42 BULLETIN 1241, U. S, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
than lumber and pulp, while small, is also unknown. Partly offsetting these 
drains is the present growth of the spruce-fir type, which for all New England 
has been estimated at 1,060,000 cords a year. Maine contains about 85 per 
cent of the type. Entomologists estimate that this rate of growth lu\s been 
reduced approximately one-third by the bud-worm epidemic, and will so con- 
tinue for several years. 
A rather detailed study indicates that only approximately 34^ million cords 
out of the total stand is available for pulp. Only 6 of the 17 timber holdings in 
Maine which contain more than 100,000 acres belong to pulp and paper com- 
panies. Such companies hold only about 20 per cent of the wild-land area of 
the State, on which the spruce and fir are almost entirely located. Excepting 
the large holding estates, lumber companies now hold between 12 and 18 per 
cent of the wild-land area, in contrast with the ownership 20 years ago of practi- 
cally 100 per cent. To supplement their own holdings, pulp and paper com- 
panies depend upon Canada and upon purchases from a number of large estates, 
which for many years have followed a crude system of forestry in allowing the 
cutting of trees above a specified and progressively lowering diameter limit. 
This practice and the development of a more and more efficient fire protection, 
aided by rather unusually favorable climatic conditions, have preserved in 
Maine a more satisfactory timber supply and growth than in almost any other 
region. The stand availaie for pulp is being cut at the rate of about 1,020,000 
cords a year for mills in the State, with additional shipments to New Hampshire. 
Local mills also in 1920 supplemented domestic supplies with imports of approxi- 
mately 93,500 cords of spruce and fir. , 
These are the known facts bearing upon the present situation and the imme- 
diate future. They do not make it possible to measure either in exact terras, 
but are sufficiently clear to warrant the conclusion that there are too many 
entries on the wrong side of the ledger and that it already shows too much of a 
deficit. i 
The outlook, unless modified pulping processes can make other species avail-' 
able, is probably an enforced curtailment of pulp and paper production more or 
less gradual, dependent on developments, which will hit first and hardest the 
pulp mills without available timber supplies of their own. The cut of many 
other mills will probably be shifted in much greater degree than at present to 
their own inadequate holdings, with still more serious overcutting. It i^ \ cry 
doubtful if immediate application of the most intensive forestry measures over 
the entire spruce-fir type of the State can produce results soon enough to pn 
such a curtailment. The outlook for the immediate future, although far better 
than in New York or Pennsylvania, is far from bright. Ultimate future possi- 
bilities in spruce and fir production can best be considered for New Englan 
whole. 
\ i:w U VMI'SIIIKK, 
New Hampshire is much less favorably situated than Maine. The total stand 
(Table 54) of spruce and fir is probably less than W - million cords, and this is 
reduced annually at the rate of about 296,000 cords by the cut for lumber 
and pulp wood alone, and an additional amount by hre, insect infestation-. 
The spruce bud worm, while mucfi less sei ; . in Maine, 
has !»c mi responsible for heavy fosses. Growth can be Judged only in the light 
of a total fur the spruce type of New England of 1,060,000 cords, and the fact 
CEat 10 per cent, of the type area IS in New Hampshire -at best only the roughest 
kind of an approximation. 
Spruce-hx stands available for pulp and paper manufacture probably fall under 
/">.'_• million cords. The pulp mills of the Slate consume about 300,001) cords of 
