State Parks and Forests in Connecticut 
Alain C. White 
The keynote of the State Parks in Connecticut is their variety, 
and their importance Hes in their being part of a general plan which 
has been slowly developing since the formation of the Park Commis- 
sion in 1 91 3. The needs of a small state are for comparatively many 
small parks preserving different natural features and illustrating 
different natural characteristics. While the Connecticut system is 
still in its beginnings, the difference between it and the New York 
plan is instructive. New York already has 7 per cent of its acreage 
in parks, some 39 in number, a single one of which, the great Adiron- 
dacks Preserve, includes 1,500,000 acreas, or haff the area of the whole 
state of Connecticut. Connecticut, on the other hand, now has only 
9,000 acres in her state parks and forests combined, less than Mount 
Greylock Park in Massachusetts; but these 9,000 acres form not less 
than 24 Parks, not to speak of the four Forests and the Historical 
reservations of Israel Putnam Memorial Camp and Fort Griswold, 
which are administered by State Commissions separate from the 
Park Commission. If Connecticut were developing its parks on the 
New York scale, it should have only two parks, each of 100,000 acres! 
The state park problem of a small state, then, is to make a full 
survey of even the smallest opportunities in each county, studying 
every lake, every view-affording mountain summit, every river, the 
shore line, the remaining stands of fine timber, and consulting alike 
the needs of the different elements of the population, from the motorist 
who wishes to lunch by the wayside of the principal highways to the 
tramper who asks for a trail down the curious trap-rock ridges west 
of the Connecticut river; while the state forest problem is to develop 
in each county at least one forest large enough to be commercially 
sustaining and to serve as a local example of the needs and methods 
of forestry. 
While the Connecticut system is stiU in its beginnings, awaiting 
more liberal legislative support before it can grow to a complete 
realization of the Commission's plans, the choice of park sites is 
already representative. 
The shore of Long Island Sound, with its uplands and salt mead- 
ows, is represented by Hanamonasset Beach (in Madison), 552 acres. 
This is already the most popular of the state parks, though only open 
within the year. Its mile of fine swimming beach was visited by as 
many as 6,000 visitors on a single Sunday of the summer. Sherwood 
Island (Westport), 30 acres, is another shore park, as yet unde- 
veloped. 
There are three parks on the Connecticut River, of which the 
most important is Hurd Park (East Hampton), 455 acres. 
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