396 



Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 



program; a large industrial user of for- 

 est products will eventually be lost un- 

 less a precedent is established for the 

 management of all forest lands in the 

 county according to good forestry prin- 

 ciples; the county itself is a large user 

 of wood products for which a depend- 

 able future source must be planned; 

 the county can sup-ply its own needs 

 and at the same time stabilize local 

 employment through its forest plan; 

 the recreational value of the Allegany 

 County hills has been neglected; and 

 finally, forestry is a paying proposition, 

 and we owe it to ourselves and to our 

 heirs to leave the county in a better 

 and more stable position, as regards its 

 natural resources, than we found it. 



The county forests of New York con- 

 stitute a State-wide system that com- 

 bines a high degree of recreational 

 development with timber production. 

 Fifty-two of the counties have forests. 

 From 2 million to 5 million trees have 

 been planted by each of these coun- 

 ties. Some of the stands are now being 

 thinned by the first cutting of pulp- 

 wood, fuel wood, poles, and Christmas 

 trees. From now on they will yield a 

 steady revenue to the counties. 



There are very few counties in the 

 United States that do not have some 

 land that presents an administrative 

 problem. Cut-over land, submarginal 

 farms, spoil banks remaining from 

 mining operations, swamps, eroding 

 mountain slopes, deep gorges and 

 gullies, and sand dunes are the lands 

 that private owners cannot afford to 

 hold, problem land that nobody wants. 

 Such lands often become tax delin- 

 quent and a burden to the tax-paying 

 public. In public ownership under the 

 proper forestry management, they be- 

 come an asset instead of a liability. 

 Where they occur in very large areas, 

 they may be incorporated into national 

 or State forests, but small and scat- 

 tered tracts are best developed into 

 county or township forests under the 

 administration of the local government. 



Dispersal of the forest units through- 

 out the county does not present a seri- 

 ous problem in county administration; 



from the standpoint of making recrea- 

 tion areas accessible to everyone, the 

 dispersal is an advantage. 



ABOUT ONE-THIRD of all municipal 

 forests are watershed forests. They are 

 maintained on the land from which 

 the municipalities obtain their supplies 

 of domestic water primarily for the 

 purpose of keeping a vegetative cover 

 to protect it from erosion. On them, 

 other uses the production of timber, 

 game protection, recreation must be 

 managed so as not to interfere with 

 the main purpose. On some watershed 

 forests the reluctance to open up the 

 areas to public travel or to the utiliza- 

 tion of the timber is due to danger of 

 erosion and pollution. Construction of 

 roads and skid trails is usually accom- 

 panied by some erosion of the cut 

 banks, and the silt from those areas 

 where the ground cover is broken 

 washes down into the reservoirs. Tim- 

 ber cutting, therefore, does create spe- 

 cial problems for the waterworks 

 engineers which require special logging 

 methods designed to prevent erosion. 

 Likewise the construction of roads 

 through the areas must be accom- 

 panied by special treatment of the cuts 

 and fills to prevent silting. From the 

 standpoint of timber production, the 

 watershed forests have a higher po- 

 tential than most other community 

 forests. 



Municipal forests that are not iden- 

 tified with the water system are largely 

 managed for recreation. 



On some other watershed forests, 

 arrangements have been made for in- 

 tensive human use without contami- 

 nation of the domestic water. 



The city of Springfield, 111., has an 

 intensively used municipal forest of 

 4,300 acres, from which the city de- 

 rives water, electric power, and a 

 revenue of more than $50,000 a year 

 from recreational and residential use. 

 A crop of young timber grows on a 

 part of the fields and hillsides. There 

 is a game preserve where wildlife is 

 propagated. 



Manchester, N. H. 3 has a municipal 



