III. CHANGES AFTER EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

he Colonial Period

~ European settlement spread throughMassachusetts at uneven rates. Thecoastal counties Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Ply-mouth, and Bristol were largely settled by 1675,as was the Connecticut River valley, with set-tlers moving northward from settlements mthe Springfield area that dated from the early1600s. Concentrated in the coastal lowlandsand major river valleys, these early settlementzones corresponded closely with the areaswhere aboriginal practices had most affected theforests. Settlement spread westward from thecoast into Middlesex and Worcester counties inthe late seventeenth and early eighteenth centu-ries and into the foothills of the ConnecticutRiver valley during the sameperiod. In 1725 Massachusettsbegan using land grants to payoff debts, especially for mili-tary sermce,’~ which encour-aged settlement in the centralupland areas. The last areas tobe settled, from the second halfof the eighteenth century intothe beginning of the nineteenthcentury, were the BerkshireMountams and the northern-most portions of the central

uplands.Forest clearing was initially

quite slow, for reasons thatincluded the lack of marketsfor excess production and atown organization based on theEuropean model of a central-ized settlement and commonfield system.’~,’9 More than a hundred yearsafter its settlement in 1635, Concord was stillmore than fifty percent forested. This rate ofdeforestation, about 0.4 percent a year, wastypical of towns in the seventeenth century. 16

A shift to a town pattern of dispersed settlementand individual ownership of private land, withall land in the township distributed, led tomuch more rapid deforestation toward themiddle of the eighteenth century. Rates of 0.8percent to 1.0 percent per year were commonin the second half of the eighteenth centuryboth in older towns like Concord and new oneslike Petersham.

This acceleration in deforestation comcidedwith a shift toward a market economy, partlydriven by a developmg beef trade with the WestIndies. Cattle were suitable for remote hilltownfarms during this period because they could bewalked to market on the rudimentary roads thatprecluded the long-distance transport of most

Changes m the percentage of the land area covered by forest durmg thehistoncal pemod m the state of Massachusetts, town of Petersham, andthe Prospect Hill tract of the Harvard Forest Z°

products. The difficulty of transport also partlyexplains the methods most commonly used toclear the forest: girdling the trees and leavmgthem in place to fall apart slowly, or cutting andburning them.’~ Except where water transport

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These maps of the township of Petersham, Massachusetts, depict soil smtabihty and stone walls, on the left,and on the nght, forest cover m 1830 and 1985 Stone walls and agricultural land are concentrated m areas ofmore productive soil.2’

was available, trees had value as lumber or fire-wood only locally. Potash, a relatively morecompact and transportable product, was prob-ably the major marketable product from thetrees of these early farms.

Pasture was the most suitable use for mostof Massachusetts, since the rockiness of mostareas made preparing land for tillage a long andbackbreakmg chore. It has been said that it tooktwo generations to clear upland farms for plow-ing, the first to remove the trees and the secondto remove the stones. The massive stone walls

surrounding abandoned fields across the state

attest to the effort required by the second task.And yet the great number of rocks scattered

throughout the remaining pastures and second-growth woods suggest that the majority of thelandscape was never tilled, but rather grazed orat most mowed. The principal exceptions, ofcourse, were the major river valleys, wherepostglacial alluvial deposits provided excellenttillage once the trees were removed. These areasare notable for their lack of stone walls.

In upland areas, hilltops were often selectedfor village centers and initial clearing for agri-culture because they had good drainage and

Above left, presettlement forest; below, mitial clearmg and subsistence farmmg, 1740 Most humandisturbances pnor to European settlement were mfrequent and scattered. Nonetheless, the forest commumtiesthat the settlers encountered had evolved under dynamic conditions and had been m place only a relatmelyshort time

These images are from the dioramas (three-dimensional models) in the Land-Use History semes onpermanent display at the Fisher Museum of Forestry, Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts. They depicttypical changes m the upland Massachusetts landscape, from mitial European settlement through the 1930s(when they were constructed) Other dioramas m this remarkable senes depict forest management andconservation practices.

