SILVICULTURAL TREATMENT OF ABANDONED PAS- 

 TURES IN SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 



By Philip T. Coolidge. 



The lands used by early generations in New England for field 

 crops, orchards, hay, and especially for pasture, began to be 

 abandoned fully eighty years ago. Abandonment of lands so used 

 became common fifty or sixty years ago when the emigration 

 westward reached large proportions. The settlement of the 

 fertile lands from Western New York to Illinois put both agri- 

 culture and grazing on the worn New England soils at an 

 economic disadvantage. The necessity for winter feeding im- 

 posed by the heavy snows, also, has made New England less suit- 

 able than the West for the live-stock industry. As the herds and 

 flocks were withdrawn, the forest slowly reclaimed the land long 

 before won from it. Where grass land is used for pasturage 

 without cultivation, only severe grazing can prevent slow refores- 

 tation in a region like New England, naturally forest clad — a con- 

 dition to which the scattered Cedar and Juniper in most pastures 

 still in use bear testimony. 



The natural regeneration of the forest was considered a 

 deterioration of the land until the growing scarcity of timber 

 reversed this sentiment. It may be now assumed that land on 

 which forest growth has been allowed to return is more valuable 

 for the production of timber than for any other purpose. There 

 is at present in New England a rapidly growing demand for the 

 practice of intensive methods of forestry on lands not suited for 

 other uses. Unfortunately, where land has been abandoned for 

 agriculture or grazing, the returning forest consists for many 

 years of Red Cedar, Juniper, Gray Birch, Alder and other species 

 of little or no value. These species not only produce little timber 

 of value themselves, but choke better species, whether of natural 

 or of artificial origin. 



On all open lands — except swamps and soilless rocks — the in- 

 vestigations of the State Foresters of several New England 

 States — notably Connecticut and Massachusetts — prove beyond 

 doubt that plantations of White Pine, Chestnut and certain other 



