REPORT ON FORESTS. 5 



owners take care that they are not damaged by cattle running 

 at large and by the careless and malicious acts of trespassers. 

 The forest management in protection is the best, but the treat- 

 ment is not generally that of a crop, except when the timber is 

 cut or the land is cleared for additional fields. The gathering 

 of the crop is undoubtedly well done and better and more profit- 

 able than would be possible under State or any public control of 

 these lots. The weak point in the system or management is 

 the indifference of the owner to the kind of timber and the 

 thickness of the stand of the trees. A careful examination of 

 these lots shows that in many the trees are of inferior kinds, of 

 brushy form and thin stand, allowing of too much under- 

 growth. At this point scientific forest management would be 

 helpful and the crop would be correspondingly more valuable. 

 Scientific forestry should aid the farmer in caring for wood-lot 

 just as the tillage of the soil and the pasturage of these farms 

 have been improved greatly by the application of the principles 

 of science to agriculture. 



In the mountainous districts of the State the variation is 

 more in the kind of timber. The Kittatinny mountain has a 

 mixed growth of coniferous and deciduous trees, and also the 

 more rocky parts of the Bearfort and Green Pond mountains. 

 The Highlands forest is nearly all of the broad-leaf kinds, and 

 the chestnut predominates among them. Coniferous trees are 

 scarce. The trap-rock ridges have a more mixed growth on 

 them, and poor in quality. The woodland in these mountainous 

 districts is held generally in large tracts, from several hundred 

 to several thousands of acres, and owing to their size fires occur 

 and burn over large areas, particularly where there are pines 

 in the growth. The damage from cattle and from trespassers 

 also is here felt. Very little of the timber is mature or old, 

 the whole having been cut over since the first settlement of the 

 country, and over large areas there have been repeated cuttings 

 for the fuel used in forges, furnaces and in railway use and 

 other constructions. In the Highlands the losses from fires are 

 comparatively little and the protection is efficient. Here also 

 silviculture might come in to the advantage of the large land- 

 holders, and the scientific forester might be helpful in caring 

 properly for the timber, and in cutting so as to promote better 

 successive growths. 