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relatively few stones. Except for the broad rivervalleys, inland lowlands often offered poordrainage and a shorter growing season. Colo-nists commonly evaluated land quality on thebasis of topography and on their knowledge ofthe site preferences of different tree species andforest types.’~,19

Initially, a farmer might clear six to eightacres over the course of several years. Whentilled, this initial clearing could support a typi-cal family of five to seven.16 During this periodthe dominant economic base of rural Massachu-setts was low-intensity agriculture combinedwith artisanship. Few individuals providedfor all their needs through their own labor,but through cooperation and exchange, town-ships could be largely self-sufficient. Townssupported a range of artisans, shops, mills, andtanneries. Roads provided internal circulationbut relatively poor access to external markets.At the same time, coastal communities weredeveloping extensive fishing, manufacturing,

and shipping industries, exploitmg local forestsfor shipbuilding materials and export products.By the mid-1700s Salem was the most prosper-ous port in the country and a center of world-wide trade.

Agricultural PeriodThe period from the late 1700s through the firsthalf of the nineteenth century saw a majortransformation of the economy, social struc-ture, and landscape of Massachusetts.z2,2s,z4 Therural economy underwent a shift from homeproduction and local consumption to market-oriented intensive agriculture, enabled by theimprovement in transportation brought aboutby newly constructed roads, canals, and rail-roads. Farmers responded to the expanding mar-kets by clearing more forested land and drainingwetlands, often on marginally productive sites.Pasture remained the primary land use, withbeef and wool the dominant farm productsuntil canal and rail connections with the West

Height of mtensme farmmg, 1830 The percentage of land cleared for tillage, pasturage, orchards, and bmldmg sites mcentral Massachusetts was about 70 percent A century later, the percentages of cleared and forested areas had beenreversed. The stone walls testify to the tremendous labor required to farm land that is better adapted to growmg trees thanhay and gram

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and relaxation of wool tariffs m the 1830s and1840s reduced their profitability.22 Most farmfamilies also engaged in home production ofsome sort (shoes, hats, clothes), and manyearned some income from mills or tanneries.Local industry thrived, and most hill townsreached their peak levels of agricultural andcommercial activity, as well as population, dur-ing this period.’9 However, this period also rep-resented the start of the region’s shift toindustry, a factor that together with the expand-ing national transportation network and west-ward settlement initiated the decline of New

England agriculture.Many settlements literally moved downhill,

changing from ridgetop agricultural villages toriverside industrial towns for a variety of rea-sons. Hill towns without significant water-power resources were unable to participate inthe transition from an agricultural to a manu-facturing economy. The new factories for pro-ducing textiles, wooden products, and toolsneeded water to power their machmes.zs Thedeveloping railroad network, which followedthe same watercourses that the factories usedfor power, transported raw materials and fin-ished products to and from the factories. Thenew roads and railroads allowed many non-

perishable farm products to be shipped fromthe Midwest more cheaply than they could beproduced in Massachusetts.Many factors contributed to the decline of

Massachusetts agriculture, but depletion of thefertility of the land was not a major one. In fact,there is evidence that the quality of tilled landin hill towns improved through the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries.26 The disadvantagesof Massachusetts farmland included stony soiland small fields divided by numerous stonewalls, which were incompatible with mechani-zation. Industrial production and improvedtransportation removed opportunities forsupplemental income by reducing the need forlocal artisanship. Social factors also contributedto the decline of Massachusetts’ hill-town agri-culture : attractiveness of urban amenities andincome, the decline of interest in agriculturallife, and the shrinking economic opportunitiesin small towns.The pattern of decline was strongly influ-

