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*Maine land use has changed
dramatically over the past 200 hundred years during which Agriculture has
been the most significant source of land use change.
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*In 1600, Maine was almost
entirely forested, with forest covering 92% of the total land area of the state.
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*By the late 1870Õs, roughly
5 million acres of this forest area had been lost, primarily because
of conversion to agricultural uses.
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*The area of forested land
in Maine reached a historical low in 1872, with forest covering only 53%
of total land area.
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But, since the turn of the
20th century, land use in the Maine followed the predominant trend
in New England as a decline in agricultural land use was accompanied by
increasing residential development and reverting forest lands.
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Togus Pond land use history
reflects this pattern as forest and development dominate the land use types
for the watershed area today
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