No. 4.] REPORT OF STATE FORESTER. 295 



towns may obtain from lands which are now in their possession lying idle 

 and unused. We believe that the time is not far distant when municipali- 

 ties, like the State and nation, will take up forestry development in their 

 midst, and that our towns and cities, like the communities of the Old 

 World, will own their municipal forests. On the land which they have 

 already acquired for the protection of a water supply is the place to begin. 



Appended is given a list of 47 towns holding such lands, and the area 

 held. Ten of these have sought advice from this office in regard to the 

 management of their lands, and 8 have in part carried out our suggestions, 

 yet we are compelled to say that even these are only playing at forestry 

 work. 



No one is in a more fortunate position to practice forestry than a munic- 

 ipal water commission. It has as a rule no taxes to pay, the time element 

 so detrimental to private ownership is wanting, because a municipality has, 

 in theory at least, an everlasting existence, and the land which was bought 

 as a protection for the water supply, from the forestry standpoint costs 

 them nothing. 



The Metropolitan Water Board has planted some 1,200 acres of land 

 with pine and hardwoods at an average cost of $20 per acre. In addition, 

 in the first ten years they have had to spend $6 per acre for improvement 

 cutting, and about 25 cents per year for fire patrol. The studies of this 

 ofiice have shown that average land planted to pine will yield 46,500 feet 

 per acre in fifty years, worth on the stump at present prices S465. Now let 

 us balance these figures, figuring our investment at 3^ per cent., a fair 

 average rate of interest on most municipal bonds. 



Stumpage 



Yield 

 per Acre. 

 Cost of planting at $20 for fifty years, interest 3j per cent. 



compounded, . . . . . . . $111 70 $465 00 



Improvement cuttings at $6 for forty years, interest com- 

 pounded at 3 J per cent., . . . . . . 23 75 



Fire patrol 25 cents per year for fifty years, interest com- 

 pounded at 3 2 per cent., . . . . . . 33 90 



Add to make even dollars, ...... 65 



$170 00 $465 00 



This leaves a net balance of $290 profit per acre over and above 3^ per 

 cent, return on the money invested, a rate of return equal to 7J per cent., 

 and this is based on stumpage prices prevailing at the present time, and 

 stumpage will certainly be worth no less fifty years hence. Will you not 

 agree with us that a town that holds land which is lying waste and idle, 

 owned merely to keep some one from living on it, is committing a grave 

 economic mistake when it fails to develop it into a forest? 



To take a practical example of the value that forestry can be to a town, 

 Westfield owns 942 acres of land on its watershed in Granville, of which 

 this office made a careful study. We found that 488 acres of this area were 

 covered with some form of woodland and 454 acres were more or less 