enced by regional geography. Towns adjacent to

developing industrial centers like Worcester andFitchburg had a ready market for fuelwood, pro-duce, and milk, while those more distant pro-duced butter, cheese, and hay. The farthestdistant towns declined most rapidly.zz,z~ In 1810Massachusetts was an agricultural state with apopulation of 412,000 that was remarkablyevenly distributed in rural areas (79 percent),with the exception of Boston, Salem, and a fewother coastal communities. Industrialization

brought a tremendous increase and concentra-tion of population in urban and, more recently,suburban centers. In 1975, 85 percent of thepopulation of 5.8 million was located in urbanareas. In contrast, many rural communitieshave greatly declined in population over thepast hundred years.z8How did our forests fare during the agricul-

tural period? By the late eighteenth century thegradual clearing of the first half of that centuryhad become a rapid deforestation that continueduntil the mid-nineteenth century. Forest clear-

ing was concentrated in the uplands, with thewetter swamps and steep, rocky slopes generallyleft as woodlots. The Berkshires were the lastareas to be cleared and were never developed foragriculture to the extent that the remainder ofthe state was. The statewide peak in the level ofdeforestation was reached about 1860, by whichtime nearly 70 percent of the land was cleared.Many areas east of the Berkshires experiencedthe same pattern as Petersham and the ProspectHill tract of Harvard Forest, with maximumclearance in the 1840s to 1860s, when less than20 percent of the forest remained. The locationand amount of forest left uncleared varied bygeography. For example, in the north-centralportion of Massachusetts from the ConnecticutRiver valley to eastern Worcester County, thehills east of the valley, with many rocky ridges,remained largely forested, as did the north-south-trending, poorly drained valleys farthereast. Most of the rest of the region was cleared.Of course, even areas not cleared for agricul-

ture were harvested intensively by the nine-teenth century. The growing rural populations,whose numbers peaked in the mid-1800s,required large amounts of cordwood for fuel.Petersham, for example, had a population ofnearly 1,800 people in 1840. Assuming an aver-age household size of six, this population would

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have represented three hundred households toheat. If each household used 15 cords a year (aconservative figure when fireplaces are used),they would have required a total of 4,500 cordsof fuelwood a year. The 20 percent of Petershamthat remained forested in 1840 representedabout 6,000 acres. Because Massachusetts for-ests can be expected to grow between one-halfand one cord of hardwood per acre per year, vir-

tually all the woodland growth in Petershamcould have been used for fuelwood.These hardwoods were probably managed by

means of a coppice system, in which treeswould be harvested very young (every twenty toforty years), left to resprout, and then harvestedagain as soon as the new growth was big enoughto burn. Across upland Massachusetts mostfarms could maintain woodlots to satisfy theirown fuel needs, but near cities and along thecoast where settlements had been in placelonger, the fuelwood was soon exhausted andhad to be brought great distances by ship at con-siderable expense.Although fuel was by far the dominant use

of wood in the early 1800s, the remaining for-ests also faced other demands. Hemlock andchestnut trees, especially, were cut to providetanbark for tanneries. Lumber was needed for

constructmg houses, barns, and public build-ings. Wood was used to make charcoal, andfences had to be built. The scarcity of woodby the early 1800s probably accounts for manyof the stone walls that still exist along bound-aries and in pastures, where the stones wouldnot have had to be removed for plowing or mow-ing ; by then stones were more readily availablethan wood.

Postagricultural and Modern PeriodsThe decline of agriculture m the second half ofthe nineteenth century was accompanied by acorresponding regrowth of forest. Our presentforests can be divided into secondary forest onland formerly cleared and used for agriculture

