The independent-reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1909-1955, 1909-09-30
NAMES NATURAL
RESOURCES
Professor R. L. Marston
Speaks at Rockland
What We Want In the Town of
Skowhegan.

An interesting address on For
estry and Water Conservation" was
delivered by Prof. r. L. Marston of
this place at the meeting of the State
Board of Trade at Rockland:
Mr. Marston spoke in part as fol-
lows:
The prosperity and well being of
Maine has depended upon two fac
tors, her natural resources and her
men. The strong bodies and minds
which have enabled our Maine men
to take the prominent parts that
they have in the industries and coun-
ellis of every state in the Union are
due in large part to the manhood
building work of developing that
greatest Maine resource, the forests.
We are fools, indeed If we neglect
to take account of stock, reckoning
both the supply and the demand.
Pulp mills have come from other
states whose spruce is gone and they
have come to stay. The men at the
head of these great enterprises real
lie that they must insure constant
and perpetual supply of timber In
are cutting about 700 million feet
of spruce and only about 900 million
feet are growing per year. Reckon
ing the amounts annually destroyed
by fire, wind, insects and disease,
and it does not require very wise
man to see that we are cutting over
20 per cent more spruce every year
than Is growing. Now then, we must
either decrease our cut which means
decreasing the amount of business
done by the mills, and throwing men
out of employment and money out
of circulation, or we must increase
our yield.
Ten years work in the forests of
Maine has convinced me that it Is
possible and practicable to make our
timber lands yields a billion feet of
spruce per year. | do not mean that
we can do it this year or next, but
do most emphatically mean that it
could be done in rs years.
The present average net annual
income per acre in Saxony Is $4.37
The Saxons accomplished these re-
suits by spending money for the
care of their timberlands just as they
spent money for the care of their
farm lands. They began by spend
ing 80 cents an acre and now are
spending about $2.35 per acre every
year in handling their forests. These
things can be accomplished in Maine
by the same general methods, /. e.,
efficient protection from fire, reduc-
ton of waste and more complete
utilization of the log, handling the
cutting so that complete reproduction
of young trees would be insured, and
finally by taking care of the young
tree thereafter.
The effect of this conservation of
the forests upon our other great
natural resource, the water powers
is without question, quite as i'm
portant as upon the allied timber in
dustries themselves.
Our powers have done much to-
wards the industrial development of
the State, but the future certainly
has in store an industrial era far
greater and more important than
most of us believe. We have now
2797 wheels developing 343, 096 horse
power part of the year which makes
us rank third in the country. But
if we will but stop and think how
most of the power sites are developed
We can understand what it means
for us to stand third in the country.
The average development per wheel
in Maine is only 1913 horse power
compared to 436 in California. The
recent report Of the National Con-
servation Commission shows that
we have in Maine 991 800 horse pow
er which could be developed Now
then, if we consider that each horse
power is equal to about IL tons of
coal per year, we find that our riv-
ers could drive mills requiring in
round numbers 100000 tons of
coal. A representative of one of the
large pulp corporations of Maine
testified before committee in Con-
gress this year that his company
estimated that water power was
worth $40 per horse power per year,
which would put monetary value of
nearly $40,000,000 per year for our
Maine powers, an amount 10 times
greater than the value of our spruce
cut.
The relationship of the forests upon
the water power lies in the reservoir
capacity of the watersheds. Broad
ly speaking, it can be said that ev-
cry bit of water flowing over the top
of dam during spring freshet peri
DDS or In fact at any time is wasted
water power. The ideal watershed
would of course hold this freshet
water In its soil and allow 1t to run
off very gradually into the rivers so
that the mill ponds would be always
full but never overfc wing. 1t is not
difficult to see that denuded water
shed would allow the snow water
and rain water to run OF and cause
floods and freshets much more than
a watershed covered with trees, un-
dergrowth and heavy moss. The rec
ords of the Geological survey show
beyond any question that this is a
fact. The Conservative Commission
also reports that In every state
where the forests have been cut OF,
there has been a gradual decrease
in the annual rain fall. This has
been a much disputed question, but
the commission has records of rain
gauges of fifty years to substantiate
its claim.
In the matter of natural reser-
voirs, Maine Is more fortunate than
any other state in the Union because
1t has more acres of water to the
square mile than any other state.
Each of our great rivers has one or
several large bodies of water to
serve as a catch basin, such as
Moosehead for the Kennebec and the
Rangeleys for the Androscoggin.
The construction of dams on all
the reservoirs of the drainage area