332 FORESTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 



principal species thus used, while oak is used for ties, and all 

 species are used for cordwood. 



In possibilities for the sale of cordwood the white pine region 

 excels the other New England forest regions. This is due 

 mainly to the dense population, which affects the sale of cord- 

 wood in two ways; first, by affording a market, and second, 

 by making possible close utilization for other more valuable 

 products, and hence effecting a reduction in the amount of 

 material which has to be put into cordwood. 



This last point has special weight with conifers which lend 

 themselves more readily to close utilization in the tops for valu- 

 able products than do hardwoods. 



Ownership of Woodlands. — The forest is held mainly in 

 woodlots and small-sized tracts. The size of the average farm 

 is about eighty to one hundred acres and part of it is usually 

 wooded. 



In Massachusetts, in the year iqo6, the records showed 

 only forty-five holdings of over one thousand acres each, and 

 a number of them were in the western part of the state, outside 

 the white pine region. In Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont 

 a relatively larger number of big holdings exist, but a holding 

 of 10,000 acres is an exceptionally large tract for the region, 

 and very few occur. 



The large holdings are either in the possession of box concerns 

 or lumbermen, or form private preserves and parks. All these 

 classes of owners are apt to increase in the future. Except for 

 small scattered tracts in Massachusetts, not exceeding a few 

 thousand acres, and a couple of small state forests in Con- 

 necticut, the states do not appear as owners of forests lands. 



Forest Protection. 



Forest Fires. — It might at first thought seem that the white 

 pine region with its wooded area broken up into woodlots, and 

 with its dense population, should be comparatively free from 

 fires. Unfortunately increased density of population is not 

 necessarily accompanied by decrease in the number of forest 