(plowed or grazed), and primary forest on landnever actually cleared but harvested throughoutthe agricultural period. As we have seen, themajor portion of upland farmland was used forpasture, and even tilled land may have revertedto mowing or pasture before final abandonment.The resulting sod surface was not hospitable tomany "pioneer" tree species such as birch andaspen, whose small, wmdblown seeds wouldoften dry out and die after germinating; thesprouting seeds were trapped in the grass unableto reach mineral soil. The sod did, however, pro-vide a suitable seedbed for the windblown but

larger seeds of white pine, which colomzed vastareas of abandoned farmland. Pines were muchless likely to have been cut for fuelwood, andthose left as shade trees in a pasture or along afencerow could colomze many acres with densestands of young pine. Moreover, animals stillgrazing these pastures would avoid pine seed-lings while devouring most broadleaf species.These new forests grew quickly, and by

the late 1800s supported renewed harvestingfor lumber and especially for shipping contain-ers. The new portable steam sawmill, m com-mon use by the turn of the century, permittedlogging throughout the backwoods areas. Tre-mendous volumes of "old-field" (or abandoned-field) white pine were harvested, peakingin 1910-1911. During this timber boom, exten-sive harvesting of all species across the stateresulted in large tracts of even-aged, young, low-value stands. Many of these cut-over stands,considered nearly worthless at the time, wereacquired by the state for overdue taxes and haveformed the basis of our state forest system. Itwas at this time, the early twentieth century,that the excesses of the timber industrythroughout the East gave rise to the conserva-tion movement, which was strongly representedin Massachusetts.When the old-field pines were harvested, they

were unable to sprout from the remamingstumps and roots (except for pitch pine, our only

Maps of three townships characteristic of different physiographic regions m central Massachusetts depictingdistmctive amounts and patterns of forest, open land, and meadow m 1830 and 1980.

Ashburnham, on rocky hills near the New Hampshire border, was least extensively cleared and today isthe most forested Barre, on rollmg terram m the central uplands, was extensively cleared for agnculture buthas largely reverted to forest. Deerfield, m the Connecticut River valley, was extensively cleared except for afew north-south bedrock ndges, and the fertlle valley bottom remams m agnculture today.

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Agncultural abandonment and estabhshment of old-field white pme, 1850 Almost immediately the foreststarted to reclaim the idle fields and pastures. They were qmckly seeded to white pme, with hardwoods suchas red maple, white ash, red oak, chestnut, gray and paper birch formmg a mmor element

Fmst crop of old-field white pme harvested, 1910 From 1890 to 1920 portable sawmills appeared everywhere,and many new wood-usmg factones were established. With yields of 25 to 50 thousand board feet per acreand standmg lumber valued at $10 per thousand, one might well envy a farmer who owned a 100-acre woodlot,worth perhaps $30,000-a wholly volunteer crop on which only taxes had been expended.

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Old-field white pme is followed by hardwood, 1915 In /....> LlItLi liaiclt%U()Cl~ cilLi)lilllal,l~ ’glott’llil,5,Old-field lanes between the by hardwood, These trees c.m ~ ut tm lcddmg, stump sprouts-red maple, red andm the open lanes between the mndrows of slash. These trees omgmated as stump sprouts-red maple, red andwhite oak, white ash, hard maple, chestnut, black cherry, black birch-or as seedhngs of hght-demandmgspecies-gray and paper bmch, pm cherry, and poplar

Hardwood stand reaches cordwood size, 1930 Twenty years after loggmg on moderately moist soil, red maple,gray and black bmch, and most other species begm to slow their growth upwards Red oaks mamtam a steadygrowth in height and girth so that by sixty years they will have formed an overstory above the other trees

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native conifer with this ability) and so had toreestablish themselves on the site from seed.As the old-field pmes were growing, however,various broadleaf species, including oaks, redmaple, and cherry usually established them-selves beneath them from seeds carried in byanimals or blown in by the wind. All these hard-woods have the ability to sprout from cut ordamaged stems. Therefore, even if they were cutback when the pines were harvested, the hard-woods could grow much more quickly fromtheir established root systems than could the

tiny pine seedlings. This succession from a firstgeneration of old-field white pine to a secondgeneration of mixed hardwoods has been typicalacross most of Massachusetts.The proliferation of old-field pine across

