Land Management Program

In a major reorganization move involving both the timber management and educational and recreational uses of the Second College Grant, a professional land management firm has been retained to handle the day-to-day timber operations on the 26,800-acre tract. While Dartmouth will keep full control over the timber program, the Seven Islands Land Company of Bangor, Me., will cut timber on a sustained yield basis, stabilizing the annual income from timber cutting and gradually improving the timber stands. The cutting program is to be kept compatible with the educational, recreational, and aesthetic values the rugged wilderness area has provided for the College since the New Hampshire legislature gave it to Dartmouth in 1807.

C. Allison Merrill, recently appointed Director of Outdoor Affairs, is responsible for supervising the educational and recreational uses of the Grant. Merrill and John F. Meek '33, Vice President of the College, have met with representatives of the Seven Islands Company to make sure that the timber management program and the educational and recreational programs will work together. They also have met with the director of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Commission, Bernard W. Corson, to ensure that cutting operations will not adversely affect the deer herd and other wildlife or disturb the rivers that flow through the area. Charles Allen '71, president of the Dartmouth Outing Club, took part in this meeting.

The new timber management program is the result of a special study by a three-member committee appointed by Mr. Meek. The committee was composed of Zebulon White '36, professor at the Yale School of Forestry; Edward B. Hinman '35, president of International Paper Company; and the late Rand N. Stowell '35, who was president of Timberlands, Inc. of Dixfield, Me. At the recommendation of this committee, a special long-range management study of the Grant was made by the consulting firm of Prentiss & Carlisle of Bangor, Me. The Seven Islands Land Company was then retained to implement the Prentiss & Carlisle recommendations. Seven Islands currently manages more than one and one-half million acres of timberland in Maine and New Hampshire.