THE SIZE OF STATE FORESTS. 

 By J. S. Illick. 



Thirteen of the United States own forest land aggregating 

 about 3,250,000 acres. New York ranks first with 1,645,000 

 acres and Pennsylvania second with 1,000,000 acres and 130 

 perches. The area of State-owned forest land in these two States 

 comprises three-fourths of the total State-owned forest land in 

 the United States. 



The first requirement of every kind of soil management is the 

 division of the aggregate area into suitable parts, i. e., into ad- 

 ministrative units and managerial units. This is true in forestry as 

 well as in agriculture, horticulture, and gardening. A systematic 

 organization of a forest, which presuppose;": a subdivision of it, 

 is a prerequisite to orderly procedure. It facilitates the directive, 

 inspective, executive and protective function of the personnel. 



This article will consider the division of State-owned forest 

 land into administrative units. Special reference will be made to 

 the forests owned by the State of Pennsylvania, because in them 

 organized forest management has been in operation for some 

 time. Pennsylvania owns at the present time 1,000,000 acres of 

 forest land located in 26 counties and purchased at a total cost 

 of $2,277,962.31 or an average of $2.27 per acre. The area 

 owned in the 26 counties varies from 1,176 acres in Wyoming and 

 3,538 acres in Lackawanna to 126,155 acres in Potter and 126,777 

 acres in Clinton. The total acreage of State-owned forest land 

 in the last two named counties comprises more than one-fourth of 

 the total owned by the State. The major part of the State-owned 

 forest land is located in the rough or mountainous part of the 

 State, and usually found in rather large contiguous areas. Most 

 of it is located in the northeastern, north-central, central, and 

 south-central part of the State. In order to facilitate the direction 

 and inspection of the various forestal activities, a grouping into 

 districts has been proposed and in part inaugurated. The dis- 

 tricting will be worked out primarily on a geographical basis. A 

 district may simply embrace the forest of a single county or it 



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