The independent-reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1909-1955, 1923-12-13
100000 ACRES OF
Woodland IN MAINE
\. Great Northern Paper Company
owns or Leases One Mil
lion Acres

zach of the alarming talk about
onnroaching depletion of the
s..ts appearing in magazines and
.swbere, is hysteria or propaganda.
..ssts have suffered greatly in
erica. but where they have been
{.,Santly cut, there seems to be little
..sor of exhausting the supply. AS
Illustration, there are nineteen
Nmions of acres of woodlands in
Zine and each year greater care
4 heing exercised in conserving.
line through a system of State pro-
zion, is particularly successful in
riding off destruction by forest fires.
The Great Northern Paper Com
.rv owns or leases one million
i.-ps. the spruce is used exclusively
1 newsprint manufacture and thus
1, II has not been necessary to en-
I,ge in any demonstration on the
I,onerty. The trees are at their
IN when sixty to seventy-five years
\ age; the woods are cut over about
I,ery twenty-five to thirty years, all
! the younger timber being permit
4 to stand. The spruce, like other
Foods. reseeds itself and while chem
|ts are at work, endeavoring to find
Iome way to use hardwoods, such as
Ilrch and beech, in the making of
Isvsprnt, no method has as yet been
E,yised When that time does ar
(Iye some new means of transport
he the wood from the forests to the
INNS will have to be found as the
I,dwood will not float.
Spruce is foated through the rivers
Ind sideways distances of several
Kindred miles, and the cost of con-
,tucting railroads into the forests
rould be so enormous as to make the
lperation almost prohibitive. But
tactical woodsmen will tell you that
the trees are not cut when they
ONE of full age, they proceed to die
nd that so long as they are felled at
he proper age the new growth will
o On indefinitely.
PRIMITIVE LIVING
The spruce is cut in four feet
,ngths right in the forests, where
Ne lumberjacks live In most print
Ne fashion. 1t is world all by
BELT, and these folks would not be
pntent to hedge themselves in with
hat we are pleased to call advanced
lily life They work long hours, eat
ough foods in abundance and are
hysically as fit as Indians. Every
ossible care Is taken to safeguard
ealth, and to facilitate transporta-
on through the forests. The Great
orthern has itself constructed near
two hundred miles of fine automo-
lie roads.
The big cutting begins in Septem-
ar and the lumberjacks work
rough the winter, the spruce being
,uled on sleds to the waters where
is unloaded on the ice for the
,ring drives. During the summer
onths the fine draught horses, about
even hundred in number, roam the
orsts and live the wild life. Great
Ntors are supplanting the horses,
/ not altogether. Last winter on
; Great Northern reservation. some
900, 900 feet of spruce was cut.
The sluicing or driving of this
cd through the rivers and lakes is
haps the most fascinating incident
all. Through one dam, that known
Ripogenus, 100000 cords of wood
been driven in a season. 1t is
biggest of the dams on the Great
'thern property and has made one
e of what formerly was three in
west branch of the Penobscot riv-
The shore line of the new lake
wo hundred miles, and this enor-
US storage of water Is used for
icing the logs, as we'll as provid-
power for the great plant at MILL
ket.
across the giant lakes that have
N made by the dams the logs are
red by tugs in what are known as
ms, being again set loose at the
iceways to make their own way
Vn the streams. The great plant
Millinocket has a production ca
,ity of $50 tons of newsprint paper
lay. Into each ton of paper goes
. and one-third cords of spruce
od and two-thirds of ton of coal.
sause, in addition to the enormous
Yer created by the water that
Ives the machinery the use of coal