846 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Thirty percent of the number of these forests and 17 percent of the 

 area are found in the New England States, and 54 percent of the 

 number and 60 percent of the area in the Middle Atlantic States. 

 New York State alone accounts for 49 percent of the number and 

 36 percent of the area. This concentration is due to the firm belief 

 in these regions in the benefits of a forest cover on the watersheds 

 that furnish municipal water supplies, to a widespread and favorable 

 public interest in public forests, and, in Massachusetts, to the active 

 campaign put on by the Massachusetts Forestry Association. 



Probably 50 percent of these forests, embracing 80 percent of the 

 area, were acquired and developed primarily for the purpose of 

 protecting the sources of municipal water supplies. There is intensive 

 interest by their managers in protecting them from fire and even from 

 insects, and in planting forest trees. About 68,000 acres of the total 

 area have been planted. The communities in the New England and 

 Middle Atlantic States are primarily dependent for their potable 

 water supplies upon surface water that is collected in lakes and 

 ponds. Its quantity and quality are a matter of vital concern to 

 them. Efforts are not spared to keep this water pure and clean and 

 to maintain a forest cover on the watershed. 



In no case, so far as is known, have town or municipal forests in the 

 United States been developed to the extent of those in Europe. 

 They are usually made up of lands that needed planting when first 

 acquired or of cut-over mixed second-growth timber that only years 

 of careful expert management can bring to a highly productive state. 

 The average size for the country as a whole is less than 600 acres; 

 individually many are less than 200 acres and some less than 100 

 acres. The areas are too small to justify the employment of a techni- 

 cal forester to manage them. Occasional advice from consulting 

 foresters is possible but so far as known has rarely been obtained. 

 While State supervision or advice from the State technical staff might 

 take care of that, it is true that at present town forests are legally 

 subject to State supervision and direction in only two instances. 

 The local man or men in charge of them may be perfectly capable of 

 planting and protecting the lands but cannot be expected, without at 

 least occasional technical advice, to go much beyond that stage in 

 developing them. Because of their small size, their present condition, 

 and the improbability of technical management, these forests are 

 not now and do not yet promise to become very material sources of 

 revenue to the political units that own them. Only the larger ones 

 have potential possibilities in that respect. All of them will supply 

 some timber and fuel wood free fuel wood perhaps to the needy. 

 Unless there are drastic changes in conception and administration, 

 both of which are well within the realm of possibility, they are not 

 destined to be of any material importance for timber production in the 

 immediate future at least. 



Town forests do create and hold local interest in the forest and in 

 measures taken to protect them. That alone is worth a great deal. 

 Most of them will continue to be given as good care as the men in 

 charge are able to give. They will increase in number. Those be- 

 longing to growing municipalities which are obliged to extend their 

 ownership of watershed lands, will increase in area. They could be 

 and in some instances probably will become forestry demonstration 

 centers of local interest and importance. Their chief value, and it is a 



