I have been told that there is as much forest/treed land in Massachusetts as there was in 1620. This may be happening all over New England and especially in western New York state.
I dunno about “as much as in 1620”, but compared to 1890 or so, it’s probably orders of magnitude greater. All you need to do to determine that, is drive through the state on back roads, and note all the low hand-stacked stone walls running through the trees. All those walls delineated meadows and farmed fields that are now long-overgrown with large trees.
In NH it goes something like this. In 1870 NH was 80% CLEARED of forest for farming, even the white mountains. 100 years later it was just the opposite 80% forested. All the smart farmers moved to Iowa, Indiana, etc.
In the last thirty plus years the amount of trees in the US has increased. The problem out in the western US there is not enough timber being cut on state and federal lands. This lack of clearing dead and dying timer has contributed to the major forest fires we are seeing today in CA, WA, OR, MT, CO.
You are correct. Here in Connecticut you can go into almost any wooded area and find rock walls.
Why are there rock walls in the middle of the woods? Because the rocks were removed 100 or 200 years ago from the surrounding area to make a field for crops. No crops, forest grows back. We have more trees here now then in the 1800’s
I bought some land in NW Connecticut that was previously a farm , the house and barn had been torn down in the 1920’s . The owners had pictures from when they had lived there. Except for a couple of Large oaks it was all pasture . When I bought it all of it was forested, and I mean complete and thick woods. So from no trees in the 20’s to thick forest in 60 years. Amazing.
As Rush has said for 30 years, our forests are bigger now than when we found the country. Why? The few Indians that inhabited the country didn’t have fire departments.