FORESTER'S REPORT. 73 



PRIVATE FORESTRY. 



SUMMARY. 



Owners with an interest even greater than that of the State are 

 practicing forestry 200,000 trees a year being planted 

 Wood-using industries needed The Forest Commission will 

 help owners develop their woodlands. 



To bring about the practice of forestry by woodland owners 

 is the ultimate object of the Forest Commission. With about 

 2,000,000 acres of land classified as forest the State has only 

 an insignificant lumber industry. That is, insignificant by com- 

 parison with the industry as it is found in many other States. 

 Still our situation may be considered promising rather than 

 otherwise, for while practically without the virgin forests which 

 at present form the chief support of the lumbermen in this coun- 

 try, we have an opportunity to establish new forests that in time 

 are sure to prove one of our most valuable assets. But having 

 long passed from public to private ownership our forest land is 

 likely to remain there. This is especially true of North Jersey, 

 where the establishment of estates, and the development of com- 

 munities in which the space devoted to each individual is un- 

 usually large, tend toward the retention of the forests in private 

 possession against any effort that the State might make to acquire 

 them. And from the silvicultural point of view it matters little 

 whether a forest is publicly owned or privately owned so long 

 as it is rightly managed. 



From this standpoint the present situation is highly satis- 

 factory for it is possible to show that properties ranging in size 

 from 50 acres to 20,000 acres, and aggregating perhaps 200,000 

 acres, have been brought under forest management, while there 

 are many indications that the actual area under development, 

 or perhaps only under protection, is several times that total. This 

 is because many small properties in all parts of the State, and 



