Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1911-01-27
FORESTRY IN VERMONT.
Work Making Rapid Progress on the Es-
tate Presented by Charles Downer.

At the session of the Vermont Legisla-
ture of 1908 laws were passed creating
State Forestry Department. AS it was
piece of legislation having the hearty APP
proval of the people of the state, the de-
partment came into being strong and full
hedged in its every essential detail The
state authorities looked about for a de-
artment head and found him in Professor
Austin +. Halves, of Connecticut, who
knows how to scale log, to measure
pile of wood and thin out a young growth
of trees.
once installed as State Forester, Pro-
fessor Halves, well backed by the state
authorities, began the work of providing
the means for forest tree planting. for de-
monstration work in the care and cutting
of woodlands and in all else pertaining
to the subject. To increa Sc the efficiency
of the department the state early in 1903
bought a tract of forest land in the town
of Plainfield, near Montpelier, and placed
this in the care Of the State Forestry
Department Scarcely had work begun in
earnest on Plainheld tract when the
state received a gift of an estate in the
town of Sharon for forestry work and
experimentation for demonstration in APP
pie orchards and for experimental Vegeta-
BILE growing; this last under the direction
of the Department of Horticulture of the
State Agricultural College.
The gift was absolutely without condi-
ton, requirement or eXacton, ana was
promptly accepted by the state and was
placed in the care of the forestry depart
ment. The opening of spring of 1910 saw
the plans for its workings set in opera
ton, and already these have attained to
large and important proportions.
The donor of the estate was Charles
Downer, a native son of Sharon, a gradu-
ate Of Harvard University, class of 'S9.
and of it's Law School of 1892. Mr.. Dow
ner has retained his residence in YER
mont, and its people hope he will ever
remain one of its citizens.
To the estate he gave to Vermont has
been given the name Of the Charles Dow
ner State Forest. 1t contains in excess
OF three hundred acres, of which eighty
acres are valuable. mature wood land;
fifty acres are tillage land that Is in
fine state OF cultivation and easy to
work: one hundred and fifty acres are in
pasture, five in twenty-year- apple
orchard, which area will be considerably
increased, and there are fifteen acres OF
swamp. A large part OF the present
pasturage area will be planted to forest
trees, the present plan contemplating the
setting out of 143, 157 OF such trees. In
cluded in the species and varieties to be
planted are white red. Scotch and Aus
TRAN pine, Norway, Adirondack and white
spruce, balsam and red FIR European
| larch, arborltal black locust. black wal
nut, white ASH, red OAK DasSWood anu
| hemlock OF the above the white and red
| pine, the white spruce. the white ash,
red oak, Eastwood and hemlock are all
| indigenous to the White River Valley
| lin which is Sharon section of Vermont
| The others named are introduced trees.
| White spruce. while common In other
| sections of Vermont, is not so in this
| locality for the entire White River Val
| ley opens to the sun in southeasterly
| SlODp
! sections OF even southern New England
The Indian of the river and valley was
Cascadnac, meaning white, and this
name is much used by the people In the
valley towns as a title to associations,
| hotels, estates and the like, just as Man
haitian is in New York and Shawmut In
| Boston.
The waters OF the White River and
all its tributary brooks and rivulets are
| of crystalline whiteness; so much so that
one standing on the bank of the river can
see the mnutest pebble from shore to