Landownership in the Northeast United States: A Sourcebook

Information is needed on the characteristics, attitudes, and goals of landowners, both from secondary sources and from direct surveys, in order to develop and implement effective land use policies and programs. This report gathers and evaluates landownership data on the 13 Northeast States — Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. The U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Forest Service, and local government offices are the three main sources of data now available concerning land and landowners. These data sources, however, all have limitations. For example, the Census is concerned with land in farms and farm operators, and provides data on land and owners for only about 17 percent of the region's land area. The U.S. Forest Service reports the ownership of commercial timberland--64 percent of the region's land in 197--but aggregates all privately-owned timberland other than that owned by a farmer or a forest industry into a "miscellaneous private" class. Thus no detail is available concerning ownership of 55 percent of the commercial timberland (35 percent of the land area) in the region. Data from local government offices is scattered, variable in content and ease of access, and is therefore difficult to utilize. However, considerable data can be obtained from these offices concerning land and landowners. Appendixes to this report include Census of Agriculture data for 1969, Forest Survey data for 1970, and an annotated bibliography of selected ownership surveys for the 13 Northeast States.