American Forestry 



VOL. XVII MAY, 1911 No. 5 



STATE FORESTS IN VERMONT 



By WALTER K. WILDES 



VERMONT'S need of and uses for state forests are emphatic. The initial 

 step to meet this need and to acquire areas suitable and available for 

 state forests and the consequent development of this phase of the state 

 forestry policy, was taken up by the legislature of 1908. At this time an act 

 was passed creating a Board of Agriculture and Forestry consisting of four 

 members two ex-officio, the Governor and the Director of the State Experi- 

 ment Station, and two to be appointed by the Governor. This board has the 

 authority "to accept gifts of land to the state, to be held, protected and admin- 

 istered as a state forest reserve" and "to purchase lands in the name of the 

 state" for the same purpose. 



Such areas in a state possessing the physiographic features of Vermont, 

 together with the natural beauty and scenery to attract many thousands of 

 tourists and summer residents, will naturally be divided into three distinct 

 classes, namely, demonstration forests, protection forests and areas that serve 

 primarily as parks. Each class is represented in the four tracts now owned 

 by the state of Vermont. 



From the standpoint of the development of a state forestry policy the 

 demonstration forest is first in importance. All such areas need not neces- 

 sarily be forested for they serve in two essential capacities, the one to illustrate 

 proper forest management and natural reproduction primarily ; the other to illus- 

 trate the methods and results of reforesting areas with desirable species by arti- 

 ficial methods. In the former, thinnings of the proper intensity and species 

 are made, either for the immediate improvement of the stand or to provide for 

 such reproduction as the site and existing desirable species will allow. 

 Another important advantage of such areas, where lumbering is practical, is 

 to convince local operators that scientific cutting is profitable; that it is not 

 necessary to cut clean in order to realize a legitimate return. Often times a 

 contractor is skeptical when he is asked to figure on a cut where only marked 

 trees are to be removed or where lopping and piling coniferous tops, in order 

 to eliminate as far as possible the danger from fire, is demanded, or where 

 closer utilization is required. Both owners and contractors learn, after an 

 actual operation, that the extra expense imposed by the above conditions is 

 only a very small percentage higher than the cost based upon the usual 

 methods and that this excess is amply justified by the results. 



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