Most people know that old-growth forest is rare in Vermont and New Hampshire – nearly every patch of forest hereabouts has felt the saw at least once since Colonial days. But what far fewer people know is that another type of forest is becoming increasingly rare around here: very young forest.
Early successional forest (the fancy term for very young forest) was our most common forest type in the twin states for much of the past two centuries. Settlers swarmed across our hills and valleys in the late 1700s and early 1800s, cutting down the forest to create farmland (especially sheep pasture), build buildings, lay in firewood, and even make a buck selling potash. Roughly three quarters of the forest was cut down. But by the middle of the nineteenth century, the wool market was collapsing and those upland soils were played out, leading farmers to abandon more than a million acres of pasture and hay fields.
What grew up to reclaim that land was early successional forest: raspberries, poplars, cherries, white pine, and a host of other forestland plants that need sunlight to sprout and that love the open conditions found in a very young forest.
Certain species of wildlife also love early successional forest, including two of our most beloved game animals: deer and grouse. These animals feed on the tender buds and branches of young trees and depend on the protection provided by the thick cover of young vegetation. Everyone who has walked in the woods has come across a patch of early successional forest, where sapling trunks are so close together that it can be hard to squeeze a human body in between them, let alone the body of a wolf or mountain lion in hot pursuit of a fawn. Deer and grouse can vanish into the interior of such thickets and know that they will have ample warning should a predator attempt to penetrate the maze.
Fifty to seventy-five years later, as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth, much of the white pine forest that had grown up on the farms abandoned before the Civil War was logged off, and aggressive logging via river and railroad removed much of the old growth from the White Mountains and upper reaches of Connecticut River valley. Early successional forest once again dominated the landscape of the twin states. Finally, after World War Two, when cheap transportation flooded New England with dairy products from farther west, river-bottom farms began to be sold off, setting off a third wave of early successional growth in our local forests.
Although dairy farms continue to close in Vermont and New Hampshire, what grows in to replace them is often housing and other human development rather than brush and future forests. These aren’t hill farms and marginal lands that are being abandoned, but rather prime, flat, valley acres that make wonderful house lots. With most of our existing forests growing steadily older, therefore, and with very little new forest springing up from abandoned agricultural land, we face a situation that has been unknown for the last two centuries: early successional forest has become the exception rather than the rule.
Students of history will note that prior to Colonial settlement, early successional forest was also quite rare, meaning that we are now returning to a forest mix that is more similar to what we’ve had for the past thousand years than for the last few hundred years. But that is little consolation to those who love the fauna of the early successional forest, not just the deer and grouse but also the whippoorwill and woodcock, woodchuck and vole, beaver and broad-winged hawk. There’s no danger of early successional forest taking over the joint these days, but increasing danger of it all but vanishing.
If you own a few acres and want to strike a blow for young forest, consider opening a clearing here or there where sunlight can reach the forest floor and encourage new growth. Find a patch where the existing trees aren’t headed for majesty, and either harvest the trees for firewood or simply drop them to the ground to create an opening. Or, if your holdings include more field than forest, consider letting the back forty revert to brush and raspberries – if you put the mower to a small portion of it every now and again, you’ll have discovered the fountain of youth – a perpetual state of early succession.
Unlike old-growth forest, in which large tracts of land are required for an ecosystem to function effectively, young forests can make a contribution even if they’re just pockets and postage stamps sprinkled here and there across the landscape. An acre or two of youth can make a world of difference in a forest that’s otherwise becoming increasingly middle aged.