The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1905-10-03
MANAGEMENT OF WOODLANDS.
Work on Country Estates-O Object Les-
sons as Good Examples in Forestry.

Work on Country Estates-ObJec6 Les
sons as Good Examples in Forestry.
At Hyde Park on the Hudson, some
eighty miles north of New York City,
two gentlemen have called in the aid
of forestry in the management of their
large private estates. FOreSterS are
engaged in making a working plan for
the guidance of the owners, and this
will soon be completed and put in
operation, and will later be printed.
The estates belong to A. Rogers and
y S. Huyler, and consist Of about / 600
acres each, of which from $50 to 500
acres are under forest. The owners
were DESTROYS of managing their wood
lands on right principles, both for
their own satisfaction and to help
along the cause of forestry by good ex-
ample. They agreed to defray the ex-
penses of making the working plan if
the Forest Service would furnish the
expert knowledge, and the Forest Ser
vice, which has long successfully CO.
operated In this way, agreed, after an
agent had made a report, to contri-
butte the services of a number of for
esters.
Most of the cooperative work of the
Forest Service with owners of large
timber tracts, or with lumbermen,
has had commercial ends in view
This work at Hyde Park, however,
marks fresh forward stride in the
movement toward a more intelligent
use of our woodlands, in that it is un-
dertaken mainly in the hope that it
may lead to the practice Of forestry
among private owners who are imam
cially independent, and whose desire
to handle their forests for revenue and
improvement is therefore especially
significant and helpful.
The forest consists of cut-over lands,
with good growth of such trees as
oak, hickory, and chestnut, and hem
lock and pine in mixture. The study
on which a party Of men from the
Forest Service have been at work
since May ], will show both the pres
ent stand OF timber and the produce
tive capacity of the forest for cutting
with view of lasting revenue.
In view of the special character Of
the problem-the combination of
working plan with object lesSon-the
method OF preliminary work differs
| from that hitherto followed in most
cases, where advice is given for own
ers to follow in their own way ; for it
is the owners desire not only to be
| told, but also to be shown, how the
thinning chould be done. For this
purpose areas in different stands and
different conditions have been sell
ected, trees in these areas have been
marked for thinning, and the thin
ming has then been executed on the
spot. Thus striking illustration Of
the correct procedure in each case has
been placed before the owners eyes.
Photographs taken Immediately be-
fore these cuttings, together with
other taken after, give the clearest
guidance for the further performances
of the work to be recommended in the
working plan.
Such an arrangement as this with
the owners of private estates is ideal
for educational purposes. In the work
done strictly accordingly to expert
direction it offers the be t sort of OBJ
ject lesson, ocular proof while the at
titude of the owners affords the
strongest sort of encouragement for
the extension into wider and wider
circles of the practice of conservative
forest management.