[CT Birds] History of the [Connecticut] Forest

[Linda & Steve Broker]

Some excerpts from John F. O'Keefe and David R. Foster, "An  
Ecological History of Massachusetts Forests" (Pages 19-66 in Foster,  
Charles H.W., ed. 1998. Stepping Back to Look Forward:  A History of  
the Massachusetts Forest. Petersham, Massachusetts:  Harvard Forest/ 
Harvard University, 339pp.:

"The gradual clearing of the first half of the eighteenth century  
became a rapid deforestation by the late eighteenth century that  
continued until the mid-nineteenth century."

"The statewide peak deforestation was reached about 1860, by which  
time nearly 70 per cent of the land was cleared.  Many areas east of  
the Berkshires show the pattern exemplified by Petersham and the  
Prospect Hill tract of Harvard Forest, with maximum clearance in the  
1840s, when less than 20 per cent of the forest remained."

"The decline of agriculture in the second half of the nineteenth  
century was accompanied by a corresponding regrowth of forest. . .  
"These new forests grew quickly, and by the late 1800s supported  
renewed harvesting for lumber and especially shipping  
containers." [This is referring to the white pine forests that  
developed on upland abandoned farmland in Massachusetts.  White Pine  
naturally extends down into Connecticut to ca. Hartford area.]

The situation was fundamentally the same in Connecticut, with maximum  
clearance of our forests in the mid-1800s and regrowth of the forest  
through the second half of the nineteenth century and well into the  
twentieth century.  O'Keefe and Foster conclude their chapter with a  
discussion of "present conditions and future prospects" that also are  
applicable to Connecticut:

"The forests across the state today are quite different from those  
the colonists and Indians saw - quite different from those 60 years  
ago.  Undoubtedly they will continue to change, but will likely  
continue the recent trends of increasing in volume and stored  
carbon.  Changing ownership patterns will increasingly affect forest  
development.  Over the past 50 years the average size and term of  
forest ownership have both consistently shrunk, as more people have  
found their place in the woods and as our population has become even  
less agrarian and much more mobile.  These trends, along with  
expanding low-density development on wooded lots as suburbs encroach  
on rural areas, will certainly influence our forests and their  
management into the next century.  At the same time, demands for  
forest conservation, preservation, and recreation will all probably  
increase, especially on public lands, as the amenity, recreation, and  
watershed-protection values of our forests increase even more rapidly  
than their resource or development values."

To this, I would only add that the ten years since the publication of  
this book have seen continued penetration and fragmentation of the  
forest as new homes have gone up.  The authors end optimistically  
with this statement:  "The forests covering nearly two-thirds of  
Massachusetts [read also, Connecticut] today are testimony to the  
resilience of our landscape in the face of centuries of unplanned  
human activity and natural disturbance."

Steve Broker
Cheshire