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varied ntiniber of species it has been necessary to group them into 

 types and herewith is given a tahle showing the area of these for- 

 est types and non-forest types of the whole county. It will be 

 seen from this table that the forest area covers a little more than 

 half the county. The oak type which consists of white, red and 

 black oak covers 27^ of the total area. The pitch pine covers 

 36^ of the total area. The other types, namely scrub oak which is 

 plantable to a certain extent, pitch pine and oak and scrub oak 

 which is so thick that we cannot plant it, comprise the remainder 

 of the forest land. A great deal of this idle and scrub oak land, 

 together with areas of hardwoods that will be cut off for cordwood 

 froia time to time, can be planted with valuable timber species. 

 Oape God is by no means utterly hopeless. We can have forests in 

 that section which will be as good if not better, than in some other 

 sections of the State if the matter is given strict attention. 



Turning our attention to the matter of fire, we found 

 areas in Falmouth, Bourne, Sandwich, Mashpee, Dennie and Yarmouth, 

 as well as Wellfleet, which had been burned over from one to three 

 times, leaving the soil in such a sterile state that nature has a 

 hopeless task in trying to seed it. It is necessary for man to 

 step in and plant the trees. This condition has been allowed to 

 come about through lack of foresight and absolute carelessness of 

 the landowners on the Oape, but we believe that through education 

 the forest fire prevention campaign now being carried on by this 

 department over the Oape and the publicity given it, that we can 

 fully expect to see these areas remain free from fire in the future. 

 Large stands of old growth pine in Falmouth which were absolutely 



