TOWN FORESTS 



By J. W. Tourney. 



Dean of the Yale Forest School 

 (Address delivered before the Massachusetts Forestry Association.) 



nn HE two broad classes of forest ownership are private 

 * ownership and public ownership. Most Americans 

 know something about public ownership due to the es- 

 tablishment and the jjiacing under management of more 

 than 150 million acres of National Forests within the 

 past thirty years. When we .Vmericans speak of public 

 forests we think of the National Forests. However, some 

 of the states in recent years have established state forests. 

 Here we have another kind of public ownership. In 

 states like New York and Pennsylvania, with a million 

 or more acres owned by the state, public forests convey 

 the idea of state owned forests. Nowhere as yet in this 

 country docs the idea of public forests bring to the 

 mind of the average citizen, community owned or town- 

 owned forests. As a nation we emphasize National For- 

 est ownership. We are beginning to talk about state 

 owned forests. We have scarcely begun to think in 

 terms of town-owned forests. Yet with all this the town, 

 a relatively small governmental unit, is in position to de- 

 rive more pleasure and profit from a well managed forest 

 of its own within reach of its population than can be 

 derived from either a state or a national forest. 



We should in this country, begin to think in terms of 

 public forests owned by communities ; that is, by towns, 

 cities, schools and similar organizations that have an 

 indefinite lease of life and which society has established 

 for its own protection and welfare. We in this country 

 differ from Europe in the way we look on communal for- 

 ests. Over there, at least in many countries, instead of 

 public forests being almost entirely under national and 

 state ownership as they are here, a relatively large per- 

 centage is owned by towns, cities and other local or- 

 ganizations. The benefits derived from them are real 

 and personal. These benefits can be experienced and 

 appreciated much more than is the case with the benefits 

 derived from national or state forests. For instance, 

 every citizen in a town that owns a productive forest 

 has not only the privilege of enjoying the forest in recre- 

 ational pursuits, but he receives a dividend from the 

 earnings of the forest in the form of remission of taxes. 

 He is directly benefited by the protection which it afTords 

 and by the products which it provides. Not a few towns 

 that own productive forests in Switzerland and Germany 

 escape all town taxes due to the fact that the revenues 

 derived from the forests are sufficient for the entire 

 supi>ort of the towns. In the older countries of Europe 

 communal forests are usually favored by the public over 

 other kinds of public forest ownership. 



In this country the bulk of our publicly owned forests 

 i> national. A limited acreage is owned by the states, 

 and practically none at all is owned by the towns and 

 simil.ir oimminiiics. Switzerland has 67 per cent of all 

 tier fori-ts under town or other kinds of communal own- 



ership. Almost every city and town, almost every school 

 and poor house, almost every church, owns a near-by 

 forest managed for production of forest products, but 

 also serving for protection and available for recreational 

 purposes. Many of these communal forests are among 

 the oldest managed forests in Europe. Some of the 

 cities and towns, as illustrated by Zurich, spend as much 

 as six or seven dollars per acre each year on their manage- 

 ment and improvement. Yet they derive from them a 

 net annual revenue as high as eight dollars per acre which 

 goes toward the relief of taxation. 



A few years ago Germany had 16.1 per cent of her total 

 forest area in corporation or communal forests, largely 

 owned by cities and towns. Many of these forests are 

 among the most productive and the most celebrated in 

 Germany, as illustrated in the town forest of Baden 

 Baden and the town forest of Forbach, both in the cele- 

 brated Black forest region. Most of the town forests in 

 this part of Germany were a few years ago, and are 

 probably now, in a high state of productivity. Although 

 located in rough mountain country, where the soil is 

 wholly unsuited for agriculture, they sustain thriving 

 permanent communities and yield a net annual revenue 

 often exceeding eight dollars per acre, and in some in- 

 stances, as is the case with the Forbach forest, as high as 

 twelve dollars. 



The old world has found that town forests pay not 

 only in affording recreational opportunities and pro- 

 tection, but in the revenue derived from the sale of forest 

 products. Old world cities and towns find it on the 

 long run the part of wisdom to pay all the way from 

 $80 to $300 per acre for forest property to be held as 

 town forests. No one hears of town forests being dis- 

 posed of to private owners, but one constantly hears of 

 new town forests being acquired either by gift or pur- 

 chase. In America our cities and towns, as well as 

 other communal organizations, have entirely overlooked, 

 up to the present, the great opportunities for forest own- 

 ership which lie at their very doors. Thousands of acres 

 of idle forest land can be secured, often not far from 

 cities or towns, often as low as- from five to ten dollars 

 per acre, with correspondingly higher prices for land 

 partially or fully stocked. 



Before the war, I gave some time and inquiry to the 

 subject of city, town and school forests in this country, 

 and from the data collected in ten states, where approxi- 

 mately 130 thousand acres of forest property was owned 

 by sixty-seven communities, I came to the conclusion 

 that a total of 250 thousand acres of communal forests 

 for the entire country was a very conservative estimate. 

 Since then no doubt the area has increased somewhat, 

 but to what extent I do not know. 



I believe it is safe to make the prediction that in the 

 {Continued on page 113) 



