Potentialities 



What are the potentialities of the farming-area 

 forests? Nearly three-fourths of the forest area is in 

 the productive maple-beech-birch, the white pine- 

 hemlock, and the white pine-white oak forest types. 

 These stands are relatively secure from devastating 

 forest fires except in cut-over areas where heavy slash 

 has been left lying. The maple-beech-birch type is 

 well adapted to a selection system of management 

 that will yield a large volume of high-quality material 

 continuously. The other two types may have to be 

 managed on a group-selection basis in order to assure 



reproduction of white pine. All three types will 

 attain a rate of growth exceeding 250 board feet per 

 acre a year on a rotation of about 90 years — 4){ times 

 the present rate. In fact, under good management, 

 the entire forest area of the farming subregion could 

 exceed this rate of growth. Under such circumstances 

 the forests could produce about 400,000,000 board 

 feet annually as compared to less than 90,000,000 

 now. Such production would attract forest-products 

 industries requiring high-quality sugar maple, white 

 ash, black cherry, and white pine; and the income and 

 employment of the subregion would be greatly 

 increased. 



THE EXTENSIVE FORESTS 



East of the coal-field area and in two smaller 

 blocks to the west are extensive tracts of forest land 

 (fig. 35). These tracts are largely on high land, 

 much of it entirely unsuited to agriculture and too 

 remote from industrial centers for either industrial 



or suburban development. In the Pocono highlands 

 to the east, and to some extent in the North Mountain 

 area in the northwest, are summer and winter resorts 

 and other recreational developments. In Pike, Sul- 

 livan, and central Dauphin Counties commercial 



48 



Figure 35 — The extensive forests of the highlands. 



Miscellaneous Publication 648, U. S. Department of Agriculture 