Massachusetts in the second half of the nine-teenth century, before they were harvested andreplaced by hardwoods, led to problems as wellas economic benefit. The vast expanses of youngpines fed an epidemic of a native insect, thewhite pine weevil. The larvae of this msect eatthe terminal buds of young pines, killing theleader and releasing the branches in the topmostwhorl to replace it. At best, the growing trunksdevelop a crook; at worst, they divide into mul-tiple, spindly stems. In either case the economicvalue of the trees is greatly reduced. White pine

blister rust, a fungal disease lethal to white pine,also spread rapidly through the tracts of old-fieldpine. This disease requires an alternate host ofthe genus Ribes (currants and gooseberries) forpart of its life cycle. During the 1930s the stateand federal governments conducted a massiveeradication program for Ribes, with men march-ing through the woods tens of feet apart pullingup wild Ribes plants. The prevalence of whitepine weevil and blister rust also led in the 1920sand 1930s to red pme being planted across thestate on many sites where white pine mightnormally have grown, because red pine is notaffected by either pathogen. Although red pineis at the very southeastern edge of its range inwestern Massachusetts, these plantations havegenerally done well. Many are now maturingand being harvested.The extensive old-field white pme stands also

played a major role in the most dramatic natu-ral disturbance to affect our forests in the twen-tieth century, the hurricane of September 21,1938. Historically, hurricanes have been a majorforce in shaping Massachusetts forests. The1938 storm followed a track similar to that ofother historically significant storms (1788,1815), but several factors conspired to make itthe most destructive storm in our recorded his-

tory. The week before had been very wet, satu-

The Dexter Woodlot, situated~ust south of Petersham

mllage. Before the hurricaneof September 21, 1938, this

was one of the mostattractive white pme groves

m the region.

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rating the soils and predisposing trees towindthrow. The added rain from the storm pro-duced massive property damage from floodingalong rivers, compounding the wind damage.Large areas of central Massachusetts still sup-ported stands of old-field pine on land aban-doned m the late nineteenth century. Even pinestands as young as thirty years of age sufferedsevere damage if their sites were not protectedtopographically from the southeast winds.Hardwood stands on similar sites were not as

susceptible to damage unless they were at leasttwice that age.’3 The prevalence of old-fieldpines set the stage for the unprecedented impactof the storm on our forests, nearly three billionboard feet of timber blown down. We had unin-

tentionally created about as vulnerable a land-scape as possible. There is evidence that thestorms of 1788 and 1815 may have been similarin intensity and path, but they encountereda landscape with much less forest and theirimpacts were quite different.

In 1938 the vast tracts of blown-down pinepresented a problem: the threat of fire. Firesoften follow other disturbances, especially inconifer stands where the resinous foliage andlack of new green sprouts contribute to flamma-

bility. With this in mind, and in an attempt torecover some of the value of the blown-down

timber, a massive salvage operation was under-taken that recovered much of the windthrowntimber. Logging crews were brought in from allover the Northeast, temporary camps were setup, and logs were salvaged and brought to themills. Because the volume of logs far exceededthe capacity of all the available mills, logs werestored in every pond in the area. As long as thelogs remained underwater, away from oxygenin the air, they were preserved. Many ponds incentral Massachusetts were dammed and raisedto their present levels in order to accommodateas much salvaged timber as possible. The tre-mendous volume of lumber produced by thehurricane salvage also drastically lowered lum-ber values. To stabilize the price, the federalgovernment bought up the vast supply, stamp-ing "U.S." at the end of each log. Mobilizationfor World War II finally made use of this vastlumber supply.Humans have been unwitting accomplices

in several other recent forest disturbances aswell. Increased mobility of people and productshas resulted in numerous forest pests and patho-gens being introduced from abroad. In manyinstances these organisms pose special prob-lems because native plants possess little resis-tance to the exotic pests. Several such

