70 REPORT OF THE FOREST COMMISSION. 



Similar cuttings for improvement, however, rather than for 

 revenue, are planned to be made on the Mays Landing and 

 Lebanon Reserves during the current winter. These will be 

 located in the most exposed places, so that neighboring forest 

 owners may learn how to treat their own properties. The cut- 

 ting on the Stokes Reserve, authorized under the purchase con- 

 tract, is nearly all done. A few tie choppers will work during 

 the year and a half that remains of the time allowed, but in the 

 main the property is now in the hands of the Forest Commis- 

 sion. Unfortunately, no means of disposing o-f the excess of 

 cordwood has yet been found. The forest cannot have the treat- 

 ment it needs until this is possible and efforts are still making 

 to that end. See page 75. 



FOREST FIRES. 



During the year a few fires occurred in the State reserves. 

 Mays Landing, Bass River, Penn and Mount Laurel were en- 

 tirely free as they have been since they were acquired, while only 

 ten acres were burned on the Stokes and less than twenty acres 

 on the Lebanon. This is a marked gain over 1910, and as a 

 result of the protection afforded, the forest, whether pine, oak 

 or cedar swamp, is shooting upward and filling out, proving con-' 

 clnsively the contention that such property has a real potential 

 value, and that the low esteem in which the woodlands of the 

 State have been held is due almost exclusively to the recurrence 

 of forest fires. See Figs. 6, 7, 8, 9. In particular the pine on the 

 four South Jersey reserves is growing at a rate that promises 

 a fair stand of timber within comparatively few years. None 

 of this timber will be good according to present commercial 

 standards, for the trees have been too frequently burned and 

 the soil too much impoverished by fires, but it will form a crop, 

 and while growing will prepare the ground for a better forest 

 after a while. This hopeful outlook does not extend to the 

 Stokes Reserve, because the forest there contains a large propor- 

 tion of chestnut which from present indications must be sacrificed 

 within a few years. So far as all other species are concerned, 

 however, the stand is as satisfactory as on the other reserves. 



