By Christina Tree, Globe Correspondent, 05/03/98

CARLISLE -- What do an antique carousel, a working farm, several estates, and an oceanside quarry have in common with nine woodland waterfalls, eight ocean beaches, 37 fresh-water swimming areas and 1,894 miles of hiking/biking trails?

All are part -- a small part -- of the Massachusetts Department of Forest & Parks.

Massachusetts may be one of the smallest states, but its parks system is one of the largest and, unquestionably, one of the most diverse in the entire country.

This summer, Forest and Parks celebrates its centennial with hundreds of substantial improvements, special events, and a glossy, new, full-color map/guide brochure. (Forest and Parks is known as ``F & P'' within its umbrella Department of Environmental Management, which itself is known as ``DEM.'')

The brochure pictures a golden sunrise as seen from the summit of Mount Greylock, inscribed with the words Henry David Thoreau used to describe this very view:

``All around me was spread for a hundred miles on every side, as far as the eye could reach, an undulating country of clouds.''

It was 1844, and Thoreau had spent the night atop the state's highest mountain, blanketed only by a board.

Today, this sunrise scene is accessible (weather cooperating) to patrons of Bascomb Lodge, the sturdy fieldstone and shingle hikers' haven built just below Mount Greylock's summit in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

There's no mention of Bascomb Lodge in the new brochure, though. There simply isn't room for more than a listing of 105 forests and parks with symbols suggesting what you can do there. Mount Greylock, the state's oldest park (now 12,500 acres), gets the same amount of space as the newest, the Carroll A. Holmes Recreation Area (a great swimming hole in Shutesbury) and City Square State Park in Charlestown.

The astounding extent and appeal of Massachusetts State Forests and Parks is a story that has, in fact, never been told. So where to begin? My own centennial observance began with a visit to a typical cog in this atypical system. At Great Brook Farm State Park in Carlisle, the visitors' center is an 1830s schoolhouse, the entrance sign advertises ``Ice Cream,'' and the main parking lot is down a tree-lined road by a big red barn. Picnic tables are scattered around a pond and sheep, goats, chickens, and pigs are penned within toddling distance.

In the ice cream parlor, which offers 29 flavors (I recommend the mocha chip), one wall is glass, revealing the inside of the barn itself, where some 50 cows stand or slouch in two rows, the length of the barn.

The Duffy family has been leasing this farm since 1987, gradually reclaiming some 90 acres of field and meadow. A parks interpreter offers Saturday tours, explaining how each cow yields an average 74 pounds of milk a day and why more than half the herd are ``dry stock,'' housed in outside pens.

Great Brook Farm was once a dozen smaller farms, amassed by a wealthy businessman in the 1940s and '50s. Purchased by the state in 1974, Great Brook now totals 950 acres. Beyond the farm fields, it's heavily wooded and pocked with cellar holes that suggest the extent of 17th-century settlement. The massive foundations of a 1650s grist mill still stand by a raceway just below a small millpond. A granite rock nearby bears an uncanny resemblance to a turtle, its back to the water and head facing the summer solstice sunset.

The park is webbed with 20 miles of bridle/hiking/biking paths, such as the pine-carpeted loop I followed around Meadow Pond. From a log by the water I listened to a frog in the bushes, watched a Canadagoose in the water and a small black-and-white-spotted woodpecker on a white pine.

Great Brook Farm State Park is just 40 minutes from downtown Boston, and Superintendent Ray Faucher, who served for many years as a ranger at nearby Walden Pond, worries about its quickly growing popularity.

Immortalized by Henry David Thoreau in his book ``Walden,'' the deep, steep-sided pond by that name has become a meccca for Thoreau fans from throughout the world, as well as a popular swimming hole for Boston. Last year, it drew some 650,000 visitors.

In 1922, when the Emerson, Forbes, and Heywood families granted some 80 acres around the pond to the Commonwealth, they stipulated that it preserve ``the Walden of Emerson and Thoreau, its shores and nearby woodlands'' while permitting the public ``to enjoy the pond, the woods, and nature, including bathing, boating, fishing and picnicking.''

A tall order, but the present state reservation remains remarkably true to these dictates. In this centennial summer, a new bookstore and art gallery, also the first of the park system's touch-screen kiosks, have been added, and the interpretive program is even richer than usual. On hot summer days, access may be a problem, however. Only 1,000 visitors are admitted at any one time.

Seldom crowded state-run swimming holes can be found not too much farther west of Concord. Willard Brook State Forest and Pearl Hill State Park, both in the Townsend area, offer camping as well as swimming, and farther west are the Otter River State Forest in Baldwinville and the Lake Dennison recreation area in Winchendon. Heading west on the Mass. Pike, Ashland State Park (Route 495 south) is also an option, and I can personally recommend sandy-bottomed Wallum Lake in the Douglas State Forest, also the site of a boardwalk leading into the cool and mysterious depths of the neighboring Cedar Swamp (Route 395 south).

Douglas is in the Blackstone Valley, an area that's quickly becoming known as a day-trip destination. River Bend Farm Visitors Center at the Blackstone River and Canal Heritage State Park in Uxbridge doubleas a window on the valley's unusual history and an orientation point for canoeing and hiking.

Purgatory Chasm State Reservation in nearby Upton is itself worth a trip. The series of deep ravines is strewn with granite boulders, over which you pick your way up to the pines and along the rim, squeezing through ``Fat Man's Misery.'' A state reservation since 1919, Purgatory has recently been expanded from 180 to 1,300 acres, and a visitors' center (with toilets) and playground have been added.