"immigrants" have severely affected our forests,

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A1 Cline, director of Harvard Forest, 1939-1946, surveys white pme logs awaitmg millmg at Harvard Pond.Followmg the 1938 hurmcane more than half of the fallen timber across New England was salvaged, purchasedby the federal government, and stored m lakes and ponds to prevent msect damage, stammg, and decay untilthe matenal could be milled. Today, occasional logs stamped on the end with "U.S." mll be pulled from themud bottom of a pond and, when dned, provide perfectly mtact and usable wood

and Massachusetts has the dubious distinctionof being the introduction site of one pest thathas damaged forests on a national scale. Gypsymoths were introduced into the United Statesin 1869, when Leopold Trouvelot importedthem to Medford with the intention of usingthem as silkworms to develop a local silk indus-

try. The moths quickly proved unsuited for thispurpose and escaped into the local forests,where they found the native deciduous species,especially oaks and aspen, to be an ideal foodsource. Since then, gypsy moths have graduallyexpanded their range, and during periodicregional outbreaks consume virtually every

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green leaf in the forest, leaving it in mid-Julylooking nearly as barren as in midwinter. Defo-liation for two successive years is especiallyharmful. The outbreak of 1980-1981 across theNortheast was particularly severe, causingextensive oak mortality. Today the gypsy mothhas spread throughout the Northeast and intothe Middle Atlantic and midwestern statesand is one of the most destructive forest peststhroughout the region.Probably the most dramatic effect on our

forests by an introduced pathogen has beenthat produced by the chestnut blight fungus.Although the details of its introduction are notcertain, the fungus was first noticed in NewYork in 1904 and rapidly spread throughout

the range of the American chestnut, passingthrough Massachusetts in 1913-1914. An espe-cially virulent pathogen, chestnut blight fungusis the only pest that has effectively ehmmatedmature individuals of its host, greatly alteringour forests m the process. Chestnut was cer-

tainly one of the most useful trees in the nine-teenth-century forests, providing abundantcrops of edible nuts, bark for tanning, and excel-lent wood that was beautiful, decay-resistant,and as strong as oak but lighter. It also sproutedvigorously and grew very quickly and thereforeincreased in numbers in areas that were repeat-edly harvested.By the early 1920s all the large chestnuts m

the state had been killed. However, because in

Pollen diagram from the humus soil m a hemlock forest at the Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts Thesite is a pmmary forest that was never cleared for agriculture but was clear-cut early m the settlement penod(apparent m the pollen diagram at a depth of approximately 17 centimeters) and then cut repeatedly forfirewood

Each tree species responded differently to the senes of human impacts. Chestnut benefitted greatly fromthe cutting activity until its virtual ehmmation by bhght m 1913 (seen at about 8 centimeters m depth) Otherma~or changes are the dechne m severallong-hved, shade-tolerant species during the agncultural pemod Bothhemlock and beech are very sensitive to fire and could be largely ehmmated from upland areas by repeatedfmes, a rather common agmcultural practice Beech and sugar maple never recovered to presettlement levels ofabundance and have been replaced by oak, pme, and red maple, which have gradually mcreased; hemlock hasbecome the dominant species on this moist lowland followmg the loss of chestnut to the bhght z9

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Farm abandonment accidentally provided more favorable conditions for wildlife than did old forest: low-growing gamefood and cover are much more plentiful and vamed Shrubs and apple trees furmsh frmt and browse, valuable herbaceousspecies and a wealth of msects are within reach of young birds Deer, rabbits, woodcock, and aquatic birds are among themldhfe that flounsh m old fields, abandoned millponds, and stone walls

effect the fungus kills by girdling the trees-gaining access through cracks in the bark andpreventing transport of water and nutrients pastthe point of mfection-the roots and base arenot affected and can send out new sprouts. Thechestnut’s decay resistance, especially withinthe sapwood, has preserved many stumps thattestify to the former importance of this species,and today chestnut sprouts are common in ourwoods. Individual stems are usually killed bythe time they are several inches in diameter,when the bark naturally develops cracks, onlyto be replaced by new sprouts. Chestnut’s placein the forest has been taken by a mixture of spe-cies, especially oaks, but its wood and its nutscannot be replaced.

