In a message dated Wed, 17 Nov 1999 10:28:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes:

> Am I to read this right.  The amount of Forest Land is increasing in NYS?
>
> Jim Maguire
> [log in to unmask]

This makes sense.  The Adirondacks and Catskills were more or less clear cut in the 1800's.  Both have since gone back to forest.  And probably, like the New England states, much marginal farmland was cleared by the first settlers only to be abandoned after the Erie Canal helped to settle the midwest.  So New York's greatest achievement of the 19th century helped put many of its farmers out of business.

There is a wonderful museum of forest history at the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts.  It is located in north -central Massachuesetts near the Quabbin Reservoir on either Route 122 or route 32 in the town of Petersham, south of Athol.  The museum contains models of forest history from pre-colonial times to the present, and shows the gradual clearing and then abandonment and natural reforestation in the late 19th - 20th century.  There is also a great deal of information about the massive blowdown from the 1938 hurricane.  I haven't been there in years, but it is a must for people interested in forest history in the northeast.