22 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW JERSEY. 



parcels attached to farms. They are utilized mainly in connec- 

 tion with the farms, furnishing fuel, fencing and an occasional 

 stick of timber. Ten acres of forest so utilized is a most valu- 

 able asset on a farm of one hundred and fifty acres. From 

 appearances the 14 or 15 acres per 100 acres of upland in these 

 regions have more than sufficed for the farmers' need, and the 

 forest has gone on increasing until these farm-parcels contain 

 some of the best timber in the State. This is especially true of 

 the red sandstone in Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon and 

 Mercer counties. When it becomes so large and valuable that 

 the lumberman's offer is too tempting, the steam saw-mill does 

 its work and the timber is cut off. This is to be expected. 

 These proprietors know the value of and appreciate the beauties 

 of their woodlands, but it is good business with them to utilize 

 and convert into money all the products of their lands. So 

 when the forest crop is ripe it is gathered, the entire piece then 

 being cut off. Some of the timber on the trap ridges is small and 

 poor in quality, but the soil there is poor and there is little evi- 

 dence that the timber is anywise inferior to that of 50 years ago. 



In the pines the forest may have deteriorated because of forest 

 fires. There is evidence that these fires have occurred from the 

 very discovery of the country, but it is natural to suppose that 

 the introduction of many miles of railroad, and of an increasing 

 population, into this district have increased the number of forest 

 fires considerably. Some deterioration may, therefore, be con- 

 ceded, but there is not much proof that it has been such as to 

 cause radical changes in the character of the forest. We have 

 less data- of the former condition of this timber than for the 

 deciduous forests. There were some 25 forges and furnaces in 

 this region in 1850, together with a large number of saw-mills, 

 now abandoned, and these must have made some inroads into 

 the forest. 



As tending to corroborate the decreased cutting of timber over 

 the State in general, it is interesting to note that, during a 

 canvass of the water-powers of the State, made about 1892, for 

 the Report on Water-Supply, we' found 75 abandoned saw-mill 

 Sites, to which must be added several sites originally used for 

 saw-mills, but now utilized for other manufacturing, and also a 

 number of sites known to have once been occupied of which no 



