USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume II > Part 16
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these things are done systematically, as a duty which must be fulfilled. Farmers' families are particularly keen in encouraging the winter birds, not only for the pleasure of their company, but because of the great good they do.
The county has two areas of land which are set aside for all time to be Wild Life Sanctuaries, accepted by the Commonwealth under an act of the Legislature passed in 1923, which authorized the Department of Conserva- tion, with the consent of the Governor and Council, to accept land and money in trust for fish and game preservation and propagation. Such a gift was received in 1927 from Susan Minns of Boston, consisting of 137 acres of land in Princeton on Little Wachusett Mountain, and this was established as the Minns Wild Life Sanctuary.
The second preserve is known as the Watatic Mountain Wild Life Reser- vation, the gift in 1925 of the Federation of the Bird Clubs of New England, Inc. It consists of eighty-nine acres in Ashburnham, in Worcester County and eleven acres in Ashby, in Middlesex County. Eighty-five acres of the tract are covered with the finest red spruce to be found in eastern Massachu- setts, and the rest is old pasture, now growing up to spruce and pine. In 1927 the Associated Committee of Wild Life Conservation gave to the State thirty-nine additional acres on which there is equally fine spruce growth, contiguous to the original Watatic forest, making a total of 128 acres in the county.
Large numbers of game birds, particularly quail and Mongolian pheas- ants, have been released each year in congenial territory by the Fish and Game Division of the Department of Conservation. The pheasants have thrived mightily in the county, and, quite unexpectedly, have taken kindly to human companionship. They are found in greater numbers in the immediate neighborhood of the cities and larger towns than in wilder country. In Worcester, for example, they are regular winter morning callers in the back yards of residences within the mile circle of City Hall, seeking food which is set out for them, and the crowing of the cocks is a familiar sound.
The protection of the law has been much extended in the quarter century. The Federal statutes now provide severe penalties for the killing of all but the harmful species of birds in the spring migration, and, excepting certain of the waterfowl, in the autumn pilgrimage southward. In the shooting season a bag limit is prescribed and enforced. Species which had become all but extinct have begun to take on some of their old strength of numbers. The State laws guard the small birds at all seasons, and the game birds excepting in certain periods which are left open for the hunters. And even these seasons are closed whenever a species begins to be depleted.
The Commonwealth maintains its game wardens, and on public lands forest guards keep sharp watch over the welfare of the wild life placed under
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their care. For every official warden there are a hundred self-appointed guards who serve to restrict the depredations of the thoughtless or ignorant or vicious persecutor of the birds and animals. The Un-Americanized resi- dent to whom a songbird is merely a morsel of food and therefore fair game, has been curbed by the Massachusetts law which provides severe penalty for any alien found carrying a firearm. The Massachusetts Audubon Society functions as an always vigilant defender of bird life. The law says that no plumage of any wild bird shall ever be displayed for sale. Let the feathers of an American bird appear on a woman's hat, and the society is immediately on the trail of the transgressor. Even troutflies are scanned meticulously, that the use of plumage may be discouraged, even in this small way. All this is history, for twenty-five years ago only a minute fraction of this wise pro- tection was accorded.
Not a great many years ago a wild deer in Worcester County would have been a sensation. Today there are many hundreds of them. New laws pro- tect them from the hunter, and, so far as humanly possible, from his dogs. They inflict damage upon the farmer's crops. They injure his orchards. The county treasurer pays the bill. Each autumn the hunters are given a few days during which they may kill the deer, under stern restrictions. This serves to keep the numbers within bounds. But there is never a great killing. The deer have grown wise. Few parts of the country are without some tract of land where no wild thing may be hunted. In these the deer seek sanctuary.
On a lower slope of Mt. Wachusett is a piece of woodland where each late autumn they establish a yard and pass each winter. When the first guns of the hunters are heard, many deer quickly abandon their warm weather haunts and seek this sanctuary. The game birds, likewise, know the wood- lands and pastures where they will be safe, and each open season finds these areas with a greatly increased population of the hunted species. We mention these things to illustrate how the several phases of conservation dovetail together in their usefulness.
