4 GEOIvOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW JERSEY. 



was probably due to the increasing demand for wood, rather than 

 that for fami-land. The growth of the manufacturing interests 

 and the construction of the canals, and then the railway lines, 

 made the consumption of wood so active that ciitting made rapid 

 inroads in the deeper recesses of the forests and the whole State 

 -was practically cut over by 1850-1860. Since that time the 

 timber cut has been nearly all of "second growth," and but a 

 small part of it has been merchantable lumber. The disappear- 

 ance of the large timber has made it necessary to cut over at 

 shorter periods and leave little or no growth to reach mature 

 conditions fit for lumbering.* New Jersey has ceased to be a 

 lumber-producing State. 



PRESENT CONDITION OF FORESTS, 



The existing conditions of the forests vary greatly in the 

 several great natural divisions of the State. In the farming dis- 

 tricts every farm has its wood-lot or timber land^ which may 

 range from an acre to a hundred-acre tract, or, in some cases, 

 even two or three hundred acres, although these larger tracts 

 are generally outlying and not a part of the farm. Generally 

 they are the home-supply of fuel and fencing-timber and heavier 

 construction-work of the farm and the neighborhood. In these 

 wood-lots the largest and best timber of the State is to be found, 

 and the oak on the limestone and slate of the valleys in Sussex, 

 Warren and Morris counties, on the red-shale in Hunterdon, 

 Somerset, Mercer and Middlesex counties, and on the red-shale 

 and glacial drift soils in Bergen, Essex and Union counties, is 

 thrifty in growth and large. In the clay and greensand marl 

 belts of the State the chestnut predominates. As coppice wood 

 it is rapid-growing and valuable timber. Very little pine timber 

 is in these wood-lots, unless occasionally as the growth on an old 

 field, and rarely any mixed stand of coniferous and deciduous 

 trees. In many cases they are pure forest. These wood-lots are 

 protected against fire by their separate situations, and their 



* The largest whit^-oak tree in the State is in Gloucester County, three miles north of Mickleton, 

 and its dimensions, as given by Dr. J. T. Rothrock, are : Height, 95 feet ; diameter of trunk, three feet 

 above the ground, 7 feet 10 inches; spread pf branches, 118 feet. The dimensions of the famous Salem 

 white-oak are: Height, 78 feet; circumference, four feet above ground, 18 feet 3 inches; spread ol 

 branches, 112 feet ; area covered by branches, 9,852 square feet. These trees are older than the settle- 

 ment of the country and are of the forest vvhich then covered the country. 



