Town forests in New England were 

 first established in the 17th century, 

 but many of them today are "largely 

 unknown, unmanaged and forgotten. " 

 In New Hampshire only 40 percent of 

 town forests are managed. J. P. Barrett 

 and his associates, however, suggest 

 that income from timber harvests could 

 help cover the cost of recreational, 

 educational and timber management 

 activities of town forests. C. D. McBane 

 and Barrett have a paper entitled 

 "Town Forests and Community Life 

 — A Management Guide" (New 

 Hampshire Agricultural Experiment 

 Station Research Report No. 109, 1986) 

 which gives suggestions for develop- 

 ing a management plan for multiple 

 use of a town forest. In other research, 

 Barrett has focused on ways of im- 

 proving estimates of growth and yield, 

 computerizing forest inventory, tree 

 stand quality and monitoring growth 

 and health of white pine in New 

 Hampshire. 



Forest tree breeding today is a 

 slow process requiring some 20 or 

 more years before progress can be as- 

 sessed. Electrophorisis technique, or 

 isozyme analysis, is used increasingly 

 in genetic studies of forest trees to 

 reveal genetic structure. To apply the 

 procedure to breeding programs ne- 

 cessitates knowing how isozyme 

 variants are inherited. AUozyme vari- 

 ants in 10 enzyme systems of loblolly 

 pine studied by W. T. Adams and R. }. 

 Joly were found to be controlled by 

 some 17 different genetic loci. Their 

 results suggest that application of the 

 technique could improve the accuracy 

 of selection of forest trees and speed 

 genetic advance. 



Forest geneticist R. T. Eckert is 

 using enzyme analysis to study the 

 effects of air pollution on white pine 

 in the Great Smokey Mountains in 

 Tennessee and on red spruce in higher 

 elevations in the Northeast, both areas 



T. E. Howard (left) and L. B. Merrick, Christmas tree grower 



71 