Renewing the Forests-The first forest conservation act which applied to Worcester County was the reforestration law of 1908, which per- mitted the Department of Conservation to purchase small lots of land as demonstration plantations. At first the size was limited to forty acres ; after- wards it was increased to eighty acres. The first tract acquired under this law was in Ashburnham, and in the years 1908 and 1909 some twenty lots were acquired in the county and planted with trees, chiefly in Ashburnham, Spencer, Paxton, Hubbardston, Templeton and Gardner.
The first State forest law which provided for the acquisition of larger tracts of land as permanent State forests was enacted in 1914, and the first
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State forest purchased under it was in Worcester County-the Otter River Forest in Winchendon and Templeton. There are now thirteen such forests -Ashburnham, 1,200 acres ; Barre, 600 acres ; Hubbardston, 800 acres ; Leo- minster, 2,000 acres ; Oakham, 800 acres ; Otter River, 1,800 acres ; Oxford, 30 acres ; Petersham, 250 acres ; Petersham, gift of the Massachusetts Federa- tion of Woman's Clubs, 600 acres ; Spencer, 360 acres; Sutton, 610 acres ; Templeton, 1,250 acres ; and Westminster, 310 acres.
The forest in Petersham, which was the gift of the Federation of Women's Clubs, deserves more than passing mention. The land lies five miles from the center of the town toward New Salem in Franklin County, and a small part of it lies in the latter township. The woodland is in a fine growing condition, due to the fact that the former owner, the Diamond Match Company, employed a forester, and only ripe timber was removed. One hundred and forty-five acres of the land has been set aside for all time as a Wild Life Sanctuary. Within this area is an old dam, which will be rebuilt to form a pond, where it is hoped that migrating aquatic birds will find refuge and native species will make their summer homes and breed.
Fire is the constant thought of the forester. The county is well guarded by a system of fire towers, from which, in time of drought, or in seasons of the year when forest fire might be looked for, fire wardens scan the country night and day. From these towers almost every acre of the shire is visible. The fire towers are in Ashburnham, on Mt. Watatic, 1,847 feet above sea level; Charlton, on Little Mugget Hill, 1,020 feet; Harvard, on Oak Hill, 620 feet ; Mendon, on Wigwam Hill 540 feet; Oxford, on Rocky Hill, 810 feet ; Petersham, on Prospect Hill, 1,360 feet ; Princeton, on Mt. Wachusett, 2,108 feet ; Westboro, on Fay Mountain, 707 feet ; and West Brookfield, on Ragged Hill, 810 feet. The first of these was that on Mt. Wachusett, estab- lished in 19II.
There are twenty town forests in the county. In 1913 the Massachusetts Legislature, at the instance of the Massachusetts Forestry Association, enacted a law permitting cities and towns to own and manage forests. The city of Fitchburg was the first to take advantage of it, and, in fact, was the first community in the United States in which was transplanted the European idea of a communal forest. Of the ninety-six town forests which have been established in the State, the county has twenty-two. Most of them are located on watersheds of reservoirs, but a few are tracts bought for the purpose by the towns or received by them as gifts.
Following is a list of these, Ashburnham, 35 acres; Athol, III acres; Barre, 40 acres ; Fitchburg, 1,840 acres ; Gardner, 50 acres ; Harvard, 70 acres ; Holden, 24 acres; Lancaster, 23 acres ; Lunenburg, 120 acres; Leominster, 883 acres; Northboro, 12 acres; North Brookfield, 124 acres; Oxford, 100
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acres; Petersham, 98 acres; Spencer, eight acres; Sterling, 126 acres; Uxbridge, 117 acres; Upton, 10 acres; Webster, six acres; Westboro, 20 acres; Westminster, 100 acres; and Winchendon, 250 acres. The total is over 4,200 acres. To this might be added 3,000 acres of land protecting Worcester's fine reservoir, much of which has been planted with forest trees.
