PRACTICAL FORESTRY ON A SPRUCE TRACT IN MAINE, 



INTRODUCTION. 



In this circular is embodied the six years' experience of the writer 

 as forester in the employ of a large lumber and paper company of 

 New England. The term "forester" is here used in rather a broad 

 sense. With the understanding that his work was, as far as possible, 

 to promote conservative cutting and the growth of young stuff, the 

 writer went in, like any other employee, to make himself useful to 

 the business. 



THE TRACT. 



The spruce-bearing portion of the Androscoggin Basin, within which 

 the company's tract is situated, includes most of its upper half, ex- 

 tending easterly from the White Mountains across the Rangeley Lake 

 region in Maine, and thence north to the Canada line. Its topography 

 is uneven and sometimes very rough, with numerous mountains, some 

 of which rise to more than 3,000 feet above sea level. The main 

 streams are drivable, but a drawback in logging is the steepness of 

 some of the slopes. Much of the region is too rough for bare-ground 

 logging. Snow comes, as a rule, about the 1st of December, and is 

 3 or 4 feet deep by the 1st of March. 



Red and white spruce are distributed over the region and reach 

 a fine individual development. The higher mountains are covered 

 with almost pure forests of spruce, and the swamps and flats are tim- 

 bered largely with spruce and fir, while the slopes and ridges bear 

 varying stands of spruce, fir, birches, maples, and beech. Through- 

 out ftie region there is abundant reproduction. Cut-over mountain 

 sides, if they remain unburned, come up densely to spruce and fir, 

 and elsewhere reproduction as a rule is good. 



The lands of the company, then, though varied in character, are 

 valuable chiefly for the spruce timber standing upon them. The 

 company, in 1898, owned about 300,000 acres, and its annual cut — 

 in part, however, from other holdings— was 70,000/000 board feet. 

 Part of this was sawed into lumber and the rest used for paper pulp. 

 From the mills at Berlin Falls, N. H., the highest point on the Andro- 

 scoggin River reached by railroad, operations of the company were 

 scattered through the woods of the region to the sources of the river, 

 100 miles away. Driving employed a large force of men in the 



[Cir. 131] 



(3) 



