Petersham High School - Hilltop Yearbook (Petersham, MA)

Page 31 text:

THE I-HLLTOP field laboratory. To the tract bought from wr. James W. Brooks were added several smaller lots given by other landowners to form a forest of some twenty-one hundred acres. The forest now consists of three main divi- sions: C13 the Tom Swamp Block, C25 the Slab City or Earre Woods, and C53 the Prospect Hill Block. To these three original plots there have been added some smaller tracts. These are the Higginson and Schwarz tracts in Petersham, the Matthews Plantation at Hamilton, Massachusetts, and the Pisgah Tract at Winchester, New Hamp- shire. Several tracts are reserved for special uses. The Slab City Tract is uncut for two hundred feet on either side of the State Highway to preserve the natural beauty of the drive. Some of the Prospect Hill Tract is reserved for camping, and the Tom Swamp Block is a game sanctuary. The Schwarz Tract is used for landscaping, while the Pisgah Tract is preserved as a primeval forest. ,Because of variety in location, climate, and soil, the Forest contains many types of trees. The fact that some of the Forest is primeval for- est and some is grown-over land in different stages E Qi, 3. 1.- J . 5 9 if is 45 5? v ,nv . t., it-E. Eg 3 , ff.,-X . ,. 'f ss? . ! Sikh A ggi? t.S5 639: ' if . wg gif' ,. ,L .' .41 V, of development gives a good chance to study prob- T j QFQ lems of growth. Probably the Harvard Forest has had as much A effect on forestry in America today as any other -gtg? institution. After thirty years of work--a good ff' j deal of which was pioneer research--the Forest is jfnq,. recognized as a source of accurate and authorita- IWAWYQQ tive information. The three primary aims of the H W fg,pQEv forest--to be a model, an experiment station, a x 4, 4 N,p a field laboratory--have all been pursued throu out the whole history of the institution. ' XIX, A good deal of credit is due to Profess Richard Fisher, who was director of the Fo from the time of its foundin unt is th in 'Q 1- 7 an--A-' N, M-4'

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THE 1-HLLTOP 1934. It was under his able leadership that the Harvard Forest has been so well developed. George O. Gale, '57 - rf- f f' THE 3-IAKVAKD FOIQ-'lef MODf.L:, we of Harvard University, several forest models have Q For the event of the tercentenary celebration HJ been built. The complete series consists of if twenty-two miniature landscapes which will be Q placed, it is hoped, in the museum at the Harvard Q Fbrest. These exact scale models show, in the 3 first set, the stages of forest growth from the ,gs time of colonization to the present, and, in the iii second, methods of treating forestsxto produce the rm, best results. ,Kg fi: 1 lf 4 W v The first seven models, which comprise the f' historical series, are identical in setting but 51, show widely differing conditions. The titles will V we reveal to some extent the features of the models. EEE They are as follows: Q17 the primeval forest, PH . C21 the forest being cleared, C31 the period of V1 greatest cultivation, 141 the reverting to forest, i f 455 the resulting fereet being logged, qey the ik. out-over land five years later, and Q75 the cut- 'gk over land at a still later date. , , ggi 57. 3795 The models are approximately four by five ggfgg feet. Over a framework of wood, which follows 3 vii the main topographical features of the finished A ifg model, wire screening is stretched as a base for the plastic surfacing compound. Wherever there 7 4 is to be a human figure, a vertical wire is used as its baseg The trees, carefully reproduced fro , 'WQQQ scale drawings, are constructed from copper wire .H W5'07't' -' Each leaf or needle is a separate piece of copp n.f1 0 ,mfs It X'- When all these units are wound together, they f . ' siiggg-' the branches which are soldered to the trunk. A clearer picture of the models maybe i ed, perhaps, by a description of one of them. is the third model of the hi , showing 5 as i