The Harvard Forest-One of the most important influences upon forest problems in the county, and, as a matter of fact, in the whole United States, is the Harvard Forest in the township of Petersham, conducted by Harvard University. It has been the property of the University since 1908. It then represented merely what a hundred and fifty years of ups and downs in rural colonization had done to a virgin wilderness. In 1933 it represents what twenty-five years of intensive management have done to organize and improve the natural forest.
"In this long perspective of forestry," said Prof. R. T. Fisher, director of the Harvard Department of Forestry, "this period is trifling. But in a country where the average citizen has so recently exchanged the family axe for a niblick, it is sufficient to make the Harvard Forest the oldest institution of its kind in America."
The forest was originally acquired to serve for the students in the Department very much the purpose of a hospital for students of medicine. By 1915 it seemed plain that, because so many institutions were teaching elementary forestry, and because the Harvard Forest possessed unique quali- fications as a forest experimental station, it should be devoted primarily to research and instruction confined to advanced or graduate students. Thus since 1915 the forest has been managed with three main objects: A model forest to demonstrate the practice of forestry; an experiment station for research in forestry and allied problems ; and a field laboratory for graduate students. In adopting this policy, the forest has been the only university department of its sort in the country devoted exclusively to research. No better description of the forest and its functioning could be had than that prepared by the University, which follows :
"The Harvard Forest consists of 2,100 acres of varied woodland, situated in the town of Petersham, in northern Worcester County. Well timbered almost all over, it contains a greater variety of the different stages of forest represented in New England history than can be found on an equal area any- where else in the region. Besides authentic fragments of the original prime- val forest, it has phases of second growth and tree species representative both of the northern and central forests. In addition to the original tract, the forest has had a number of accessions given for special purposes : in Win- chester, New Hampshire, twenty acres of primeval pine and hemlock forest,
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one of the very last remnants of such forest in New England and of great value for scientific purposes ; in Hamilton, Massachusetts, 120 acres of conif- erous plantations, established and given to the forest by the late Nathan Matthews and embodying one of the earliest and most extensive experiments with native and exotic softwoods yet made in the country; in Petersham, a fifty-acre tract of mixed woods, given by G. F. Schwarz for demonstrating adaptations of forestry to landscape architecture ; and finally a valuable stand of timber covering more than 150 acres and contiguous to the main tract, loaned by the New England Box Company for an indefinite period for joint experimental work in forest management.
"Contained in the Petersham ownership is a thousand-acre bird refuge of unusual interest and value, which is jointly maintained by the University and the State. The forest also conducts a nursery for the raising of tree seedlings. This contains usually about a quarter of a million trees, which are used in part for planting in the forest and in part to supply neighboring landowners with planting stock.
"When the study of forestry began actively in this country about thirty years ago, almost nothing was known about the silvicultural characteristics of American forest trees and, in the absence of that knowledge, it was impos- sible to translate into terms of American practice the principles which were being applied in the older countries, or to apply new principles with any confidence. The great body of classified, factual information which is the first essential of any science or art was lacking. It is easy to understand that knowledge concerning long-lived organisms like forest trees will take a long time to accumulate.
"The Harvard school was fortunate in being first to obtain a sizeable tract of land whereon the physical conditions, tree species, and forest ages were at once so various and so typical that valuable observations and numerous instructive experimental operations could begin immediately. For twenty- two years the school has maintained records in the form of maps, annual descriptions, and operation costs which already amount to a body of data of unique interest and importance. The cost records have been kept in terms of labor-hours as well as money, so that they can be translated in terms of busi- ness conditions prevailing at any date. From these records and studies pre- cise and new knowledge has been derived. With this as a basis the forest should now be enabled to enter even more actively than heretofore upon the experimental stage to which every science turns eagerly as soon as enough preliminary data have been gathered to warrant. The position of leadership which the forest has attained by reason of the cultivation of its fortunate opportunities during these twenty-two years is clearly indicated in the fol- lowing section.