Some of the Forest and Parks system's least well-known properties are, on the other hand, in the state's hottest resort areas.

``You can always find a parking space at Salisbury State Beach,'' DEM information specialist Germaine Vallely says, noting that this popular strand (with 483 campsites) has just been substantially improved. She also recommends the two-mile-long barrier beach and nature trails at South Cape Beach State Park on Vineyard Sound in Mashpee.

Crowd-shy myself, I prefer Demarest Lloyd State Park in South Dartmouth, a two-mile beach that's rarely crowded because there's no surf and you have to walk forever to get wet. By the same token, my favorite oceanside picnic spot is Halibut Point State Park, a 54-acre abandoned quarry on the rocky headland forming the northern tip of Cape Ann.

Picnics are best with views, and happily Massachusetts maintains several mountaintops and the roads accessing them. These are scattered across the state from Mount Wachusett in Princeton to Mount Greylock in North Adams.

Mount Holyoke in Skinner State Park still retains a part of its 19th- century ``Summit House,'' which has been substantially rehabbed by DEM and is the setting for Sunset Concerts on Thursdays in July and August. It also marks one end of a rugged 4.2-mile ridge trail running east to ``the Notch'' (Route 116) where a visitors' center serves the entire trail network within this Holyoke Range State Park.

In South Deerfield, not far upriver, the observation platform atop Mount Sugarloaf State Reservation offers an overview of the Connecticut River Greenway State Park. Inquire about river access points. The most visible is the Elwell Recreation Area in Northampton. It's paved for wheelchairs and is site of adaptive rowing and flatwater kayaking programs. It also marks one end of the state's Norwottuck Rail Trail, an 8.5-mile paved bikeway through fields, linking Northampton with Amherst.

The Commonwealth's most famous (and justly so) bike path is the 25-mile Cape Cod Rail Trail, linking Dennis and Welfleet, an exceptional pedal. (Bike and boat rentals are available in Nickerson State Park in Brewster).

State Forests also harbor hundreds of miles of mountain bike trails, but that's another story, as are descriptions of the Commonwealth's estates-turned-parks. (The standouts are Maudslay State Park on the Merrimac River in Newburyport and Borderland State Park in North Easton).

It all began June 20, 1898, with the Legislature's establishment of the Mount Greylock State Reservation.

At the time, the state's highest slopes, along with no less than a million depleted acres of Massachusetts hillsides, had been scarred by repeated clearing and burning. Obviously, the first concern was reforestation, but as early as 1904 the state forester observed that use of public forest land ``for recreative purposes under reasonable restriction is not inconsistent with the production of timber.''

Several state forests, notably Myles Standish in Plymouth and Mohawk Trail State Forest in Charlemont, were early camping destinations. In 1924, it was noted that no fewer than 1,050 ``auto parties'' (3,500 people) camped at the Mohawk Trail State Forest, representing 28 states including five cars from California.

During the Depression, time was as plentiful as money was scarce, a combination leading straight to the state's 19 campgrounds (in 2,932 tent sites; cost: $2.50 a week). Thanks to federal programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps, many miles of roads, still-standing picnic pavilions, and log cabins were also built.

Over the years, the number of parks has increased steadily. Some were gifts, some were federally funded, and many were transfers from other agencies. The '80s brought Heritage State Parks, a bold new concept (copied by other states): eight visitors' center/museums, most in depressed industrial-era towns.

Nicely designed but subsequently underfunded, Heritage State Parks remain focal points for their communities. The Holyoke Heritage State Park is among the most successful, a centerpiece for attractions that now include an antique carousel (moved there when the local amusement park closed), the Volleyball Hall of Fame, a crafts center, a children's museum, and a Sunday excursion train, which (fund-raising permitting) will run its 20-mile round-trip route again this season.

Dependent as it is on the Legislature for annual funding, State Forests and Parks have had their economic ups and downs in recent years, but this is ``The Year of Massachusetts State Forests & Parks.'' Morale and maintenance are high. Millions have been invested in improvements, and hundreds of special events are planned. See If You Go for details.

Don't expect rock bands or Shakespeare performances. Even the big centennial weekend, which happens to coincide with the summer solstice (June 20 and 21), will be observed at several designated parks within each of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management's six regions.

Request an events list and a copy of the Massachusetts State Forests and Parks recreation map/guide. Phone 617-727-3180 or, outside the Boston area, 800-831-0569. Or e-mail MassParks(AT SIGN SYMBOL)state.ma.us. The DEM Web site is www.state.ma.us/dem.

Fees are low compared with most state parks systems. The day-use fee at parks with lifeguards, at Skinner State Park (Mount Holyoke) and the Sugarloaf Reservation is $2. Most forests and parks are free.

The charge for camping at 27 forests and parks (a total of 3,425 sites) is $6 where there are toilets and showers, and $4 where only unimproved toilets are available, plus $2 for electrical hookups. Inquire about the wilderness sites in eight areas. At this writing, it's possible to reserve sites at the 11 most popular state campgrounds by contacting those parks directly; a central reservations system is in the works. Check the DEM Web site for a detailed listing of the state campgrounds.

At Bascomb Lodge (413-443-0011; open May 15 to mid-October), the cost is $27 for a bed in the coed bunk room, and $65 for one of the four private rooms. There are discounts for AMC members. A family-style dinner and breakfast are served, and the snack bar is open for lunch.

``Stepping Back to Look Forward, A History of the Massachusetts Forest'' (Harvard Forest Press) has just been published. A reception to mark the publication will be held May 5 at 1:30 p.m. at the Boston Room of the Boston Public Library.