  We study the matrices Q_k of in-forests of a weighted digraph G and their
connections with the Laplacian matrix L of G. The (i,j) entry of Q_k is the
total weight of spanning converging forests (in-forests) with k arcs such that
i belongs to a tree rooted at j. The forest matrices, Q_k, can be calculated
recursively and expressed by polynomials in the Laplacian matrix; they provide
representations for the generalized inverses, the powers, and some eigenvectors
of L. The normalized in-forest matrices are row stochastic; the normalized
matrix of maximum in-forests is the eigenprojection of the Laplacian matrix,
which provides an immediate proof of the Markov chain tree theorem. A source of
these results is the fact that matrices Q_k are the matrix coefficients in the
polynomial expansion of adj(a*I+L). Thereby they are precisely Faddeev's
matrices for -L.
  Keywords: Weighted digraph; Laplacian matrix; Spanning forest; Matrix-forest
theorem; Leverrier-Faddeev method; Markov chain tree theorem; Eigenprojection;
Generalized inverse; Singular M-matrix