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"With respect to all its objectives the forest has made a record of distin- guished service. Being now the oldest scientifically managed forest in the United States, it is able to show the tangible results of different methods of cutting or treatment of forest crops which only time can produce and which are to be seen nowhere else short of foreign countries. These results are shown each year to large numbers of persons concerned in professional forestry or woodland management. Through plantations, logging opera- tions, marking for cuttings, etc., planned and supervised by members of the staff, the forest has contributed to the development or reforestration of nearly 50,000 acres of land in the Petersham region; and with much of this area the department still maintains an advisory connection.
"One of the principal reasons why the lessons of the Harvard Forest have been convincing is that it has been managed from the start as a paying enterprise in which the developing measures for maintaining and increasing production were more than paid for by the income from cuttings. Today, the forest has a larger volume of timber and a substantially higher annual production than it had twenty years ago; and in the meanwhile nearly four and one-half million feet of lumber have been cut and profitably marketed. The forest is thus the most highly developed example in the country of the means whereby forests can be made to do their own reforesting and thus keep on producing indefinitely."
Mt. Wachusett, Purgatory Chasm, Doane's Falls-The county has two State reservations-the Mt. Wachusett Reservation in Princeton and the Purgatory Chasm Reservation in Sutton. A third reservation, to be estab- lished by the county itself, will be at Doane's Falls in Royalston. One is the loftiest mountain in the State east of the Connecticut River, another a bit of chaos split out of a rocky hillside in a country of gentle hills and pleasant valleys, the third a series of impressive waterfalls which have few rivals in beauty in the Commonwealth.
The Mt. Wachusett Reservation was established in 1901. Its fifteen hun- dred acres include the whole of the mountain mass and its immediate approaches. Its character and condition at the time of the purchase of the land was such as may be found anywhere in the highlands of the county, excepting for the mountain itself, with its rugged contour and naked summit, which towers high above the surrounding forest country. Perhaps one-fifth of the area then consisted of old pasture, where a scattered growth of white pine had seeded itself. Elsewhere conditions were exactly what might be expected when cut-over woodland has been allowed to care for itself. There were a few trails, but no roads, excepting the rude approach from the base to the tumble-down hotel.
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A tree nursery was soon planted, and in the passing years much work has been done in covering the bare pastures and fostering the old forest. On the higher slopes this is practically primeval growth, for, because of its stunted size and inaccessibility, it has never been seriously touched by axe- men. Modern highways were constructed, one for the ascent, another for the descent, laid out with great engineering skill in easy grades on the con- tour lines, so that motorists find no difficulty in reaching the summit without undue strain on their cars. The old trails have been kept in repair, and new avenues have been opened that quick access may be had to any part of the reservation in case of fire. A modern hotel building was erected at the sum- mit to replace the ancient structure. On each fair day from early spring till the approach of winter, great numbers of people travel to the summit, in their cars or afoot. The fire tower is the hotel cupola, where visitors are made welcome. Wachusett as a mountain is unique. It rises a thousand feet above the surrounding hills. It dwarfs every eminence between Monadnock to the northward and the plains of southern Connecticut, and between the Connecticut Valley and the ocean. Nestled at its southerly base are the white buildings of the village of Princeton.
To the north one looks across the mountainous country of New Hamp- shire, and on a crystal-clear day may see with a telescope the dome of Mt. Washington against the skyline, one hundred and twenty-five miles away. To the west are Mt. Tom and the Mt. Holyoke range on the Connecticut River, and the Berkshire Hills beyond, with Mt. Greylock, 70 miles distant, in the northwestern corner of Massachusetts. Further to the northwest are range after range of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and in the southwest, far away, are the Catskills of the Hudson Valley. To the south the eye carries down into southern Connecticut. To the east, forty-five miles distant, are a trio of pinnacles, Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, the Boston Custom House Tower and the lofty Boston post office. The bay and the ocean glim- mer beyond, and with an average glass one may watch the ships and steamers as they pass on their way coastwise, or arrive or depart on the trans-Atlantic voyage.
In the earlier years of the reservation the experiment was conducted of raising elk and deer for food. Large areas of the wooded slopes were fenced off and herds established. But the project was abandoned as impracticable. A few elk were sold for the Boston market, but there was no profit, nor like- lihood that either elk or deer venison could be produced in quantity from animals so confined.
