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Around 8 billion trees cover Pennsylvania’s 16 million acres, yet just over one half of one percent of this area contains trees predating the 20th century. Most of our trees are just nearing their hundredth birthday, which is not nearly as old as the trees standing there before them. These younger, first or early second-generation growth trees have a long way to go before they will resemble the old growth forests of yore.
A visitor to early 16th century central Pennsylvania would find a diverse forest structure awaiting them. Covering most of the valleys, and especially near streams, would be the primary forests consisting of coniferous trees and shrubs. The trees would prevent the sun from coming throughout the entire day and cast the forest floor in near-constant twilight. Only slow-growing plants that kept their leaves throughout the year would be able to compete with the large trees acting as sun umbrellas and survive. When an area of ancient trees perished, new growth of hardwood species filled in differing layers of the canopy and ultimately yielded to conifers over the course of thousands of years. A forest with trees at a variety of life stages ensures that the trees will not die simultaneously at the while also providing a stable, if constantly changing, environment for forest species.
By the 1800’s expanding industrial requirements for the rapidly booming iron industry put a much heavier toll on the forest landscape. By the end of the century over 70% of the forests had been clear-cut to provide charcoal or other timber products and all that remained were dusty scrublands checked with agriculture and crossed by railroads. Simply put, Pennsylvania was not a great place for a tree. Not every square inch had be decimated, though, and some original forests remained.
A growing movement in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s to prevent continued forest destruction eventually formed the backbone of the modern forestry movement. Our first forester, Joseph Rothrock, and the first head of the United States Forest Service, Gilford Pinchot, were both borne out of this movement. In a strange irony, the lack of forests in Pennsylvania helped strengthen our resolve to protect them everywhere else.