Other native tree species have also been sig-nificantly affected by human-introduced agents,although none so dramatically as the chestnut.Dutch elm disease, a wilt fungus transportedby a bark beetle, completely transformed theappearance of almost every town in the state in

the 1950s and 1960s by killing the stately shadetrees that lined most of our main streets. Thedisease is passed from tree to tree by insectsabove ground and through root grafts belowground m areas where the trees grow adjacent toeach other, as in street plantings. Its effects weresomewhat less traumatic in our forests, becauseelm occurred m mixed stands and exhibited a

greater range of natural resistance than didchestnut. Nevertheless, the devastation of theelms in our urban landscapes once again demon-strates the susceptibility of manmade monocul-tures to various pathogens.More recently, many of our beeches have been

killed or disfigured by beech-bark disease. Thisdisease, caused by the coincident impact of afungus and a scale insect working together, issteadily spreading southward after being intro-duced into the Canadian Maritimes. Hemlock

woolly adelgid is beginning to cause mortalityin the southern Connecticut River valley areaand has been reported in many other areas of

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the state as it slowly advances north. Thisaphidlike insect, first introduced to the WestCoast and then to Maryland on nursery stockfrom Japan, poses a dire threat to hemlock for-ests because hemlocks have shown little resis-tance to its effects and are incapable ofsprouting. Moreover, because many hemlockstands occupy steep habitats and produce deepshade, thereby creating unique microenviron-ments, their loss would represent drastic

changes to many of our forests.Over the past several decades,

however, it is through logging andland conversion for suburban devel-opment that humans have mostaffected our forests directly. Theregrowth that followed the cuttingof old-field pine stands and otherforests early in this century and the1938 hurricane has produced anabundant middle-aged and maturingforest, much of which has been andis bemg harvested at varying degreesof intensity. Limitations set for envi-ronmental reasons on harvesting fed-erally owned trees together with astrong export market have resultedm added pressures on Massachusetts’forests. Despite these pressures,however, the average size of our treeshas been steadily increasing. In someinstances we have even managed toreduce the impact of suburban devel-

opment on the forest. Significantnumbers of people are now buildinghomes on large forested lots, clearing only thearea immediately around the houses, and insome developments buildings are clusteredtogether, reserving the majority of land as forestor open space. While both of these developmentpatterns alter the forest, they are much lessdestructive than traditional tract development.

Wildlife species in Massachusetts have beensignificantly influenced by human-inducedchanges in the landscape as well as by hunting.Information on this subject is difficult to gatherand much of it is indirect. It is believed, how-ever, that most members of the large, broad-ranging species, including elk, wolf, mountainlion, and moose, were eliminated during the

initial period of forest clearance. Deer werenearly eliminated by the mid-1800s. Becausethey represent an edge species, however-usingopen areas for browsing and forests for cover-and are tolerant of human activities, deer haveresponded so favorably to the return of the for-est that they have reached densities detrimentalto the vegetation m those areas where they arenot controlled by huntmg.3’ Beavers were extir-pated by the 1700s owing to the value of theirpelts. They were successfully reintroduced m

Changes m the relative abundance of selected ammal specles mMassachusetts over the past 400 years. Whereas the wolf has beenehmmated and remams absent, beaver have been reintroduced and thecoyote represents a new species m the landscape 30

West Stockbridge in 1928 and have subse-quently expanded their range to the point ofoverutilizing existing habitat. More recently,wild turkeys have been reintroduced very suc-cessfully, and moose are returning on theirown as part of their growing northern popula-tions migrate south. These three species areresponding to the expansion of our woodlandarea, as have the black bear and the fisher,which have significantly expanded their rangesand numbers within the past seventy-five years.Other species, most notably open-land birdssuch as the bobwhite and meadowlark, havedecreased in number as the forest has regrownand matured.