Naturally, Wachusett occupied a prominent place in the old days, not only in the landscape, but in the minds of the inhabitants. Peter Whitney thus
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describes it as it appeared to him in the closing years of the eighteenth century.
"This is an exceedingly high mountain, and is some of the first land dis- covered by people on board vessels at sea, when making for any of the sea- ports in Massachusetts ; and it is to be seen from the higher lands in a greater part of the towns of the Commonwealth, especially in those between the sea and Connecticut River. It contains seven or eight hundred acres, about 400 acres of which being the mountain, and being Province land was given to the Rev. Mr. Fuller, by the General Court, in consideration that he was the first minister, and settled upon a small salary, in the infancy of the town ( Prince- ton). This was no trifling gift, for although one hundred acres of it be worth little or nothing, yet most of the remaining three hundred acres will make considerable pasture land, and some parts very good.
"The highest part of the mountain is a flat rock, or a ledge of rocks, for some rods round, and there is a small pond of water generally upon the top of it, of two or three rods square. And where there is any earth, it is covered with blueberry bushes for acres around, and as you descend the hill there are very low and small trees, with flat tops, like those on the seashore, occasioned no doubt, in part, by the state of the air, for it is several degrees colder, at any time, on the top than at the bottom of the mountain. The further you descend, the taller are the trees, until they become of the common size. Upon the southerly side of this hill it may be ascended to the very top with horses, but upon the east, north and northwest, it is very steep, broken and ledgy, and many acres unimprovable at present. Perhaps its bowels may contain valuable hidden treasure, which in some future period may be described."
No treasure has been found in the bowels of Wachusett, but as a Mecca for motorists and pedestrians it has produced a great wealth of healthful and interested pleasure.
Purgatory Chasm Reservation, four miles from the village of Sutton, was created in 1916. It comprises one hundred acres of woodland, which is cut wide open by a vast, yawning crevasse. It is far back from any highway, and is reached by a private road two miles long, over which visitors may motor in comfort to view a remarkable scene. Much work has been done by the special commission having the reservation in its charge, including expert forestry in the woodlands that cover practically all of the tract.
Purgatory is appropriately named. "This is a most stupendous place," wrote Peter Whitney, "and fills the mind of the beholder with most exalted ideas of the infinite power of the great Creator of all things, 'who maketh the mountains, and they know not; who shaketh the earth out of its place, and the pillars thereof tremble.'"
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The chasm extends in a straight line more than a quarter of a mile along the southwestern slope of a broad and rocky hill. The walls rise perpendicu- larly, hardly fifty feet apart, to a height in places of seventy-five feet. Below is chaos. The bottom is piled deep with immense rock fragments, the debris of what was solid ledge until some cataclysm rent it apart and caused the collapse of a titanic wedge. Geologists tell us that the actual depth of the chasm measured to solid rock is probably in excess of a hundred feet. The confusion of colossal litter extends deep. A brook runs beneath it, finally emerging into the light of day. There are caverns which the visitor may explore, some of them extending far among the rocks. In some of them winter ice remains unmelted until mid-summer. Icicles, formed by moisture dripping through fissures in the ceilings, are suspended as stalactites. There are deep fissures. One of these is formed narrow and deep, as if the ledge had been sliced open by the stroke of a cyclopean cleaver. It bears the name of the Devil's Corn-Crib.
Looking down in the chasm, or standing within it, the picture is one of sinister, forbidding desolation. Purgatory in a rough mountain country would be unusual. In the pastoral expanses of southern Worcester County it is a monstrosity.
Various geological theories have been advanced for this breaking asunder of a hill or rock. One is that it came about through a strictly local subsidence of the earth's crust at this particular point. Another is that it was caused by erosion by the waves of an ancient sea, as Purgatory at Newport, Rhode Island, was worn out of the cliff by the action of ocean waves through the ages. But this idea is refuted by the fact that in Sutton there is not a trace of water action on the rocks. No boulder big or little is found in the débris which has been rounded and polished by erosion.
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