Silver lake in the Town of Katahdin Iron 

 Works, from a piece of ground on the south slopes of Saddle 

 Kock Mountain, which had never before been cut. The soil was 

 a deep red loam, and the spruce was gathered along brook runs 

 or scattered amongst the hardwood growth intervening. But 

 the point is that the timber was divided between two separate 

 slopes of the mountain, the upper one of wMch was some 200 feet 

 above the lower, and considerably more exposed. 



"The timber from each slope was yarded on the more level 

 land at its base, and Mr. Monroe kept a separate scale of the two 

 lots. A marked difference in the size of the trees is found. The 

 logs cut on the upper and more exposed slope were 4,377 in 

 number, and scaled 435,726 feet, B. M., or 99^ feet to the piece. 

 The lower lot numbered 2,598 sticks, and the total scale was 

 320,811 feet, or 123^ feet to the piece. The difference is 24 per 



* Measured. 



