3-16-09

Walpole Moves Toward Adding to Fanny Mason Forest

By Chuck Bingaman, Walpole Correspondent

            A joint hearing with Walpole’s Selectmen, Conservation Commission and Trustees of Trust Funds moved the town’s buying a 21.45 acre plot adjacent to the Fanny Mason Forest a little closer to the finish line Monday evening.

            The owner of the triangular plot on Rt. 12, John Hodgkins, had offered it to the town for $270,000 months ago and the town had tentatively accepted.  However, following an earlier hearing it was determined that, before buying the land that Hodgkins had purchased in 2006 for $190,000, a survey and appraisal should be done as a matter of due diligence. 

            The survey turned up no surprises, and the appraisal came in at $255,000 taking into account improvements Hodgkins had made including a gravel access road, underground electricity, a pole barn and a partially completed water well.

            The Selectmen seem to have concluded that the appraised value was near enough to the original tentative sale price that they should stick with it despite its being $15,000 more than the appraised value.

            The Conservation Commission and Selectmen had also requested a usage plan for the additional acreage adjoining the Fanny Mason Forest, and the Lew Shelley, speaking for the Conservation Commission, delivered it Monday.  Shelley said the primary use of the added land, at least initially, would be as a “log yard” and staging area for a pruning of the forest.  After the forest is cleared of many older or weaker trees, he said it could be used as a demonstration forest for schools and programs of the Hooper Institute and for the development of trails for non-motorized transportation.  In fact, Shelley said that trails might even be restricted to non-wheeled uses depending on what they find the soil condition to be.

            Consulting Forester Peter C. Rhoades of Alstead said that he had created a plan for managing the forest years ago but had been prevented from pursuing the plan because of limited access off Rt. 12.  With the new parcel, he said, access would make a timber harvest feasible and that the forest would benefit from rotating the trees.  He also noted that the revenue yield from selected logging would likely increase from having the new staging area that would make logging possible exactly when the market and the soils are right for doing so.  Rhoades said that, while there is evidence that the forest has been logged in the past, it had been 20-30 years before Fanny Mason gave the forest to the town through her will in 1949.

            Select Board Chair Sheldon Sawyer agreed “proper forestry management has not been happening in the forest for some time.”

            Along with Mason’s acreage gift to the town, she gave $10,000 for maintenance of it and, as interpreted by a New Hampshire court years ago, the purchase of adjoining property should it become available.  That trust fund was valued Monday morning at $496,754.40 and would be the source of the purchase funds—not taxpayer money—if the Selectmen make the final purchase decision in a regular select board meeting in the next few weeks.

            Sawyer asked for a written version of the Conservation Commission usage plan for the Select Board to review before making a final decision.

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